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[ "A photo of Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, as seen by the Rosetta spacecraft on February 6, 2015. ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0. Edit by Jason Major\nIn August 2014, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft pulled up to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and studied the gritty, duck-shaped object for 2 years.\nToday the ESA continues to publish new images taken by the probe, and it March it released a fresh batch of data.\nMany of Rosetta's photos were taken in sequence — so Twitter user \"landru79\" stacked and stitched the pictures into a stunning new timelapse movie, posted Monday.\n\"Amazing scene from #comet #67P,\" the ESA tweeted about landru79's work.\nThe video clip (below) shows roughly 25 minutes of flight past Comet 67P on June 1, 2016. The scene looks like something out of a science-fiction film:\nIn the background, a field of stars moves behind Comet 67P as it tumbles through space.\nRosetta took the photos just a few months after the roughly 2.5-mile-long comet shot out a burst of material. So in the foreground, sunlit specks of ice and dust float near a cliff that stands thousands of feet tall.\nCosmic rays also hit Rosetta's camera sensor, causing white streaks in the series of black-and-white images.\nIn addition to photographing Comet 67P, Rosetta also set down a probe called Philae on the comet's surface — though the lander rolled into a shady crevice and was never heard from again.\nOn September 30, 2016, the ESA purposefully crashed Rosetta into the wad of ice, rock, and dust. The robot took a final and fateful sequence of images along the way." ]

[ "Comet 67P orbits Jupiter at a rate of once every six-and-a-half years\nThe comet, known as '67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko', or just 67P for short, orbits Jupiter at a rate of once every six-and-a-half years.\nIt was named after the two Soviet astronomers who discovered it in 1969, and measures around 2.7 by 2.5 miles (4.3 by 4.1 km) at its longest and widest points.\nThe comet was the focus of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, launched on 2 March 2004.\nRosetta was sent to study the comet's activity and to launch a lander probe to its surface, known as Philae.\nRosetta reached 67P in 2014 and crash landed into the comet in September last year after it had completed its recon mission.\nNew details from the probe's readings are still coming to light today as scientists sift through Rosetta's stunning imagery.", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nSkygazers in Coventry were treated to a spectacular display of celestial fireworks overnight as the Earth flew through a cloud of cometary dust.\nThe Perseid meteors, shed by comet Swift-Tuttle, stage their show every August and are among the brightest of all shooting stars.\nA clear sky gave most parts of the UK an opportunity to spot the meteors, said Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna.\nHe said: \"There were some good cloud breaks, so many areas would have had a good chance to see them during the early hours. It would have been pretty good viewing.\"\nThe meteor shower lit up the sky near Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.\nStreaking flashes of light were also pictured online in the sky above Co Waterford in Ireland, while Professor Richard Betts, from the Met Office Hadley Centre, tweeted late on Saturday night: \"(East Devon, UK) 4 in space of 15 minutes, sadly clouding over now!\"\nThe meteors, mostly no bigger than a grain of sand, burn up as they hit the atmosphere at 58 kilometres (36 miles) per second to produce a shooting stream of light in the sky.\nSeen from the Earth, the Perseids appear to originate from one place in the north-east known as the \"radiant\" which happens to be near the constellation Perseus.\nBecause the density of the dust cloud varies, the meteors are not evenly spaced out. At certain times they can be close together and at others seem to disappear.\nThe Perseids were the first meteor shower to be linked to a comet when astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli spotted their association with Swift-Tuttle in 1862.\nThe comet orbits the sun every 135 years. As the Earth crosses its orbit, it ploughs through some of the debris left by the icy object on previous visits. None of the particles are big enough to avoid destruction and reach the ground.", "The video starts wide, then zooms in to the center of the Lagoon Nebula, located around 4,000 light years from Earth. Herschel 36 is the most prominent star, emitting powerful radiation and stellar winds that push dust away in \"curtain-like sheets,\" NASA said. You can see dark, elephant trunk-shaped material that resists the erosion and serves as an incubator for new star formation.\nNASA employed the Wide Field Camera 3, operating in the visible light range, to create the video. The fourth-generation instrument was only added to Hubble in 2009, and is the space telescope's highest resolution camera by far. NASA can also flip on a near-infrared channel, which penetrates much of the dust and reveals an incredible number of stars embedded in the Nebula, as shown in the image below.\nThough public outreach is actually a pretty big part of its mission, Hubble is good for a lot more than just making pretty pictures. It's been a crucial instrument in exoplanet discovery, for instance, as it recently showed that the Trappist-1 planets may have water by scanning the starlight passing through their atmospheres.\nIt has also discovered new bodies within our own solar system, detected impact sites from the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter and imaged \"deep field\" views revealing galaxies billions of light years away, including the farthest ever spotted, GN-z11. It also proved that black holes are common at the center of galaxies, rather than being rare as was thought.\nMuch like the Mars Opportunity rover, Hubble has already flown far, far, beyond its expected mission life, despite getting off to a very bad start with a flawed mirror. Its last servicing mission to install the aforementioned Wide Field Camera 3 was done in 2009 by the Space Shuttle Atlantis crew. Hubble will eventually be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), but NASA recently extended its mission life until at least 2021. Given the recent one-year launch delay for the JWST, it might need to go even longer than that.", "March 19 (UPI) -- The solar system's first-documented interstellar visitor, 'Oumuamua, likely began its journey in a binary star system, new research suggests.\nScientists have previously hypothesized that 'Oumuamua's unusual path and behavior can be explained by a violent past -- a collision that sent it tumbling through the Milky Way. Now, scientists believe that collision likely occurred in a binary star system, which features two stars orbiting one another.\n'Oumuamua first appeared in October of last year. Scientists first thought it was a comet, but when the orb swung around the sun without melting, researchers determined it was most likely an asteroid. However, follow up studies showed the orb is a unique combination of rock and ice.\nScientists recent suggestion that 'Oumuamua hails from a two-star system is based on planetary models. Binary star models showed icy and rocky objects are ejected in equal numbers during the planetary formation process. Our solar system mostly ejects comets, which suggests the asteroid 'Oumuamua likely came from a planetary system different from our own.\n\"It's really odd that the first object we would see from outside our system would be an asteroid, because a comet would be a lot easier to spot and the Solar System ejects many more comets than asteroids,\" Alan Jackson, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Planetary Sciences at the University of Toronto Scarborough, said in a news release.\nResearchers detailed their hypothesis this week in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.\nAlmost everything about 'Oumuamua is odd. Though 'Oumuamua boasts rocky outer layers and is classified as an asteroid, astronomers believe its inner core is composed of ice. What's more, the asteroid doesn't move all that much like an asteroid.\nA study of 'Oumuamua published earlier this year showed the orb features a unique tumbling pattern -- reorienting itself sporadically. Astronomers believe the space rock will continue to tumble for billions of years.\nThere is still much about 'Oumuamua that scientists don't understand, but researchers hope their continued analysis of the object will help them better understand the nature of other planetary systems.\n\"The same way we use comets to better understand planet formation in our own solar system, maybe this curious object can tell us more about how planets form in other systems,\" Jackson said.", "A breathtaking animation compiling observations from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has revealed an eerie glimpse at the conditions around a comet flying through space.\nThe brief clip shows what appears to be an otherworldly blizzard raining down on Comet 67P, with countless bright specks lighting up the otherwise pitch-black sky.\nBut, it isn’t snow that Rosetta encountered during its flyby.\nInstead, scientists say the streaks are caused by cosmic dust in the craft’s path – and, if you look closely, you can even see stars in the constellation Canis Major passing by in the background.\nScroll down for video\n#ROSETTA �� OSIRIS #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO new albums ��--ROSETTA EXTENSION 2 MTP030-- Miércoles 1 Junio 2016 all filters stacked pic.twitter.com/Bf173Z5g79 — landru79 (@landru79) April 23, 2018\nA breathtaking animation compiling observations from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has revealed an eerie glimpse at the conditions around a comet flying through space. While it appears to show a cosmic 'blizzard', the bright streaks are actually dust\nThe hypnotic animation was made by Twitter user landru79 using data from Rosetta’s observations on June 1, 2016.\nESA’s Rosetta mission launched in March 2004 en route to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.\nIt finally arrived in 2014, and studied the comet for two years before ending its mission with a controlled crash into its surface.\nUsing raw data from the Rosetta mission, the animation shows a fresh look at the alien landscape of the famous comet two years after the mission ended.\n‘My guess is that this is dust quite close to the spacecraft as it moves by, giving the illusion that it’s “snow” falling on Comet #67P kilometers away in the background,’ ESA Senior Advisor Mark McCaughrean tweeted in a reply to the viral post.\nThe brief clip shows what appears to be an otherworldly blizzard raining down on Comet 67P, with countless bright specks lighting up the otherwise pitch-black sky. But, it isn’t snow that Rosetta encountered during its flyby\n‘The faster-moving streaks are then likely dust close to the spacecraft,’ the expert added in a later thread.\nIn the gif, a pair of star clusters also makes a quick appearance in the background.\n‘The stars in the background behind Comet #67P are in Canis Major: the cluster NGC2362 “falls down” past the limb at top-left; sparse cluster NGC2354 & the star 27CMa are also in the field,’ McCaughrean confirmed.\nThe historic $1.3 billion Rosetta mission ended on September 30, 2016, in a planned crash that brought the spacecraft to rest on comet 67P with the Philae lander, which descended to the surface two years earlier\nWHAT IS COMET 67P AND THE ROSETTA PROBE? Comet 67P orbits Jupiter at a rate of once every six-and-a-half years The comet, known as '67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko', or just 67P for short, orbits Jupiter at a rate of once every six-and-a-half years. It was named after the two Soviet astronomers who discovered it in 1969, and measures around 2.7 by 2.5 miles (4.3 by 4.1 km) at its longest and widest points. The comet was the focus of the European Space Agency's Rosetta mission, launched on 2 March 2004. Rosetta was sent to study the comet's activity and to launch a lander probe to its surface, known as Philae. Rosetta reached 67P in 2014 and crash landed into the comet in September last year after it had completed its recon mission. New details from the probe's readings are still coming to light today as scientists sift through Rosetta's stunning imagery. ESA’s Rosetta mission launched in March 2004 en route to Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. It finally arrived in 2014, and studied the comet for two years before ending its mission with a controlled crash into its surface\nThe historic $1.3 billion Rosetta mission ended on September 30, 2016, in a planned crash that brought the spacecraft to rest on comet 67P with the Philae lander, which descended to the surface two years earlier.\nRosetta’s mission marked the first ever rendezvous between a spacecraft and a comet.\nAnd, while it’s no longer in operation, the extensive data collected during the mission is expected to give way to decades of research.", "Comet 67p/Churyumov-Gerasimenko may have a long and complicated name but Twitter user landru79 certainly made sure people will remember it. On April 23, he tweeted a beautiful GIF compiling images of the comet, which the European Space Agency (ESA) has made public since March 22, and his work has caused somewhat of a sensation in the few hours since.\nThe short video reveals what seems to be a cosmic “snowstorm” raging on the surface of the comet and has been described by New Scientist as “a cosmic winter wonderland.”\nAlthough the “snowstorm” depicted in the GIF is not actual snow, as it was soon made clear by astronomers commenting on the tweet, the short video is undeniably beautiful and it still gives us a sense of what it’s like to fly past a comet as it tumbles through space.\nAccording to LiveScience, the GIF was processed from 25 minutes’ worth of images beamed back to Earth on June 2016 by ESA’s Rosetta probe, which chased comet 67P for a decade before finally deploying its Philae lander on the comet’s surface in 2014, ESA informs.\nThe footage used by landru79 to create the now-famous GIF was captured by Rosetta’s OSIRIS, or Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System, notes Gizmodo. Three months after these photos were taken, Rosetta’s instruments went dead and the small spacecraft crashed into the comet, thus ending its long and fruitful mission.\n#ROSETTA ???? OSIRIS #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO new albums ????–ROSETTA EXTENSION 2 MTP030– Miércoles 1 Junio 2016 all filters stacked pic.twitter.com/Bf173Z5g79 — landru79 (@landru79) April 23, 2018\nSoon after landru79 tweeted his GIF, ESA’s senior science advisor Mark McCaughrean commented on the post, explaining what the “snowstorm” seen on comet 67P really is.\nMost of the “snowfall” in the footage is actually made of cosmic rays, high-energy particles that register as streaks of light when they trigger the camera’s sensors. The rest of it is an illusion created by dust and ice particles that float above the 67P’s surface.\nPretty wild ???? My immediate guess is that this is foreground sun-illuminated dust quite close to the spacecraft & as it moves through that dust, it creates an illusion of snow\" falling on Comet #67P kilometres away in the background. Cool though ???? @BadAstronomer — Mark McCaughrean (@markmccaughrean) April 23, 2018\nThe footage also captures the stars behind the comet’s rocky cliffside, which McCaughrean was called in to identify. He replied with a comment revealing the stars are part of the Canis Major constellation.\nEarlier today, landru79 tweeted a second GIF made from the same footage, in which the starfield in the clip is frozen in place to make it easier to spot the movement of the comet.\nSi apilamos todo el set alineando con las estrellas de fondo se distingue mejor que son estrellas y q es polvo (olvidaos de rayos cósmicos ) #ROSETTA ???? OSIRIS #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO new albums ????–ROSETTA EXTENSION 2 MTP030– Miércoles 1 Junio 2016 all filters stacked???? pic.twitter.com/UyZ628JxKP — landru79 (@landru79) April 24, 2018\nLandru79 announced he also plans to make a full-color version of the GIF by using the color information transmitted by Rosetta.\nComet 67P was discovered in 1969 and has been spotted since then every 6.5 years, as it orbits the sun in an elliptical path between the orbits of Jupiter and Earth. To see it in flight, check out this animation by ESA.", "ESA’s Rosetta mission might be long over, but its last few images have been pieced together to make something truly special.\nIn 2014, the world celebrated the news that the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta spacecraft had travelled millions of kilometres and successfully entered an orbit around Comet 67P, a giant chunk of ancient space debris.\nSoon after, it began snapping photographs of the comet’s surface, which until that point had been a mystery to science. A wealth of scientific information was revealed that questioned our theories on the formation of oceans, as well as the very nature of the development of life.\nNow, those final few moments have been encapsulated in an incredible GIF created by Twitter user landru79 based on freely available image data released by ESA.\nWhile consisting of just a few images stacked together to create a clip lasting only a second or two, the GIF reveals something unlike any other image of Comet 67P we have seen before, more closely resembling a snowy canyon in the Arctic than images from a chunk of space debris.\nGarnering a massive reaction on Twitter, its creator said that the next step is to create a colourised GIF of the scenes that not only includes a massive accumulation of dust swirling around, but also glimpses of cosmic rays.\n#ROSETTA 😍 OSIRIS #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO new albums 😍–ROSETTA EXTENSION 2 MTP030– Miércoles 1 Junio 2016 all filters stacked pic.twitter.com/Bf173Z5g79 — landru79 (@landru79) April 23, 2018\nIf you look closely, some of what looks like vertically falling snow is in fact the millions of stars caught by Rosetta’s cameras as it orbited the comet as close as 10km from its surface.\nMark McCaughrean, a senior adviser for space and exploration at ESA, chimed in on the footage to say that the background stars seen here are from Canis Major and that the cluster near the limb of the comet is designated NGC 2362, with another one spotted on the right-hand side dubbed NGC 2354.\nMysterious eruptions\nSome of the last scientific findings to come from the Rosetta mission were announced in October 2017 when ESA revealed that a fountain of dust was spotted erupting from the comet’s surface.\nPhotographed just a few months before the end of the mission, the event lasted roughly an hour, producing 18kg of dust.\nInitially, scientists thought that the plume might have been surface ice evaporating in the sunlight. However, Rosetta’s measurements showed there had to be something more energetic going on to fling that amount of dust into space.\nResearchers now think that it may have been pressurised gas bubbles rising through underground cavities and bursting free via ancient vents, or stores of ice reacting violently when exposed to sunlight.", "Chris Evans Knows His Gay Brother Scott Very Well, and Vice-Versa: WATCH\nJEFF SESSIONS. Attorney General won’t recuse himself from Michael Cohen probe: “By staying involved in the Cohen probe, Sessions is entitled to briefings on the status of the investigation, which is being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York. That could put Sessions in the position of being asked by Trump, who strongly condemned the FBI raid on his longtime lawyer, to divulge information about the Cohen investigation.”\nBOOZE. New studies on drinking paint risks in starker contrast: “In particular, an impressive new meta-study involving 600,000 participants, published recently in The Lancet, suggests that levels of alcohol previously thought to be relatively harmless are linked with an earlier death. What’s more, drinking small amounts of alcohol may not carry all the long-touted protective effects on the cardiovascular system.”\nSAD! Kanye West reveals his love for Donald Trump.\nA HIGHER LOYALTY. Fired former FBI Director James Comey sold 600,000 of his books in the first week.\nCHRISTOPHER WYLIE. Cambridge Analytica whistleblower meets with Democrats: “Wylie is meeting privately with Judiciary Committee members and staff, as well as staff from the Oversight and Government Reform panel. On Wednesday, he is scheduled to meet behind closed doors with House Intelligence Committee Democrats.”\nTAKEDOWN RULES. Facebook reveals 25 pages of takedown rules for hate speech.\nPORTSMOUTH, UK. Man says he was drugged and raped by man he met on Grindr.\nGOLFING WHILE BLACK. Police called on group of black women golfers for playing two slowly. “The women said they were very familiar with golf etiquette, since they are part of a larger professional group called Sisters in the Fairway, and they were doing nothing wrong.A white co-owner of the club, they explained, came up twice to rush them along and complain about how they were playing. But they picked the wrong women to mess with that day. One of the women, Sandra Thompson, is an attorney and the head of the York chapter of the NAACP.”\nFOCUS ON THE FAMILY. Anti-LGBT hate group says it changed its IRS classification to “Church” to protect the identities of donors: ‘Paul Batura, vice president of communications for Focus on the Family, told The Christian Post that the news stories on their reclassification as a church give “sinister and fictitious motives to our application.” Batura explained that the main reason for the reclassification was to protect the identities of donors to the conservative Christian organization.\nBEHIND THE SCENES. Of Ariana Grande’s “No Tears Left To Cry” video.\nCOMET FLYBY OF THE DAY. Rosetta spacecraft flies by Comet 67P. “In August 2014, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft pulled up to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and studied the gritty, duck-shaped object for 2 years.”\n\nDINNER FROM SPACE OF THE DAY. Garlic bread.\nIN-CAR DELIVERY OF THE DAY. Amazon Key will let people in anywhere. Would you feel safe using this?\nTRAILER OF THE DAY. Tom Hardy in Venom.\nTOO HOT FOR TUESDAY. Runssm.", "The video shows an image that was previously released by NASA – that has left one conspiracist bemused.\nIn the clip, they zoom in on a part of the photo which seems to show a path paved by a vehicle.\nAnd behind that, a structure also appears to look like a bridge.\nIt was uploaded to YouTube channel Alien Hunter on April 21 and has already racked up almost 2,000 hits.", "Submit on Wednesday, June 14th, 2017 22:58\nThis entry was posted on Wednesday, June 14th, 2017 at 10:58 pm and is filed under SATELLITES. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.", "You'll never stand on the surface of a comet, but here's how it might look and feel.\nTwitter user @landru79 is obsessed with space and created a spectacular GIF of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko using still images captured by the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft.\n#ROSETTA 😍 OSIRIS #67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO new albums 😍--ROSETTA EXTENSION 2 MTP030-- Miércoles 1 Junio 2016 all filters stacked pic.twitter.com/Bf173Z5g79 — landru79 (@landru79) April 23, 2018\nThe GIF has the feel of an old-time movie. It lasts for just a moment, but leaves an indelible impression and a glimpse of what it might be like to land on an alien space object.\nThe Rosetta mission wrapped up in 2016 when the orbiter crashed -- on purpose -- into the comet's surface, but scientists are still studying the data it collected and the ESA continues to update the image archives.\nMark McCaughrean, the ESA's senior adviser for science and exploration, shared @landru79's GIF and offered up some explanations of what we're seeing. What looks like snow flying around is actually a combination of stars in the distance and dust blowing around the comet's surface.\nPretty wild 😵 Lovely stack of images from the latest #Rosetta OSIRIS image release. My guess is that this is dust quite close to the spacecraft as it moves by, giving the illusion that it's \"snow\" falling on Comet #67P kilometres away in the background. Cool though 👍 https://t.co/SYGBKecKEP — Mark McCaughrean (@markmccaughrean) April 23, 2018\nMcCaughrean also identified the stars in the background as coming from the constellation Canis Major.\nComet 67P is a pretty dusty place. Rosetta's imaging system picked up a great look as it shot out a dust jet in early 2015. The mission is also famous for its lost lander Philae, which bounced and landed in shadows when it tried to touch down on the comet in 2014.\nThe GIF, which has gotten thousands of likes on Twitter and has been shared across other sites like Reddit, is a reminder of the magic of Rosetta and how it unveiled the secrets of a distant comet hurtling through space.\nFollow the Money: This is how digital cash is changing the way we save, shop and work.\nCNET Magazine: Check out a sample of the stories in CNET's newsstand edition.", "=\n=\nClick play to see the full video.\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=\n=", "Blink and you'll miss it. Astrophotographer Thierry Legault posted a spectacular video of the International Space Station bisecting the moon last week.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Historic City News.", "NASA's Dawn spacecraft is sending back incredible close-ups of the dwarf planet Ceres.\nThe spacecraft has been circling Ceres since 2015. In June, it reached its lowest orbit yet, skimming the surface from just 35 kilometers up.\nThe latest pictures released on Monday offer unprecedented views of a huge impact crater known for its bright salty deposits. Landslides are clearly visible on the rim.\nChief engineer Marc Rayman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says the results are better than hoped.\nBefore arriving at Ceres, Dawn explored the asteroid Vesta. Both are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.\nLaunched in 2007 with an ion engine, Dawn is nearing the end of its extended mission. NASA expects the spacecraft to last just another few months.", "The Churyumov–Gerasimenko space rock, dubbed 67P, was found to contain not only water and carbon gases but also oxygen. The startling discovery was made by the instrumentation onboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta space probe. Molecular oxygen is an essential element of life back on Earth and is metabolised by breathing organisms like animals and humans. The compound is created by photosynthesising plants when two oxygen atoms are bound together.\nThe presence of molecular oxygen was previously detected around Jupiter’s icy moon Europa but scientists have never expected to find any on a comet. The oxygen is not evidence of alien life outside of Earth but could instead be a “primordial” relic from the infant days of the solar system. The Rosetta scientists initially proposed the oxygen was stored in the comet’s nucleus from the time the solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago. But a group of outside researchers from the California Institute of Technology suggested a different source for the oxygen.\nGETTY/ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 Life in space: Astronomers found signs of oxygen on the comet 67P\nYunxi Yao and Konstantinos Giapis discovered a way of creating the oxygen compound through the use of charged molecules or ions.\nOxygen in 67P's coma was both very surprising and exciting Kevin Heritier, Imperial College London\nWhen the comet’s orbit passes close enough to the sun, the intense heat from the burning star melts the ice on 67P’s surface. The melting ice then coalesces into a gas atmosphere known as a coma which the Rosetta probe found contained carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and molecular oxygen. The Rosetta scientists have now revisited the 67P findings in light of the new ion theory.\nESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO; Life in space: The oxygen is likely a remnant of the infant days of the solar system\nESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 Life in space: Comet 67P orbits the sun every 6.45 years\nIn a research paper published this week in the journal Nature Communications the scientists challenged the proposed theory. Their study titled “On the origin of molecular oxygen in cometary comae” argued the prosed mechanisms are not sufficient enough to account for the amount of oxygen present. The paper claimed there are simply not enough charged ions in the comet’s coma required to trigger the necessary processes. Lead author Kevin Heritier, Imperial College London, said: “The first detection of molecular oxygen in 67P's coma was both very surprising and exciting. “We tested the new theory of surface molecular oxygen production using observations of energetic ions, particles which trigger the surface processes which could lead to the production of molecular oxygen.\nNASA's plan to communicate with ALIENS Tue, December 12, 2017 Media on Voyager 1's analogue record has message for aliens Play slideshow NASA 1 of 6 Voyager 1 was launched by NASA on September 5, 1977", "Earth from afar when illuminated by the sun is a beautiful ball of blue and white swirls that inspires no shortage of awe. But from Earth from afar at night is an entirely different thing; it's an elegant marvel, a black sparkling orb with its own man-made constellations.\nWe know this thanks to the incredible images captured by NASA and NOAA and their handy-dandy Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi NPP satellite. VIIRS can detect light coming from a single ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean or a lone highway lamp in rural North Dakota, explains Popular Science.\nThe results are actually pretty staggering, not only in their beauty, but in what they tell us about how we're lighting up the planet; and how we're spreading out as well. Comparing images from the 2012 set and the ones here, we can see the inevitable sprawl as populations expand. And while it may look beautiful from space, what is really notable is the incredible amount of light pollution we are creating. While from the darkness of space we can have a good look at at a glittering Earth, from the brightness of Earth we are losing our ability to see the dark sparkling sky. It's to the point where we have designated areas for stargazing: 19 dark sky parks where the heavens steal the show!\nSee more of the images on the following pages, including some closer shots showing curiosities (like the Nile, it's wild) and panning out to wider shots showing the bigger picture. Above, Europe and Italy, whose boot looks like a constellation.", "SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/skynews\nFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/skynews and https://twitter.com/skynewsbreak\nLike us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skynews\nFor more content go to http://news.sky.com and download our apps:\niPad https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/Sky-News-for-iPad/id422583124\niPhone https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/sky-news/id316391924?mt=8\nAndroid https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bskyb.skynews.android&hl=en_GB", "Nasa has shared a stunning cosmic shot showcasing two galaxies colliding some 23 million light years away from Earth or roughly 10 times farther away from Andromeda galaxy, our closest galactic neighbour.\nThe image, captured using Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescope, shows galactic pair Arp 142. Of these two, the bigger object, NGC 2336, was initially a regular spiral galaxy, flattened like a pancake with smoothly symmetric spiral arms. However, the gravitational pull of its close neighbour, NGC 2937, distorted and twisted its shape to what we see.\nNow, the two galaxies are drawing closer to each other and will eventually merge into one big cosmic object.\n\"This kind of merger was likely a significant step in the history of most large galaxies we see around us in the nearby universe, including our own Milky Way,\" Nasa notes.\nThe whole thing looks as if a penguin is guarding its egg, according to the space agency. It describes the \"egg\"[NGC 2937] as a featureless object playing host to a group of aged stars.\nIt is also worth noting that unlike its neighbour, it doesn't carry any red features representing clouds of gas and dust. This means that the object has lost its capacity to form new stars.\nThe stunning view was captured after combining light in both visible and infrared wavelength using both telescopes. You can even see another galaxy in the shot, painted in blue, which is even further away.\nMoving ahead, shots like these would come out even clearer when James Webb Space Telescope, which can see all wavelengths of light, launches to scour the depths of the cosmos.", "In October 2017 the first interstellar visitor ever spotted by human astronomers passed through our solar system.\nIt had been passing through for years and was on its way out at high speed, having slingshotted around the Sun, when the Hawaii-based Pan-STARRS telescope noticed the interloper. Even so, astronomers were able to figure out it was no spaceship; it was a weirdly-shaped asteroid they christened `Oumuamua, which in Hawaiian means “a messenger from afar arriving first”.\nToo bad for alien enthusiasts. But what if it had been an extraterrestrial spacecraft? What tell-tale signs would give it away?\nChasing far-flung stars\nWe know there are at least a few spaceships exploring outer space because we sent them. In 2012 the Voyager 1 spacecraft made history when it became the first man-made object to enter interstellar space, and Voyager 2 is close on its heels. New Horizons reached Pluto in July 2015 and is on its way to rendezvous with an object way out in the Kuiper belt by 2019.\nOne day our probes will explore nearby star systems, and they might do more than just beam back data. One possibility, proposed by mathematician John von Neumann in 1966, would be to send robotic probes that clone themselves using raw materials mined from asteroids and then spread out across the galaxy.\nOther intelligent, spacefaring civilisations – if they exist – would surely come up with the same elegant idea. So if an alien probe does turn up in our corner of the galaxy, how would we recognise it?\nIdentifying an interstellar visitor\nIt’s hard to interrogate a faint, fast pin-prick of light in the vast blackness of space. The only reason we have any chance of spotting interstellar objects is thanks to new automated surveys like Pan-STARRS, the Catalina sky survey and the ATLAS survey, which scour the sky for moving objects.\nRecommended First contact: How we’ll get the news that we found aliens Space\nSo what can we find out about such alien objects? The first thing that stood out about `Oumuamua was its orbit. Though it passed through our solar system, it was not captured by the gravitational pull of the Sun.\n“It is the only object seen so far with a strongly hyperbolic orbit, meaning that it is travelling so fast that the Sun's gravity cannot hold it back,” explains astronomer David Jewitt at the University of California, Los Angeles.\nThis immediately indicated `Oumuamua could be something novel, according to Jonti Horner, an astrobiologist at the University of Southern Queensland. But “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so people across the planet went into a frenzy to get more observations and lock things down.”\nTell-tale observations\nOne key observation was to determine whether the object was surrounded by a fuzzy coma of dust and gas, the signature of a comet heating up and releasing gas as it approaches the Sun. `Oumuamua didn’t show any signs of such comet-like activity.\nAnother is to track how its brightness changes over time. Asteroids have irregular shapes and tend to spin through space, so they appear brighter or dimmer as they tumble in the sunlight. The brightness of a spaceship, on the other hand, would be likely to be more stable.\n`Oumuamua showed significant fluctuations in its brightness, suggesting it was an asteroid. Computer analysis of the shifting brightness pattern concluded the rock was highly elongated, roughly ten times as long as it is wide, leading some armchair scientists to draw comparisons to science-fictional artefacts like the monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the starship from Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama.\nOlivier Hainaut, astronomer at the European Southern Observatory, is quick to point out that such speculation was quite a stretch: “We don’t have anything that hints it is not what it seems to be: a big chunk of rock.”\nArtificial signs\n`Oumuamua seems to be exactly what we would expect of an interstellar asteroid.\nBut what if it wasn’t? What would reveal the fact it was an alien spacecraft?\nAn obvious giveaway could be found by listening for radio transmissions across a range of wavelengths. “Narrow radio emissions, especially if they are modulated in some way, don't really happen in nature,” says Hainaut.\nAstronomers can also extract information about the surface properties of the object by analysing the spectrum of reflected light. `Oumuamua, for example, was found to have a dark reddish hue, perhaps indicating that its surface is covered with a carbon-rich material.\nUnexpected signatures in the spectrum could point to materials such as spacecraft paint. Seeing bright, short flashes could also indicate an artificial polished surface.\nIf an object is rotating, that might be a hint that it is creating artificial gravity — think the rotating ring of the Hermes spacecraft in Andy Weir’s The Martian, or the Discovery in 2001: A Space Odyssey. `Oumuamua is rotating, but way too slowly to be useful. At 7-8 hours per rotation, “it would not help anybody living in there,” say Hainaut. It would need to rotate more like once a minute.\nA spacecraft might also give off a heat signature from an engine or an internal energy source, visible to us in the thermal infrared. Its engine might also give off detectable emissions; American aerospace engineer and author Robert Zubrin suggested in 1993 that theoretically we could detect exhaust from antimatter engines.\nIf the object strays off the path of a natural gravitationally-driven orbit, this might be another indication of an engine. However, outgassing can also slightly disturb the orbits of comets, so it would take a large variation for the orbit to truly signal an artificial spacecraft.\nWould we spot an alien probe at all?\nIn Horner’s opinion, it is enormously unlikely that we would spot any interstellar object, regardless of origin: “We're only just reaching the technological level to have a good chance of catching these things.”\nFor interstellar objects to be spotted by automated surveys like Pan-STARRS, they need to come close enough to the Sun and Earth and need to be in convenient places in the sky. Horner believes that if `Oumuamua had come along just a fortnight earlier or later, we probably would have missed it, as it would have been too far from Earth or too close to the Sun in the sky.\n“We could be missing most objects of this sort of size,” British space scientist Duncan Steel agrees. “If there are many such objects that are smaller still – as is to be expected – then the vast majority will not be detected by present surveys.”\nFuture technology will expand our abilities to spot and study interstellar objects. According to Jewitt, in 2022 Pan-STARRS will “be eclipsed by the much more powerful Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), which should pick [interstellar objects] up by the bucket-load.”\nAstronomers estimated at least one interstellar asteroid similar to `Oumuamua passes through our Solar System every year.\nAccording to Hainaut, every one of these objects will be a challenge to study. “No object is ever exactly like any other that we have observed before,” he says. “Each object is an opportunity to learn something more.”\nDetecting and carefully studying these objects will allow us to build up a database of their properties. If an artificial visitor does arrive, we’ll have a better chance of recognising its true nature. And then the real fun will begin.", "It is in an orbit that takes it on a scenic tour of our solar system. Source: NASA It is in an orbit that takes it on a scenic tour of our solar system. Source: NASA\nA rare comet discovered by NASA scientists will be visible using just binoculars to skywatchers on Earth this week for the first time, before the object heads back into outer reaches of the solar system for an orbit lasting thousands of years.\nThe comet, C/2016 U1 NEOWISE, “has a good chance of becoming visible through a good pair of binoculars, although we can’t be sure because a comet’s brightness is notoriously unpredictable,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Centre for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US.\nAs seen from the northern hemisphere during the first week of 2017, comet C/2016 U1 NEOWISE will be in the southeastern sky shortly before dawn.\nIt is moving farther south each day and it will reach its closest point to the Sun, inside the orbit of Mercury, on January 14, before heading back out to the outer reaches of the solar system for an orbit lasting thousands of years. While it will be visible to skywatchers at Earth, it is not considered a threat to our planet either.\nNASA’s NEOWISE mission has recently discovered some celestial objects travelling through our neighbourhood, including one on the blurry line between asteroid and comet. An object called 2016 WF9 was detected by the NEOWISE project on November 27 last year.\nRead More: NASA: Hubble captures best view ever of a comet breaking apart\nIt is in an orbit that takes it on a scenic tour of our solar system. At its farthest distance from the Sun, it approaches Jupiter’s orbit. Over the course of 4.9 Earth-years, it travels inward, passing under the main asteroid belt and the orbit of Mars until it swings just inside Earth’s own orbit. After that, it heads back toward the outer solar system.\nObjects in these types of orbits have multiple possible origins; it might once have been a comet, or it could have strayed from a population of dark objects in the main asteroid belt.\nRead more: Mission Complete: Rosetta spacecraft says farewell with comet crash-landing\n2016 WF9 will approach Earth’s orbit on February 25 this year. At a distance of nearly 51 million kilometres from Earth, this pass will not bring it particularly close. The trajectory of 2016 WF9 is well understood, and the object is not a threat to Earth for the foreseeable future.\nA different object, discovered by NEOWISE a month earlier, is more clearly a comet, releasing dust as it nears the Sun. NEOWISE is the asteroid-and-comet-hunting portion of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.\nAlso Read: Orionids meteor shower to dazzle US skies today\n2016 WF9 is relatively large: roughly 0.5 to 1 kilometre across. It is also rather dark, reflecting only a few percent of the light that falls on its surface. This body resembles a comet in its reflectivity and orbit, but appears to lack the characteristic dust and gas cloud that defines a comet.\n“2016 WF9 could have cometary origins,” said Deputy Principal Investigator James Bauer at JPL. “This object illustrates that the boundary between asteroids and comets is a blurry one; perhaps over time this object has lost the majority of the volatiles that linger on or just under its surface,” said Bauer.", "The video will start in 8 Cancel\nGet daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nIncredible footage has been released by NASA which shows the red planet could in fact be blue.\nVideo captured by the Curiosity spans miles across Mars and in parts the clip appears to show the planet with a blueish tinge.\nAnd a panoramic view from the surface has also been created from images taken by the rover since it landed on Mars in 2012.\nThe Mars Curiosity landed in Gale Crater and one of its on-board cameras captured 16 separate images at points along its journey at the top of the Vera Rubin Ridge.\n(Image: NASA/Youtube)\n(Image: NASA/Youtube)\n(Image: NASA/Youtube)\nThese were then put together to form the breathtaking picture.\nAnd thanks to some clever visual effects - the usually red planet gets a blue hue - making the scene more familiar to us humans.\nNASA adjusted the colour balance in the images so that the rocks appear as they would during daylight on Earth.\n(Image: REUTERS)\n(Image: NASA)\nThe photos taken in October last year looks over the crater which is between 3.5 and 3.8 billion years old.\nIt also spans an area of 30 miles.\nThe photos were taken just before northern Mars' winter solstice which means there were clear skies to capture the stunning views.\nAnd because of the thin atmosphere on the planet it means mountains that are more than 50 miles away can be seen in the shots.\n(Image: NASA/Youtube)\n(Image: NASA/Youtube)\nIn a written statement, curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada said: \"Even though Curiosity has been steadily climbing for five years, this is the first time we could look back and see the whole mission laid out below us.\n\"From our perch on Vera Rubin Ridge, the vast plains of the crater floor stretch out to the spectacular mountain range that forms the northern rim of Gale Crater.\"\nThe space agency also released an annotated version of the panorama photo to point out places from the mission such as \"Yellowknife Bay\" - an ancient freshwater-lake environment.\nThey are now preparing to use the robot's drill to analyse powdered rock samples.", "Latest pics show #Mars engulfed by global dust storm, hiding surface features except peaks of 26km-tall #OlympusMons (tallest planetary mountain in #SolarSystem!), ArsiaMons & north polar cap. Follow the developing dust storm from orbit via @esamarswebcam https://t.co/PHGibf9Qn6 pic.twitter.com/KVfny3ea1d", "A ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid estimated to be nearly a mile wide is set for an relatively close flyby with Earth tomorrow.\nObject 2014 JO25, dubbed The Rock after wrestler Dwayne Johnson, is said to be ‘among the strongest asteroid radar targets of the year,’ and will pass by our planet within just 4.6 lunar distances tomorrow.\nAccording to NASA, it’s the closest shave we’ve had with an asteroid of this size in the last decade, and isn’t expected to come this close again for at least 400 years.\nA ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid estimated to be nearly a mile wide is set for an alarmingly close flyby with Earth tomorrow (stock image). Its diameter is estimated to fall between 640 meters and 1.4 kilometers (0.4 to 0.9 miles)\nThe object was first spotted by the Mt Lemmon Survey in Arizona in May 2014.\nNot much is known about the celestial object, but Nasa has predicted that it is twice as reflective as the moon.\nThis means it could be visible from Earth.\nIts diameter is estimated to fall between 640 meters and 1.4 kilometers (0.4 to 0.9 miles) and it will travel at about 33 meters per second (73 mph).\nIt will pass at a distance of 1.1 million miles - or about 4.6 times the distance from Earth to the moon.\nIt is due to pass tomorrow at 8:24AM ET (1:24PM BST).\nSpace Explorer Ron Baalke, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, warned of the object in a tweet last year, showing how its orbit brings the massive space rock frighteningly close to Earth.\nAsteroid 2014 JO25 is classified as a ‘potentially hazardous Asteroid,’ according to NASA.\nSpace Explorer Ron Baalke, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, warned of the object in a tweet last year, showing how its orbit brings the massive space rock frighteningly close to Earth.\nBut, it’s expected to flyby safely at about 4.6 lunar distances (roughly 1,766,400 km or 1,097,590 miles).\n‘The 2017 flyby is the closest by an asteroid at least this large since the encounter by 4179 Toutatis at four lunar distances in September 2004,’ the space agency explains.\n‘The next known flyby by an object with a comparable or larger diameter will occur when 800-m-diameter asteroid 1999 AN10 approaches within one lunar distance in August 2027.\n‘The 2017 encounter is the closest by this asteroid for at least the last 400 years. There are no known future encounters by 2014 JO25 as close as the one in 2017 through 2500.’\nA ~1-km asteroid, 2014 JO25, will make a close flyby of Earth on Apr 19, 2017 (4.8 Lunar Distance)@BadAstronomer pic.twitter.com/ixfbyOmQda — Ron Baalke (@RonBaalke) May 22, 2016\nNASA'S ASTEROID REDIRECT MISSION Nasa is planning ambitious mission that will see a robotic spaceship visit an asteroid to create an orbiting base for astronauts. The robot ship will pluck a large boulder off the space rock and sling it around the moon, becoming a destination to prepare for future human missions to Mars. Nasa plans to study the asteroid for about a year and test deflection techniques that one day may be necessary to save Earth from a potentially catastrophic collision. Although the target asteroid is not expected to be officially selected until 2020, NASA is using 2008 EV5 as the reference asteroid while the search continues for potential alternates. Before beginning its trip to lunar orbit, the ARM spacecraft will demonstrate a widely supported asteroid deflection technique called a gravity tractor. The spacecraft plus the mass of the captured boulder will create a small gravitational attraction to alter the orbit of the large asteroid. After collecting a multi-ton boulder from the asteroid, the robotic spacecraft will slowly redirect the boulder to an orbit around the moon, using the moon's gravity for an assist, where NASA plans to conduct a series of proving ground missions in the 2020s. There, astronauts will be able to select, extract, collect, and return samples from the multi-ton asteroid mass, and conduct other human-robotic and spacecraft operations in the proving ground that will validate concepts for NASA's journey to Mars.\nEarlier this month, the famous Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacombini-Kresák, flew past our planet at the closest distance since its discovery.\nOn April 1, the object came 13.2 million miles (21.2 million km) away from Earth.\nComet 41P belongs to the group Jupiter comets, which are objects that have been caught up in Jupiter's massive gravity and now orbit between the sun and the giant planet.\nComet 41P/Tuttle-Giacombini-Kresák (circled) alongside Dusty (middle), an edge-on spiral galaxy and the owlish Messier 97 (right), a planetary nebula, in a telescopic image\nThe comet was first discovered in 1858 and circles the sun every five and a half years.\nBut this year the comet's perihelion point, the part of its orbit that is closest to the sun, is just outside Earth's orbit.\nThis created a six-day period from March 29 to April 3 when the comet will come closer to Earth than ever before.\nIt reached its closest point, roughly a tenth of the distance between the sun and Earth, on April Fool's Day.", "An illustration of LISA Pathfinder on its way to Earth-sun L1. Credit: ESA/C. Carreau LISA Pathfinder, a mission led by ESA (the European Space Agency) with contributions from NASA, has successfully demonstrated critical technologies needed to build a space-based observatory for detecting ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. Now a team of NASA scientists hopes to take advantage of the spacecraft's record-breaking sensitivity to map out the distribution of tiny dust particles shed by asteroids and comets far from Earth.\nMost of these particles have masses measured in micrograms, similar to a small grain of sand. But with speeds greater than 22,000 mph (36,000 kph), even micrometeoroids pack a punch. The new measurements could help refine dust models used by researchers in a variety of studies, from understanding the physics of planet formation to estimating impact risks for current and future spacecraft.\n\"We've shown we have a novel technique and that it works,\" said Ira Thorpe, who leads the team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. \"The next step is to carefully apply this technique to our whole data set and interpret the results.\"\nThe mission's primary goal was to test how well the spacecraft could fly in formation with an identical pair of 1.8-inch (46 millimeter) gold-platinum cubes floating inside it. The cubes are test masses intended to be in free fall and responding only to gravity.\nThe spacecraft serves as a shield to protect the test masses from external forces. When LISA Pathfinder responds to pressure from sunlight and microscopic dust impacts, the spacecraft automatically compensates by firing tiny bursts from its micronewton thrusters to prevent the test masses from being disturbed.\nScientists call this drag-free flight. In its first two months of operations in early 2016, LISA Pathfinder demonstrated the process with a precision some five times better than its mission requirements, making it the most sensitive instrument for measuring acceleration yet flown. It has now reached the sensitivity level needed to build a full multi-spacecraft gravitational wave observatory.\n\"Every time microscopic dust strikes LISA Pathfinder, its thrusters null out the small amount of momentum transferred to the spacecraft,\" said Goddard co-investigator Diego Janches. \"We can turn that around and use the thruster firings to learn more about the impacting particles. One team's noise becomes another team's data.\"\nMuch of what we know about interplanetary dust is limited to Earth's neighborhood, thanks in large part to NASA's Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF). Launched into Earth orbit by the space shuttle Challenger in April 1984 and retrieved by the space shuttle Columbia in January 1990, LDEF hosted dozens of experiments, many of which were designed to better understand the meteoroid and orbital debris environment.\nThe different compositions, orbits and histories of different asteroids and comets naturally produce dust with a range of masses and velocities. Scientists suspect the smallest and slowest particles are enhanced in Earth's neighborhood, so the LDEF results are not representative of the wider solar system.\nThe video will load shortly In a proof-of-concept study, NASA scientists are exploring using ESA's (the European Space Agency) LISA Pathfinder spacecraft as a micrometeoroid detector. When tiny particles shed by asteroids and comets impact LISA Pathfinder, its thrusters work to quickly counteract any change in the spacecraft's motion. Researchers are monitoring these signals to learn more about the impacting particles. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center\n\"Small, slow particles near a planet are most susceptible to the planet's gravitational pull, which we call gravitational focusing,\" Janches said. This means the micrometeoroid flux near Earth should be much higher than that experienced by LISA Pathfinder, located about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) closer to the sun.\nTo find the impacts, Tyson Littenberg at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, adapted an algorithm he originally developed to search for gravitational waves in data from the ground-based detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington. In fact, it was one of many algorithms that played a role in the discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO, announced in February 2016.\n\"The way it works is that we come up with a guess of what the signal might look like, then study how LIGO or LISA Pathfinder would react if this guess were true,\" Littenberg explained. \"For LIGO, we're guessing about the waveform, the peaks and valleys of the gravitational wave. For LISA Pathfinder, we're guessing about an impact.\"\nTo map out the probability of likely sources, the team generates millions of different scenarios describing what the source might be and compares them to what the spacecraft actually detects.\nIn response to an impact, LISA Pathfinder fires its thrusters to counteract both the minute \"push\" from the strike and any change in the spacecraft's spin. Together, these quantities allow the researchers to determine the impact's location on the spacecraft and reconstruct the micrometeoroid's original trajectory. This may allow the team to identify individual debris streams and perhaps relate them to known asteroids and comets.\n\"This is a very nice collaboration,\" said Paul McNamara, the LISA Pathfinder project scientist at ESA's Directorate of Science in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. \"This is data we use for doing our science measurements, and as an offshoot of that, Ira and his team can tell us about microparticles hitting the spacecraft.\"\nIts distant location, sensitivity to low-mass particles, and ability to measure the size and direction of impacting particles make LISA Pathfinder a unique instrument for studying the population of micrometeoroids in the inner solar system. But it's only the beginning.\n\"This is a proof of concept, but we'd hope to repeat this technique with a full gravitational wave observatory that ESA and NASA are currently studying for the future,\" said Thorpe. \"With multiple spacecraft in different orbits and a much longer observing time, the quality of the data should really improve.\"\nLISA Pathfinder is managed by ESA and includes contributions from NASA Goddard and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The mission launched on Dec. 3, 2015, and began orbiting a point called Earth-sun L1, roughly 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth in the sun's direction, in late January 2016.\nLISA stands for Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, a space-based gravitational wave observatory concept that has been studied in great detail by both NASA and ESA. It is a concept being explored for the third large mission of ESA's Cosmic Vision Plan, which seeks to launch a gravitational wave observatory in 2034.\nExplore further: Tiny thrusters demonstrate a capability needed to detect gravitational waves", "Washington: A rare comet discovered by NASA scientists will be visible using just binoculars to skywatchers on Earth this week for the first time, before the object heads back into outer reaches of the solar system for an orbit lasting thousands of years, reports PTI.\nAlso Read: Hubble telescope captures best view of comet breaking apart\nThe comet, C/2016 U1 NEOWISE, “has a good chance of becoming visible through a good pair of binoculars, although we can’t be sure because a comet’s brightness is notoriously unpredictable,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Centre for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US.\nAs seen from the northern hemisphere during the first week of 2017, comet C/2016 U1 NEOWISE will be in the southeastern sky shortly before dawn. It is moving farther south each day and it will reach its closest point to the Sun, inside the orbit of Mercury, on January 14, before heading back out to the outer reaches of the solar system for an orbit lasting thousands of years.\nWhile it will be visible to skywatchers at Earth, it is not considered a threat to our planet either. NASA’s NEOWISE mission has recently discovered some celestial objects travelling through our neighbourhood, including one on the blurry line between asteroid and comet.\nAn object called 2016 WF9 was detected by the NEOWISE project on November 27 last year. It is in an orbit that takes it on a scenic tour of our solar system. At its farthest distance from the Sun, it approaches Jupiter’s orbit.\nOver the course of 4.9 Earth-years, it travels inward, passing under the main asteroid belt and the orbit of Mars until it swings just inside Earth’s own orbit. After that, it heads back toward the outer solar system.\nObjects in these types of orbits have multiple possible origins; it might once have been a comet, or it could have strayed from a population of dark objects in the main asteroid belt. 2016 WF9 will approach Earth’s orbit on February 25 this year.\nAt a distance of nearly 51 million kilometres from Earth, this pass will not bring it particularly close. The trajectory of 2016 WF9 is well understood, and the object is not a threat to Earth for the foreseeable future.\nA different object, discovered by NEOWISE a month earlier, is more clearly a comet, releasing dust as it nears the Sun. NEOWISE is the asteroid-and-comet-hunting portion of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.\nAlso Read: Rosetta space probe captures comet outburst\n2016 WF9 is relatively large: roughly 0.5 to 1 kilometre across. It is also rather dark, reflecting only a few percent of the light that falls on its surface. This body resembles a comet in its reflectivity and orbit, but appears to lack the characteristic dust and gas cloud that defines a comet.\n“2016 WF9 could have cometary origins,” said Deputy Principal Investigator James Bauer at JPL. “This object illustrates that the boundary between asteroids and comets is a blurry one; perhaps over time this object has lost the majority of the volatiles that linger on or just under its surface,” said Bauer.", "Get the Mach newsletter. SUBSCRIBE\nA new NASA video shows the moon like you've never seen it before.\nThe five-minute clip, released by the space agency on April 9, shows the surface of our nearest neighbor in the solar system in stunning, high-definition detail — from high peaks and deep craters to the frigid poles and their possible ice deposits.\nYou get a close-up look at the landing site of Apollo 17, the last of the missions that sent astronauts to the moon — and you can even see part of the mission's lunar lander and rover.\n\"For me what jumps out is not just the Google Street View kind of clarity we now have on lunar terrain, but the insights to how this terrain got to be the way it is — from asteroid impacts to a diverse history of volcanism,\" Dr. Caleb Scharf, an astronomer at Columbia University, told NBC News MACH in an email.\nDr. Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer at the University of Redlands and the author of \"Sun Moon Earth,\" was similarly wowed by the video. \"It may sound strange for a scientist to say that, but this video reminds me anew about what an amazing, diverse, and spectacular place the moon is,\" he told MACH in an email. \"Far from being a dead world, never changing, it is an ancient place of beauty.\"\nMost of the data used to create the video comes from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been orbiting the moon since 2009.\nFOLLOW NBC NEWS MACH ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM.", "Using data captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) ALMA in Chile and the ROSINA instrument on ESA’s Rosetta mission, an international team of astronomers including scientists from Harvard University, the University of Cologne, the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and others, has found faint traces of the chemical compound Freon-40 (CH3Cl), an organohalogen, around both an infant star and a comet in our solar system. This is the first detection ever of a saturated organohalogen in interstellar space. This result has now been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.\nFreon-40 is formed by organic processes on Earth, so it has been considered as a marker of extraterrestrial life. But since this is the first ever detection of a saturated organohalogen in interstellar space, it may not be as good marker of life as had been hoped. This discovery of Freon-40 in places that must predate the origin of life can thus be seen as a disappointment. However, organohalogens may be significant components of the material from which planets form. This result underscores the challenge of finding molecules that could indicate the presence of life beyond Earth.\nExoplanet research has gone beyond the point of finding planets – more than 3,000 exoplanets are now known – to looking for chemical markers that might indicate the potential presence of life. A vital step is determining which molecules could indicate life, but establishing reliable markers remains a tricky process.\nFreon-40 is also known as methyl chloride and chloromethane, and was detected around both the infant star system IRAS 16293-2422 [1], about 400 light-years away, and the famous comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G). Organohalogens consist of halogens such as chlorine and fluorine, bonded with carbon and sometimes other elements. On Earth, methyl chloride is created by biological processes – in organisms ranging from humans to fungi – as well as by industrial processes such as the production of dyes and medical drugs. ‘Finding Freon-40 near these young, Sun-like stars was surprising’, said Edith Fayolle, a researcher with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lead author of the new paper. ‘We did not predict its formation and were surprised to find it in such significant concentrations. It has now become clear that these molecules form readily in stellar nurseries, providing insights into the chemical evolution of planetary systems.’\nThe discovery of organohalogens in the interstellar medium also tells the researchers something about the starting conditions for organic chemistry on planets. Such chemistry is an important step toward the origins of life. Organohalogens, the findings suggest, are likely to be a constituent of the so-called ‘primordial soup’ – both on the young Earth and on nascent rocky exoplanets.\nThus, rather than indicating the presence of existing life, organohalogens may be an important element in the little-understood chemistry involved in the origin of life. Co-author Jes Joergensen from the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagen adds: ‘This result shows the power of ALMA to detect molecules of astrobiological interest toward young stars on scales where planets may be forming. Using ALMA, we have previously found precursors to sugars and amino acids around different stars. The additional discovery of Freon-40 around Comet 67P/C-G strengthens the links between the pre-biological chemistry of distant protostars and our own Solar System.’ Holger Mueller, a spectroscopist at the University of Cologne’s Institute of Physics I and a co-author of the study, says: ‘The identification of molecules in space usually relies on laboratory studies of these molecules.’ He maintains the Cologne Database for Molecular Spectroscopy, CDMS, an important repository of data to identify interstellar molecules. He helped to identify the compound’s spectral fingerprints, and thus to verify their occurrences in outer space.", "This stunning footage shows how a group of mountain trekkers became embroiled in a potentially lethal avalanche.\nA group of hikers were scaling a mountainous region in northern Pakistan when they witnessed the stunning natural occurrence.\nThe trekkers stayed on a point known as Ulter Peak, in the Hunza valley, and decided to film the event which happened on November 23.\nA huge plume of snow is seen tumbling towards the hikers and making its way over the mountains\nThe stunning footage captures the snow tumbling down a rocky mountain face towards the hikers, who are filming it from the safety of higher ground.\nSnow continues to hurtle down the rock face and then eventually the hikers are engulfed by snow plume which has been stirred up during its descent.\nThe white, snowy cloud soon engulfs the hikers, who continue to film the strange occurrence.\nOne of the hikers who filmed the barrage of snow tumbling down the slope said: 'Weather in winters are very unpredictable because of mountains... while we are trekking on the peak we witnessed this avalanche coming right at us.\n'One local friend \"Moiz Ali\" was with me he told me this avalanche is not very dangerous so we can witnessed it very closely.\n'Locals said that they often witnessed these avalanches from their town but its very rare that this happened while we were trekking on peak.'", "Rating is available when the video has been rented.\nThis feature is not available right now. Please try again later.", "Astronomers are set to scan an \"alien\" comet for signs of extraterrestrial technology.\nThe cigar-shaped asteroid, named \"Oumuamua\" by its discoverers, sailed past Earth last month and is the first interstellar object seen in the solar system.\nA team of alien-hunting scientists, led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, will scan the comet this week before it sails beyond the reach of Earth's telescopes, according to the Daily Mail.\nTraveling at 44km a second, the comet is headed away from the Earth and sun on its way out of the solar system. Photo / Nasa\nThey say they are looking for radio signals, claiming the mysterious visitor could be an alien spaceship.\nAdvertisement\nMilner, the business mogul behind Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million (NZ$388.8m) search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, received an email about the object last week from one of his chief scientists, the Atlantic reports.\n\"The more I study this object, the more unusual it appears, making me wonder whether it might be an artificially made probe which was sent by an alien civilisation,\" Professor Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard's astronomy department and one of Milner's advisers on Breakthrough Listen, wrote in the email.\nProfessor Loeb said the space rock's peculiar elongated shape is odd for a common space rock but ideal for a ship flying between star systems.\nBreakthrough Listen has now announced the program will scan Oumuamua this week for signs of radio signals.\n\"Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust,\" the research firm said in a statement.\n\"While a natural origin is more likely, there is currently no consensus on what that origin might have been, and Breakthrough Listen is well positioned to explore the possibility that Oumuamua could be an artefact.\"\nTraveling at 44 kilometres per second, the comet is headed away from the Earth and Sun on its way out of the solar system. Photo / NASA\nThe alien-hunting project will use the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia for its investigation.\nThe object is now twice the distance between Earth and the sun from our planet, but even at this range the Green Bank Telescope can pick up the slightest signal.\nMilner and his team want to measure the object before it extends beyond the reach of Earthbound scanning equipment.\nThe object will fly past Jupiter next year, and will hurtle beyond Pluto by the 2020s.\n\"Whether it's artificial or not, we will definitely know more about this object,\" Milner told the Atlantic.\nOumuamua, also known as Comet C/2017 U1, baffled scientists when it flew past Earth at breakneck speed in November.\nIt was first spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on 18 October, and was observed 34 separate times in the following week.\nTravelling at 44 kilometres per second (27 mph), the comet is headed away from the Earth and Sun on its way out of the solar system.\nThe comet is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated - perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide.\nThat aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date.\nBut the comet's slightly red hue — specifically pale pink — and varying brightness are remarkably similar to objects in our own solar system.\nWhile its elongated shape is unusual, it may provide new clues as to how other star systems in the universe formed.\nThe observations, part-funded by Nasa suggested this unusual object had been wandering through the Milky Way, unattached to any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system.\n\"For decades we've theorised that such interstellar objects are out there, and now – for the first time – we have direct evidence they exist,\" Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for Nasa's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement in November.\n\"This history-making discovery is opening a new window to study formation of solar systems beyond our own.\"", "Astronomers are set to scan an 'alien' comet for signs of extraterrestrial technology.\nThe cigar-shaped asteroid, named 'Oumuamua by its discoverers, sailed past Earth last month and is the first interstellar object seen in the solar system.\nA team of alien-hunting scientists, led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, will scan the comet this week before it sails beyond the reach of Earth's telescopes.\nThey say they are looking for radio signals, claiming the mysterious visitor could be an alien spaceship.\nScroll down for video\nAstronomers have begun scanning an 'alien' comet for signs of extraterrestrial technology. The cigar-shaped object, named 'Oumuamua (artist's impression) by its discoverers, sailed past Earth last month and is the first interstellar object seen in the solar system\n'OUMUAMUA A cigar-shaped comet named 'Oumuamua sailed past Earth last month and is the first interstellar object seen in the solar system. It was first spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on 18 October, and was observed 34 separate times in the following week. Travelling at 44 kilometres per second (27 mph), the comet is headed away from the Earth and Sun on its way out of the solar system. The comet is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated - perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide. That aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date. But the comet's slightly red hue — specifically pale pink — and varying brightness are remarkably similar to objects in our own solar system.\nMilner, the business mogul behind Breakthrough Listen, a $100 million (£75m) search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, received an email about the object last week from one of his chief scientists, the Atlantic reports.\n'The more I study this object, the more unusual it appears, making me wonder whether it might be an artificially made probe which was sent by an alien civilisation,' Professor Avi Loeb, the chair of Harvard's astronomy department and one of Milner's advisers on Breakthrough Listen, wrote in the email.\nProfessor Loeb said the space rock's peculiar elongated shape is odd for a common space rock but ideal for a ship flying between star systems.\nBreakthrough Listen has now announced the program will scan 'Oumuamua this week for signs of radio signals.\n'Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimise friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust,' the research firm said in a statement.\n'While a natural origin is more likely, there is currently no consensus on what that origin might have been, and Breakthrough Listen is well positioned to explore the possibility that ‘Oumuamua could be an artefact.'\nThe alien-hunting project will use the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia for its investigation.\nThe object is now twice the distance between Earth and the sun from our planet, but even at this range the Green Bank Telescope can pick up the slightest signal.\nA team of alien-hunting scientists led by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner (file photo) is scanning the comet before it sails beyond the reach of Earth's telescopes. They say they are looking for alien radio signals, claiming the mysterious visitor could be a disguised alien ship\nMilner and his team want to measure the object before it extends beyond the reach of Earthbound scanning equipment.\nThe object will fly past Jupiter next year, and will hurtle beyond Pluto by the 2020s.\n'Whether it's artificial or not, we will definitely know more about this object,' Milner told the Atlantic.\nOumuamua, also known as Comet C/2017 U1, baffled scientists when it flew past Earth at breakneck speed in November.\nWHERE DID IT COME FROM? Most comets follow ellipse-shaped orbits around the sun. But this comet appears to orbit at an angle, and doesn't circle the sun. Its orbital path suggests it entered our solar system from the direction of the constellation Lyra, looped around the sun, and will never return. But others have suggested that the comet did come from Earth, but interacted with Jupiter or another planet, which changed its orbit.\nIt was first spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on 18 October, and was observed 34 separate times in the following week.\nTravelling at 44 kilometres per second (27 mph), the comet is headed away from the Earth and Sun on its way out of the solar system.\nThe comet is up to one-quarter mile (400 meters) long and highly-elongated - perhaps 10 times as long as it is wide.\nThat aspect ratio is greater than that of any asteroid or comet observed in our solar system to date.\nBut the comet's slightly red hue — specifically pale pink — and varying brightness are remarkably similar to objects in our own solar system.\nPreviously known as C/2017 U1 (PANSTARRS) and A/2017 U1, approaching from above, it was closest to the Sun on 9 September. Travelling at 44 kilometres per second (27 mph), the comet is headed away from the Earth and Sun on its way out of the solar system.\nWhile its elongated shape is unusual, it may provide new clues as to how other star systems in the universe formed.\nThe observations, part-funded by Nasa suggested this unusual object had been wandering through the Milky Way, unattached to any star system, for hundreds of millions of years before its chance encounter with our star system.\n'For decades we've theorised that such interstellar objects are out there, and now – for the first time – we have direct evidence they exist,' Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for Nasa's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, said in a statement in November.\n'This history-making discovery is opening a new window to study formation of solar systems beyond our own.'\nThe comet, called C/2017 U1 was spotted by a telescope in Hawaii on 18 October, and was then seen 34 separate times in the week after. Its path is illustrated in the Nasa animation above", "Skygazers were treated to a spectacular display of celestial fireworks over the weekend as the Earth flew through a cloud of cometary dust.\nThe Perseid meteors, shed by comet Swift-Tuttle, stage their show every August and are among the brightest of all shooting stars.\nBut clear skies across much of the Northern hemisphere meant that the full show was visible to many.\nAstronomers took to their telescopes and cameras to capture stunning stills and footage of the peak of the shower on Saturday night.\nPERSEID METEOR SHOWER The Perseid meteor shower occurs each year between July 17 and 24 August, peaking between August 9 and 13. Although the peak has passed, they are still expected to be visible until next Sunday. Meteor showers occur when a comet comes close to the sun and produces debris - meteoroids - that spread around the comet's orbit. During the Perseid meteors, debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle bursts into the Earth's upper atmosphere at around 130,000 miles (210,000 km) per hour. Since meteoroids that create a meteor shower all move on a parallel path, and at the same speed, they seem to originate from a single point in the sky to observers on Earth, known as the radiant.\nAmong the enthusiasts was Ric Taylor, from Bury, Greater Manchester, who captured this time lapse video from his garden.\nIt shows a flurry of shooting stars streaking overhead through a relatively cloudless night sky.\nSpeaking to Manchester Evening News, he said: 'Photography is one of my passions, especially when it comes to the night sky.\n'I just love taking photos of the night, as I've slowly gotten better I started taking time lapse videos, its a natural progression.\n'On my meagre wage I sacrifice a social life to travel and take photos.'\nThe Perseid meteor shower occurs each year between July 17 and 24 August, peaking between August 9 and 13.\nAt its peak overnight on Saturday into Sunday, 150 meteors an hour shot through they sky.\nNasa had warned that the shower would not be the 'brightest shower in recorded human history' as some had claimed.\nThere were also fears that this year's year's moon, which is currently around three-quarters full, might wash out many of the fainter shooting stars.\nAnd although the peak has passed, some meteors are still expected to be visible until next Sunday.\nMeteor showers occur when a comet comes close to the sun and produces debris - meteoroids - that spread around the comet's orbit.\nAstronomers took to their telescopes and cameras to capture stunning stills and footage of the peak of the shower on Saturday night (pictured). Among them was Ric Taylor, from Bury, Greater Manchester, who captured these images\nA clear sky gave most parts of the UK an opportunity to spot the meteors. This image shows a single meteor in the sky above Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales National Park\nThis digital composite photo of the shower over Hawes is made up of 30 photographs taken over a period of 15 minutes\nDuring the Perseid meteors, debris from Comet Swift-Tuttle bursts into the Earth's upper atmosphere at around 130,000 miles (210,000 km) per hour.\nThe meteors, mostly no bigger than a grain of sand, burn up as they hit the atmosphere at 36 miles (58 km) per second to produce a shooting stream of light in the sky.\nSince meteoroids that create a meteor shower all move on a parallel path, and at the same speed, they seem to originate from a single point in the sky to observers on Earth, known as the radiant.\nA digital composite photo of the shower above Hawes shows some of the roughly 150 meteors an hour that shot through the sky at the peak of the shower on Saturday night\nThis stunning snap was taken over Normanton in West Yorkshire in the early hours of Sunday morning\nA Catholic statue, cross and a church seen during the Perseid meteor shower near the village of Rubezhevichi, some 30 miles (50 km) from Minsk, Belarus, late on Saturday\nThe best place to view them is under a clear sky and away from urban areas, where light pollution can make spotting meteors more difficult.\nA clear sky gave most parts of the UK an opportunity to spot the meteors, said Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna.\nHe said: 'There were some good cloud breaks, so many areas would have had a good chance to see them during the early hours.\n'It would have been pretty good viewing.'\nThe meteor shower lit up the sky near Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.\nElsewhere across Europe, skywatchers were also busy witnessing the stunning display.\nA white shooting star as it passes over the church at Rubezhevichi in Belarus\nMeanwhile in Macedonia, meteors were captured over the artificial lake Kozjak above Skopje, with one visible in the top righthand corner of this image\nThis image shows a faint image at its centre, as it whizzed over the mountains in Le Sepey, Switzerland\nA perseid meteor along the Milky Way can be seen here illuminating the dark sky near Comillas, Cantabria community, in northern Spain\nHere a couple near Comillas, Cantabria community, northern Spain can be seen watching a bright streak of light, visible at the centre of this image\nA photographer in near the village of Rubezhevichi, some 30 miles (50 km) from Minsk, Belarus, captured a striking image of a red hued meteor streaking above a Catholic statue, cross and church late on Saturday.\nMeanwhile in Macedonia, meteors were captured over the artificial lake Kozjak above Skopje.\nShooting stars were also photographed above the mountains of Le Sepey, in Switzerland.\nBeachgoers near Comillas, in the Cantabria community autonomous region of northern Spain were treated to a particularly romantic display.\nOne couple was pictured watching the shower over the Bay of Biscay." ]

[ "Three children are writing." ]

[ "The children are playing soccer in the park.", "There are children in the classroom.", "Children are writing at the desks in a classroom.", "Three students are in a classroom.", "Children work in the classroom.", "The children are writing notes.", "Children are learning in a classroom.", "Children play in the classroom.", "The man was in the classroom writing on the blackboard for the children", "kids in the class room are writing.", "children are sitting in a classroom.", "The children are reading together in the classroom.", "Children are taking notes together.", "The children are listening intently.", "Three school children help to clean up their classroom.", "A group of children are doing classroom activites", "There is a woman and children in a classroom.", "Three children are indoors.", "Some kids are in a classroom.", "Children have reading and writing materials.", "Children in school.", "There are children in school.", "The children are sitting at their desks in a classroom.", "The children are using paper and writing utensils.", "They are in the classroom.", "The children are listening to the teacher in their classroom.", "The three kids are at school.", "Children in the classroom learning math.", "The children are in class.", "Two kids are writing things.", "Children paying attention during class", "Two children are eating in the classroom." ]

[ "Britain has decided to withdraw the children of all its diplomats based in Islamabad in the wake of the bombing at the Marriott Hotel in the Pakistani capital last month, the Foreign Office said on Wednesday." ]

[ "Britain will pull all of its diplomatic staff out of Iran, Reuters reported on Wednesday.", "Britain is expelling five Libyan diplomats including the country's military attache for intimidating opposition groups in London, Foreign Secretary William Hague says.", "Britain has expelled two more Libyan diplomats from London days after it ordered the country's ambassador to leave, the Foreign Office said on Thursday.", "Britain is to expel two Iranian diplomats in the wake of the street protests that followed the country's controversial election, Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister has announced.", "Gordon Brown has announced Britain will expel two Iranian diplomats after Tehran ordered two British envoys to leave Iran.", "Britain will withdraw its remaining forces in Iraq to Kuwait by the end of the month after the Iraqi parliament failed to pass a deal allowing them to stay to protect oil platforms and provide training, a spokesman said on Tuesday.", "Britain condemned Monday the publication of leaked US diplomatic cables thought to feature embarrassing criticism of Prime Minister David Cameron, Prince Andrew and the British military.", "Against the backdrop of a diplomatic storm sparked by Foreign Secretary David Miliband's attempt to link the Kashmir problem to terrorism, Britain on Friday said it was for India and Pakistan to resolve the issue through dialogue and ``not for UK to prescribe a solution.''", "``Every inch of the country is sacred and Pakistan will never withdraw its army from Siachen unilaterally,'' Malik told reporters in Islamabad.", "Britain on Wednesday said it had closed its visa application centres in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir due to security concerns.", "A GERMAN diplomat sparked outrage yesterday after he claimed Britain lacks ``vision'' over the future of the European Union.", "Families of British embassy staff are being evacuated from Iran amid escalating clashes between security forces and demonstrators protesting over this month's disputed presidential election, it was announced today.", "Britain is planning a ``diplomatic surge'' in the Middle East to counter extremism, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said in an article published on Sunday.", "Ecuador granted asylum Thursday to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, placing the Latin American country squarely in a diplomatic showdown with Britain and the United States.", "Britain has moved to ban the Pakistani Taliban as a terrorist group, making it illegal to belong to or raise funds for the organisation in Britain, the government said on Tuesday.", "Children from various educational institutes of twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad on Monday held colorful cultural activities at Pakistan National Council of the Arts to show their solidarity with Kashmiris.", "Army was called out in Islamabad on Thursday as thousands of enraged protesters attempted to reach the US embassy in capital's heavily-guarded diplomatic enclave in a bid to register their protest against a blasphemous film.", "NAIROBI, Kenya - Al-Qaida-linked Somali insurgents say they are expelling British aid group Save the Children from areas under their control.", "Foreign Secretary William Hague said the UK has revoked the diplomatic immunity of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi and his family.", "Zulqarnain, who fled to Britain but is now returning home later this week after withdrawing his asylum application, said that after what happened with him, no player will ``report fixing in future''.", "British Foreign Secretary David Miliband left Pakistan after holding talks with Pakistan's army chief during a visit aimed at defusing tensions with India after the Mumbai attacks, officials said.", "On Friday, Britain scrambled fighter jets to escort a plane traveling from Lahore, Pakistan to Manchester, England.", "Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, were entertained by children involved in a theatrical programme yesterday.", "Not having had the courtesy of a reply after an initial letter of protest to Lloyds TSB, the Islamic Party of Britain is calling for a boycott of both Lloyds TSB and the Islamic Bank of Britain, after Lloyds instructed the Islamic Bank of Britain to withdraw all banking facilities to Interpal, a charity providing much needed assistance to Palestinians suffering under occupation.", "The UK has withdrawn some embassy staff in Libya in response to ``ongoing political uncertainty'', the Foreign Office says.", "The US closed its Syrian embassy and Britain recalled its ambassador to Damascus Monday in a dramatic new Western push to get President Bashar Assad to leave power as diplomatic efforts to resolve one of the deadliest conflicts of the Arab Spring collapsed.", "Pakistan has expelled 18 British military trainers sent to train the paramilitary Frontier Corps.", "The top US diplomat in Kabul warned on Wednesday that Pakistan posed a bigger security challenge to America and the world than Afghanistan, as Islamabad grappled with the latest terrorist attack on its soil and the escalating Taliban insurgency on its north-western border.", "British Home Secretary Theresa May announced on Monday that Britain will suspend unaccompanied cargo from Yemen and Somalia into the country.", "Islamabad 35 Afghans Arrested in Kashmore, Police and the Rangers attacked two passenger buses in Kashmore detained for 31 Afghan nationals, including eight women and three children.", "British Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed Wednesday that the UK will withdraw 500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, modestly reducing the size of the second largest foreign force in the country to 9,000.", "The Britain's Got Talent judge said: ``I won't have any more children, that is it. And this is obviously what I am meant to have.''" ]

[ "By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 12:42 EST, 20 November 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 15:09 EST, 20 November 2012 . An agitated murder defendant poured a cup of water over his attorney’s head during trial just as jurors were getting ready to start their deliberations. Jerome Power, 50, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, dumped the water on attorney Steve Addington, of Des Moines, catching Addington, jurors, and the judge off guard. Power, charged with first-degree murder, has been accused of strangling his 68-year-old neighbour, Doris Bevins, to death in her home on September 19, 2010. Pour lawyer: Defendant Jerome Power pours a glass of water over the head of his defense counsel Steve Addington as the jury leaves the courtroom following closing arguments in Powers' first degree murder trail . Police found Power hiding behind the entry door of Bevins’ house after responding to a 911 call from Bevins’ friend who was talking with her the phone when she was assaulted that night. ‘It should have been a mistrial,’ Power shouted after dumping the water on Addington, ‘You sold me out!’ Deputies in the courtroom quickly responded, but were too late to prevent Addington from getting wet, KCRG-TV9 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, reports. The jury started their deliberations in Linn County District Court just after 12pm on Monday and were sent home at about 4.30pm. Accused of murder: Power's mugshot . They resumed deliberations at 8:30am on Tuesday. Power seemed ‘agitated and defiant’ while Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden gave his closing argument, according to KCRG-TV9. Vander Sanden said the act of killing Bevins was ‘premeditated, deliberate and wilful.’ Power ‘squeezed the life from her,’ he said. Power said nearly 100 times during police interrogations that the killer was a white man who had lived in the same apartment house as he and Bevins, Vander Sanden said. Vander Sanden said Power used pajama pants found at her apartment to strangle her and was likely there to commit a burglary or theft, but was interrupted when police showed up. Police found Bevins’ cellphone and charger in Power’s pocket. Power faces life in prison without parole if convicted." ]

[ "By . Ryan Gorman . PUBLISHED: . 17:00 EST, 4 January 2014 . | . UPDATED: . 17:40 EST, 4 January 2014 . Six sandwiches in one hour: Jerome Davis became enraged when his brother questioned his eating habits and pulled a knife on him . An Iowa man pulled a knife on his brother as they fought . over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Jerome Davis, 51, of Des Moines, became enraged Friday after his brother . criticized him for making and eating six sandwiches in an hour, so he pulled a . knife on him. Mr Davis has a handful of drug-related criminal convictions . dating back over 20 years that include multiple jail sentences, records showed. Authorities did not name Mr Davis’ brother, also in his 50s, . in an arrest report obtained by the Des Moines Register which details the . altercation. Mr Davis ‘made three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ate them in . the living room,’ the report said. ‘Within the next hour, the suspect made . another 3 of these peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.’ This brought ‘his total consumption of peanut butter and jelly . sandwiches to six. This angered the victim,’ the report continued. Confronted with being called an over-eater, Mr Davis escalated . the situation. ‘Both victim and suspect began yelling about the other being . lazy and ‘eating again,’ the report said. Mr Davis then pulled out a knife, held it to his brother’s face . and threatened to cut him, according to the report. Police confiscated two knives from the scene and arrested the . violent man as he told them he became violent because his brother wouldn’t ‘shut . the f**k up and mind his own business.’ This is not Mr Davis’ first run-in with the law. He has three . drug-related convictions, as well as another for criminal trespass. He has served at least a combined 14 days in jail for the . convictions. The ex-con was charged with domestic assault with a weapon and . hauled back to jail pending trial.", "CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (CNN) -- Floodwaters inundated Iowa City and the University of Iowa arts campus on Sunday despite what one official called a \"Herculean effort\" to hold back the water with sandbags. Residents surround Lt. Tobey Harrison at a Cedar Rapids checkpoint as they wait to see their homes Sunday. \"We've had the [National Guard] working next to prisoner inmates, sandbagging,\" said David Jackson, the university's facilities manager. \"Students, faculty and staff, leaders of the university, the president of the university -- out sandbagging.\" Some 500 to 600 homes were ordered to evacuate and others faced a voluntary evacuation order through the morning, said Iowa City Mayor Regenia Bailey. The Iowa River in Iowa City crested at 31.5 feet and was expected to remain at that level until Monday, city and state officials said Sunday. Classes at the university have been suspended until next Sunday, according to its Web site. \"All of our theaters, our music building, Clapp Recital Hall, our fine arts building [the] new Art Building West designed by Stephen Holl, has taken on significant water as well,\" said Sally Mason, president of the university. \"Fortunately we were able to save all the art,\" she said. The art was placed in crates shipped out of state last week. \"We anticipated the worst a week ago.\" At least 8 feet of water rushed through the campus, officials said. Among the school's 30,000 students, Ann Barber told CNN she has been sandbagging for nearly seven days. \"It's very hard to watch the devastation of our university,\" she said. This month's severe weather has trampled towns from North Dakota to Indiana. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says more than 11 million Midwesterners will be affected by flooding and tornadoes. Meanwhile, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, some of nearly 20,000 displaced residents began to return home Sunday as water there receded. People lined up for about a block in one part of the city waiting for a special wristband to allow them access to their homes. The flooding there caught many people by surprise. \"We didn't think it would get this high,\" said Tina Fleischacker, whose Cedar Rapids home was soaked. \"We moved everything upstairs and it's gone. It's gone. We left with the clothes on our backs.\" About 36,000 Iowans, most in Cedar Rapids, evacuated their homes due to the state-wide flooding. At least 472 people spent Saturday night in 18 shelters set up across the state, according to Dave Miller, the administrator of Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management. In Iowa City, the water is expected to drop no more than 3 feet by Saturday, said John Benson, spokesman for Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management. \"There's that moment of 'phew,' but then there's that realization that the water will be going down very slowly,\" Bailey told reporters. She urged residents to be careful when returning to their homes and businesses, and asked them to abide by a 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. \"Water flows are still dangerous,\" she said. \"We need people to be patient. We will get them into those homes and businesses as soon as possible.\" Iowa has been inundated with heavy rains in recent weeks that have caused several major rivers that feed into the Mississippi -- including the Cedar, Des Moines and Iowa Rivers -- to flood their banks. The flooding in the Midwest is \"some of the worst\" to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina inundated the Gulf Coast nearly three years ago, FEMA administrator David Paulison said Sunday on CNN. The scenarios are much different, but \"the aftermath is similar,\" he said. \"The fact [is] that we have a lot of people whose homes have been destroyed.\" The agency has received more than 12,000 disaster assistance applications from the hardest-hit states -- Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin. Starting Tuesday, the American Red Cross will set up kitchens in Iowa to serve up about 100,000 meals to residents each day. The agency, which is housing 720 flood victims in 30 shelters, plans to spend about $15 million on Midwest relief efforts. Iowans are very concerned about how they will afford to rebuild. \"Most of the people here ... do not have flood insurance,\" said Steve Doser, director of a shelter in Cedar Rapids. \"A couple people told us ... that they were told they didn't need flood insurance, 'Don't worry about it, you're in a 500-year [plain],' \" he said. \"Now they don't have anything.\" Iowa Gov. Chet Culver estimates agricultural damage could reach $1 billion, exceeding the costs of the big flood in 1993. He praised the strength and resilience of the people of Iowa and vowed to rebuild the state, noting that \"will take a long time.\" There have been 16 storm-related deaths since May 25 in Iowa, 12 of them from recent tornadoes, Culver said Sunday. Four Boy Scouts were killed last week when a twister touched down at a camp in Iowa. Culver has declared 83 of the state's 99 counties disaster areas. More than 3,300 Iowa National Guard troops have been deployed to help primarily with sandbagging and staging resources, Maj. Gen. Ron Dardis of the Iowa National Guard said Sunday. That number is expected to rise to 4,000 by Monday, he said. Of those troops, 750 are stationed in Des Moines helping to shore up levees with sandbags along the Des Moines River amid fears that the historic flooding that has hit other parts of the state could soon take its toll on the Iowa capital. Early Saturday, rising waters breached a levee on the Des Moines River, prompting emergency officials to evacuate 270 homes in Des Moines' Birdland Park neighborhood, a state emergency official said. A high school in the neighborhood was also flooded. CNN's Jim Acosta and Julian Cummings contributed to this report.", "By . Nina Golgowski . PUBLISHED: . 16:55 EST, 20 June 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 16:55 EST, 20 June 2012 . Twenty workers at a Quaker Oats plant in Iowa have claimed a $241 million winning Powerball ticket in Iowa's biggest jackpot prize to date. Filing off a bus to present their winning ticket Wednesday afternoon the group of 20 workers in matching red t-shirts let out a loud cheer when submitting their ticket at the Des Moines headquarters. 'You're a winner!' the automatic machine replied to the group's all-around celebration. Come to collect: Iowa Lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer, right, greets workers from the Quaker Oats plant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as they arrive to cash in their winning $241 million Powerball ticket . 'They're obviously having a great time,' lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer who welcomed the group from the plant's Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union told the Quad-City Times. Purchasing the ticket on June 13 on behalf of the employees, the winnings will be split 20 ways, said Dan Morris, a spokesman for the group's union. All from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Mr Morris said the winners are between 35 and 64 years old and arrived on a charted bus paid for by their union from Cedar Rapids to Des Moines. 'They’re in shock. Still trying to recover,' said Joe Day, the group’s lawyer. Winners: The group of workers, all part of the same union in Cedar Rapids, range between 35 and 64 years old . Success: Inside the lottery headquarters the 20 men and women watch as their winning ticket is scanned and received as Iowa's biggest jackpot win to date . Mr Day said the group had yet to decide what to do with the winnings, but described the winners in one word: 'ecstatic.' 'Financial security for a lifetime,' he said. 'Anybody would want that.' The jackpot is the 15th largest won by Powerball players in the country and, according to Ms Neubauer, would amount to roughly $5.6 million per person after taxes if the group chooses the lump-sum cash option. Lottery officials told the Times that withholdings on the lump sum option - of $160.3 million - would amount to $40.1 million in federal taxes and $8 million in state. After those taxes the group would be awarded $122.2 million in all.", "Disbarred lawyer, Ann Marie Miller, 40, will be extradited to Colorado to face charges that she swindled two elderly men out of their homes . A former lawyer who removed her fingerprints to hide her identity will be extradited to Colorado to faces charges that she swindled two elderly men out of their homes. Ann Marie Miller, 40, has been charged with 14 counts of theft, forgery, conspiracy and attempting to influence a public servant. The disbarred bankruptcy lawyer, who burned off her fingerprints with chemicals, will go on trial next month in Allen County, Ohio, on a felony tampering charge. Lynn Kimbrough, spokesman for the Denver District Attorney's Office, said prosecutors will file extradition papers to move her to Colorado after she is tried in Ohio. Miller came to the attention of police when the siblings of an elderly man who suffered from dementia tried to sell their brother's home after his death. They found he no longer owned the property, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Prosecutors accuse Miller of filing a fraudulent claim to the house days before the man died, transferring ownership to her alleged accomplice, a paroled sex offender. Investigators were made aware of a second victim, an elderly man whose will was allegedly forged by Miller, revoking his previous will and deeding his house to her. Miller was arrested after trying to use a fake birth certificate to obtain a state identification card under the name Julia Wadsworth. While booking her in jail, authorities discovered that her fingerprints were gone. 'There was no ridge detail whatsoever. Just smooth, like a baby's butt. They're never going to come back,' said Allen County Sheriff Samuel Crish. On her computer, investigators found she had researched information on how to remove fingerprints and how to determine if someone was being investigated by a federal agency. She was identified after Sheriff Crish's office contacted police in southwest Florida, where the woman mentioned she had spent time caring for an elderly man. Miller practised law in Roanoke until her license was revoked in 2009 by the Virginia Bar, records show. The former lawyer previously faced several charges in Virginia relating to a love triangle with a male attorney and a female paralegal.", "(CNN) -- Jury selection was under way for a second day Tuesday in the trial of a man accused in the rape and beating death of an Arkansas television anchor a year ago. Curtis Lavelle Vance, 29, would face the death penalty if convicted of charges including capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft in the October 2008 death of Anne Pressly, 26. He has pleaded not guilty. Pressly, the morning news anchor for Little Rock, Arkansas, television station and CNN affiliate KATV, was found badly beaten and unconscious in her home and died five days later. Vance was linked to the killing through DNA, and police told CNN last year they are \"110 percent\" sure he killed Pressly. Vance has given several statements to police, including one saying he was at her home and another admitting to her slaying. Defense attorney Steve Morley told CNN affiliate WREG that such evidence presents an obstacle for them to overcome, but he said he hopes an emotional closing argument will persuade jurors to spare Vance's life. \"Literally, you can affect an individual, and by affecting that individual you affect the outcome,\" Morley told the station. Pressly's mother, Patti Cannady, told NBC last year her daughter fought for her life -- so much so that her left hand was broken. \"I found my daughter beyond recognition with every bone in her face broken, her nose broken, her jaw pulverized so badly that the bone had come out of it; I actually thought that her throat has possibly been cut,\" Cannady said. \"Her entire skull had numerous fractures from which she suffered a massive stroke.\" DNA evidence has also tied Vance to a rape in April 2008 in Marianna, Arkansas, about 90 miles east of Little Rock, police said in December. Police have said they found no previous link between Vance and Pressly and do not believe her being on television played a role in the slaying. \"I think he saw her someplace, probably followed her home with the intention of robbing her,\" Lt. Terry Hastings, spokesman for Little Rock police, told CNN in December. \"And then went from there.\" Pressly's purse was taken, police have said. Parties in the case are hoping to finish jury selection Tuesday, according to the Pulaski County Circuit Court clerk's office.", "Kurt Flood, 24, was charged with murder, assault, endangering children and evidence tampering . A man suspected of killing a one-year-old because he believed beating the boy was the only way to rid him of demons was charged with murder after the toddler's mother agreed to cooperate. Maryland boy Cameron Beckford was found dead inside a backpack on December 31 in Big Walnut Creek in Columbus, Ohio, after being fatally injured on Christmas by Kurt Flood. Flood, 24, was also was indicted on charges of felonious assault, endangering children, evidence tampering and abuse of a corpse after Beckford's mother opted to cooperate with prosecutors. Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien said authorities believe Flood was the person who assaulted Beckford but his mother, Dainesha Stevens, is responsible for not intervening. Stevens initially told police she left her son on a stranger's porch. She later changed her story and pointed authorities to the creek, where they found the body on New Year's Eve. Scroll down for video . Maryland boy Cameron Beckford was found dead after he was allegedly beaten by Kurt Flood on Christmas . Prosecutors were able to indict Flood on a number of charges after the one-year-old's mother cooperated . Beckford's mother Dainesha Stevens, 25, didn't assault her son, but she is responsible for not intervening . Stevens, 25, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering last week and agreed to cooperate in any proceedings against Flood. The prosecution and defense are recommending a 12-year sentence for Stevens. Flood had been jailed on a suspected probation violation and he is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday. He could face life in prison if convicted of all charges, according to the prosecutor's office. Beckford was found dead inside a backpack on December 31 in Big Walnut Creek in Columbus, Ohio . Stevens pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering last week in Columbus . Stevens had left Frederick, Maryland, in mid-December and stayed with Flood in Columbus. When Stevens found the boy unresponsive after the Christmas beating, she and Flood put his body in the backpack and left it in the creek nearby, prosecutors and Stevens' attorney said. The toddler had bruises on his lower back, kidneys and lungs, and bruises and scarring on his buttocks, according to the county coroner.", "(CNN) -- A June trial has been set for a Detroit-area man who said he accidentally shot and killed a 19-year-old woman he thought was breaking into his home. Theodore Paul Wafer, 54, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Wednesday to second-degree murder charges in connection with the November 2, 2013 shooting of Renisha McBride. Authorities said McBride was intoxicated and possibly disoriented following a car crash before Wafer shot her on his porch in the community of Dearborn Heights. The trial was set for June 2. Last month, District Court Judge David Turfe said there was enough probable cause for Wafer to stand trial in connection with the shooting. \"Defendant came to the door with the shotgun,\" Turfe said, according to CNN Michigan affiliate WXYZ. \"His first thought was to bring the gun, not call for help, or not answer the door. It suggests to this court, the defendant made a bad choice.\" A friend of McBride told the court that she and the victim had been playing a drinking game with vodka and smoking marijuana the night of the shooting. Wafer, whose lawyer said he shot the victim in self-defense, was charged with second-degree murder last month after days of pressure from McBride's relatives seeking an arrest. He also was charged with manslaughter and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Wafer told investigators he thought McBride was breaking into his home, and that the shotgun accidentally discharged when he investigated, police said. McBride was unarmed and there was no evidence of a break-in, so Wafer -- who authorities say shot McBride from behind a closed, locked screen door -- cannot lawfully claim he needed to shoot her to stop an imminent threat of death or great bodily harm, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy told reporters in November. \"I am saying we do not believe he acted in lawful self-defense,\" Worthy said. Opinion: Why are black murder victims put on trial?", "Washington (CNN)Bernie Sanders is headed back to Iowa for a three-day, six-stop swing to further explore a possible presidential run. Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats and is actively exploring a presidential run with the party, will spend Feb. 19, 20 and 21 in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. The senator will start his trip on Feb. 19 with a town meeting at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. The following day, on Feb. 20, Sanders will headline a town meeting at Drake University in Des Moines and keynote a meeting of the Iowa Citizen Action Network in Johnston. On the final day of his trip, Sanders will headline a Democratic meeting in Cedar Rapids, Tipton and Ames. A Democratic operative close to Sanders confirmed the trip, which was first reported by the Des Moines Register. Sanders, who made three trips to Iowa in 2014, including one in December, told CNN this month that he would decide on a presidential run by March. To date, however, the senator has shied away from challenging Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner for the 2016 presidential nomination.", "By . Mark Duell . Last updated at 9:01 PM on 22nd July 2011 . It marks the end of innocence in America’s last trusting city. Police in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, have advised local residents to stop leaving keys to their cars inside their unlocked vehicles. Vehicle thefts are up more than 110 per cent in the city with a population of 127,000 since the start of June, compared with April and May. Stealing: Police in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, have advised residents to stop leaving keys to their cars inside their unlocked vehicles after a surge in vehicle thefts . ‘The Cedar Rapids Police Department requests that citizens not leave the keys to their car in the car,’ said Cedar Rapids Sergeant Cristy Hamblin. ‘When you exit your car, take the keys with you and lock the car.’ Owners of almost two-thirds of the 34 stolen vehicles told police they left their keys in an unlocked vehicle, reported the Des Moines Register. Police have recovered more than half of the stolen cars - and the 18 they discovered were taken from all across the city. Idyllic setting: Vehicle thefts are up more than 110 per cent since the start of June, compared with April and May, in Cedar Rapids, where 127,000 people live . Request: Sergeant Cristy Hamblin of Cedar Rapids police has asked that citizens don't leave the keys to their car in the vehicle and take them instead . Cops say the problem is such an issue in the area that they have come up with a top 10 list of reasons why it happens. They include: ‘That way, I know where they are’, ‘my husband always loses them’ and ‘I didn’t think this happened in my neighbourhood.’ Others were: ‘There was only a little bit of gas in it’, ‘I didn’t think anyone would want it’ and, more simply, ‘I forgot’. ‘From an insurance standpoint, it’s still a covered loss,’ Cedar Rapids insurance agent Doug Valentine told thegazette.com. But he added that car theft rates in the area are still far below the national average and theft claims are rare. ‘Most of the companies have special investigative units and that, sometimes, there are reasons the keys are left in,’ he added. ‘People may be upside down in their loan and think the insurance will pay off.’ An informal thegazette.com survey conducted by walking around the area spotted seven vehicles out of 400 with keys still in the ignition.", "Cedar Rapids, Iowa (CNN) -- Hillary Clinton swiped at Republican Senate hopeful Joni Ernst on Wednesday for canceling a meeting with the Des Moines Register editorial board last week, telling a labor audience that not answering \"tough questions\" is \"disqualifying\" in the state. \"I have concluded that Iowans take politics really seriously,\" Clinton said. \"You test your candidates, you actually force them to be the best they can be and they have to be willing to answer the tough questions.\" Democrat Bruce Braley \"has been willing to do this, and his opponent has not,\" she said. \"It truly seems like it should be in disqualifying in Iowa of all states to avoid answering questions,\" Clinton added to a sustained round of applause. Joni Ernst defends skipping Des Moines Register meeting . Of course, the comment could extend beyond the Iowa Senate campaign. Clinton has acknowledged she is thinking about running for president, and many in Iowa think she will decide to run. Should she do so, she will be asked a number of difficult questions from Iowa voters and journalists. At her second event in Iowa on Wednesday, a rally in Davenport, Clinton repeated the line with a slight variation. \"Not in Iowa do people get away from asking tough questions,\" Clinton said, before adding, \"Except questions that are far in the future.\" The line got the crowd laughing and Clinton responded with a slight smirk, acknowledging she was referencing her presidential ambitions. \"Only one candidate in this race answers your questions,\" Clinton added. \"Don't let anybody in this campaign ... hide behind outside money and negative adds. That is not the Iowa way.\" Clinton also knocked Ernst, a female candidate, as someone who didn't stand with women because her stances on reproductive rights. \"It is not enough to be a woman,\" Clinton, the prohibitive favorite for her party's nomination in 2016, said of Ernst, \"You have to be committed to expanding rights and opportunities for all women.\"", "(CNN) -- Jury selection kicked off Thursday in the federal corruption case of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his associates, who are accused of setting up a criminal enterprise in the mayor's office that engaged in racketeering, bribery, fraud and extortion. A panel of 12 jurors, with six alternates, will decide the fate of Kilpatrick; his father, Bernard Kilpatrick; contractor Bobby Ferguson; and Victor Mercado, a former director of Detroit's Water and Sewerage Department. Prosecutors say they were involved in rigging millions of dollars worth of city contracts and extorting city contractors. The jury panel will be whittled from a pool of more than 200 potential candidates. All four men have maintained their innocence. Their attorneys were not immediately available for comment. Ex-Detroit mayor got free trips from pension fund broker, feds say . Prosecutors say the defendants were \"working together to abuse Kilpatrick's public offices, both his position as a state representative as well as his position of mayor of Detroit, to unjustly enrich themselves through a pattern of extortion, bribery and fraud.\" At the heart of the scheme was corruption in municipal contracting, mostly centering on the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, said Barbara McQuade, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Derrick Miller, a former Kilpatrick aide, entered into a plea agreement last year and is expected to testify against his former associates. In September 2008, the ex-mayor pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstruction of justice stemming from his efforts to cover up an extramarital affair. He also pleaded no contest to charges of assaulting a police officer who was attempting to serve a subpoena on a Kilpatrick friend in that case. 2008: Detroit mayor apologizes to supporters, says he will not resign . 2010: Former Detroit mayor indicted on 19 fraud, tax charges .", "CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (CNN) -- Iowa officials are concerned about towns along the Mississippi River as floodwaters in the state's eastern counties began to drain toward the river. Two weeks of flooding has left five people dead and forced more than 38,000 from their homes as several major rivers that feed into the Mississippi -- including the Cedar, Des Moines and Iowa rivers -- overflowed their banks. The National Weather Service warned that the Mississippi River was expected to crest at nearly 26 feet at Burlington, Iowa, on Wednesday. That's about 11 feet above flood stage, partly because of levee failures along the Iowa River that have dumped more water into the system. In Washington, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said the flooding has devastated his state's corn crop and may have inflicted up to $1 billion in damage to Iowa's agricultural sector alone. The flooding has forced farm-equipment manufacturer John Deere to idle two plants in Waterloo, he said. \"Across eastern Iowa, the flooding rivers have washed out railroad lines; Mississippi barge traffic has come to a halt; and closed major roadways,\" said Harkin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. \"Thousands of Iowa businesses, large and small, have been impacted.\" In Cedar Rapids, residents were allowed to return home temporarily to retrieve keepsakes and other items Sunday, but authorities said Monday that strike teams had determined the neighborhoods were no longer safe, even for a quick visit. \"We are taking a step back,\" Cedar Rapids Fire Department spokesman Dave Brown said, adding it would be awhile before evacuees would be permitted to go back home. Police set up checkpoints to keep people away from the affected neighborhoods, deemed unsafe after weeks of heavy rain forced the Cedar River from its banks, leaving much of Iowa's second-largest city underwater. See photos of the flooding » . Evacuees waited in line at the checkpoints Sunday to receive special wristbands that allowed them to go home and gather their belongings. Authorities set a curfew and asked the residents to stay out of the neighborhoods between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., so people stuffed what they could into plastic bags and returned to the checkpoints. One resident, however, grew angry when he was not allowed to pass a checkpoint Monday, according to a news release from the Cedar Rapids Police Department. After being denied re-entry to a flooded neighborhood, Rick Blazek, 53, returned to his vehicle as a state trooper used his police vehicle to block the checkpoint, according to the news release. \"Blazek drove his vehicle toward the state trooper and struck the state trooper three times with his vehicle,\" the release said. Police told Blazek to get out of his vehicle, and when he refused, \"the driver's window was broken out because the doors were locked and Blazek was removed from his vehicle,\" according to the release. The trooper was not injured. Blazek, who was arrested and charged with assault on a peace officer with a deadly weapon, could not be immediately reached for comment. Flood-related deaths include a 35-year-old man found on a gravel road near Wapello, an Iowa State University student struck by lightning in Curlew, a farmer swept away by floodwaters in Wright County, a man killed in a car accident in Hamilton County and a 51-year-old woman found dead in her Cedar Rapids home, said Courtney Greene, a spokeswoman for Iowa Gov. Chet Culver's office. \"We're looking at all-time flood records in terms of levels,\" Culver told reporters Monday evening. \"The challenges remain, but we are more determined than ever to win the fight.\" Iowa authorities have determined that the death of a woman whose body was found in her car Monday was not flood-related. The woman was found near New London, after her stopped car was hit by a National Guard bus. Investigators determined the woman died before the collision, Greene said. Resident Tracy Murphy was able to return to her home Sunday before authorities deemed the neighborhoods dangerous. She made a beeline for her family photos when she entered her house, parts of which looked as if burglars had ransacked it. Watch Murphy return home » . \"Anything can be replaced, but your photos can't,\" she said. A trash can was overturned and belongings were strewn across rooms. Murphy's eyes welled up as the realization hit her: \"My whole, entire life is gone.\" iReport.com: Photos from Cedar Rapids . The checkpoints -- manned by police and the Iowa National Guard -- remained in place Monday, but Brown said authorities would not be letting residents check on their homes. Strike teams assessed the residential and commercial areas where the waters had receded Sunday and determined those areas were not safe for re-entry, he said. See a map of the flooding in Iowa » . Veronica Johnson evacuated her home and later had to evacuate her mother's house, she said. She hasn't been able to return in four days -- and not just because of dangerous floodwaters. \"I live by a gas station, and the tankers from underground busted up through the ground, so I have gas spilled all around my house and the whole neighborhood,\" she said. Residents have been getting angry with the authorities who are keeping them from their homes, she said, but she understands safety comes first. \"They have Red Cross, police department, fire department, and the people who they brought in -- the Marines and stuff, the National Guard -- have been excellent,\" she said. \"They are keeping us out of our homes even though we're getting upset with them. We have no right because they're trying to protect us.\" Local authorities expect to release a list of areas that are safe by Monday afternoon, with the hope that people can begin returning to their homes Tuesday, Brown said. About 36,000 Iowans were evacuated because of statewide flooding, 24,000 of them in Cedar Rapids. The massive flooding has overwhelmed the city -- which is in a 500-year flood plain, an area the federal government says has less than a 0.2 percent chance of flooding. Watch residents begin the cleanup process » . \"It's been compared to a 3,000-year flood,\" Cedar Rapids police Detective Brad Novak said. \"So something with that rarity of an event, there is no playbook to go by.\" Culver has declared 83 of the state's 99 counties disaster areas. More than 3,300 Iowa National Guard troops have been deployed to help primarily with sandbagging and staging resources, Maj. Gen. Ron Dardis of the Iowa National Guard said Sunday. Another 700 troops were expected to join them Monday. Watch workers desperately sling sandbags » . There have been 18 weather-related deaths in the state since May 25 -- 12 of them from tornadoes and the rest linked to flooding, Greene said. This month's severe weather has trampled towns from North Dakota to Indiana. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says more than 11 million Midwesterners will be affected by flooding and tornadoes. FEMA has set up six disaster recovery centers in Iowa and has provided nearly $4 million in assistance so far, state and federal officials reported. So far, 24 counties are under federal disaster declarations, making residents eligible for individual aid, Lt. Gov. Patty Judge reported. The flooding is \"some of the worst\" to hit the United States since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast nearly three years ago, FEMA Administrator David Paulison said Sunday. Watch how the Midwest is familiar with flooding » . The agency has received more than 12,000 disaster assistance applications from the hardest-hit states -- Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin. Starting Tuesday, the American Red Cross will set up kitchens in Iowa to serve up about 100,000 meals to residents each day. The agency, which is housing 720 flood victims in 30 shelters, plans to spend about $15 million on Midwest relief efforts. CNN's Jim Acosta and Julian Cummings contributed to this report.", "Cedar Falls, Iowa (CNN)As aides politely tried to rush Ted Cruz from an event in Cedar Falls to one in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Thursday, the presidential candidate continued shaking hands with anyone who wanted to meet him. Finally, after the selfies and conversations started to die down, his aides managed to move him closer to the door when a tall, burly man stopped him. \"Senator,\" he said, \"can I pray with you real quick?\" \"Yeah,\" Cruz said, as he clasped the man's upper arm and the two bowed their heads. It was one of the many moments when Cruz connected with voters on a religious level last week, as the senator from Texas hit the trail in Iowa for the first time as a presidential candidate. Being the only official contender in the race, Cruz drew large crowds during his two-day swing across the state. He's counting on Iowa, known for its vocal and active evangelical base, to propel him forward in what's expected to be a tough competition among a crowded field of GOP candidates. Cruz, himself, displays a pastoral swagger when he is speaking on stage and working a room. The senator regularly avoids using a podium, instead favoring pacing the stage with a wireless microphone, a scene reminiscent of a Sunday morning sermon. When he meets with people after events, he embraces each one's hand with both of his, softens his usually theatric tone and looks people square in the eye -- a familiar interaction between churchgoing Christians and their pastors. The past two winners of Iowa's caucuses rose to victory with support from the Christian right, and Cruz, who announced his bid last month at the well-known Baptist school Liberty University, is aiming to energize that same base and claim the coveted state as his prize. Evangelicals make up a large segment of Iowa's Republican voter bloc. According to a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics poll from January, 44% of likely 2016 Republican caucus-goers said they were born-again or evangelical Christians. Cruz has built a brand as a stalwart conservative willing to buck GOP leadership on fiscal issues, but he showed in Iowa last week that he's also eager to champion social issues at a time when many Republicans are anxious to avoid them. He was one of the loudest defenders of the religious freedom law in Indiana, which came under fire last week for what critics called paving a path to discrimination against gays and lesbians. He described the outrage over the laws as \"shameful\" and an \"assault\" on First Amendment rights. \"There are a lot of people here in Iowa and across the country whose hearts are breaking, watching what has happened in the last two weeks,\" Cruz said Friday night at an event in Des Moines. \"We have seen a grossly unfair vilification of religious liberty.\" RELATED: Republican 2016 hopefuls back Indiana's 'religious freedom' law . He's more than comfortable talking about his own faith and telling the story of how his father became a Christian and a pastor. Rafael Cruz, who's become a celebrity among Christian conservatives, will frequently visit Iowa over the next year, Cruz told voters. And Cruz's Iowa director, Bryan English, is a former pastor. Cruz's first television ads are appearing this weekend during programs on Fox News and NBC that are pegged to Easter Sunday. In the ad, Cruz talks about the impact of the \"transformative love of Jesus Christ\" on his life. While neither Mike Huckabee, who won Iowa in 2008, nor Rick Santorum, who won in 2012, went on to win the nomination, their successes helped launch them into high-profile battles with the then-front-runners. And with both of them likely running again in 2016, the competition will be stiff. That's why, for Cruz, courting evangelicals is only a component of a three-pronged strategy to win the nomination that also includes dominating the tea party faction and competing for the libertarian base. His stump speech hits on elements that appeal to each faction. He received standing ovations last week for calling to abolish the IRS, and, in a knock against the National Security Agency, he frequently tells audiences to leave their cell phones on so President Obama \"can hear every word I have to say.\" Cruz argued Thursday that the Republican Party needs to bridge the gap between what he described as the Ron Paul-Rand Paul faction of the party -- young libertarian-minded voters -- and the Santorum base -- evangelicals. The two blocs, he said, are \"not necessarily the best of chums.\" \"If we're going to win, we've got to bring that coalition together,\" he said in Cedar Falls. \"And I think we can do that.\" Cruz frequently says he wants to see a return of the evangelical vote to 2004 levels, when more than six in 10 evangelicals voted in the presidential election, a higher than normal turnout for the demographic. That number has waned slightly since 2004 -- but it's not too far off from the 56% of the overall population that voted in 2012. Still, his campaign believes that if it can tap into the group of evangelicals who've been staying home and get the demographic as a whole to overperform, then that could mean the difference of millions more at the polls. \"If you look at available places for the party to expand the vote, it doesn't exist in the middle, it exists in the evangelical vote,\" said Rick Tyler, a top Cruz adviser. \"It isn't a pond, it's an unfished ocean of available voters who are conservative.\" Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he expects to see record turnout among evangelicals in 2016 no matter who the nominee is or what that person says. Moore points to hot-button topics like religious freedom issues in the U.S., as well as increased attention to the killing of minority Christians in the Middle East and rising anti-Semitism. \"I don't think a candidate is going to be able to get very far simply by using evangelical lingo or by pointing to his or her personal faith,\" Moore said. \"I think a candidate is going to have to explain how he or she would protect religious liberty and would appoint justices and judges who will maintain the common good.\" Later in April, voters in Iowa will see the bulk of the GOP field tackle these issues when they take the stage at an event hosted by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition. While the past two winners of the Iowa caucuses -- Santorum and Huckabee -- are likely running for president again, Steve Scheffler, president of the group, argued that the field is wide open in terms of who's going to win favor among evangelicals. Jeb Bush, while not popular among conservative activists, was known for his staunch anti-abortion record as Florida governor and touts his Catholic faith as a big force behind his policy views. Scott Walker is the son of a pastor. Ben Carson, the former neurosurgeon, rose to fame in conservative circles after criticizing the Obama administration at a national prayer breakfast. And other likely candidates -- from Marco Rubio to Rick Perry to Rand Paul -- have made serious efforts to court the religious right. \"It's up for grabs. It's a clean slate regardless of if you've run before,\" Scheffler said. \"Naturally those two (Huckabee and Santorum) have the name recognition and database of people who supported them in the past, but by and large voters are going to say, 'Let me take a good look at all of these candidates.'\"", "By . Helen Pow . Tragic: Logan Blake, 17, pictured, of Cedar Rapids, was found dead Tuesday afternoon after he was sucked away by the rushing currents . Rescue teams are resuming their search today for an Iowa teen after he was swept into a storm drain during a powerful weather system . that has been pummeling the Midwest. Logan Blake, 17, of Cedar Rapids, was playing Frisbee . with friends in the grounds of an elementary school around . 7:20 p.m. Monday when he was sucked away by the rushing currents, city public . safety communications coordinator Greg Buelow said in a statement. Buelow did not explain how the teenager ended up in the drain. One . of the teen's friends tried to rescue him but also got swept away in . the strong storm. The pair were carried deep into sewage drains . underneath the city. After a time, the friend resurfaced at Cedar Lake, a mile and a half away. He was injured but alive. The boy walked to a hospital and was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Authorities have not released the teen's name. But Blake remains missing. Early . Tuesday, Cedar Rapids Fire Department Battalion Chief Brian Gibson said . he still considered the operation a rescue mission. Buelow said he expected the search to resume after 8 a.m. His family and friends are also holding onto hope that he's going to make it however. 'He's . a strong kid, a very athletic kid,' father Mark Blake said, according . to ABC News. 'He's got a strong will. We have every faith in the world . that he's hooked on and waiting for the current to slow down.' Gibson said the storm drain feeds into an underground concrete pipe about 3 feet wide at the entrance. Scroll down for video . Search: Late Monday, rescuers searched Cedar Lake and walked sewer line paths, but were unable to enter the underground sewer system because of the dangerously fast current, the fire department said in a statement . Hopeful? Early Tuesday, Cedar Rapids Fire Department Battalion Chief Brian Gibson said he still considered the operation a rescue mission. But it later turned to recovery . That pipe runs about a mile and a half southwest and empties into Cedar Lake. Late . Monday, rescuers searched Cedar Lake and walked sewer line paths, but . were unable to enter the underground sewer system because of the . dangerously fast current, the fire department said in a statement. Gibson . said early Tuesday that conditions were still too dangerous for rescue . crews to go underground but that they would assess that situation . throughout the day. The . city of Cedar Rapids said Monday that recent heavy rainfall had . overwhelmed the storm sewer system in many parts of the city, causing . water to rise in the streets and rush through neighborhoods. The sanitary sewer system also became overwhelmed and overflowed. A . band of strong storms washed across the Midwest on Monday evening. Police said a man in northern Indiana was killed when a tree fell onto a . trailer home and another died when strong winds caused a building to . collapse in eastern Iowa. he raging storms left hundreds of thousands of people without power across Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.", "New York (CNN) -- The man who pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree vehicular manslaughter after driving a speedboat into a barge on the Hudson River, killing a bride-to-be and her fiance's best man, was sentenced to two years in jail Tuesday, prosecutors said. Jojo John, 36, was piloting a 19-foot Stingray powerboat around 10:40 p.m. on July 26, 2013, when it slammed into one of three construction barges strapped together near the Tappan Zee Bridge, 25 miles north of Manhattan, hurling Lindsey Stewart and Mark Lennon into the river, resulting in their deaths, according to court documents. John's blood alcohol level was found to be 0.15, nearly twice the legal limit of .08, and \"cocaine metabolites\" were found in his system, prosecutors said. \"The defendant's reckless decision to drive a speedboat while under the influence of alcohol and drugs tragically caused the untimely deaths of two innocent people,\" Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said in a statement. \"The sentence imposed today is more than justified,\" Zugibe said, adding that two years in Rockland County jail will give John \"time to reflect on his thoughtless actions.\" John and four others, including groom-to-be Brian Bond, were injured. John was arrested while recovering from his injuries at Nyack Hospital. Stewart and Bond were to be married two weeks later, according to family, with Lennon as best man. In a statement, John's attorney, David Narain, said his client \"is truly remorseful for his actions.\" \"While justice is difficult to achieve in a case such as this, we hope that the victims and their families find some form of justice in today's disposition,\" Narain said. \"Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with them as they deal with this tragic event.\" CNN's Chris Boyette contributed to this report.", "(CNN) -- Presidential candidates have been wooing voters in Iowa for months, but who wins Thursday may simply come down to where the caucus-goers live, where they meet and the weather. Iowa is a mixed bag politically, and one of the most evenly divided states in the nation. But the candidates will likely watch two regions more closely than others. The central part of the state -- including industrial Des Moines -- is Iowa's most Democratic area. Western Iowa, on the other hand, is home to the most Republicans -- especially the rural counties in the northwest. The Mississippi River city of Davenport is expected to be one of the most significant battlegrounds, with Linn County -- dominated by the university town of Cedar Rapids -- also attracting lots of attention from both parties. Past Iowa caucuses have been nail-biters for the candidates. Democrat Al Gore won the state by a margin of just 0.3 percent in 2000, while President Bush carried it in 2004 by 0.7 percent. In fact, Bush was the first GOP presidential candidate to carry Iowa in 20 years. Important endorsement . The support of Iowa's largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, may also play a role in Thursday's caucuses. The paper's presidential endorsements began in 1988 and have become a highly sought-after prize in Iowa presidential politics. George W. Bush was the Register's pick in 2000 and went on to win Iowa, the GOP nomination and the White House. Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole won the state in 1996 and 1988 after receiving the paper's support. Democratic candidates haven't had as much success with the Register's endorsement. John Edwards finished in second place in Iowa in 2004, while Paul Simon was also a close second in 1988. The paper endorsed Sen. John McCain and Sen. Hillary Clinton for their respective parties' nominations. The candidates have to appeal to voters with strong opinions. On the Republican side, 37 percent of participants in the 2000 Iowa GOP caucuses identified themselves as members of the religious right and 73 percent described themselves as conservatives. Meanwhile, 56 percent of the participants in Iowa's 2004 Democratic caucuses described themselves as either very or somewhat liberal. About 37 percent said they were moderates. The weather . Iowans who take part in the caucuses must traditionally brave freezing temperatures and lots of snow. Presidential candidates know bad weather may affect how many people turn out, but 1972 was the only time rough winter conditions played a role in the caucuses, according to Drake University's Hugh Winebrenner -- the nation's leading expert on Iowa caucus history. Caucus-goers that year encountered heavy snowdrifts from a blizzard the previous day. Temperatures dipped below zero across most of the state. The weather forced about one-fourth of Iowa's 99 counties to postpone their Democratic caucuses up to two days after the scheduled date. The forecast for Thursday is much better. Temperatures will be in the 20s during the day and dip just below that as the caucuses begin, according to the Des Moines Register. E-mail to a friend .", "Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad was taken to the hospital in an ambulance on Monday after he 'fell ill' at a public event. 'The governor was conscious and alert during the transport to the hospital,' Branstad's office said in a statement, noting that the 68-year-old had been 'suffering from the effects of a cold for a couple of days.' 'During the transport, paramedics took the governor’s vitals and initial tests indicate that the spell was caused by a seasonal illness,' his spokesman said. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad was taken to a hospital on Monday after he fell ill at an event in Johnston, Iowa. Branstad's spokesman said he was conscious during the ambulance ride and that the governor has been fighting a cold. The spell Branstad experienced was c'aused by a seasonal illness,' his office said . Recently inaugurated for a sixth term, Branstad was giving remarks at the grand opening of a research facility in Johnston, Iowa, when he began having problems with his speech and balance. The Des Moines Register said an attendee first offered him a bottle of water. He was later offered a chair, then laid down on the ground and transported to Iowa Methodist Medical Center. Branstad remained hospitalized as of Monday afternoon but he 'doing much better,' the state's Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds said at an event later in the day, according to Des Moines TV station KCCI. 'He'll be fine,' she added. The governor's public schedule was cleared for the rest of the day as a precaution, his office said, and the governor was to remain in the infirmary overnight. Branstad has had health issues in the past, including a heart attack in 2000 and a blocked artery several years ago. During a press conference on Monday morning, Branstad admitted to reporters that he both he and Reynolds were sick. 'I have a bad cold, and so does the lieutenant governor, and we are not alone,' Branstad said, according to multiple reporters in attendance. 'We have had it off and on for some time. A couple weeks or more,' he revealed. After Branstad took ill at DuPont Pioneer on Monday, Reynolds told the crowd that she and governor had 'both been fighting the flu over the past four days,' the Register said. 'We've tried very hard to keep up our schedule. If you know our great governor, he is not one to slow down or let up,' she said before officials cleared the room. Branstad was coming off a long weekend. Prospective Republican presidential candidates were in town for Iowa congressman Steve King's Freedom Summit, where they jockeyed for likely caucus-goers' support and Branstad's endorsement. Branstad was coming off a long weekend. Prospective Republican presidential candidates were in town for Iowa congressman Steve King's Freedom Summit, where they jockeyed for likely caucus-goers' support and Branstad's endorsement. Branstad is seen here speaking at the forum . Branstad was inaugurated for a sixth term earlier this month. The 68-year-old will soon become the nation's longest serving governor . The Republican governor advised probable GOP candidates in attendance to visit all 99 of Iowa's counties if they want to win his state's voters in 2016. 'My advice is you skip Iowa at your own peril,' Branstad said, per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 'Rudy Giuliani thought that would be a good strategy and it didn’t work,' he said, referencing the former New York City mayor's ill-fated 2008 bid for the GOP nomination. Other speakers at the conference included Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Hewlett Packard executive Carly Fiorina, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. Likely 2016 candidates Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, Rand Paul, the junior senator from Kentucky and Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida, skipped the forum. Branstad told reporters on Monday that he'd spoken to Bush recently, however, and warned him not to avoid Iowa altogether if he runs. Bush's father, George H.W., ultimately lost the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan, but he won the Iowa caucuses that year, Branstad recalled. 'The key to Iowa is hard work. It is come here early and often and connecting with Iowans' Branstad said at his press conference this morning at the Iowa Statehouse, according to the Des Moines Register. 'I think some of the speakers did a good job of that on Saturday. I am glad that they are coming and I hope they will come back again and again.'", "Crime: Jeffrey B. Maurer, pictured, is accused of beating his 87-year-old father and 85-year-old mother to death . A man accused of allegedly beating his elderly parents to death with a hammer has been ordered to stand trial on first degree murder charges over their deaths. Jeffrey B. Maurer, 53, from Detroit Michigan is alleged to have beat his 87-year-old father and 85-year-old mother to death at their home. Maurer, who has a history of mental abuse faces an automatic penalty of life in prison without parole if convicted. On January 19, the couple's daughter called authorities and reported that she was unable to reach her parents. Sheriff's deputies went to their home in Rochester Hills and found the bodies of William and Gayle Maurer in a vehicle in the garage. Investigators said the couple died after receiving severe blows to the head. According to police, Maurer was found bloody and disheveled after the crime and was immediately taken into custody. Officers also found two bloody hammers and 'a great deal of blood-stained clothing and a towel' at the scene. It's not yet known what the motive for the crime is. Crime scene: Sheriff's deputies went to their home in Rochester Hills and found the bodies of William and Gayle Maurer in a vehicle in the garage . On Tuesday, a Rochester Hills district judge ruled that there is enough evidence to try him in Oakland County Circuit Court on first-degree murder charges. Maurer's rap sheet also includes a previous domestic violence conviction involving his parents. Disheveled: Police said Maurer, pictured, was found bloody and disheveled after the crime and was immediately taken into custody .", "CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (CNN) -- Saying she felt compelled to support \"the man I believe has a new vision for America,\" Oprah Winfrey spoke passionately about Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama at two rallies in Iowa Saturday. Oprah Winfrey joins Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday. \"I've never taken this kind of risk before nor felt compelled to stand up and speak out before because there wasn't anyone to to stand up and speak up for,\" Winfrey told thousands of people in Cedar Rapids Saturday evening. \"We need a president who can bring us all together,\" she said. \"I know [Barack Obama] is the one.\" Earlier in Des Moines, she focused on world affairs. Watch Winfrey endorse Obama » . \"These are dangerous times, you can feel it. We need a leader who shows us how to hope again in America as a force for peace,\" Winfrey told the enthusiastic crowd. \"I believe Barack Obama will bring statesmanship to the White House,\" she said. \"He's a man who knows who we are and knows who we can be.\" Winfrey said she has voted for as many Republicans as she has Democrats over the years, so her endorsement wasn't about partisanship. \"This is very, very personal. I'm here because of my personal conviction about Barack Obama and what I know he can do for America,\" she said to applause. Winfrey also told the crowd that she's looking for more than a candidate with \"experience in the hallways of government.\" \"I challenge you to see through those people who try to convince you that experience with politics as usual is more valuable than wisdom won from years of serving people outside the walls of Washington, D.C.,\" she said. Obama thanked Winfrey for drawing a big crowd and coming out to the event. \"There are some people here who are here to see Oprah. I'm sort of a by-product of that and I appreciate that, but what I know is that for her to take the risk of stepping out of her comfort zone is extraordinary,\" the senator from Illinois said. Before Winfrey's speech in Des Moines, her best friend and fellow talk show host Gayle King, tried to quietly slip into the rally. She walked up to the set of bleachers behind the stage and asked some women if she could scoot in. Within seconds cameras were clicking and fans were yelling. King spent the speech in the first row of bleachers chatting up supporters, listening and and mingling with fans. Winfrey's campaign appearance comes less than one month before the Iowa caucuses. After Iowa, the three-state \"Oprah-bama\" tour moves on to South Carolina and New Hampshire on Sunday. The nod by the empress of daytime television comes at a time when independent politicos and campaign aides believe the Democratic senator from Illinois is picking up steam. The latest Des Moines Register poll puts Obama ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, in Iowa and shows him gaining ground among women. Women are proving to be a crucial voting block in 2008 for all the Democratic hopefuls, but most especially Clinton. At a recent Obama rally in Iowa City, many women expressed the difficulty they had in deciding whether to vote for him or for Clinton because she could be a first for their gender. Watch how Winfrey's campaigning could give Obama a boost » . Winfrey's endorsement is an obvious boost for Obama in his effort to steal women voters from Clinton. \"I think it's going to help him with the women my age because she's very popular, very respected among my age group,\" said Linda Peterson, a middle aged mother and probable Obama voter from North Liberty, Iowa. According to The New York Times, women make up 75 percent of the audience for the \"Oprah Winfrey Show\" and more than half are over 50. More than 40 percent make less than $40,000 and a quarter have no more than a high school education. \"One of the secretaries was just so excited about the fact that Oprah was coming,\" said Jodi Plumert, a University of Iowa professor and ardent Obama supporter. \"She said 'Who would've thought Oprah, coming to little old Iowa!'\" \"I think that having Oprah here on Saturday will definitely pull women out,\" said Iowa City resident and Obama precinct captain Cheryl Carter. \"I think it will just show that women in Iowa are Barack Obama supporters.\" Although Clinton will be campaigning in Iowa on Friday and Saturday, rival campaigns acknowledge Winfrey will leave little air in the Hawkeye State. Watch what issues are important to Iowans » . \"Sen. Clinton is a big fan [of Winfrey's] and thinks it's great for every candidate to bring in surrogates,\" said a Clinton aide. \"But ultimately the voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and America are going to vote based on the actual candidate's experience, strength, record and the ability to do the job on Day One.\" The Clinton campaign will put its star on stage the day before Oprah-bama hits South Carolina when former President Bill Clinton makes campaign stops in Charleston on Saturday. Check out some other celebrities who are endorsing candidates » . Bill Clinton said Friday that his trip is \"totally coincidental.\" Also Saturday, the couple's daughter, Chelsea Clinton, made her first appearance on her mother's campaign trail along with the senator's mother, Dorothy Rodham -- comprising three generations of Clinton women. E-mail to a friend .", "By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 12:09 EST, 14 August 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 12:33 EST, 14 August 2013 . Joseph Messina (pictured) was given 30 month probation for attack on Eric Bartels that left him paralyzed . A man who left a father paralyzed and blind after attacking him outside a bar walked free from court, yesterday. Father-of-one Eric Bartels is now unable to speak after the 'unprovoked' attack by Joseph Messina, 25, in Mokena, Illinois, in 2009. Despite his severe injuries, Messina escaped an immediate jail sentence and was given just 30 months of probation and ordered to undertake 250 hours of community service, by Will County Judge Sarah Jones. State attorney James Glasgow said he believed there was enough evidence to justify a prison sentence. He told the Chicago Tribune: 'The injuries to Eric Bartels are a hair's breadth from murder. 'This isn't a broken nose. The seriousness of the offense can be taken into account in determining the appropriate punishment.' Judge Jones told the court that her decision was based on the law and not emotion. Messina served 59 days in the county jail. During Messina's trial at the beginning of the year, it was said that Messina threw the first punch after Bartels allegedly make a remark about a bloodstain on his shirt. Prosecutor said Messina punched Bartels to the ground and then hit him once more. It was said in court that Messina then held his hands in the air while straddling Bartels, according to the Chicago Tribune. Mr Bartels was punched to the ground after allegedly making a remark to Messina in a Mokena (pictured) bar . Messina was found guilty of aggravated battery in January. Judge Jones ordered Messina to pay $630 a month during the probation period to Jan Bartels, the victim's mother, to help pay for medical costs. The $20,000 bond put up by Messina's family will also be paid to the victim. According to the Chicago Tribune, Messina faces 180-days in county jail if he drinks alcohol while on probation.", "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) -- Joran van der Sloot admitted in an interview with a Dutch newspaper that he extorted money from the family of Natalee Holloway, but his attorney in a Peruvian murder case suggested Monday that his client's comments may have been mistranslated. Attorney Maximo Alteza said he is not involved in the case of Holloway, the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba after going out on the town with van der Sloot, and was reluctant to comment on van der Sloot's interview with The Telegraph. \"Maybe there were some mistakes in the translation,\" he said. Alteza said van der Sloot was not paid for the interview. \"I wanted to get back at Natalee's family,\" van der Sloot said from prison in the Dutch interview. \"Her parents have been making my life tough for five years.\" \"When they offered to pay for the girl's location, I thought: 'Why not?'\" he said. Van der Sloot faces a count of wire fraud and a count of extortion in the United States for allegedly trying to extort more than $250,000 from Holloway's family in return for the location of her body. He has denied responsibility for her disappearance. He was arrested twice in Aruba in connection with the Holloway case but has never been charged. The 22-year-old Dutch citizen is awaiting trial in Lima, Peru, where he stands accused of killing Stephany Flores in a hotel room. Also Monday, a Peruvian court voted 2-1 to reject van der Sloot's contention that he is being held unlawfully, but the court requires three votes to secure a decision. Alteza said that a fourth jurist will hear the case and cast a vote at a public hearing next week. If that judge votes in favor of van der Sloot, a fifth judge will hear the case to break the tie. Alteza said that van der Sloot's constitutional rights have been violated and he \"could be released because of the mistakes made by the police during the investigation.\" \"It doesn't matter if he is innocent or guilty,\" he said. In Session's Mayra Cuevas contributed to this report.", "By . Kerry Mcdermott . PUBLISHED: . 16:06 EST, 8 February 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 16:07 EST, 8 February 2013 . Indecent exposure: Robert Payne exposed himself to his neighbours and fired a shotgun into the air, a court heard . A former town councillor who urinated from the side of his houseboat while brandishing a gun has been found guilty of indecent exposure. Robert Payne, 67, was accused of drunkenly exposing himself to his neighbours and firing a shotgun in the air near Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, as families marked Memorial Day weekend in 2011. A court heard Payne, who was also convicted of presenting a firearm, pulled the stunt to 'irritate' his neighbours, who had complained that his houseboat was moored to close to their homes in Bayview Acres. They said he had been spied drinking on the deck and urinating into the water. Payne was cleared of a charge of assault and battery by a jury in Charleston County following a trial, the Charleston Post and Courier reported. Police were called to the area on March 29 2011 amid reports of a man walking around drunk and naked in a marsh near Shem Creek. Officers . attending the scene that evening found Payne clad only in a pair of . swimming trunks and carrying a shotgun, according to an incident report. It . said Payne was arrested after officers heard a gunshot, then saw the . defendant walking towards them with while holding the weapon with the . barrel pointed in the air. Defence . lawyer Ashley Pennington had argued that Payne was not trying to harm . anybody, but had fired the weapon to irritate his neighbours. Shem Creek: Neighbours in Mount Pleasant had complained Payne's houseboat was moored too close to their homes . 'This . was a case about annoying someone, not assaulting them,' said the . lawyer, who added that the one-time town councillor was making a . constitutionally protected 'symbolic statement' when he raised his . middle finger at one neighbour. Julie . Cardillo, prosecuting, had said two neighbours, including one . accompanied by a young boy, had thought Payne - who served on Mount . Pleasant's town council between 1976 and 1980 - was aiming the shotgun . at them. Payne was found . guilty of indecent exposure and pointing or presenting a firearm today. He was found not guilty on a charge of assault and battery.", "DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN) -- Orangutans and bonobos in one of North America's leading ape research centers are spending time high in their habitats to escape Iowa floodwaters, officials said Monday. Floodwaters encroach on the bonobo facility at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa. Water on the grounds of the Great Ape Trust of Iowa in Des Moines has been as high as 14 feet after flooding began last week. Research, including the future and origins of culture, language, tool use and language in ape species, was brought to a standstill, officials said. But at no time were the apes in danger. \"The parts that house the animals all have drains, and being wet is a part of their daily routine,\" said Al Setka, director of communications. Animals moved to the highest levels of their living quarters when they wanted to stay dry, the trust reported. The orangutan habitat is 30 feet high, and the bonobo one is 25 feet high, according to the trust's Web site. \"Today, we are just trying to finish cleaning out the living areas to give the apes access to all of their indoor space,\" Setka said Monday. The trust's Web site said the Des Moines facility, built in a former sand quarry, will be the largest in North America when it is completed.", "A man charged with beating his girlfriend's mother to death horrified a courtroom by defecating and smearing feces on his face. Bryan Schwartz, 27, of Terrytown, New Orleans, was removed from the courtroom on Thursday after covering his face in his own waste. He said: 'Life is like a box of chocolates', one witness told the Sun Herald. Bryan Schwartz, 27, of Terrytown, New Orleans, was removed from the courtroom on Thursday after covering his face in his own waste . Schwartz was chained to other inmates in the jury box at the time. Following the incident, he was immediately removed by a corrections officer. A witness told NOLA: 'As he walked out, he was just smiling at the crowd.' His hearing was rescheduled. It was not clear if Schwartz was suffering from mental illness. His attorney, Marquita Naquin, could not be reached for comment on Friday. The 27-year-old and his girlfriend Misty Eiermann, 35, have both been charged in the second-degree murder of her mother, Mary Romano. Ms Romano, 56, was found on September 9 beaten to death in her own home with a flashlight. She had suffered severe head trauma and was pronounced dead at the scene. The 27-year-old's girlfriend Misty Eiermann, 35, has also been charged in the second-degree murder of her mother, Mary Romano .", "A state prosecutor has been charged after biting a man's leg during a drunken fracas at an adult store, authorities said. Sarah Naughton, an assistant state's attorney for four years, was facing charges of misdemeanor battery and criminal trespass after the attack on Saturday night. Naughton and a male companion both appeared to be intoxicated, according to police, and were asked to leave shortly after they entered Taboo Tabou in Chicago. Scroll down for video . On the other side of the law: Assistant state's attorney Sarah Naughton, is handcuffed after allegedly biting a store owner while intoxicated in Chicago . Hysterical: The 31-year-old lawyer abused the officers who were arresting her in Chicago . However, 31-year-old Naughton became . belligerent and bit a manager. According to authorities, her friend, . Bradley Gould, shoved the worker and made 'menacing gestures'. The store owner took the manager to a nearby hospital for treatment and he was later released. Police arrived and placed the lawyer in handcuffs. She began wailing loudly that she couldn't feel her hands because they were 'too tight'. She rocked . backwards and forwards on the curb, crying hysterically and at one point, called the arresting female . police officer: 'A  f****** b**** w****.' Her behavior was captured on video by a passer-by. After being taken away in a police van, Naughton was charged and released on bond. Taboo Tabou owner Mark Thomas told ABC: 'My staff asked, ''Have you folks been drinking? Maybe you should come back when you're sober.''' Mr Thomas then said that Miss Naughton became enraged and started to tell them what she did for a living, pulling out a badge and adding: 'You can't do this to me...I'm a state's attorney.' Cook County spokesman Andy Conklin said Naughton had been placed on administrative leave during the investigation. It's was not immediately known if Naughton and Gould had legal representation and the results of toxicology reports were unknown. Carried away: Naughton is brought in by Chicago police and has since been suspended from her job . Shopping trip: Naughton was arrested after being kicked out off adult store Taboo Tabou on Chicago's North Side .", "(CNN) -- A Michigan teenager pleaded guilty Monday in the mob beating of a 54-year-old grandfather after he inadvertently struck a child with his truck in April, according to a news release from the Wayne County Prosecutor's office. Bruce Wimbush, 18, pleaded guilty to assault with intent to do great bodily harm, according to the news release. Wimbush admitted in court Monday that he punched the driver, Steven Utash, in the jaw and was among a \"large group of people\" that attacked the man in April. The teen told Judge James Callahan that after seeing Utash hit a child, he \"got emotional\" and his anger took over, according to CNN affiliate WDIV. \"I have a little brother and when I saw the kid, all I could see at the time was my little brother,\" Wimbush said, according to WDIV. The charge was reduced by prosecutors from assault with intent to murder with the agreement that Wimbush will testify in future proceedings related to the assault, the release said. Three other adult suspects are charged with attempted murder in the attack while a fourth, a juvenile, is charged with assault and ethnic intimidation. They are scheduled to appear in court this week, according to the prosecutor's office. Wimbush will be sentenced on July 7 and faces up to 10 years in prison, according to the prosecutor's office. Utash, the driver, was hospitalized in a coma after the attack. He returned home in May after spending more than six weeks in a hospital and rehabilitation center, according to a \"Help Steven Utash\" Facebook page post. The boy struck by Utash's vehicle was treated for a leg injury at a local hospital and then was released home, according to the prosecutor's office. Severely beaten Detroit driver discharged after 6 weeks . Daughter of severely beaten Detroit driver says he's breathing on his own . 'Race is being looked at' as a possible motive in attack on Detroit driver . CNN's Stephanie Gallman and Kevin Conlon contributed to this report.", "By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 17:47 EST, 18 October 2013 . | . UPDATED: . 22:06 EST, 18 October 2013 . An Iowa teenager who shot dead both of his grandparents was 'relieved' to admit to the brutal killings, a detective testified at his trial today. Isaiah Sweet was 17 when he shot dead 55-year-old Richard Sweet and 62-year-old Janet Sweet just before Mother's Day in May 2012 at the family's home in Hartford, Iowa. His defense attorneys don't dispute that he was the one who killed the Sweets, who raised him, but they argue that the act was not premeditated - and so he is therefore not guilty of first-degree murder, the harshest charge under the law. But Manchester police Sergeant James Hauschild said Isaiah, now 18, admitted that he planned to kill his grandfather with a baseball bat. Instead, he shot Mr Sweet in the back of the head. Confessed: Isaiah Sweet's lawyers aren't disputing that he killed his grandparents - they are arguing that it was not premeditated murder . In chains: Sheriff officers lead a shackled Isaiah Sweet into the Clayton County Courthouse yesterday for his first appearance. He is being held on $1million bond . The teen also said that he needed to 'pay for what he did,' according to a video-taped interview. Iowa State Patrol trooper Jon Stickney testified about finding Mr Sweet's body. 'His brain was falling out of his head. You don’t forget a sight like that,' the veteran trooper said. Brandon Ahlers, 21, Isaiah's friend who pleaded guilty to being an accomplice in the murder, testified that Isaiah texted him the day before the killing to ask him about methods for killing someone. A search of Isaiah's computer also revealed that he had made online searches for how to kill a person in a way that 'wasn't too messy' and 'didn't cause pain.' Among the options Isaiah allegedly explored were poisoning his grandparents, beating them with a bat and shooting them. They were both found slumped dead on their couch, shot in the head. Rick and Janet Sweet were found slumped on their couch dead last May. Their grandson admitted to shooting them both in the head . Police captured Isaiah Sweet, 17,  from Iowa, in Cedar Rapids after a short chase the day after the killing. After killings, the teen used his Twitter page to post a number of cryptic messages which police believe are about the murders. They included: 'Time to live my life', 'I'm f***ed up, torn down, I'm twisted, doorknob', and 'My phone is as big as hell right now'. Isaiah Sweet is charged with two counts of first-degree murder. After he was arrested the tweets continued on his alleged Twitter page, where he uses the pseudonym Isweet37. They said: 'You drunk c*** f***ing snitch', 'Damn. Cant wait to get outa the cop shop' and 'All youve done the past 30 minutes is sit in a corner and text? #Retardcop'. A close friend told The Des Moines Register that the teen hated his grandparents and would often say he wanted to kill them. She described their relationship as 'contentious'. Jade Offerman said: 'He never got along with his grandparents. He absolutely — he hated them. Sometimes he tried to get along as best as he could with them just to make his life easier.' Deadly weapon: A detectives shows off the Soviet-style rifle that Isaiah Sweet used to kill his grandparents . Friday 11 May . 10.04am: 'I'm f***ed up, torn down, I'm twisted, doorknob' 4.06pm: 'No apologies, no excuses' Saturday 12 May . 2:10am: 'Time to live my life' 7:12pm: 'Man my phone is about big as hell right now' Sunday 13 May . 8am: 'Damn. Can't wait to get outa the cop shop #6unnessecaryhours' 8.05am: 'All you've done the past 30 minutes is sit in a corner and text? #retardcop' 8.10am: 'Okay that scared me' 9.01am: 'You drunk c*** f***ing snitch' Miss Offerman said she dated Sweet on-and-off last fall, and they remained friends after breaking up. She said the believed the grandparents, particularly the grandfather, were sometimes strict with the teen but didn't believe anything he said about wanting to kill them. 'I never took him seriously. He’d be like, \"I hate them so much. I’m going to kill them\". But obviously you hate your parents sometimes and you say stuff like that,' she said. 'Nobody takes you seriously.' Before the killings, Sweet drove Miss Offerman and some friends to a party at an apartment in downtown Iowa City in a truck which is believed to have belonged to the elderly couple. One of the passengers, Kelli Fisher, 19, said Sweet had drugs in the vehicle including marijuana and prescription painkillers. The labels were scratched off on the bottles, said Miss Fisher, and she noticed he was 'visibly shaking' and carrying a knife. She told The Des Moines Register: 'He showed us a knife that he had just bought, which was really weird…It was smaller, but it had very, very jaggedly edges.' Miss Offerman said Sweet called her on Sunday and acted very strange and secretive but said it sounded like a goodbye call after he said to her: 'I love you. I miss you. You’re never going to see me again.' The accused murderer allegedly told at least three people that he had drugged his grandparents and killed them, according to court records. Richard and Janet Sweet were said to be facing financial difficulties and Mr sweet faced a first-degree theft charge for allegedly taking $10,000 from the trust for Marie Ann Sweet, his mother. Court records show Janet Sweet was served an eviction case dated July 2011. In December, Janet Sweet filed a child-support case against Stacy Sweet, Isaiah Sweet’s mother.", "Iowa City, Iowa (CNN) -- Katherine Valde is ready when a fellow student says \"no thanks\" to early voting because of the thrill of casting a ballot on Election Day. \"Things come up, you can have an exam,\" says Valde, the president of the University of Iowa Democrats. \"You can wait until Election Day and not know where your precinct is. A lot of students have to go to elementary schools around town, and they don't have cars, they don't really know where it is.\" Truth is, Valde knows younger voters like herself are less reliable when it comes to turning out in the crunch, and \"with early voting, it just gives us 40 more chances to catch people.\" Valde led by example Thursday, waiting in line for more than an hour to cast her ballot on the first day of in-person early voting in Iowa. The line at the Iowa City Public Library was dominated by Obama voters, as was a Des Moines polling place CNN visited as the doors opened Thursday. Valde says the Obama campaign and state Democratic Party have urged her to keep checking her list and pushing students to vote now. \"If you vote early, it frees up campaign resources to talk to people who might be undecided,\" she told us as she waited patiently to vote. Iowa is one of 35 states plus the District of Columbia that allow some form of early in-person voting. Of the nine presidential battlegrounds CNN now rates as tossups, only New Hampshire and Virginia do not have large-scale early voting. In voting, the early bird skips the line . In Iowa four years ago, early voting accounted for 36% of the ballots cast for president. In Johnson County, home of the University of Iowa, it was 55%, the highest of Iowa's 99 counties, and County Auditor Tom Slockett says demand for early ballots so far is up significantly from 2008. Key states voting early . And Democrats have a big early edge. In Johnson County, requests for mail-in ballots as of Monday were running more than 12-1 in favor of Democrats. Statewide, as of close of business Wednesday, the Iowa Secretary of State's office said Democrats had a nearly 5-1 edge in making requests for absentee ballots. Republicans here don't dispute the early Democratic advantage in ballot requests. But they promise to narrow the edge somewhat; the GOP's first mailing nudging Republicans to consider mail-in voting was sent just this week. Iowa Republicans also suggest too much can be made of the early numbers, making the case that those voting before the presidential debates are hardcore partisans who were almost certain to vote eventually anyway. \"If you look at who is early-voting right now, absentee ballots, 80%, almost 90%, are 'four of four' voters, meaning they voted in the last four elections,\" veteran Iowa GOP strategist Steve Grubbs told CNN. \"So it's a difference of strategy. You put your money into the last three weeks or you put your money into early voting. The Republican Party will put a little more into the last three weeks, and the Democrats a little more into the first initial blast of early voting.\" Grubbs said one effort in which Democrats were smart to focus so much early voting attention was younger voters. \"Four years ago there was a lot of enthusiasm among younger voters and everybody knows that has lessened,\" Grubbs said. \"They have got to figure out the strategy to increase their early voting.\" Polls: Obama leads in New Hampshire, tight race in Nevada, North Carolina . On the flip side, he said Republican Mitt Romney runs stronger among the state's elderly voters, who are among the most reliable to cast ballots. More broadly, Grubbs conceded a modest Obama edge in Iowa at the moment and said there is nervous talk among some Republicans that Romney could hurt GOP candidates in competitive congressional and other races. In his view, such talk is premature. \"Clearly if a (presidential) candidate loses by more than five, it starts to affect down-ballot and that's a big issue for Republicans,\" Grubbs said. \"The way I look at it, we are starting the fourth quarter. We have a strong quarterback. And anyone who knows football knows the fourth quarter is where most of the action happens. So October will be big; and if Romney has a good start to the month, we will be fine.\" Iowa Republicans also say, despite the Democratic edge in early voting so far, that the GOP is breaking records in terms of its grassroots organizing. At a Linn County phone bank in Cedar Rapids, volunteer Karen Zmoos (pronounced Smoose) is credited with making the millionth voter call in Iowa this cycle. She is pleasantly working the phones again this week, and adding this question when a voter indicates support for the Romney-Ryan ticket: \"Excellent. Would you be interested in voting early this election?\" Zmoos says Iowa's unpredictable winters make her a fan of early and absentee voting, and she shrugs off the early Democratic edge in absentee ballot requests as temporary. \"You know we are working hard here,\" Zmoos said during a quick break from working the phones. \"We are rolling up our sleeves and putting our boots on, and we are going at it. We still have time.\" What questions would you like to ask the candidates? Share with us on CNN iReport .", "A former Grateful Dead groupie convicted in an alleged drug conspiracy unexpectedly turned himself in, authorities said on Tuesday. Matthew Samuel West, 49, showed up on December 27 in the lobby of the Linn County Jail in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to surrender. West had been on the FBI's Most Wanted fugitives list for 20 years, the agency noting that he once owned and operated a tie-dye shop, played in a local band and coached the drum line. The FBI described West as artistic, saying he designed shirts that he sold at Grateful Dead concerts that he 'usually attended during the 1980s and into the 1990s'. Matthew Samuel West, 49, at the Linn County Jail in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He fled authorities in 1994 (right) while facing LSD charges is back in custody more than 20 years later . West was convicted in 1992 of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute LSD and had been wanted since missing a 1994 federal court hearing. He's been jailed after a federal judge ordered him detained pending further proceedings. Lt. Kent Steenblock, the assistant jail administrator, said it's 'very rare' for a longtime fugitive to give up seemingly out of the blue. The FBI said West fled Iowa in 1994 but what he did over the last 20 years remains unclear. His wife divorced him in absentia in 1999, Iowa court records showed. At least three of his alleged co-conspirators completed sentences of prison and supervised release, the last being discharged in 2005. West's attorney didn't return a message seeking comment. A jury had convicted then 27-year-old West in December 1992 of the drug conspiracy charge. He faced a mandatory sentence of 10 years in prison because the conspiracy involved more than 10 grams, but was free on bond during his appeal. In 1993, federal prosecutors obtained an indictment with additional drug and money laundering charges against West. West was part of an alleged conspiracy to distribute LSD from 1990 to 1992, sending wire transfers totaling $3,125 from Cedar Rapids to a co-conspirator at locations in Oregon and Texas, the indictment alleges. According to the FBI, West fled Iowa before a hearing on whether his pretrial release should be revoked. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles ruled last week that West would remain jailed pending his sentencing, which hasn't yet been scheduled. Scoles also set a February 9 trial on the second indictment. West showed up at the Linn County Jail in Cedar Rapids (pictured) after he had been on the FBI's Most Wanted fugitives list for 20 years .", "(CNN) -- An Iowa man shot and killed an escaped inmate on Tuesday after the convict held him and his wife hostage in their home, investigators said. Jerome Mauderly, 71, and his wife, Carolyn, 66, were asleep when escaped inmate Rodney Long, 38, broke into their rural Bedford home a little after 10 p.m. on Monday, said Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman Mitch Mortvedt. Long -- who had allegedly shot a deputy pursuing him on Sunday -- woke up the Mauderlys and disabled their landline phones except for a line in the couple's bedroom. He then took a shotgun that Jerome Mauderly, a retired prison guard and farmer, had loaded that night and placed next to the bed before going to sleep. \"(The Mauderlys) knew the situation. There was an escaped inmate, armed and dangerous. They were not the only people in the community that had loaded weapons that night,\" Mortvedt said. The Mauderlys' home is isolated, surrounded by cornfields with the nearest neighbor about a mile away. Long took the shotgun from the bedroom and moved it to the kitchen. He held the Mauderlys hostage at gunpoint for about four hours while he rummaged through their home for supplies and used their cell phone. Around 2 a.m. Tuesday, while Long was upstairs looking for supplies, Jerome Mauderly sneaked into the kitchen and recovered his shotgun, Mortvedt said. Carolyn Mauderly called 911 from their bedroom. When Long walked down the stairs, Jerome Mauderly shot him in the torso. Long was found lying face down in the kitchen, Mortvedt said. \"(Long) had a handgun but was described as non-confrontational,\" Mortvedt said. \"After about four hours, Long let the Mauderlys out of sight, then Jerome Mauderly recovered the shotgun and shot and killed Long. \"The Mauderlys feared for their life. They had a real fear that he was going to kill them,\" Mortvedt said. Long escaped on Friday from the Clarinda Correctional Facility, a minimum security facility located 18 miles southwest of Des Moines. He was convicted of third-degree burglary. On Sunday he was spotted walking along a highway. When a deputy arrived to confront him, Long allegedly shot him twice and took his patrol car. A second deputy pursued Long for 40 minutes. The pursuit ended when Long crashed the patrol car and ran away. The Mauderlys home is about three quarters of a mile from the crash site. Coincidentally, the trooper who responded to the 911 call was 200 yards away from their home, searching for Long. The deputy who was shot while pursuing Long is in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery. The Mauderlys will not be charged because the killing was in self-defense. They were not injured during the home invasion.", "By . David Mccormack . A state trooper in Des Moines, Iowa, had a lucky escape on Friday morning after an out of control truck became airborne, leaving Interstate 80 and narrowly avoided crushing him. Trooper Jesse Hernandez was sitting in his unmarked patrol car speaking with two Johnson County Sheriff’s Department deputies near a crash site on I-80. The dramatic footage – captured on the . dashboard camera of one of the vehicles - looks more like the chase . sequence of an action movie rather than routine police work. Scroll down for video . Trooper Jesse Hernandez was sitting in his unmarked patrol car when an out of control truck became airborne, leaving Interstate 80 and narrowly avoided crushing him . Lucky escape: Trooper Jesse Hernandez was sitting in his unmarked patrol car speaking with two Johnson County Sheriff¿s Department deputies when the crash occurred . Out of nowhere, a vehicle careers into view, clipping the back of Hernandez's vehicle and narrowly missing . Johnson County Sheriff's Deputy Hammes and Reserve Deputy Pearson, who . were standing by Hernandez's passenger door. According to the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, a truck driver got distracted by the flashing lights at the crash scene and drove his rig into the back of a pickup truck driven by Dana Miller of Eldridge, Iowa. The impact sent the pickup across the westbound lanes and flying into the shoulder, where it clipped the unmarked patrol car and narrowly avoided seriously injuring Hernandez or the other officers. The pickup then hit the ditch and a mile-marker sign post before it stopped, reports WQAD. Johnson County Sheriff's Deputy Hammes and Reserve Deputy Pearson, were standing by Hernandez's passenger door when the incident occurred . ‘This is just a glaring example of how . close we came to losing Trooper Hernandez, Deputy Hammes, along with . Reserve Deputy Pearson,’ Sheriff Lonny Pulkrabek told KGAN News in Cedar . Rapids, Iowa. ‘All because a driver of a semi chose not to slow down when approaching a crash scene full of vehicles and emergency lights.’ Miller was wearing a seat belt and he was not hurt. Trooper Hernandez was taken by another state police vehicle to an area hospital where he was treated and released. Neither of the deputies were hurt. Police said the semi driver, 49-year-old Michael Smith of Arlington, Iowa, was also not hurt. Smith was cited for failure to maintain control of his vehicle. The pickup then hit the ditch and a mile-marker sign post before it stopped, fortunately no one was seriously injured ." ]

[ "ALLIANCE, Ohio — Thirty-eight members of the Country Barbwires 4-H club met recently at the Beechwood Methodist Church.\nMembers were slated to complete a community service trash pickup, but the project was postponed because of rain. Members will also be participating in a Memorial Day parade and clothing drive.\nThe club toured White Physical Therapy Services, and had demonstrations on Mac Trailer, Family Farm & Home, Morrow Services, and Jalisco’s Mexican Restaurant.\n• • •\nMANSFIELD, Ohio — Richland County youth programs are benefiting from Ohio’s recent victory in the national 4-H Raise Your Hand competition.\nAs one of 35 counties with the highest participation, Richland County received $200 to use for local youth programs. Richland County has nearly 800 community club members.\nThis is the second year in a row Ohio has won the competition, raising nearly 18,000 hands in support of 4-H.\n• • •\nBURTON, Ohio — Geauga Beef & Swine 4-H hosted a meeting May 20 at the Geauga County Fairgrounds.\nPresentations were given, including; Justin Kordos on lameness in poultry, Brock Calabrese on anemia in swine, Coby Calabrese on whipworms, Travis Gotliebiowski on nodular worms and Trevor Gotliebiowski on kidney worms.\nThe logo on the new club shirts was discussed. The safety topic was escape planning and water quality was also discussed. Each cloverbud member was assigned an older member to mentor them and prepare them for fair. They reviewed educational information on swine, turkeys and beef.\nThey had a community service project May 19 at the Geauga County Home where members had pizza and cookies with the residents while they played games with them. They also planted flowers around the property." ]

[ "Buy Photo Youngsters go trick-or-treating on Oct. 31, 2016, in Green Bay. (Photo: Sarah Kloepping/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)Buy Photo\nGREEN BAY - The kids are planning their Halloween costumes; that means the adults need to start planning the treats for the annual trick-or-treating.\nIn the Brown County area, trick-or-treating hours are on Oct. 31. Halloween is on a Tuesday this year, so plan accordingly. Here's your roundup for the Brown County area.\nAllouez, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nAshwaubenon, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nBellevue, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nDe Pere, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nDenmark, 3-6 p.m. Oct. 31.\nGreen Bay, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nHobart, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nHoward, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nLawrence, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nLedgeview, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nLittle Suamico, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nPulaski, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nRockland, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nSeymour: 5-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nSuamico, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nWrightstown, 4-7 p.m. Oct. 31.\nRead or Share this story: http://gbpg.net/2kwpLM6", "Date of Conference Call: Thursday, May 3, 2018 Scheduled Time: 8:30 a.m. ET / 7:30 a.m. CT / 6:30 a.m. MT / 5:30 a.m. PT Participant Toll Free Dial In #: 1-877-246-9875 International Dial In #: 1-707-287-9353\nTo access the live webcast of the conference call, go to www.seaspancorp.com and click on \"News & Events\" then \"Events & Presentations\" for the link. The webcast will be archived on the site for one year.\nA replay of the conference call will also be available from 11:30 a.m. ET on May 3, 2018 through to 11:59 p.m. ET on May 17, 2018. The replay telephone numbers are: 1-855-859-2056 or 1-404-537-3406 and the replay passcode is: 5599517.\nAbout Seaspan\nSeaspan provides many of the world's major container shipping liners with alternatives to vessel ownership by offering long-term leases on large, modern containerships combined with industry-leading ship management services. Seaspan's operating fleet, including 4 newbuilding containerships on order scheduled for delivery to Seaspan by mid-2018, consists of 112 containerships representing a total capacity of over 900,000 TEU. Excluding newbuilds, Seaspan's operating fleet of 108 vessels has an average age of approximately 5 years and an average remaining lease period of approximately 5 years, on a TEU weighted basis.\nSeaspan has the following securities listed on The New York Stock Exchange:\nSymbol: Description:\nSSW Class A common shares SSW PR D Series D preferred shares SSW PR E Series E preferred shares SSW PR G Series G preferred shares SSW PR H Series H preferred shares SSWN 6.375% senior unsecured notes due 2019 SSWA 7.125% senior unsecured notes due 2027\nFor Investor Relations Inquiries:\nMr. Michael Sieffert\nDirector, Corporate Finance\nSeaspan Corporation\nTel. 778-328-6490\nFor Media Inquiries:\nMr. Leon Berman\nThe IGB Group\nTel. 212-477-8438\nView original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/seaspan-announces-conference-call-and-webcast-to-discuss-results-for-the-first-quarter-ended-march-31-2018-300635797.html\nSOURCE Seaspan Corporation\nRelated Links\nhttp://www.seaspancorp.com/", "This morning Ranbir Kapoor fans woke up to an exciting news. The release date of the actor’s upcoming film, Shamshera was announced. The film will be releasing on July 31, 2020. The movie also stars Sanjay Dutt and Vaani Kapoor in pivotal roles and the shooting will kickstart by the end of this year. July 31, 2020 is a holiday weekend. Well, it is an Eid weekend, and everyone felt that it will be Salman Khan vs Ranbir Kapoor in 2020. Here are some tweets:\nKhans are now like the chewing gum that have lost their flavour. Move over the old, in in with the bold ! #EID2020 has been booked by Ranbir's #Shamshera over the obsolete @BeingSalmanKhan ..\nFace off b/w @duttsanjay and his duplicate(lol) Ranbir in the film.. — WW 255 CR*+ Counting |🇧🇷🇧🇪| (@LazyAF_) July 4, 2018\nYes i believe in GOD\nNo Salman in 2020 at EID #Shamshera will celebrate EID with two power pack performers 🔥#RanbirKapoor #SanjayDutt — A S H 🔥 (@_ash18_) July 4, 2018\nWe all know that since 2010 (apart from 2013) Salman Khan has been releasing his movies every year on Eid. Though there’s no movie announced yet which will be releasing on Eid 2020, but looks like people are confused. So, let us clear the confusion and tell you that there won’t Salman vs Ranbir at the box office.\nSalman always releases his movies on Eid al-Fitr (Ramzan Eid) and July 31, 2020 is Eid al-Adha (Bakri Eid). So, Shamshera hits the screens on Eid al-Adha (Bakri Eid) which means Ranbir won’t be clashing at the box office with Salman Khan.\nBut, we wonder if there is a clash who will win considering Ranbir’s recent release Sanju has managed to beat Salman’s Race 3 at the box office.", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nNorthop Hall ruled the roost in the North Wales Women's Football League this season.\nThe Flintshire side averaged five goals a game in all competitions and secured a league title and cup double.\nHere is a statistical assessment of their amazing campaign.\nVideo Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now\nNorth Wales Women's League\nAug 20, 2017 - Pwllheli (h - lge) 4-2 (Courtney-Jade Jones 2, Chelsea Evans, Ashleigh Foster)\nAug 27, 2017- Denbigh Town (h - lge) 3-2 (Laura Pennington 2, Ashleigh Foster)\nSep 3, 2017 - Bala Town (h - lge) 13-0 (Laura Pennington 2, Ashleigh Foster 2, Annmarie Jones 2, Chelsea Evans 2, Amy Davies, Joann Bennion, Courtney-Jade Jones, Abbie Holland, Alison Whitley)\nSep 10, 2017 - Bangor City (a - lge) 3-1 (Laura Pennington 2, Amy Davies)\nSep 17, 2017 - Amlwch Town (a - lge) 10-0 (Laura Pennington 3, Amy Davies 2, Chelsea Evans, Shannon Hobbs, Hannah Williams, Haf Morgan-Read, Kirstie Kural)\nOct 22, 2017 - Bethel (a - lge) 1-1 (Laura Pennington)\nOct 29, 2017 - Airbus (h - lge) 3-2 (Laura Pennington, Chelsea Evans, Hannah Davies)\nDec 17, 2017 - Bangor City (h - lge) 5-2 (Laura Pennington 3, Ashleigh Foster, Courtney-Jade Jones)\nDec 28, 2017 - Prestatyn (h - lge) 12-2 (Laura Pennington 5, Kirstie Kural 3, Shannon Hobbs 2, Ashleigh Foster, Joann Bennion)\nJan 7, 2018 - Bala Town (a - lge) 4-0 (Laura Pennington 3, Kirstie Kural)\nFeb 11, 2018 - Prestatyn (a - lge) 6-1 (Laura Pennington 3, Laura Eagles, Gemma Williams, Ashleigh Foster)\nFeb 18, 2018 - Bethel (h - lge) 6-0 (Laura Pennington 4, Kirstie Kural, Chelsea Evans)\nFeb 25, 2018 - Airbus (a - lge) 2-0 (Laura Pennington, Haf Morgan-Read)\nMar 25, 2018 - Pwllheli (a - lge) 0-0\nApril 1, 2018 - Rhyl Development (h - lge) 10-0 (Ashleigh Foster 6, Kirstie Kural 3, Haf Morgan-Reed)\nApril 8, 2018 - Denbigh Town (a - lge) 3-1 (Amy Davies, Kirstie Kural, Ashleigh Foster)\nApril 15, 2018 - Amlwch Town (h - lge) 4-0 (Ashleigh Foster, Haf Morgan-Reed, Abbie Holland, Natasha Kearney).\nMay 6, 2018 - Kinmel Bay (h - lge) 2-1 (Ashleigh Foster, Courtney Smith)\nMay 15, 2018 - Rhyl Development (a - lge) 2-2 (Laura Pennington, Haf Morgan-Read)\nMay 22, 2018 - Llanfair United (a - lge) 1-2 (Rebecca Hughes)\nMay 27, 2018 - Llanfair United (h - lge) 4-4 (Laura Pennington 2, Ashleigh Foster 2)\nWelsh Cup\nOct 8, 2017 - Amlwch Town (h) 14-0 (Laura Pennington 8, Abbie Holland 2, Annmarie Jones, Shannon Hobbs, Kirstie Kural, Chelsea Evans)\nNov 12, 2017 - Bethel (h) 4-1 (Laura Pennington 2, Kirstie Kural, Chelsea Evans)\nFeb 4, 2018 - Cyncoed (h - QF) 0-7\nNEWFA Cup\nNov 26, 2017 - Airbus (a) 3-1 (Shannon Hobbs 2, Annmarie Jones)\nJan 21, 2018 - Bangor City (h) 13-1 (Laura Pennington 4, Kirstie Kural 3, Shannon Hobbs 2, Ashleigh Foster, Rebecca Hughes, Hannah Williams, Amy Davies)\nApril 29, 2018 - Denbigh Town (Final) 4-1 (Gemma Williams, Ashleigh Foster, Courtney Smith, Laura Pennington)\nLEAGUE (champions)\nPlayed 21 Won 16 Drawn 4 Lost 1 Goals Scored 98 Goals Conceded 23\n(game away v Kinmel Bay still outstanding - might not be played)\nWELSH CUP (quarter-finalists)\nPlayed 3 Won 2 Lost 1 Goals Scored 18 Goals Conceded 8\nNEWFA CUP (winners)\nPlayed 3 Won 3 Goals Scored 20 Goals Conceded 3\nCOMPLETE RECORD\nPlayed 27 Won 21 Drawn 4 Lost 2 Goals Scored 136 Goals Conceded 34\nGOALSCORERS (136)\n48 - Laura Pennington (League 33; Welsh Cup 10; NEWFA Cup 5)\n20 - Ashleigh Foster\n15 - Kirstie Kural\n8 - Chelsea Evans\n8 - Shannon Hobbs\n6 - Amy Davies\n5 - Haf Morgan-Read\n4 - Courtney-Jade Jones\n4 - Annmarie Jones\n4 - Abbie Holland\n2 - Joann Bennion\n2 - Hannah Williams\n2 - Rebecca Hughes\n2 - Gemma Williams\n2 - Courtney Smith\n1 - Alison Whitley\n1 - Hannah Davies\n1 - Laura Eagles\n1 - Tasha Kearney", "The H&M group’s sales including VAT increased by 4 percent in local currencies in May 2017 compared to the same month the previous year. Converted into SEK, the company’s sales increased by 8 percent. H&M said that in the first half of the month sales were affected by tough market conditions in several countries and sales improved considerably in the second half of the month.\nIn the second quarter period, from March 1 to May 31, 2017, sales including VAT increased by 5 percent in local currencies compared to the corresponding quarter the previous year. Converted into SEK sales including VAT increased by 10 percent and amounted to 59,538 million Swedish krona (6,485 million dollars) compared to 54,341 million Swedish krona (6,247 million dollars) for the same quarter last year. Sales excluding VAT amounted to 51,383 million Swedish krona (5,907 million dollars) against 46,874 million Swedish krona (5,388 million dollars), representing an increase of 10 percent.\nThe total number of stores in the group were 4,498 on May 31, 2017 compared to 4,077 stores on May 31, 2016. The company added that the amounts are provisional and may deviate slightly from the six-month report, covering the period December 1, 2016 to May 31, 2017.\nPicture:H&M website", "LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - A man has been charged with theft by deception after taking thousands of dollars from people in online transactions and never delivering the merchandise.\n>> MUGSHOTS: May 2018 Roundup\nAn arrest warrant says Jorge Zayas-Montejo, 29, of Louisville, advertised on eBay that was selling dumpsters. Between Dec. 1 and 31, 2017, Zayas-Montejo accepted a total of $149,000 from three different people, but the customers never got the dumpsters.\nLouisville Metro police began investigating after getting complaints from two of Zayas-Montejo's customers. Investigators found the money had been deposited into Zayas-Montejo's bank account through wire transfers.\nMORE FROM WAVE3.COM\n+ Multiple people injured in explosion at UPS in Kentucky\n+ Sazerac to invest $66M in former Pillsbury plant\n+ JCPS will appeal state's recommended takeover\nIn addition to the theft charge, Zayas-Montejo is being held at Louisville Metro Corrections in a detainer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.\nCopyright 2018 WAVE 3 News. All rights reserved.", "Burnley will face the toughest possible start to the new Premier League season as they travel to champions Chelsea on the opening day.\nAntonio Conte won the league in his first season as Blues boss, and Chelsea will begin their defence of the title at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, August 12th against the Clarets - pending potential changes for television coverage.\nThe Clarets' first home game is the following Saturday against West Brom.\nAs Sean Dyche's side look to improve their away form - which brought only one win last season - they have been handed a testing opening to their road schedule, travelling to Chelsea before trips to face Spurs at Wembley (August 26th), Liverpool (September 16th), Everton (September 30th) and Manchester City (October 21st).\nHowever, as they look to build on their 10 home wins last term, after West Brom's visit to Turf Moor, Crystal Palace (September 9th), newly-promoted Huddersfield Town (September 23rd), West Ham (October 14th) and Championship winners Newcastle United (October 28th) make the trip.\nIn terms of festive fixtures, there are some mouthwatering games to look forward to.\nBoxing Day brings a trip to Old Trafford to face Manchester United, before New Year's Day sees Liverpool come to Turf Moor.\nIn between is something of a derby at Huddersfield on Saturday, December 30th.\nThere are three midweek games scheduled, including the furthest trip of the season on Tuesday, November 28th to Bournemouth.\nBurnley will host Stoke City on Tuesday, December 12th, and travel to Newcastle on Wednesday, January 31st.\nBurnley's full 2017/18 fixtures\nWed Aug 9 Carabao Cup 1\nSat Aug 12 Chelsea A\nSat Aug 19 West Bromwich Albion H\nWed Aug 23 Carabao Cup 2\nSat Aug 26 Tottenham Hotspur A\nSat Sep 2 International Date\nSat Sep 9 Crystal Palace H\nSat Sep 16 Liverpool A\nWed Sep 20 Carabao Cup 3\nSat Sep 23 Huddersfield Town H\nSat Sep 30 Everton A\nSat Oct 7 International Date\nSat Oct 14 West Ham United H\nSat Oct 21 Manchester City A\nWed Oct 25 Carabao Cup 4\nSat Oct 28 Newcastle United H\nSat Nov 4 Southampton A\nSat Nov 11 International Date\nSat Nov 18 Swansea City H\nSat Nov 25 Arsenal H\nTue Nov 28 A.F.C. Bournemouth A\nSat Dec 2 Leicester City A\nSat Dec 9 Watford H\nTue Dec 12 Stoke City H\nSat Dec 16 Brighton and Hove Albion A\nWed Dec 20 Carabao Cup 5\nSat Dec 23 Tottenham Hotspur H\nTue Dec 26 Manchester United A\nSat Dec 30 Huddersfield Town A\nMon Jan 1 Liverpool H\nSat Jan 6 Emirates FA Cup 3\nWed Jan 10 Carabao Cup Semi-Final (1)\nSat Jan 13 Crystal Palace A\nSat Jan 20 Manchester United H\nWed Jan 24 Carabao Cup Semi-Final (2)\nSat Jan 27 Emirates FA Cup 4\nWed Jan 31 Newcastle United A\nSat Feb 3 Manchester City H\nSat Feb 10 Swansea City A\nSat Feb 17 Emirates FA Cup 5\nSat Feb 24 Southampton H\nSun Feb 25 Carabao Cup Final\nSat Mar 3 Everton H\nSat Mar 10 West Ham United A\nSat Mar 17 Chelsea H Emirates FA Cup 6\nSat Mar 24 International Date\nSat Mar 31 West Bromwich Albion A\nSat Apr 7 Watford A\nSat Apr 14 Leicester City H\nSat Apr 21 Stoke City A Emirates FA Cup Semi-Final\nSat Apr 28 Brighton and Hove Albion H\nSat May 5 Arsenal A\nSun May 13 A.F.C. Bournemouth H\nSat May 19 Emirates FA Cup Final", "SIDNEY — Alvetro Orthodontics and Shelby County 4-H have teamed to deliver hundreds of handmade Valentine’s Day cards to local assisted living centers.\nDarla Bowling, clinical coordinator at Alvetro Orthodontics, initially approached Cassie Dietrich, Shelby County 4-H youth development educator, with the idea as a competition among all the 4-H clubs in the county. Bowling offered a pizza party to the club who made the most cards.\nAlvetro Orthodontics, which opened in Sidney 25 years ago, routinely participates in activities within the community. It’s something that is important to Dr. Lisa Alvetro, owner of the orthodontics office.\n“We do a lot of community outreach and a lot of times, we like to partner with other organizations, particularly youth organizations,” Alvetro said.\nBowling said the office tries to do something special each year, and this year she felt compelled to work with local children, as well as local senior citizens.\n“Basically, every year we look at what can we do in the community that we haven’t done,” she said. “4-H has always been a really soft spot in my heart, because I was in it as a kid for 10 years; my kids were in it for 10 years; and I thought, ‘What could we do with the 4-H kids?’ So, it just ballooned from there.\n“I’ve had grandparents, (whom) I’ve watched get to that point where you can’t keep them at home anymore, so you put them in a (nursing) home,” Bowling continued. “I knew it was a slow time out there at the homes; they don’t get visitors and it’s just sad.”\nThere are 30 4-H clubs throughout Shelby County and, according to Dietrich, about a dozen clubs joined the Valentine’s Day activity. Their participation will count toward their community service requirement, which is a crucial component of 4-H.\n“It was a great activity service-wise,” Dietrich said. “It (was) easy to implement and cost-effective for the clubs, so they were super excited to participate.”\nAt the latest count, the Starting Farmers 4-H club will be the winner of the pizza party. The group collectively produced more than 660 Valentine’s Day cards.\nThe cards will be delivered to at least three assisted living homes in Sidney — Lane Park, Fair Haven and Dorothy Love — between the dates of Feb. 6 and Feb. 13, but Bowling said they may make delivery to a few additional homes out of Shelby County, as well.\nValentine’s Day cards and gifts provided by 4-H groups throughout Shelby County. The cards will be delivered to local assisted living facilities. http://www.sidneydailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2018/02/web1_valentine.jpg Valentine’s Day cards and gifts provided by 4-H groups throughout Shelby County. The cards will be delivered to local assisted living facilities. Photo by Aimee Hancock Dr. Lisa Alvetro, of Alvetro Orthodontics, and Cassie Dietrich, Shelby County 4-H youth development educator, look through some of the Valentine’s Day cards made by Shelby County 4-H groups. http://www.sidneydailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2018/02/web1_valentine2.jpg Dr. Lisa Alvetro, of Alvetro Orthodontics, and Cassie Dietrich, Shelby County 4-H youth development educator, look through some of the Valentine’s Day cards made by Shelby County 4-H groups. Photo by Aimee Hancock\nBy Aimee Hancock ahancock@aimmediamidwest.com\nReach the writer at 937-538-4825\nReach the writer at 937-538-4825", "The 2018 All-Star Game is less than seven weeks away now, and, on Wednesday, MLB announced fan voting for the All-Star Game starters will open June 1. Prepare to stuff the ballot box, folks. Here is everything you need to know about Wednesday's MLB action.\nWednesday's scores\nSeverino tames Astros again\nEarlier this month Yankees ace Luis Severino tossed his first career complete game shutout against the Astros at Minute Maid Park. He faced them again Wednesday night, and while he didn't pitch that well, he did hold the defending World Series champs to two runs in seven innings. His season ERA climbed to 2.31.\nView Profile Luis Severino NYY • SP • 40 May 30 vs. Astros IP 7 H 4 R 2 ER 2 BB 1 K 11 HR 1\nOne-time Yankees Killer™ Dallas Keuchel got the start for the Astros and allowed four runs in five innings. He has now allowed 11 earned runs in his last three starts against the Yankees -- that includes Game 5 of the 2017 ALCS -- after allowing four earned runs total in his first seven career starts against the Bronx Bombers. Gary Sanchez's go-ahead two-run single was the big blow Wednesday night.\nThe Yankees took three of four from the Astros in Houston earlier this month and now they've won two of three against them in New York. That clinches the season series 5-2, which is notable for potential postseason home-field advantage tiebreaker scenarios down the road. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, however.\nWednesday's win improves the Yankees to 35-17 on the season -- only the Red Sox (39-17) have a better record at the moment -- giving them 35 wins in their first 52 games for the first time since going 39-13 to start the 1998 season. The Yankees have also won 10 of their last 11 series, which sources indicate is very good.\nScherzer picks up 150th win\nThree-time Cy Young award winner Max Scherzer is officially halfway to the hallowed 300 wins milestone. He picked up his 150th career win with eight dominant innings against the Orioles on Wednesday night.\nView Profile Max Scherzer WAS • SP • 31 IP 8 H 2 R 0 BB 1 K 12\nWednesday's win improved Scherzer to 150-76 in his career. He also has 120 strikeouts -- 120 strikeouts! -- in 79 2/3 innings this season, which is bonkers. He is well ahead of his pace from the last two years, when he won the Cy Young.\nMax Scherzer is off to a better start this season than in either of the two previous seasons, both of which he won the NL Cy Young in. pic.twitter.com/IewuEFHt7s — ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 31, 2018\nThere's a lot of season still to be played, and we'll see how the Cy Young race shakes out over the next few months. I'm sure Scherzer will be in the conversation again. The more interesting question me: Is Scherzer a Hall of Famer?\nBrewers close out May with another win\nSo, the Brewers have had worse months. They closed out May with a win over the division rival Cardinals on Wednesday afternoon, improving their record to 19-7 for the month. The Brew Crew have the NL's best record at 36-20.\nThe hero Wednesday was offseason pickup Christian Yelich, who drove in one run with a ground ball and another with a mammoth solo homer. Here is Yelich's seventh dinger of the season:\nYelich went 2 for 5 in the game to raise his season batting line to .307/.372/.492. Fellow offseason pickup Lorenzo Cain went 1 for 4 with a walk Wednesday and is hitting .282/.390/.431 on the year. Those two have been dynamic atop the lineup.\nAt 19-7, the Brewers just posted their winningest month since going 20-8 in April 2014. Here are the team's last five months with 19-plus wins:\nMay 2018: 19-7\n19-7 April 2014: 20-8\n20-8 September 2012: 20-11\n20-11 August 2011: 21-7\n21-7 August 2008: 20-7\nThey still need another starting pitcher, but right now, the Brewers sure look like the class of the National League.\nReyes returns, but exits early\nFor the first time since September 29, 2016, top Cardinals prospect Alex Reyes took the mound in a major league game Wednesday afternoon. He underwent Tommy John surgery last spring and spent the last 14 months rehabbing the injury.\nReyes pitched well against the red hot Brewers in his return to the big leagues, allowing three hits and two walks in four scoreless innings. He struck out two and threw 73 pitches. Reyes was removed from the game because his velocity dipped, however. Check it out:\nAlex Reyes saw his velocity dip during Wednesday's start. Brooks Baseball\nBy the end of his outing, tracking systems were classifying Reyes' fastball as changeups, which is never a good sign. Cardinals manager Mike Matheny smartly took the 23-year-old out of the game. And, thankfully, it appears everything is fine. Reyes feels good and no tests are scheduled at the moment.\nAlex Reyes said he feels fine and isn't sure why his velocity dipped in those middle innings. Team noncommittal about whether he'll get further tests — Mark Saxon (@markasaxon) May 30, 2018\nReyes was electric during his minor league rehab assignment, striking out 44 in 23 scoreless innings. He did get stretched out to seven innings and 87 pitches, so it would appear his pitch count was not an issue Wednesday. That said, MLB pitches and minor league pitches are very different animals. Surely Reyes had some adrenaline pumping early against the Brewers. He might've emptied the tank early and run out of gas in the middle innings.\nEither way, Reyes returned to the big leagues Wednesday and looked very good, even while his fastball velocity dipped in the middle innings. He could give the Cardinals a real nice shot in the arm the rest of the season.\nKluber fans 10 as Indians win fifth straight\nAre the Indians finally getting hot? Well, maybe. Playing the White Sox has a way of making teams look good. The Indians blew the ChiSox out for the fifth straight win Wednesday afternoon -- they've outscored their opponents 43-25 in those five games -- to improve their record to 29-25. Four games over .500 matches a season high for Cleveland.\nCorey Kluber started Wednesday's game and was marvelous, striking out 10 in six scoreless innings. He threw only 90 pitches as manager Terry Francona opted to give his ace a bit of a breather with a big lead. Save those bullets for another day, you know? Kluber's been unreal over the last 12 months now:\nIt's been basically one calendar year since Corey Kluber came off the DL to start last June 1.\nToday, he made his 35th regular season start in that time. His numbers:\n23-4 record\n1.76 ERA\n251 IP\n164 H\n312 SO\n33 BB — Andrew Simon (@AndrewSimonMLB) May 30, 2018\nWith Wednesday's outing, Kluber jumped over a couple of Astros and into second place on the AL ERA leaderboard. Justin Verlander (1.11) leads the league and Kluber (2.02) is now second. Not a bad follow-up to a Cy Young season, I'd say.\nTempers flare between Cubs, Pirates\nEarlier this week we had a mini-controversy when Anthony Rizzo slid into catcher Elias Diaz while trying to break up a double play. He deviated from his path to the plate to make it happen, which is a no-no. The umpires incorrectly called it a legal slide, however, prompting MLB to issue a statement admitting the mistake.\nOn Wednesday night things again got heated between the Pirates and Cubs when Joe Musgrove slid in hard at second base and made contact with Javier Baez. The two had words and the benches cleared, though cooler heads prevailed.\nWednesday's game was the finale of this three-game series. The two NL Central rivals will meet again at Wrigley Field next weekend, however. We'll see whether any bad blood spills over.\nWild goose chase in Detroit\nAnd now for the comic relief portion of Wednesday's roundup. A goose interrupted play at Comerica Park, which sent groundskeepers on a literal wild goose chase. Also, the goose flew into the scoreboard while making its escape:\nWild goose chase 😂😂\nwait for the end... (via @FoxSportsWest) pic.twitter.com/o3iBgUOeWE — FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) May 31, 2018\nDon't worry, the television broadcast showed the goose was a-okay after crashing into the scoreboard. It played it off like a boss.\nQuick hits\nLive team updates", "The US government might come with a new move where it could stop allowing spouses of H-1B visa holders to work legally in the United States. If this really happens, it may affect more than 70,000 H-4 visas holders having the work permits in US. H-4 visa is a work permit which are acquired by the spouses of H-1B visa holders.\nIf this really happens, it may affect more than 70,000 H-4 visas holders having the work permits in US | Image for pictorial representation\nIn a possible move by the US government which could affect Indians working in the nation, President Donald Trump’s administration might stop allowing spouses of H-1B visa holders to work legally in the United States. According to reports, lawmakers in the US have been informed about this by a top federal agency in the country.\nIf this really happens, it may affect more than 70,000 H-4 visas holders having the work permits in US. The system dates back to former US President Barack Obama’s regime.\nH-4 visa is a work permit which are acquired by the spouses of H-1B visa holders. In US, there is a huge chunk of Indian spouses having the H-4 work permits but if such a move by the Trump administration is implemented, then it would have a devastating impact on Indians working in US. Moreover, H-4 visa holders are highly skilled professionals in India. Reports suggest that more than 100,000 H-4 visa holders have been benefited from this scheme.\nAlso Read: India informed Beijing before notifying govt officials against Dalai Lama’s event\nThis rule was implemented by the then Obama administration in 2015 allowing work permits for spouses who could have got employment as H-1B visa holders require a permanent resident status. Speaking on the matter, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Francis Cissna in a letter to Senator Chuck Grassley said, “A former communication is expected to be made later this summer. Our plans include proposing regulatory changes to remove H-4 dependent spouses from the class of aliens eligible for employment authorisation, thereby reversing the 2015 final rule that granted such eligibility.”\nFrancis Cissna also said such a move would require executive order to propose new rules and issue new guidance, to supersede or revise previous rules and guidance if appropriate, to protect the interests of United States workers in the administration of our immigration system …”\nAlso Read: PM Modi, President Xi Jinping to hold informal meet on April 27-28 in China\nFor all the latest World News, download NewsX App", "4-H is growing the next generation of leaders today. After an application and interview process, three members have been selected to be this year’s ambassadors for Fallon County. Sophomores, Mattie Mastel and Jolyn Rost, and senior Bo Rost will serve their ambassadorship from October 1 of this year through September 30, 2018.\nBy Angel Wyrwas\n4-H is growing the next generation of leaders today. After an application and interview process, three members have been selected to be this year’s ambassadors for Fallon County. Sophomores, Mattie Mastel and Jolyn Rost, and senior Bo Rost will serve their ambassadorship from October 1 of this year through September 30, 2018.\nAmbassadors are youth that are engaged in leadership, service and promotion of the Montana 4-H program. A 4-H Ambassador is a self-motivated, enthusiastic leader who promotes 4-H using the skill, knowledge and leadership abilities acquired in 4-H with fellow members, area residents, community leaders, elected officials and non 4-H youth. An Ambassador serves to strengthen the 4-H program through public relations.\nMattie has participated in 4-H for seven years. She does Market Rabbit and Leadership in 4-H. Mattie also participates in Montana High School Rodeo and FFA.\nJolyn has been a member of 4-H for eight years. She is involved in Market Steer, Sheep Goat, Swine, and Poultry. Jolyn does Breeding Goat and Sheep as well. She also participates in Air Rifle and Pistol. Jolyn is a member of Speech and Drama and FFA.\nBo has participated in 4-H for ten years. He does Market Steer, Goat and Poultry as well as Breeding Goat. Bo also participates in Pocket Pets, Leadership, Arts and Crafts and Air Rifle. He is also involved in Speech and Drama and FFA.\n“I like being there to help others,” said Mattie. “I want to be a true leader. 4-H lets me do things I love like working with animals.”\n“It’s our job to help younger members become leaders,” said Bo. “4-H has taught me how to keep very detailed records. They must be accurate. I’ve also learned financial and social skills.”\n“4-H takes a lot of dedication but it is also a lot of fun,” said Jolyn. “It teaches responsibility and gave me the opportunity to learn new things. There are so many different categories to choose. You don’t have to be a farmer or rancher to belong to 4-H.”\nIf you would like more information on how to become a 4-H member or leader, please contact the MSU Extension Fallon-Carter Counties Office at 406-778-7110.", "RR Nagar Assembly election result 2018 LIVE: The by election voting was held on May 28.\nRR Nagar Assembly election result 2018 LIVE: The result of Rajarajeshwari Nagar Assembly constituency election will be declared on May 31. The elections in the constituency were held on May 28. RR Nagar witnessed around 53 per cent voting on May 28 in all 471 polling stations. Earlier, the constituency was scheduled to go to polls on May 12 with 222 other constituencies of Karnataka. But the elections in Rajarajeshwari Nagar were deferred after 9,746 fake electoral photo identity cards (EPIC) were found in a flat in Jalahalli on May 9. A total of 14 candidates are in the fray in the the constituency. These include Munirathna from Congress, BJP’s Muniraju Gowda, Janata Dal (Secular) candidate G. H. Ramachandra and 11 other candidates.", "Boston United will kick off their 2018-19 season by welcoming Reece Thompson’s Guiseley to the Jakemans Stadium.\nThe Lions, who also include ex-Pilgrim Scott Garner in their squad as well as last season’s on-loan striker, will visit Lincolnshire on August 4.\nCraig Elliott’s side will end their campaign away at newly-promoted Hereford.\nThe festive period will see Boston host Alfreton Town on Boxing Day, the return fixture at the Impact Arena being held on New Year’s Day.\nFixtures in full:\nSat Aug 4 Guiseley H\nTue Aug 7 Leamington A\nSat Aug 11 FC United Of Manchester A\nTue Aug 14 Nuneaton Borough H\nSat Aug 18 Altrincham A\nSat Aug 25 Spennymoor Town H\nMon Aug 27 Bradford Park Avenue A\nSat Sep 1 Kidderminster Harriers H\nSat Sep 8 Stockport County A\nSat Sep 15 Chester H\nSat Sep 22 Emirates FA Cup 2Q\nSat Sep 29 Curzon Ashton A\nSat Oct 6 Emirates FA Cup 3Q\nSat Oct 13 Blyth Spartans H\nSat Oct 20 Darlington A Emirates FA Cup 4Q\nSat Oct 27 Hereford H\nTue Oct 30 Brackley Town H\nSat Nov 3 Ashton United A\nSat Nov 10 AFC Telford United A Emirates FA Cup 1\nSat Nov 17 Southport H\nSat Nov 24 Buildbase FA Trophy 3Q\nSat Dec 1 Chorley A Emirates FA Cup 2\nSat Dec 8 York City H\nSat Dec 15 Buildbase FA Trophy 1\nSat Dec 22 Spennymoor Town A\nWed Dec 26 Alfreton Town H\nSat Dec 29 Bradford Park Avenue H\nTue Jan 1 Alfreton Town A\nSat Jan 5 Altrincham H Emirates FA Cup 3\nSat Jan 12 Kidderminster Harriers A Buildbase FA Trophy 2\nSat Jan 19 Leamington H\nSat Jan 26 Guiseley A Emirates FA Cup 4\nSat Feb 2 FC United Of Manchester H Buildbase FA Trophy 3\nSat Feb 9 Nuneaton Borough A\nSat Feb 16 Chester A Emirates FA Cup 5\nSat Feb 23 Stockport County H Buildbase FA Trophy 4\nSat Mar 2 AFC Telford United H\nSat Mar 9 Southport A\nSat Mar 16 Chorley H Emirates FA Cup 6/Buildbase FA Trophy Semi(1)\nSat Mar 23 York City A Buildbase FA Trophy Semi-Final(2)\nSat Mar 30 Curzon Ashton H\nSat Apr 6 Blyth Spartans A Emirates FA Cup Semi-Final\nSat Apr 13 Darlington H\nSat Apr 20 Brackley Town A\nMon Apr 22 Ashton United H\nSat Apr 27 Hereford A\nSat May 18 Emirates FA Cup Final\nSun May 19 Buildbase FA Trophy Final", "June 15, 2018, to preferred shareholders of record at the close of business on May 31, 2018:\na quarterly cash dividend of $1,022.22 1 per share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series A ( $100,000 liquidation preference per share). The amount of the dividend on each Series A Depositary Share ( $25 liquidation preference per share) will be $0.255 2 ;\nper share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series A ( liquidation preference per share). The amount of the dividend on each Series A Depositary Share ( liquidation preference per share) will be ; a quarterly cash dividend of $1,022.22 1 per share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series B ( $100,000 liquidation preference per share);\nper share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series B ( liquidation preference per share); a semi-annual cash dividend of $2,812.50 per share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series F ( $100,000 liquidation preference per share). The amount of the dividend on each Series F Depositary Share ( $1,000 liquidation preference per share) will be $28.12 3 ;\nper share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series F ( liquidation preference per share). The amount of the dividend on each Series F Depositary Share ( liquidation preference per share) will be ; a semi-annual cash dividend of $2,525.00 per share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series G ( $100,000 liquidation preference per share). The amount of the dividend on each Series G Depositary Share ( $1,000 liquidation preference per share) will be $25.25 ; and\nper share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series G ( liquidation preference per share). The amount of the dividend on each Series G Depositary Share ( liquidation preference per share) will be ; and a semi-annual cash dividend of $3,003.82 4 per share on SunTrust's Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series H ( $100,000 liquidation preference per share). The amount of the dividend on each Series H Depositary Share ( $1,000 liquidation preference per share) will be $30.04 5.\nAbout SunTrust Banks, Inc.\nSunTrust Banks, Inc. is a purpose-driven company dedicated to Lighting the Way to Financial Well-Being for the people, businesses, and communities it serves. SunTrust leads onUp, a national movement inspiring Americans to build financial confidence. Headquartered in Atlanta, the Company has two business segments: Consumer and Wholesale. Its flagship subsidiary, SunTrust Bank, operates an extensive branch and ATM network throughout the high-growth Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states, along with 24-hour digital access. Certain business lines serve consumer, commercial, corporate, and institutional clients nationally. As of March 31, 2018, SunTrust had total assets of $205 billion and total deposits of $162 billion. The Company provides deposit, credit, trust, investment, mortgage, asset management, securities brokerage, and capital market services. Learn more at suntrust.com.\nEditor's Note: The preferred stock dividends have been rounded for reader convenience.\n1The precise amount is $1,022.22222222222.\n2The precise amount is $0.255555555555556.\n3The precise amount is $28.125.\n4The precise amount is $3,003.81944444444.\n5The precise amount is $30.03819444444.\nView original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/suntrust-declares-quarterly-dividend-300635769.html\nSOURCE SunTrust Banks, Inc.\nRelated Links\nhttp://www.suntrust.com", "Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz (HM-B.SK) said Thursday that sales increased 4% in local currencies in May, with sales converted into Swedish kronor increasing by 8%.\nContinue Reading Below\nIn May last, local currency sales had increased by 9%.\nIn the company's second quarter, spanning March 1 to May 31, sales excluding value-added tax and translated into Swedish kronor rose to SEK51.38 billion ($5.91 billion), from SEK46.87 billion last year.\nIncluding VAT, sales in the second quarter rose 10% to SEK59.54 billion from SEK54.34 billion. In local currencies, sales in the second quarter including VAT, rose 5%.\nH&M had 4,498 stores worldwide on May 31, up from 4,077 on the same date last year.\nFull earnings figures for the second quarter will be published on June 29.\nContinue Reading Below ADVERTISEMENT\n-Write to Dominic Chopping at dominic.chopping@wsj.com; Twitter: @domchopping @WSJNordics\n(END) Dow Jones Newswires\nJune 15, 2017 02:43 ET (06:43 GMT)", "Milner in action against Man City on Saturday (Getty)\nThe form of James Milner could stop Liverpool from signing a new left-back during the current transfer window.\nThat’s the view of Anfield legend Jamie Redknapp.\nWhen these Premier League players are leaving for the African Cup of Nations and when they are back\nThe Reds have been strongly linked with seeking a new player in the position, particularly earlier in the campaign amid concerns over the form of Alberto Moreno.\nMilner, usually a midfielder, has been filling in at the back and has excelled in the role. His form is that good that Klopp may not bother to find a new left-back now.\n‘He kept Raheem Sterling quiet against Manchester City and if a recognised left back becomes available this month, I’m not sure Jurgen Klopp would want to upset the apple cart,’ Redknapp told the Daily Mail.\nLiverpool fixtures Sunderland (A) – Mon 2 Jan\nPlymouth/Newport (H) – Sun 8 Jan\nSouthampton (A) – Wed 11 Jan\nManchester United (A) – Sun 15 Jan\nSwansea (H) – Sat 21 Jan\nSouthampton (H) EFL Cup – Wed 25 Jan\nChelsea (H) – Tue 31 Jan\nHull (A) – Sat 4 Feb\nMilner up against Sterling (Getty)\nLiverpool recorded a 1-0 victory over Man City on New Year’s Eve to keep Chelsea in sight. They can close the gap on the league leaders to three points today with victory at Sunderland.\nMORE: Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp identifies Benfica striker Raul Jimenez as summer transfer target", "Chesterfield will begin and end the Vanarama National League season away from home.\nThe Spireites are to visit Ebbsfleet United on 4th August to kick off the the campaign, and Maidenhead United are the hosts on 27th April for the final game.\nAldershot Town are the first to visit the Proact on 7th August, before Braintree arrive on 11th and a reunion with Ian Evatt at Barrow on 14th.\nA visit to Salford City (18th), a home game against Martin Allen’s former club Barnet (25th) and a Bank Holiday Monday trip to Hartlepool United (27th) round off the first month.\nBoxing Day will be spent at the Proact, taking on Solihull Moors.\nHartlepool will also visit over the festive period (29th December) and on New Year’s Day Town make the relatively short journey to Solihull.\nGood Friday sees Chesterfield travel to Gateshead and they’ll be at home to Boreham Wood on Easter Monday.\nSpeaking before the fixture release Allen said: “I just look at our first game, it doesn’t really faze me.\n“I will prepare our players to play the best game I can, in every game we have.”\n2018/19 fixture list\nSat Aug 4 Ebbsfleet United A\nTue Aug 7 Aldershot Town H\nSat Aug 11 Braintree Town H\nTue Aug 14 Barrow A\nSat Aug 18 Salford City A\nSat Aug 25 Barnet H\nMon Aug 27 Hartlepool United A\nSat Sep 1 Leyton Orient H\nTue Sep 4 Boreham Wood A\nSat Sep 8 Dover Athletic H\nSat Sep 15 Dagenham & Redbridge A\nSat Sep 22 Gateshead H (FA Cup 2Q date)\nTue Sep 25 Maidenhead United H\nSat Sep 29 Maidstone United A\nSat Oct 6 AFC Fylde H (FA Cup 3Q date)\nSat Oct 13 FC Halifax Town A\nSat Oct 20 FA Cup 4Q date\nSat Oct 27 Wrexham H\nTue Oct 30 Sutton United A\nSat Nov 3 Harrogate Town A\nSat Nov 10 Emirates FA Cup 1 date\nSat Nov 17 Havant & Waterlooville H\nSat Nov 24 Eastleigh A (FA Trophy 3Q date)\nTue Nov 27 Bromley H\nSat Dec 1 Barnet A (FA Cup 2 date)\nSat Dec 8 Salford City H\nSat Dec 15 FA Trophy 1 date\nSat Dec 22 Leyton Orient A\nWed Dec 26 Solihull Moors H\nSat Dec 29 Hartlepool United H\nTue Jan 1 Solihull Moors A\nSat Jan 5 Ebbsfleet United H (FA Cup 3 date)\nSat Jan 12 FA Trophy 2 date\nSat Jan 19 Aldershot Town A\nSat Jan 26 Barrow H (FA Cup 4 date)\nSat Feb 2 Braintree Town A (FA Trophy 3 date)\nSat Feb 9 FC Halifax Town H\nSat Feb 16 AFC Fylde A (FA Cup 5 date)\nSat Feb 23 Harrogate Town H (FA Trophy 4 date)\nSat Mar 2 Wrexham A\nSat Mar 9 Eastleigh H\nTue Mar 12 Bromley A\nSat Mar 16 Havant & Waterlooville A (FA Cup 6/FA Trophy Semi(1) date)\nSat Mar 23 Sutton United H (FA Trophy Semi(2) date)\nSat Mar 30 Dagenham & Redbridge H\nSat Apr 6 Dover Athletic A (FA Cup Semi-Final date)\nSat Apr 13 Maidstone United H\nFri Apr 19 Gateshead A\nMon Apr 22 Boreham Wood H\nSat Apr 27 Maidenhead United A\nSat May 18 FA Cup Final\nSun May 19 FA Trophy Final", "For the first time in 657 days, right-hander Nathan Eovaldi took the mound in a major-league game Wednesday night.\nEovaldi, who missed the entire 2017 season and the start of the 2018 season with his second career Tommy John surgery, started for the Tampa Bay Rays against the Oakland Athletics (GameTracker) on Wednesday. It was his first appearance in a big-league game since August 10, 2016, when he was still a member of the New York Yankees.\nAnd things could not have gone any better.\nEovaldi struck out four and walked one in six no-hit innings in his return to MLB. He was on a pitch limit and was removed after throwing only 70 pitches.\nView Profile Nathan Eovaldi TB • SP • 24 May 30 vs. Athletics IP 6 H 0 R 0 BB 1 K 4\nEovaldi got stretched out to 71 pitches in his final minor-league rehab start last week, though they were 71 stressful pitches. He allowed eight runs on 10 hits in four innings for Tampa's Triple-A affiliate. Furthermore, Eovaldi was recently shut down with a rib cage muscle issue. Even with the no-hitter going, the Rays were smart to protect him physically.\nThe Rays signed Eovaldi to a one-year contract worth $2 million with a $2 million club option during the 2016-17 offseason. They essentially paid him $2 million to monitor his Tommy John rehab last year, and if they were pleased with his progress, they would exercise the option and keep him for 2018. That's exactly what happened. He now joins their modified four-man rotation.\nRight-hander Wilmer Font, who had allowed 31 hits in 17 innings going into Wednesday's game, replaced Eovaldi in the seventh inning. The combined no-hit bid was lost when Jed Lowrie stroked a solid one-out single back up the middle in the seventh.", "Chickasaw County 4-H is implementing a new livestock committee structure and currently seeks four volunteer livestock superintendents.Superintendents are needed in the areas of sheep, poultry, pet, and dog.If you have an interest in working with youth and the species listed above, please consider completing an application. 4-H experience is not necessary.A superintendent supports and advises 4-H professionals, volunteers and members to help youth grow and reach their full potential. Superintendents attend the Chickasaw County 4-H Livestock Committee meetings 4-6 times a year and communicate with Extension staff for livestock rules and revisions. The superintendent also works with the County Youth Coordinator to determine educational plans within the species area. The superintendent must be available during the Chickasaw County 4-H and FFA Achievement Fair July 10-17, 2017.Interested applicants are encouraged to apply and should obtain an application from the Chickasaw County Extension Office, or email jtweeten@iastate.edu. Application deadline is January 11th,2017.For more information please contact Jaclyn Tweeten, jtweeten@iastate.edu or 641-394-2174.", "RBC | The 2018 Livestock Judging Season concluded for the Rio Blanco 4-H senior team at the 73rd annual Colorado 4-H June conference held at Colorado State University.\nDr. Kevin Pond and Clay Carlson from the Colorado State University animal science department put on an outstanding contest.\nMacy Collins, Jilly Bumguardner, Marryn Shults and Tatumn Kennedy marked cards for RBC last Wednesday. Collins ended her 4-H career as the third high individual overall and Marryn Shults earned a top 10 position as the seventh high individual overall in Colorado 4-H Livestock Judging.\nMacy had to judge as an individual as her national qualifying team participation was burned back in 2015 when she anchored the state champion judging team that qualified for the National 4-H Contest. Marryn, Jilly and Tatumn were the RBC senior team.\nThe state contest is designed to challenge judges and they need to be sharp. It’s a 15-hour day and there is no getting lucky at this show. It is arguably the most respected national qualifying 4-H contest in the nation. Twelve livestock classes and sex sets of reasons challenge the teams competing for a state championship. It is an exercise in focus, logic and mental toughness. This is quite a test for a 14-year that just left junior high. Not many adults would enjoy preparing six oral presentations after lunch with no notes in less than 2.5 hours. The basic professional skills learned by participating in 4-H livestock evaluation are unmatched compared to any youth activity.\nIn the beef division Shults finished fourth and Collins earned fifth.\nIn swine Collins got the white rosette third overall.\nIn the sheep/goat section Collins was fourth and Shults was fifth overall. Both talked a high set of reasons to the officials. Marryn scored a 48 on market lamb class and Macy talked a 48 on the wether boer dam does.\nIn individual placings with 600 points possible, Shults placed seventh at 572 and Collins was one spot behind her in eighth at 570.\nOral reasons required 300 maximum points and Collins finished third overall averaging a 46 on six sets with 281 points and Shults finished 12th averaging a 45 on six presentations with 270 points.\nBumguardner and Kennedy gained valuable experience and can build on the future. They may not have placed as high as they anticipated but this activity is based on fundamentals and experience and they added to their foundation and will earn plenty of recognition down the road.\nCollins made the Colorado State 4-H Livestock All State team this season and will be recognized at the Colorado State Fair. She is headed to Hutchinson Junior College this fall on a full ride academic and judging scholarship. It will be strange not to hear her voice in practice and not have to make space on the back seat for her awards on the way home. She was an integral member of the most recognized 4-H judging teams in Rio Blanco County 4-H history. She was a team member on the junior and senior level that won every 4-H Livestock Judging invitational contest in Colorado at least once. She was on RBC’s first State Champion Team in 2015 and has marked cards at contests held in Arizona, Kentucky, Nebraska, Iowa and Montana. Her accomplishments are unprecedented and Collins will not be forgotten in Meeker’s judging universe, but her presence and leadership will be missed by her coach, teammates and peers across the region as she moves on to college.\nLike this: Like Loading...", "The 2018 Go 4th Festival continues today, with the food vendors opening at 9 am, the Longview Firefighter Floating Hole-in-One at 10 am, and the Kid’s Fest at 11 am. The Carnival at R. A. Long High School opens at noon, and then the live entertainment at Martin’s Dock starts at 1:30 pm with Raeann Phillips. Northwest Groove will perform at 3:30 pm, Ted Boursaw will hit the stage at 5:30 pm, and Gold Dust will wrap things up at 8 pm. The annual Longview Pioneer Lions “Spirits of Longview” Beer Garden opens at 5 pm at the Cowlitz County Event Center, and then the first-ever Firecracker 5K Fun Run will head out from the Hemlock Plaza at 6 pm.", "H-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken, May 30, 2018.\nH-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken.\nThe broken equipment means metal pieces could have been mixed in with the ice cream.\nThe products were sold inside H-E-B and Central Market stores in Texas and Mexico.\nIf you have one of the recalled products, you can return it to the same store for a full refund.\nThe recalled brands include EconoMax and Hill Country Fare ice cream and Creamy Creations sherbets. You can see the recalled products as well as UPC numbers and best by dates below.\nH-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken, Wednesday, May 30, 2018.\nPhoto credit: HEB\nH-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken, Wednesday, May 30, 2018.\nPhoto credit: HEB\nH-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken, Wednesday, May 30, 2018.\nPhoto credit: HEB\nH-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken, Wednesday, May 30, 2018.\nPhoto credit: NBC 5 News\nH-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken, Wednesday, May 30, 2018.\nPhoto credit: HEB\nH-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken, Wednesday, May 30, 2018.\nPhoto credit: NBC 5 News\nH-E-B has issued a voluntary recall of three different ice creams after workers discovered part of the equipment used to make the ice cream was broken, Wednesday, May 30, 2018.\nPhoto credit: HEB", "Search our Site: Go\nBack Issues Back Issues Select Month April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 January 2012 January 2011 July 2010 April 2010 October 2009 July 2009 May 2008 November 2003 July 2003 February 2003 January 2003 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 October 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 May 2001 March 2001 February 2001 January 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000 February 2000 January 2000 December 1999 November 1999 October 1999 September 1999 August 1999 July 1999", "Get Daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe See our privacy notice Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nGet daily updates pushed directly to you Subscribe to notifications See our privacy notice\nAway to possible promotion rivals Chelmsford City on the first day of the season, Torquay United will meet Westcountry rivals Truro City twice over Christmas and the New Year in the 2018-2019 Vanarama National League South fixtures announced today.\nThe relegated Gulls will tackle a new division and a raft of new opponents this coming season, starting with a trip to Essex to meet ambitious Chelmsford in the opening match on Saturday, August 4.\nThen it's United head coach Gary Owers' former club Bath City at Plainmoor three days later (Aug 7), followed by another home game against East Thurrock United and trips to Oxford City and Slough Town.\nLast season's beaten NL South play-off finalists Hampton & Richmond come to Plainmoor on Saturday, August 25.\nTruro City, managed by ex-Torquay defender Lee Hodges, will visit Plainmoor on Boxing Day, with the return match at Treyew Road on New Year's Day.\nThose two holiday 'derbies' are split by a visit from Gloucester City on December 29.\nTorquay United close to concluding Josh Gowling investigation\nUnited's two fixtures against Weston-super-Mare are on Tuesday, October 30 (A), and Saturday, March 2 (H).\nUnited will enter the Emirates FA Cup earlier than ever, in the Second Qualifying Round on Saturday, September 22.\nMeanwhile, the Gulls have added another pre-season friendly to their summer schedule. They will entertain Bristol City at Plainmoor on Tuesday, July 24, with a kick-off time of 7.30pm.\nFriendly schedule: Tuesday, July 10 - Forest Green Rovers (H, 7.30pm). Saturday, July 14 - Poole Town (A, 3pm). Tuesday, July 17 - Plymouth Argyle (H, 7.30pm). Friday, July 20 Cardiff City (H, 7pm). Tuesday, July 24 - Bristol City (H, 7.30pm). Saturday, July 28 Dorchester Town (A, 3pm).\nFull National League South fixtures\nSat Aug 4 Chelmsford City A\nTue Aug 7 Bath City H\nSat Aug 11 East Thurrock United H\nTue Aug 14 Oxford City A\nSat Aug 18 Slough Town A\nSat Aug 25 Hampton & Richmond Borough H\nMon Aug 27 Gloucester City A\nSat Sep 1 Hemel Hempstead Town H\nSat Sep 8 Chippenham Town H\nSat Sep 15 Hungerford Town A\nSat Sep 22 Emirates FA Cup 2Q\nSat Sep 29 Woking H\nSat Oct 6 Emirates FA Cup 3Q\nSat Oct 13 Eastbourne Borough A\nSat Oct 20 St. Albans City H Emirates FA Cup 4Q\nSat Oct 27 Wealdstone A\nTue Oct 30 Weston-super-Mare A\nSat Nov 3 Billericay Town H\nSat Nov 10 Dartford A Emirates FA Cup 1\nSat Nov 17 Concord Rangers H\nSat Nov 24 Buildbase FA Trophy 3Q\nSat Dec 1 Dulwich Hamlet A Emirates FA Cup 2\nSat Dec 8 Welling United H\nSat Dec 15 Buildbase FA Trophy 1\nSat Dec 22 Hampton & Richmond Borough A\nWed Dec 26 Truro City H\nSat Dec 29 Gloucester City H\nTue Jan 1 Truro City A\nSat Jan 5 Slough Town H Emirates FA Cup 3\nSat Jan 12 Hemel Hempstead Town A Buildbase FA Trophy 2\nSat Jan 19 Bath City A\nSat Jan 26 Oxford City H Emirates FA Cup 4\nSat Feb 2 East Thurrock United A Buildbase FA Trophy 3\nSat Feb 9 Chelmsford City H\nSat Feb 16 Welling United A Emirates FA Cup 5\nSat Feb 23 Dulwich Hamlet H Buildbase FA Trophy 4\nSat Mar 2 Weston-super-Mare H\nSat Mar 9 Billericay Town A\nSat Mar 16 Dartford H Emirates FA Cup 6/Buildbase FA Trophy Semi(1)\nSat Mar 23 Concord Rangers A Buildbase FA Trophy Semi-Final(2)\nSat Mar 30 Wealdstone H\nSat Apr 6 Woking A Emirates FA Cup Semi-Final\nSat Apr 13 Eastbourne Borough H\nSat Apr 20 Chippenham Town A\nMon Apr 22 Hungerford Town H\nSat Apr 27 St. Albans City A\nSat May 18 Emirates FA Cup Final\nSun May 19 Buildbase FA Trophy Final\nFixtures are subject to change.", "Regional Roundup: Top New Features This Week Around Our Broadway World - 4/14; A RAISIN IN THE SUN at Arena Stage, JC SUPERSTAR in Raleigh and More! BroadwayWorld presents a comprehensive weekly roundup of regional stories around our Broadway World, which include videos, editor spotlights, regional reviews and more. This week, we feature A RAISIN IN THE SUN at Arena Stage, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR in Raleigh, and SCOTTSBORO BOYS in Phoenix, just to name a few.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at BroadwayWorld.com.", "In this week’s Horse & Hound magazine, out on Thursday 28 June 2018, don’t miss our full report from the Hickstead Derby meeting, including all the showjumping and showing action, plus much more. Read our feature on the much discussed whip rules across the disciplines. In this week’s ‘Vet clinic’ we find out how to spot the signs of sand colic, and we also talk to dressage rider Jo Barry on her battle back from severe brain injury. Plus, don’t miss our six-page report from Royal Ascot and much more.\nWhat’s in Horse & Hound magazine: 28 June 2018\nNews\nFines of £200 for failing to microchip equines by 2020\nOwner’s bid for change after horse dies in lorry\nLitterbug riders are ‘driving us mad’\nChampionships for Britain promise major benefits\nHickstead Derby report\nShowjumping: William Funnell becomes a four-time Derby winner on a home-bred\nComment: Nigel Coupe\nShowing: Jo Bates and her winning hack continue their run of major successes\nDressage: Louise Bell claims her first Premier League grand prix victory\nFeatures\nWhen perseverance pays off: Equine stars who initially underwhelmed riders\nWhip politics: The rules across the disciplines and the ethics\nChildren and rural life: We discover how Countryside Learning is connecting youngsters with hunting\nRegulars\nAll in a day’s work: Puppy walker his Honour Ian Alexander QC\nProperty: Homes for under the £1m mark\nVet clinic: Spotting the signs of sand colic\nH&H interview: Dressage rider Jo Barry on battling back from severe brain injury\nMasterclass: Dressage rider Sarah Millis on suppleness and engagement\nGoodnight: Columnist Tessa Waugh’s country diary\nOpinion\nLetters page, plus 100 Horseworld C lichés\nRacing: Eve Johnson Houghton\nEventing: Mark Todd\nDressage:Richard Davison\nShowing: Katie Jerram-Hunnable\nHunting: Steven Ashworth\nReports\nRacing: Royal Ascot\nEventing: Farley Hall, Arville and highlights\nDressage: Highlights and Rotterdam\nShowing: Royal Three Counties, Cumberland County and more\nShowjumping: Brook Farm\nDriving: BDS Annual\nPolo: Warwickshire Cup\nClassified ads\nHorses for sale\nGet your magazine today", "Search in Archive\nSearch by Month Select month July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 Search by Category Arts & Entertainment Art Artist’s Lane Comedy Dance Films Fort Lewis Holiday Events Museum Music Concert Pagosa Center for the Arts Photography Theater Curtains Up Pagosa Thingamajig Youth Features Lifestyle Cards of Thanks Celebrations Births Community Education Relationships Clubs Community Center News Extension Viewpoints Farm & Ranch Food Food for Thought Fund Raiser Gardening Health History Pagosa’s Past Library Library News Movie/ Film Nonprofit Religion A Matter of Faith Senior News Sport Veterans Corner News Airport Archuleta County Business BizBeat CDC Chamber News CDOT Crime Education Education Center Seeds of Learning Election Fire District Law Enforcement Legal Lines Medical Political Reservoir Hill Town of Pagosa Springs Parks and Recreation Town Rec Center Town Tourism Committee Updates Utilities Dry Gulch Geothermal LPEA PAWSD Water Village at Wolf Creek Wal-Mart Weather Wildfire Obituaries Opinion Editorial Letters to the Editor Political Outdoors Chimney Rock CO Parks and Wildlife Fish and Game Forest Pagosa Lakes News Public Notices Sports Baseball Basketball Cheerleading Cross Country Football Golf Pirates Rodeo Soccer Track and Field Volleyball Winter Sports Wrestling Top Stories Veterans Search with Google", "HARPURSVILLE, N.Y. — Millions have been watching April the giraffe’s livestream, but, on Monday, park officials said they will pull the video feed after April suffered an injury.\nAnimal Adventure Park posted on Facebook that, just days after giving birth to her calf, April twisted one of her legs, which keepers say is not uncommon with animals her size.\nThe park added that it’s been bogged down with messages about April, which have been affecting it’s email servers and say it’s the reason why they’re taking down the “Giraffe Cam.”\nAs of Monday evening, the livestream was still running. Animal Adventure Park said the feed will come down between Wednesday and Friday.\nApril has been the subject of international attention since the live feed was turned on in February. On Saturday, after months of anticipation, April gave birth to her fourth calf.\nThe Animal Adventure Park currently has a contest under way to name the male calf. It costs $1 to cast a vote, and the park says the money will go to three different causes: giraffe conservation, “Ava’s Little Heroes” – an event named after the park owners’ daughter who suffers from a rare form of epilepsy – and to further improvements at Animal Adventure Park.\nPlease enable Javascript to watch this video\nMore stories on April the giraffe here", "Tottenham will discover on March 23 whether they have the all-clear to play all their home games at Wembley next season in front of crowds of up to 90,000.\nSpurs plan to use the national stadium for 2017-18 while work continues on their new 61,000-seat ground, which they hope to occupy from the start of the 2018-19 campaign.\nAt a meeting in five weeks, Brent Council’s planning committee will consider the application, submitted by Wembley National Stadium Limited, to stage 31 more major events at the venue between August 1 this year and July 31, 2018. If the application is approved then Wembley can be fully open for all Spurs matches there but if it is turned down then capacity will be limited to 51,000 for some games.\nTottenham have yet to announce formally that they will activate their option to make the temporary move but have until the end of March to inform the FA of their intentions.\nThat would allow the club to confirm that this will, indeed, be the last season at White Hart Lane and reveal their plans to mark 118 years in the stadium. They can also then inform supporters of ticket prices for next term.\nRepresentatives of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust are encouraging the club to keep season-ticket prices at the same level as White Hart Lane for the year at Wembley. The cheapest this season is £765, rising to £1,895.\nThe club froze prices for the current campaign, scrapping their original plans to raise them by two per cent across the board.\nThat would involve a small reduction in the actual price of the ticket, as the Trust believe the cost of travelling to Wembley will be greater for most fans.\nIn Pictures | Inside Tottenham's new stadium\n11 show all In Pictures | Inside Tottenham's new stadium\n1/11 The Tunnel Club The first purpose-built glass-walled Tunnel Club in the UK which will allow lounge guests to see the inner sanctum with a behind-the-scenes view of the players’ tunnel, while also enjoying the action from player-spec ‘Recaro-style’ seats, located behind the First Team technical area.\n2/11 The Tunnel Club Tottenham Hotspur FC\n3/11 The Sky Louge Situated on level nine of the stadium, the Sky Lounge will offer a relaxed and informal experience surrounded by panoramic views both within and outside the stadium.\n4/11 The H Club An exceptional Members’ Club, will offer a range of Michelin star calibre dining experiences including the opportunity to dine at the chef’s table or with Club legends on a privately hosted table.\n5/11 The H Club\n6/11 The H Club\n7/11 The H Club\n8/11 East Stand premium dining The selection of dining experiences is extensive, ranging from street-food grazing to in-suite chefs and Michelin star quality dining.\n9/11 The East Lower stand\n10/11 Super Loges Contemporary Super Loges will feature for the first time in a UK stadium and are therefore expected to be extremely popular as they provide the intimacy of a private dining experience with access to a Members’ lounge bar for networking.\n11/11\nTrust secretary Katrina Law said: “We are eager to hear where we’ll be playing next season and how much it will cost to watch our team. Presuming Wembley will be the venue, THST have lobbied for price parity.\n“That would mean no material increase in the price of a season ticket, minus a nominal amount for increased transport costs.\n“We’re also keen to ensure no season ticket package should cost more than individual match-day pricing in equivalent seating.”\nSpurs’ celebrations for their last year at White Hart Lane have been far more subdued than those of West Ham or Arsenal, though the club argue that whereas those clubs were moving to different locations, Spurs are ‘staying at home’.\nTottenham offer a first look inisde their future stadium as they release a new CGI\nDespite that, the lack of fanfare has still been a surprise.\nThere are scarves on sale from unofficial stalls positioned outside the ground on matchdays but these represent the only evidence that this is to be the final season at White Hart Lane.\nThe new stadium, a project costing about £750million, is a stone’s throw from White Hart Lane and is rapidly taking shape.", "May is here, which means the 2017/2018 Farmington Relocation Magazine is out. The Farmington Chamber has once again partnered with The Daily Times to put this magazine together.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Farmington Daily Times.", "Congress candidate Munirathna on Thursday won the assembly seat in Karnataka by defeating his nearest rival by 41162 votes.\nMunirathna was up against BJP's Muniraju Gowda and JD(S)' G H Ramachandra.\nVoting in the constituency, which was earlier scheduled to go on polls on May 12 with the rest of the constituencies of Karnataka, was postponed in light of the alleged fake voter ID scam. Before the May 12 polling for Karnataka assembly polls, 9,746 voter ID cards were found from a flat in SLV Park View Apartment in Bengaluru's Jalahalli locality by Election Commission (EC) officials on May 8.\nALSO READ: Bypoll results 2018 LIVE: BJP's losing streak in Uttar Pradesh to continue?\nFollowing the recovery of the voter IDs, a political slugfest had broken out between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), both accusing each other of being involved in the scam. The Election Commission decided to countermand the election in the constituency.\nHere are the latest updates on ' election result 2018':\nCongress' Munirathna wins by 41162 votes:\n#Karnataka: Congress candidate Muniratna has won by 41162 votes from assembly constituency — ANI (@ANI) May 31, 2018\nCongratulations to @INCKarnataka candidate Muniratna for winning the RR Nagar Assembly Election by a huge margin of more than 40,000 votes. We thank the people of the state for supporting our party. https://t.co/QTFYcHN3QB — DK Shivakumar (@DKShivakumar) May 31, 2018\nCongratulating Congress and Muniratna for the victory, senior party leader D K Shivakumar thanked the people of Karnataka for supporting the Congress.\nWith agency inputs", "AFC Fylde's second season in the National League begins at home to Bromley on August 4, the Coasters having taken four points off the London club last term.\nThe opening week of the season then brings an away trip to Wrexham and then a first visit to Havant and Waterlooville in Hampshire.\nA hectic start to the league campaign sees seven games in both August and September.\nBarrow are this season's opponents for the festive double-header on Boxing Day and New Year's Day and the season concludes with a visit to Salford City and finally a home clash with FC Halifax Town.\nAFC Fylde 2018-19\nAugust\n4 Bromley H\n7 Wrexham A\n11 Havant and Waterlooville A\n14 Solihull Moors H\n18 Dover Athletics H\n25 Sutton United A\n27 Harrogate Town H\nSeptember\n1 Ebbsfleet United A\n4 Salford City H\n8 Eastleigh A\n15 Aldershot Town H\n22 Barnet A\n25 Halifax Town A\n29 Braintree Town H\nOctober\n6 Chesterfield A\n13 Maidstone United H\n27 Maidenhead United A\n30 Gateshead H\nNovember\n3 Leyton Orient H\n17 Dagenham and Redbridge A\n24 Boreham Wood H\n27 Hartlepool United A\nDecember\n1 Sutton United H\n8 Dover Athletic A\n22 Ebbsfleet United H\n26 Barrow A\n29 Harrogate Town A\nJanuary\n1 Barrow H\n5 Bromley A\n19 Wrexham H\n26 Solihull Moors A\nFebruary\n2 Havant and Waterlooville H\n9 Maidstone United A\n16 Chesterfield H\n23 Leyton Orient A\nMarch\n2 Maidenhead United H\n9 Boreham Wood A\n12 Hartlepool United H\n16 Dagenham and Redbridge H\n23 Gateshead A\n30 Aldershot Town A\nApril\n6 Eastleigh H\n13 Braintree Town A\n19 Barnet H\n22 Salford City A\n27 Halifax Town H" ]

[ "We had these puzzles about 3 years ago and loved them but lost due to water damage. The new ones are lacking in quality. The back of every piece of fish puzzle has splintering wood. Also the glue holding the pictures on is not to the edges. Amazon is great to ship a replacement. Hoping it was just a glitch on our first set. Great for (supervised) 18 months and up!" ]

[ "It was like Christmas Day when David Ouelett's Wonderword puzzle book arrived! I do one of his puzzles in our newspaper six days a week and love it and have been searching for more of his puzzles and Amazon had his books. Problem is I can't stop working on these puzzles! Just love the book and plan to buy more.", "I love these Posh pocket puzzle books! The puzzles are fun & the covers are so so pretty! The Brain Games is one of my favorite, if not THE favorite of the various puzzles available! Great gift idea. I keep a posh puzzle book in my purse, in the car, at my desk & near my bed. Just to get a little brain activity!", "Got this for my mom, who loves her suduko. She leaves this out like a jigsaw puzzle and works on it over a series of nights. Her guests have all commented on it and love it. She posted a picture of a finished puzzle on FB, and she got so many comments about wanting to try it. She sends me at least one picture a week of a finished puzzle.", "Absolutely beautiful puzzle. After assembling with the student I mentor, I put puzzle glue on both sides so she will be able to hang on her bedroom wall. She loves it!", "My puzzle table was a gift. It is lightweight, easy to move, and we love the drawers. It arrived in great shape and it has been used for at least 20 puzzles in the last 6 months. I recommend it highly.", "We ordered this for our annual month vacation to Kauai with friends and family. Everyone LOVED this puzzle. It was great to also guess the tv moments as we would finish areas on the puzzle.", "My 4-year old granddaughter loved the story. The puzzle book is for older kids which made her 7-year-old sister very happy. She loves mazes and word search puzzles.\n\nThere is also a newsletter from the author. All this for $.99", "Perfect for my grandniece--love the little handles on the puzzle pieces.", "My two year old got this puzzle over a year ago and it's still something she plays with on a regular basis. She loves the animals so much that she often plays with them independently from using as puzzle pieces.", "The first puzzle we received was not the same puzzle as shown; however, the seller has rectified this and sent the correct puzzle. Our puzzle maker now is a very happy boy.", "Need to put da balloon inside so the puzzle will stay, my granddaughter loved it.", "**This review is for the Prextex 3 Piece Easter Glittered Cardboard Puzzles Set - With Easter Puzzle Cube**\n\nThese are a cute little add on item for Easter. You get 3 puzzles that are very simple and easy to put together and then you get a Easter theme rubix cube.\n\nThe puzzle are cardboard and 20 pieces(great for toddlers). Each puzzle has a different picture, one is of a bunny, one is of a frog with bunny ears and the last one says Happy Easter. The colors are vibrant and pretty.\n\nThe Easter Puzzle Cube is plastic and you have to mix it up for them to put it back to the same pictures on each side. My daughter loved that, she loves trying to figure it out.\n\nI think it is worth the price and great for Easter! I recommend it!\n\n**I did receive this at a discount in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion. Compensation of any kind is never accepted in exchange for a positive review. All opinions expressed are my own and not edited by any companies mentioned.**", "What a beautiful puzzle! I have been buying puzzles for my elderly mother for the last fifteen years. She loves them and they are a fantastic hobby for an older person My mother loves song birds and Outset Media makes the most beautiful bird puzzles. They are true to color and full of amazing details. In fact, they are so gorgeous that we have framed several of them. They are a lovely addition to my mother's room in the assisted living facility. This one may find a home there too since it is perhaps my favorite. With 2-day shipping free through my Prime account, this is as good as shopping gets.", "This puzzle is a beautiful replica of Monet's Water Lillies. It is the second puzzle by Eurographics that I have completed,&nbsp;<a data-hook=\"product-link-linked\" class=\"a-link-normal\" href=\"/Van-Gogh-Cafe-at-Night-1000-Piece-Puzzle/dp/B0019MYUS6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8\">Van Gogh-Cafe at Night 1000-Piece Puzzle</a>&nbsp;being the first. Both were of very nice quality. No bent pieces, and a nice variation of piece shape and size. With that said, I must admit this is the hardest puzzle I have personally ever assembled. It took over two weeks with the help of two other individual to complete this puzzle. Monet's use of color and line make this an incredibly challenging puzzle to assemble. Even when down to the last few pieces I was still somewhat guessing and just having to try pieces until I found the one that fit. I love assembling puzzles and can usually complete a 1,000 piece puzzle fairly quickly, but this one was on a whole new level for me. The end product was definately worth the time and effort as it is now framed and hanging in my home as beautiful replica of Mr. Monet's work.", "This puzzle was given to my daughter for her first birthday. She just turned 15 months and she plays with this puzzle everday (as does her twin brother). I would highly recommend this puzzle!", "If you have a granddaughter that loves puzzles, then Melissa & Doug are the way to go. This was a birthday gift and she really like it!", "But I did. The first book reeled me in and this one hooked me. I love the characters and the mystery/puzzles in these books and you will too.", "Great puzzle. Piatnik is the best. This is the fourth Piatnik puzzle I have don in the past 3 years. The puzzle pieces are strong and stay together very nicely. Highly recommended. Also, the pictures are unique and so very interesting.", "A charming 500 piece puzzle which is not extremely difficult but produces a great finished product. The packaging is great as the easel box makes it easy to refer to the picture while working on the puzzle. Lang makes great puzzles.", "My daughter loves puzzles an with her seeing this one it is surely bound to make my little princess day", "I purchased this for my three year old daughter who is both a Mickey Mouse fan and loves jigsaw puzzles. The book is a much smaller version of&nbsp;<a data-hook=\"product-link-linked\" class=\"a-link-normal\" href=\"/My-First-Look-and-Find-Mickey-Mouse-Clubhouse/dp/1412774551/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8\">My First Look and Find: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse</a>&nbsp;than I was expecting- small enough to fit into a travel bag for a day outing. The puzzle was the hit of everything- huge chunky cardboard pieces with bright Mickey Mouse Clubhouse illustrations. My daughter loved it!\n\nWhile I would have liked for the book to be larger and dislike the fact that there's really no suitable storage solution for the puzzle, overall it was a deal. For the price of most jigsaw puzzles, this was a steal!", "First let me say I thoroughly enjoy the majority of the NY Times puzzles -- the harder and trickier, the better. The puzzles in the \"Tough\" version are just that, for the most part. I have no complaint with the level of difficulty, but I did rate it less than 5-star for a reason I would rate any of their puzzle books the same way: that is, unlike on Sunday when a clever (and not always easy) hint to any trickery included within the puzzle is posted, there is no such thing offered in the puzzle books. I can usually figure it out as I go along (and it certainly makes it more challenging!), but I often enjoy figuring out the hint itself as much as working the actual puzzle! Regardless, I will always be an enthusiastic NYT puzzle solver.", "My 15 month old daughter loves the large knobs on this colorful puzzle. Being fascinated with animals and aquatic life makes this puzzle a real draw for her. Although she struggles to get the pieces back in the puzzle due to her limited dexterity at this time, it doesn't deter her from playing with it at all! She has discovered that the pieces make great noise makers, too, when they are clapped together. The wood is a bit soft; so it will show indentations over time. However, it is holding up well so far... even through teething!", "Great family fun! Loved the uniquely cut pieces. It arrived before Christmas so we could continue our Christmas tradition of doing a puzzle. Yeah!!", "My Husband loves this actress and really enjoyed putting together this puzzle. It layed flat and was brand new which he also liked.", "These 3-D puzzles are not only entertaining but challenging to all ages. I've given these to my young grandchildren (ages 8 & 5) and quilting friends (all over 45!) as well. Everyone enjoys the challenge and satisfaction of being able to make various designs, just like using kaleidescope. It's also a great hand-eye coordination tool. I'd recommend it to anyone who loves puzzles.", "This was perfect for my grandchildren - much better than I had anticipated. Table and chairs are very sturdy and a good height for them to draw or do puzzles, they love it!", "These are like sticker sheets that go on the back of your puzzle and hold it together. I was very impressed with the ease of use. The hardest part was flipping the puzzle over!", "Im very disappointed. If you look at the pictures t makes you think it easily holds the large pegged puzzles, but it doesnt. The slats are way too narrow. I see now that the picture is decieving because the puzzle they chose doesnt have large pegs on the end but grr i was excited about this thinking it would hold all of the Melissa and doug puzzles considering its a Melissa and Doug puzzle rack.", "Either the product description is misleading, or they sent us the wrong glue. The page claims that the glue is sufficient for puzzles up to 3000 pieces. We ordered two for our 3000 piece puzzle (to have enough for two coats). We received actually a glue that only suffices for 2 - 1000 piece puzzles (according to the label on the bottles)... needless to say, the two bottles we received were barely enough to cover our whole puzzle (for a single coat).", "Once again, the author Charles Timmerman, has created an excellent puzzle book.\nHe has word search puzzle books that are equally as good. This Sudoku book has 6 puzzles per page with 6 more on the back of each page, less page turning that way.\nHe offers great brain exercises!", "This mat should be able to accommodate a 1500 piece puzzle. I just barley fit a 1000 piece puzzle on it. The boarder was all the way to the edge of the cloth. I think it needs more Velcro straps to help secure the puzzle once you wrap it for storing." ]

[ "Are we still going to keep up drams for perfume?" ]

[ "Are we going to maintain our bad smell?", "Is that still going on?", "There is still a lot of it to go.", "We are still looking into quality issues.", "Can we keep going?", "We will still decide", "We are still paying for it at this time.", "Do we keep refining as we go along?", "The program is still going on.", "We still like to go to buffets.", "We always perfume.", "we're still utilizing those", "We still have them.", "what do you still need to buy", "That thing will remain out?", "Evans still maintains integrity over a paycheck.", "Do you know how long this will last?", "We don't maintain the house at all.", "We are still looking for a source.", "For when we are still working.", "Yes, we just keep on making them.", "That is true, we still are.", "Is it still true?", "No, only for a short period like days or weeks.", "Do we still look pretty good?", "We still blackmail.", "We are still in winter.", "We are not going there, are we?", "The party is still going on.", "It's still going to be more expensive than the way we tried it.", "It was still going normally.", "What holds up?" ]

[ "Works great. Instantly traps the ball by just setting over the ball. Fifteen feet is more than adequate for us." ]

[ "The lid cap broke after a week at the hinge, The cup is awesome but the lid cap is worthless. THe lid itself is heavy duty and works great but the black hinged cap has a very small hinge axle that breaks easily.", "Needs a better mounting design. Signal cord leading to sonar is 30 feet long ..only need 15 feet to 20 feet.", "I have a rescue that looks like a black lab mix. The DNA results showed she was 75% Golden Retriever mix and had no lab in her. I was very confused and decided to repeat the test with another company. The results confirmed she was a Golden mix. Even though the other 15% of possible breeds did not match between both tests I am still happy to know what she really is. I have learned that Golden Retrievers carry a black ressesive gene that shows up when they mix. :) she is my unique Black Golden Retriever. :)\nI think this test is worth it doing when you have absolutely no idea what your dog might be.", "Great Ball for our Chesapeake Bay Retriever! Last about 6 months (until it just gets pretty nasty with slober and dirt - could last longer if you took better care to clean it after each play). The ball need to be charged for about 15 mins (next to a bright light) and then it last for about 15-30 mins. Great for playing later in the day after work after the sun goes down!", "If you want hinges like this, be very precise in your ability to drill the necessary size hole. The hinges require a hole exactly the size of the hinge. The hinge is not round as is appears. A set screw spreads the barrel to jam in the hole. That set screw portion is slightly less in diameter than the rest of the barrel. If the hole is slightly larger, the set screw will not open enough.\n\nI bought the 12 mm barrels and a 12 mm hole is too large for the set screw to expand the barrel enough to hold. I found that a special 15/16 drill would be required and ONLY that size (note that it's not a metric size). I am returning the hinges.\n\nOtherwise, the hinge appears to be fine.", "Junk. Intermittent beam, Batteries last only 15-20 minutes, insufficient intensity for more than about 30 feet", "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.", "Always a good bean for me. I roast city + (10-15 seconds into 2nd crack) with a hot air popcorn popper 2/3 cup.", "These hold a solid 15 ounces whereas the Corelle cups that came with my plate set only hold 10. My husband and I love these guys. They're perfect for a big ol' cup of coffee/tea", "I had the breakfast and the apple tea sent as part of the add-on program from amazon prime. I was pleased with the breakfast tea, but the apple left much to be desired. The flavoring does not taste like apples, but the flavoring is off. I hope this isn't a sign of what the other flavored teas are like.\n\nThe bags themselves from the company work well with k-cup brewers with an eco brew cup. No tags and string may make them hard to retrieve from a regular cup, but I prefer that design to the standard design many other tea companies use.", "Affordable, functional, and versatile. Additionally I found that Customer Service was proactive and responsive. These glasses are a good value.", "Works as advertised. Thanks for proactively sending link to the manual to assemble. Wish more would do this type of help. Only issue is that holder is to small if I use a case", "It said Tx size but looking at my pan it's not aTX size more of giant muffin cup size... TX size is much much larger size .... I have been having hard time finding large jumbo TX muffin cup size for last 15 to 18 years ... if you ever have this size I love to buy from Amazon .thank you !", "this stuff doesn't work and isn't very strong. lots of things to buy and no results. buy something else. no proactive.", "ProActive Groove Doctor works very well. would recommend this product to any golfer who wants to keep their clubs clean.", "Not suitable for my mid 2012 15' MBP, returned. Also seems to be plastic instead of rubber 'cause you cannot feel the elasticity as the original feet.", "Good quality, and a nice size for the tub. It has a lot of suction cups on thee back so it stays down firmly. Pretty comfortable on your feet too. A solid purchase.", "I expected a pair of hinges. Only one hinge per package. Appears to be of very good quality.", "The wireless connection routinely drops out at a distance of 10-15 feet which takes the point out of having a wireless device.", "It works okay. Great price for turning your old stereo into a bluetooth unit. Only downside is seems to only work well within about 15 feet for me.", "The smart-TV technology is amazing. Quality programming at only $8/month. The picture quality is amazing, and I really enjoy the larger display and watching TV from 15+ feet away.", "I bought this switch for a lamp in my dorm room. I got sick of switching all three lights on and off, so I plugged this in line and now I have one single switch. I originally only needed about 2 feet of cord, but this thing is 15 feet long, so I was able to reroute the switch behind one of my desks.", "So happy to find this clock, we have an outdoor theme in our entertainment room,\nand this fits in perfectly, not to big / small, nice size clock, easy to see from 15-20 feet", "I gave the original hinge sold by RPM very high reviews and it was a very nice hinge. The hinge currently being sold is made by Bolton. Unfortunately it is a rather common steel hinge with the lifetime finish. RPM has changed picture and as can be seen it does not have a captive pin nor does it have permanent silicone grease inside. I suspect the necessary oil when applied will cause staining. I wish I knew the manufacturer of the original hinge.", "Excellent piano hinge. Well made and sturdy. Used for a hatch into a crawl space. This hinge will support a great deal of weight.", "This lockbox is very sturdy. The proactive outer cover not only helps keep the element out but also hides the box in it. Setting your personal code is super easy. Installation was a simple. I would recommend this key box", "I bought one of these as a whim for my two canon eyepiece extenders. I loose the Canon 15x extenders often and they are $15. These rubber eye cups seem to fir snugly and should also keep face grease off my LCD.", "I just got my tool box. One of the hinges doesn't have the metal rod to hold the hinge together!!!!", "Perfect for our Golden Retrievers who love to play in the mud.", "This is an excellent book that enforces the importance of parents taking a proactive part in their children's lives. This book invokes a dialogue and encourages communication between parents and their children. This is a much needed book for our society today.", "Received this cup as a birthday present. I really wanted to like it, but unfortunately for this product, aesthetics wins out over function. The silicone grip is way too thin and does nothing to protect your hands from the heat of the glass. When I use this cup I have to make my coffee a good 15 minutes before I leave because otherwise, I'd burn my hands from just holding it. Couple this with the fact that glass isn't a great insulator, and you end up with a cold drink by the time you can even pick the cup up. Another drawback is that the lid holds odors surprisingly well. Even if you wash the lid well, you always end up with some residual taste of whatever you were drinking last.\n\nOverall, although it's cute and colorful, I wouldn't recommend this reusable coffee cup because it's just not functional as a to-go cup.", "I ordered these hinges to replace the broken ones in my DV9000 series laptop. The package arrived in couple of days, however, the metal shafts that screw into the screen were bent but not beyond repair by re-bending back to relative straightness. Also, these hinges were in worn condition, not new.\n\nThe major issue that I encountered was on the RIGHT hinge, the screw holes that secure the hinge to the body were slightly larger than the screws themselves. Halfway into the screw holes, the screws would catch as normal and continue tightening. The problem was that the first half of the screw holes would not start the screw into the housing. This was a major issue in the installation, resulting with me having to use loctite in the screw holes, just for it to begin catching before halfway.\n\nEven though I was able to get these hinges to fit, it was at the expense of time and frustration." ]

[ "Mountaintop mining is the controversial practice of excavating coal using explosives to rupture mountaintops. At least 800 square miles of mountains have been leveled in the Appalachians, and 1,200 miles of streams buried by debris. Opponents say the procedure leaves locals vulnerable to floods and sickness aggravated by pollution." ]

[ "One of Appalachia's coal-mining giants agreed yesterday to pay $20 million, the largest such fine imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, after an investigation found more than 4,500 instances in which mine runoff tainted nearby waters.", "EVELETH - Mining on the Iron Range was one of the major economic success stories in 2004, with taconite pellet production among six mines at the highest level since 2000, when seven mines were producing.", "Singer Seal becomes engaged to model Heidi Klum after proposing on a mountaintop in Canada.", "Randy Moss had gone from a mountaintop in Minnesota to the valley in Oakland. Now he is back on Olympus with the undefeated Patriots.", "The Department of the Interior is about to approve a regulation that would allow and even encourage mountain top mining, which involves blasting off the top of a mountain and dumping the remains in nearby valleys and streams. Yes, that's as bad for the environment as it sounds.", "A mountaintop property located near the Hollywood sign and once owned by Howard Hughes is up for sale.", "Leaving jobs at global giants, small miners are striking out for Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains.", "KAYFORD MOUNTAIN, W. Va - Larry Gibson's tiny house sits in a green oasis on top of the Appalachian peak his family has called home for 230 years. The setting would be peaceful if not for the roar of machinery scraping away the surrounding mountain in search of coal.", "By Tom Benning, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn. Jun. 1--Two years ago, Abe Whaley watched in agony as construction progressed on Legacy Mountain, a ridge nestled between Pittman Center and Pigeon Forge.", "Italian mountaintop cervine dopefest Italian police busted two would-be marijuana cultivators after \"unusually frisky\" deer alerted the authorities as to the presence of their mountaintop dope plantation, UPI reports.…", "To actor and activist Danny Glover, a previous visit to Appalachia made West Virginia seem an ideal host for a star-studded Labor Day political concert.", "By Kathy Plum, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va. Sep. 14--ALBRIGHT -- After more than a century and a half, the Virginia Iron Furnace still stands as sturdy as the pyramids of Eygpt, marred only by the red paint of vandals who felt inspired to add their names to its history.", "CHARLESTON, W.Va., Aug. 31 -- West Virginia alerted its underground coal-mining operations about potential problems with emergency air packs Thursday after decay was found inside packs carried by state mine inspectors.", "Both Ben Ramsey and Elizabeth Naramore have commented on the new IRC channel they've formed for the upcoming PHP Appalachia conference on the Freenode network. We now have an IRC channel for the PHP Appalachia conference - Freenode - #phpappalachia. Come join us! You can access the Freenode network with any IRC client and can join in on the channel at any time. Come find out others who are coming and get the latest on the conference.", "A two-hour wait for the Uffizi art gallery in Florence. Ten euro - that's 13 - to see Michelangelo's David in the Accademia gallery, another Florence gallery, plus a room crammed with little-known artists.", "The state's attempt to balance wind power generation with wildlife protection on a western Maryland mountaintop is under attack from both sides.", "KOMOTION, Inc., the makers of the popular, award-winning Web Gallery Wizard(TM), today announced Shozam(TM) Web gallery generator which automatically creates full-featured Web galleries to showcase digital media.", "American ginseng, sister of the Asian wonder herb and a seasonal cash crop in Appalachia, has two obstacles to long-term survival in the United States: Man and deer.", "Undercut with mine shafts and buried under bleak, gray mountains of lead waste, this Oklahoma town is in the middle of one of the nation's worst environmental nightmares.", "With lights twinkling brightly from their helmets, a group of miners emerge caked in dust from a deep coal-mine in the village of Cwmgwrach in south Wales.", "The 1972 Miami Dolphins could be enjoying their last few days alone on that so-called mountaintop, as the NFL's only perfect team.", "By The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Dec. 10--Mining activities generally make a mess of the landscape. It doesn't matter whether the target of the mining is copper, limestone or calcium carbonate. The end result is like a wound that won't heal and continues to affect everything around it.", "Two shows at the Blumka Gallery and the Alexander Gallery present a multichambered curiosity cabinet of sacred objects in a secular context.", "A project to build a digital camera of cosmic dimensions on a mountaintop in Chile has received a $30 million boost from a pair of software moguls and philanthropists.", "By Rocky Barker, The Idaho Statesman, Boise Feb. 11--Atlanta Gold Corp. has struggled to treat arsenic-laced water leaking from an old mine near Atlanta, where it hopes it may someday mine. It's a problem across the American West.", "Two workers at West Virginia's Sago coal mine committed suicide in the last month, nine months after 12 miners died there in the state's worst mining disaster for almost 40 years, the mine's owner said on Wednesday.", "An underground explosion in an eastern Kentucky coal mine killed five miners early Saturday, while a sixth miner walked away from the blast that sprayed an office building with rock and mud 100 yards outside the tunnel&#039;s entrance, Gov. Ernie Fletcher said.", "London's National Portrait Gallery is among 43 museums and galleries to benefit from grants totalling £4m.", "A cold front moved over most of Mexico Wednesday, leaving coastal cities chilly and windy, and dusting mountaintop towns with snow.", "On a strategic mountaintop not far from the Afghan border, soldiers man machine guns in dry stone bunkers and the boom of rocket and artillery fire occasionally echoes in the distance.", "One of the world's most powerful telescopes will be trained on the skies on Friday, searching for planets similar to our own from a mountaintop on one of Spain's Canary Islands.", "PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russia - Gold miners on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula contend with volcanic eruptions, floods and poor infrastructure, but high metal prices mean the hard work pays off." ]

[ "Café Fontanella" ]

[ "fontanelle", "fontanel", "cafe", "bregmatic fontanelle", "Viennese cafe", "The Mansion", "Cafe Commons", "Rainforest Cafe", "Cafe 12", "mansion", "Cafe Disco", "The Bluebird Cafe", "the ABC Cafe", "Dreamland Cafe", "Wanda's Cafe", "Lambert's Cafe", "The Thurman Cafe", "What's Your Mama's Name", "Cafe Football", "Mansion of the Aten", "Waffles Cafe", "What Yo Name Iz?", "Duncan's Cafe", "Place de Fontenoy", "Café Society", "Café au lait", "Café du Tambourin", "The Café de Paris", "The Naming of Names", "names", "anterior fontanelle", "Café du Monde" ]

[ "Nucleic acids that contain the sugar deoxyribose are called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA; those that contain ribose are called ribonucleic acid, or RNA. Nucleic acids also contain five different kinds of nitrogen bases. The names of those bases and the abbreviations used for them are adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), thymine (T), and uracil (U)." ]

[ "kilobase a unit of size for nucleic acids, being 1000 nucleotide bases for single-stranded nucleic acids or 1000 nucleotide base pairs in the case of double-stranded nucleic acids. Abbreviated kb or kbp.", "Satellites that do not encode their structural proteins are called satellite nucleic acids. The first satellite nucleic acid was described associated with tobacco ringspot nepovirus in 1969 (3). The different groups of satellite viruses and nucleic acids, and their abbreviations, are listed in Table 1.hen the encoded protein is a structural protein that encapsidates the satellite nucleic acid, the satellite is called a satellite virus. Satellite viruses are found as distinct nucleoprotein components in preparations of the HV.", "Ethidium bromide is an intercalating agent commonly used as a fluorescent tag (nucleic acid stain) in molecular biology laboratories for techniques such as agarose gel electrophoresis. It is commonly abbreviated as EtBr , which is also an abbreviation for bromoethane.", "Understanding how proteins interact with nucleic acids, determining what proteins are present in these protein-nucleic acid complexes and identifying the nucleic acid sequence/structure required to assemble these complexes are vital to understanding the role these complexes play in regulating cellular processes.", "Nucleic acid is a protein found in RNA and DNA to determine our genes. THEY ARE NOT proteins. Nucleic acids are what compose RNA and DNA.They store all of the information of your body and contain, if you will, the recipes necessary for the production of all the proteins in your body. Hope this helps.ucleic acid is a protein found in RNA and DNA to determine our genes. THEY ARE NOT proteins. Nucleic acids are what compose RNA and DNA.", "The nucleus of a cell is made up of basic proteins and compounds known as nucleic acids. There are two kinds of nucleic acids. They are deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). DNA is found in the chromosomes of the nucleus in a cell and it carries hereditary information.RNA is located in the cell but not in the nucleus. Just as proteins consist of long chains of amino acids, DNA and RNA consists of nucleic acid chains called nucleotides.Nucleotides are composed of three units: base, sugar (monosaccharide) and phosphate. Bases are found in both DNA and RNA.As seen below, they are adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine, and uracil.They are abbreviated (A, C, G, T, U).ucleotides are composed of three units: base, sugar (monosaccharide) and phosphate. Bases are found in both DNA and RNA. As seen below, they are adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine, and uracil. They are abbreviated (A, C, G, T, U).", "What is an anticodon and where is it located? An anticodon is a sequence of three nucleic acids in tRNA that corresponds with the sequence of three nucleic acids in mRNA. The three nucleic acid sequences in mRNA are calle…d codons. For example, if the mRNA codon reads AUC then the tRNA anticodon would read UAG.", "Originally Answered: What is the polymer in carbohydrates lipids proteins and nucleic acids? I guess you wanted to ask monomers because carbohydrates, proteins, lipds and nucleic acid are polymers already.", "kilobase. a unit of size for nucleic acids, being 1000 nucleotide bases for single-stranded nucleic acids or 1000 nucleotide base pairs in the case of double-stranded nucleic acids.ilobase. a unit of size for nucleic acids, being 1000 nucleotide bases for single-stranded nucleic acids or 1000 nucleotide base pairs in the case of double-stranded nucleic acids.", "1 A nucleotide is the basic structure of nucleic acids. 2 Nucleic acids, in turn, are the basic structures of most life on the planet.3 More commonly known by their names DNA and …. Building Life: What is a Nucleotide? 2 A nucleotide is the basic structure of nucleic acids. 3 Nucleic acids, in turn, are the basic structures of most life on the planet. 4 More commonly known by their names DNA and ….", "Proteins are composed of simple sugars, carbohydrates are composed of nucleotides, and nucleic acids are composed of amino acids. Proteins are composed of amino acids, carbohydrates are composed of nucleotides, and nucleic acids are composed of simple sugars.Proteins are composed of nucleotides, carbohydrates are composed of simple sugars, and nucleic acids are composed of simple amino acids.Proteins are composed of nucleotides, carbohydrates are composed of amino acids, and nucleic acids are composed of simple sugars.Proteins are composed of amino acids, carbohydrates are composed of simple sugars, and nucleic acids are composed of nucleotides.Proteins are composed of simple sugars, carbohydrates are composed of amino acids, and nucleic acids are composed of nucleotides.roteins are composed of nucleotides, carbohydrates are composed of simple sugars, and nucleic acids are composed of simple amino acids. Proteins are composed of nucleotides, carbohydrates are composed of amino acids, and nucleic acids are composed of simple sugars.", "What are central to the life cycle of a virus are the types of nucleic acids formed during its replication and the pathway by which mRNA is produced. The relation between the viral mRNA and the nucleic acid of the infectious particle is the basis of a simple means of classifying viruses.hat are central to the life cycle of a virus are the types of nucleic acids formed during its replication and the pathway by which mRNA is produced. The relation between the viral mRNA and the nucleic acid of the infectious particle is the basis of a simple means of classifying viruses.", "Best Answer: The five types of nucleic acids are Constituents DNA, RNA, Nucleic acid analogues, and Cloning vectors.See fig. Types of Nucleic acids: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleic_aci... Here you find a list of nucleic acids: http://www.bvl.bund.de/nn_1115098/EN/06_...est Answer: The five types of nucleic acids are Constituents DNA, RNA, Nucleic acid analogues, and Cloning vectors. See fig. Types of Nucleic acids: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleic_aci...", "What are nucleic acids made of? A nucleotide contains three components: a phosphate group, a sugar and a nitrogenous base. The phosphate group and sugar are bonded together to make the backbone portion of a nucleic acid. In DNA, the sugar is deoxyribose; in RNA, the sugar is ribose.", "Nucleic acid structure refers to the structure of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA.Chemically speaking, DNA and RNA are very similar. Nucleic acid structure is often divided into four different levels: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary.ucleic acid structure refers to the structure of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA.", "Nucleic Acids. The third group of macromolecules found in cells contain some of the largest molecules of the body-these are the nucleic acids. There are two major groups of nucleic acids, ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) .Each group is composed of long chains of building block molecules known as nucleotides.ucleic Acids. The third group of macromolecules found in cells contain some of the largest molecules of the body-these are the nucleic acids. There are two major groups of nucleic acids, ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) .", "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid. Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid was the first article published to describe the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, using X-ray diffraction and the mathematics of a helix transform.", "The structure of proteins is determined by nucleic acids. The subunits of nucleic acids are also the subunits of proteins.Weegy: nucleic acids contain genetic information. they are used in protein synthesis and reproduction of the cell it is in.", "What does a nuclease do? • a. makes nucleic acids. • b. an enzyme used to make the nuclear membrane. • c. digests nucleic acids. • d. unwinds DNA. • e. none of the above. Follow.", "mRNA, abbreviation for messenger RNA. An RNA (ribonucleic acid) molecule which has coding regions and translation signals derived from a gene, carries the reverse template message from DNA, and is required for protein synthesis. mRNA is a nucleic acid intermediate that specifies the amino acid sequence of a polypeptide during translation.", "What is the basic monomer of the DNA polymer (or any nucleic acid)? List the DNA monomers.", "1. Virus attaches to a cell. 2. Virus penetrates cell membrane and injects nucleic acid. 3. Viral nucleic acid replicates using host cellular machinery. 4. New viral nucleic acids are packaged into viral particles and released from the cell.. Virus attaches to a cell. 2. Virus penetrates cell membrane and injects nucleic acid. 3. Viral nucleic acid replicates using host cellular machinery. 4. New viral nucleic acids are packaged into viral particles and released from the cell.", "1 nucleic acid: DNA-DNA The chemical and physical properties of DNA suit it for both replication and transfer of 2 ... adenine: meaning and definitions-adenine: Definition and Pronunciation. 3 nucleic acid-nucleic acid nucleic acid, any of a group of organic substances found in the chromosomes of living ...", "DNA vs RNA structure. Nucleic acids are the building blocks of genetic material of all organisms. The nucleic acids are of two types depending on the sugar molecule in their structure. Nucleic acids are long chains of nucleotides joined by phosphoric acid bonds.", "| Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA™) technology Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA™) technology Introduction to LNA™ Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA™) nucleosides are a class of nucleic acid analogues in which the ribose ring is “locked” by a methylene bridge connecting the 2’-O atom and the 4’-C atom (Figure 1). LNA™ nucleosides", "email. Knowledge center. Folic acid is a form of the water-soluble vitamin B9. Folic acid is a key factor in the making (synthesis) of nucleic acid-nucleic acid is one of a family of large molecules including DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid).mail. Knowledge center. Folic acid is a form of the water-soluble vitamin B9. Folic acid is a key factor in the making (synthesis) of nucleic acid-nucleic acid is one of a family of large molecules including DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid).", "Nucleic Acids. Like many biological molecules nucleic acids are polymers, long molecules formed of repeating units. With nucleic acids, the repeating unit is the nucleotide. A nucleotide consists of a five carbon sugar, a nitrogen containing base and a phosphate group.ucleic Acids. Like many biological molecules nucleic acids are polymers, long molecules formed of repeating units. With nucleic acids, the repeating unit is the nucleotide. A nucleotide consists of a five carbon sugar, a nitrogen containing base and a phosphate group.", "Concept 5.5 Nucleic acids store and transmit hereditary information. 1 The amino acid sequence of a polypeptide is programmed by a unit of inheritance known as a gene. 2 A gene consists of DNA, a polymer known as a nucleic acid. There are two types of nucleic acids: RNA and DNA.", "Nucleic Acids and Nucleotides. Nucleic acids, which are relatively strong acids found in the nuclei of cells, were first isolated in 1869. The nucleic acids are polymers with molecular weights as high as 100,000,000 grams per mole. They can be broken down, or digested, to form monomers known as nucleotides.ucleic Acids and Nucleotides. Nucleic acids, which are relatively strong acids found in the nuclei of cells, were first isolated in 1869. The nucleic acids are polymers with molecular weights as high as 100,000,000 grams per mole. They can be broken down, or digested, to form monomers known as nucleotides.", "The phenol extraction technique is often used to purify samples of nucleic acids taken from cells. To obtain nucleic acid samples, the cell must be lysed and the nucleic acids separated from all other cell materials.here are two reasons why phenol makes such an effective purifier for nucleic acid samples. The first is that it is a non-polar compound. Because nucleic acids are highly polar, they do not dissolve in the presence of phenol.", "Viruses are submicroscopic entities capable of causing disease. They are a piece of nucleic acid (genetic material) surrounded by a protein coat. Once inside the plant cell, the nucleic acid portion directs the plant cell to produce more virus nucleic acid and virus protein, disrupting the normal activity of the cell.iruses are submicroscopic entities capable of causing disease. They are a piece of nucleic acid (genetic material) surrounded by a protein coat. Once inside the plant cell, the nucleic acid portion directs the plant cell to produce more virus nucleic acid and virus protein, disrupting the normal activity of the cell.", "Overview. The nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, are required for the storage and expression of genetic information. Nucleic acids are made up of purines and pyrimidines, which are carbon-and nitrogen-containing molecules derived from carbon dioxide and amino acids like glutamine.Because they are formed in the body, nucleic acids are not essential nutrients.eats. All meats, including organ meats, and seafood contain high levels of nucleic acids. Meat extracts and gravies are also notably high. Of these foods, organ meats such as liver have the most nuclei, and are therefore highest in nucleic acids." ]

[ "Department of Defense" ]

[ "bases", "the base", "a base pair", "First base", "second base", "a base on balls", "Touch base", "West Virginia & Virginia", "Stolen bases", "base/bass", "base and height", "base 10", "S-A", "Virginia Hill", "Virginia Apgar", "base stealing", "third base", "a base jumper", "West Virginia", "(Virginia) Woolf", "S", "Virginia Wade", "Virginia Slims", "A-G-A-S-S-I", "Charlottesville (University of Virginia)", "Air Force Base", "U S S Missouri", "Virginia Dare", "U S S Arizona", "Virginia Johnson", "West Virginia (paid debt to Virginia)", "S-curve" ]

[ "President Trump commutes the sentence of longtime associate and \"dirty trickster\" Roger Stone. America's coronavirus testing system is nearing capacity and yet still insufficient. Chicago is enduring a wave of gun violence." ]

[ "The virus continues to dominate headlines despite the best efforts of both presidential campaigns. And, President Trump announced late Friday he would commute Roger Stone's sentence.", "Outgoing Illinois Gov. George Ryan commutes the death sentences for all of the state's death row inmates, citing mistakes in the state's capital punishment system. The move spares the lives of more than 150 inmates, and is sure to focus new attention on the death-penalty debate. Shirley Jahad of Chicago Public Radio reports.", "President Trump has commuted the prison sentence of Roger Stone. Stone was convicted by a jury of lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks during Russia's interference in the 2016 election. The move has prompted outcry from Democrats, Mitt Romney, and Robert Mueller.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at nprpolitics@npr.org.Join the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.", "Scott Simon talks to former federal prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg about President Trump commutating the sentence of longtime friend and political operative Roger Stone.", "Illinois has banned the death penalty, becoming the sixteenth state to abolish capital punishment for convicted prisoners. Gov. Patrick Quinn signed the bill to end the practice and commuted the sentences of 15 inmates who had been on the state's Death Row. Read More In a report for Newscast, Cheryl Corley reports: The abolition of the death penalty in Illinois has been in the making for 11 years. It was in the year 2000 that then-Gov.George Ryan issued a moratorium on executions, after 13 inmates condemned to death had their sentences overturned. Later, Ryan would clear death row. Since then, the state has approved several reforms but the state's current governor, Patrick Quinn, said he signed the bill abolishing the death penalty because it is a system that's impossible to make perfect. The AP quotes Ryan saying, \"We have found over and over again: Mistakes have been made. Innocent people have been freed. It's not possible to create a perfect, mistake-free death penalty system.\" The Chicago Sun-Times quoted Ryan as he sought to empathize with the families of victims in the cases that just had their sentences commuted: There are no words in the English language or any language to relieve your pain, and I understand that. I listened with all my heart to every one of those families. The family of Illinois, all 13 million people who live in Illinois, we want to be with you. You are not alone in your grief.", "The coronavirus is upending daily life for tens of millions of people across the country as schools and businesses remain closed and medical professionals prepare for a surge of sick people that could overwhelm the health care system. It&#8217;s also interrupting efforts in Chicago aimed at curbing gun violence. Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young speaks with Vaughn Bryant, executive director of Communities Partnering 4 Peace. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "In the year since the pandemic began, the coronavirus has severely impacted those held in U.S. jails and prisons. According to The Marshall Project, over 380,000 prisoners tested positive for the coronavirus between March 2020 and March 2021. Of those, 2,400 died. The close quarters makes social distancing nearly impossible, leaving the incarcerated population vulnerable. States and local facilities have been inconsistent in providing tests, PPE, cleaning supplies, and medical care to inmates. And while some jurisdictions released individuals — especially older inmates or those with pre-existing conditions — to reduce transmission, the decarceration efforts didn't last long. The National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice (NCCCJ) estimates that the infection rate in the prison population is 3.7 times higher than the national rate. They estimated the mortality rate is double, when adjusted for age, sex, and race and ethnicity. NPR Short Wave reporter Emily Kwong speaks with Ronnie Hoagland Jr., who contracted COVID-19 while incarcerated in a Texas county jail. We also hear from Josiah Bates, staff writer at TIME, on how the pandemic has played out behind bars — and how that raises far-reaching questions about the criminal justice system. Bates covers criminal justice, gun violence, and social issues for TIME. You can read his reporting on COVID-19 and criminal justice here: With Over 275,000 Infections and 1,700 Deaths, COVID-19 Has Devastated the U.S. Prison and Jail Population (December 2020) Ohio Began Mass Testing Incarcerated People for COVID-19. The Results Paint a Bleak Picture for the U.S. Prison System (April 2020) 'We Feel Like All of Us Are Gonna Get Corona.' Anticipating COVID-19 Outbreaks, Rikers Island Offers Warning For U.S. Jails, Prisons (March 2020) Special thanks to Krish Gundu and other advocates for the Texas Jail Project for their help with this reporting. The Texas Jail Project is dedicated to listening to, informing, and advocating on behalf of people held in county jails. You can read their pre-trial stories here.", "The Department of Justice is looking to expand the number of low-level, nonviolent drug offenders considered for presidential clemency. As The New York Times reports, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole told lawyers at a meeting of the New York State Bar Association on Thursday to flag potential candidates. \"There are more low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who remain in prison, and who would likely have received a substantially lower sentence if convicted of precisely the same offenses today,\" Cole said. \"This is not fair, and it harms our criminal justice system.\" You may recall that about a month ago, President Obama commuted the prison sentences of eight people convicted of drug crimes. Obama said if those people had been sentenced after the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, they would have already served their time. That piece of legislation sought to even out the time given to those convicted of crimes involving crack cocaine with those convicted of crimes involving cocaine in powder form. Crack cocaine offenses used to be treated much more harshly than powder cocaine. The Associated Press, citing Cole, reports that as part of the new effort, \"the federal Bureau of Prisons will begin advising inmates of the opportunity to apply for sentence commutations.\"", "President Trump has commuted the prison sentence of Roger Stone. Stone was convicted of lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks during Russia's interference in the 2016 election.", "President Obama has commuted the sentences of eight people convicted of drug crimes, saying their terms were unusually harsh due to a system that treated crack cocaine as a more serious offense than powder cocaine. The president also pardoned 13 others convicted of various other offenses. The commutations come after the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which is aimed at reducing disparities in the way the law treats cocaine possession. \"If they had been sentenced under the current law, many of them would have already served their time and paid their debt to society,\" Obama said in a written statement. \"Instead, because of a disparity in the law that is now recognized as unjust, they remain in prison, separated from their families and their communities, at a cost of millions of taxpayer dollars each year.\" Reuters says: \"The eight have each served more than 15 years in prison. A White House official said their sentences had been unduly harsh and helped contribute to 'an expensive and ineffective overcrowding of our prisons.' \" The Associated Press writes: \"Previously, Obama had commuted only one sentence in the five years of his presidency, involving another drug case. He previously had pardoned 39 people. A pardon forgives a crime and wipes out the conviction, while a commutation leaves the conviction but ends the punishment. \"In August, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a major shift in federal sentencing policies, targeting long mandatory terms that he said have flooded the nation's prisons with low-level drug offenders and diverted crime-fighting dollars that could be far better spent.\"", "What to do with a jury summons during a pandemic? That was the question Edward Lifson faced when he opened his mail and read that he was scheduled for jury duty in Los Angeles this week. Lifson believes it's an honor and a duty to serve on a jury, but, \"to be honest, I would not do it right now,\" he says. \"If they told me I had to come in I would say no.\" No worries for Lifson and other potential jurors, though. On Monday, California's chief judge put all Superior Court civil and criminal trials on hold for at least two months. Mike Buenger with the National Center for State Courts says in many states, courts are operating under emergency operation plans. Trials already underway will continue, but there's no schedule for new ones. Buenger says there will still be some in-person court action. \"For example, people still need temporary restraining orders or civil protection orders for domestic violence,\" he says. \"We still have children who are in at-risk environments and so there may be need for child protective orders.\" In Chicago, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx says on any given day, there are typically hundreds of cases in one of the country's biggest court systems with dozens of jury trials. Foxx says Cook County's chief judge ordered an unprecedented slow-down which suspends most criminal and civil cases until the middle of next month. The primary focus in her office now, she says, is on cases where people already in custody may want to plea bargain. \"Our number one concern is recognizing that people who are at Cook County jail are at a heightened risk for the virus because of their close containment,\" Foxx says. So there's been a scramble in states to release non-violent detainees. Nina Ginsberg, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers says it's a critical step that needs to occur. \"This is ground zero,\" she says. \"Once coronavirus gets into a jail, there's no way to stop it from spreading. You cannot do social distancing in a jail. You cannot.\" This week, New Jersey took an unprecedented step. It started releasing all individuals in the state's county jails who've been convicted of low-level crimes or are serving time for probation violations. Others who are still awaiting trial will not be released. ACLU-NJ attorney Alexander Shalom says the ACLU, public defenders, prosecutors and the state Attorney General's office negotiated an agreement because there is an urgent need to reduce the jail population to help contain any spread of the coronavirus. He says it will mean freedom for about 1,000 individuals. \"It's not a get out of jail free card, in a sense. It doesn't commute people's sentences,\" says Shalom. \"What it does, is it says: We are going to let you out now in this time of crisis.\" Shalom says once the crisis is over, it's either back to jail for a detainee who was released or a sentence could be commuted. Police departments across the country are doing their part by holding back arrests. Last week in Philadelphia, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said the department will continue to make arrests for non-violent crime but once a person's identity is confirmed, they will be released. \"The department is not turning a blind eye to crime,\" says Outlaw. \"No one will escape accountability for the crimes they commit.\" Outlaw says police will also hand out warrants telling the individuals they are letting go that they must come in later. In Los Angeles, Craig Lally, the head of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, says instead of arrests for non-violent misdemeanors like shoplifting, officers are writing \"release from custody\" citations. \"It's almost like a ticket — like a speeding ticket,\" Lally explains. \"When you sign for the ticket, you're not admitting guilt, you're just signing that you'll go to court.\" Lally says the arrest policy helps keep people potentially infected with coronavirus out of police stations and jails. Los Angeles Police continue to arrest anyone who commits a serious crime. Duffie Stone, the head of the National District Attorneys Association says with all the changes taking place, officials in the criminal justice system should be careful so there's no trading of one risk for another. \"I don't want to see us release a bunch of criminals out of jails, whether on plea deals or bail reductions, because we are trying to fight a pandemic,\" says Stone. Whatever the perspectives, the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing the criminal justice system to find new ways to balance justice with public safety.", "A federal judge sentenced Roger Stone to more than three years in prison for lying to Congress, witness tampering and other charges. Senator Bernie Sanders leads in the polls after Democratic candidates attacked each other on the debate stage in Nevada. What impact could this have on Saturday's caucus and the upcoming South Carolina primary? And the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy in the face of more than 200 lawsuits. What does this mean for pending litigation by former members alleging sexual abuse? Meanwhile, cases of the new strain of coronavirus in China are slowing down. But the top U.S. expert in infectious disease says we're still on the brink of a global pandemic. Plus, a possible truce in Afghanistan. And the Pentagon's top policy official resigned on the president's orders. For our conversation about domestic news, we spoke with Molly Ball, national political correspondent for TIME; Brittany Shepherd, national politics reporter for Yahoo News; and Elizabeth Landers, political correspondent for Vice News. And for our international roundup, we spoke with Ravi Agrawal, managing editor at Foreign Policy; Nancy Youssef, national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal; and Seb Walker, correspondent and bureau chief for Vice News. Like what you hear? Find more of our programs online.", "President Trump softens his stance on face coverings, lawmakers react to his commuting the sentence of friend and advisor Roger Stone, and what's at stake with the next coronavirus relief package.", "On his last weekend in office, Illinois Gov. George Ryan commutes death sentences for all of the state's death-row inmates, calling the state's capital punishment system \"arbitrary, capricious and therefore immoral.\" The move throws the death-penalty debate into sharper focus. NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.", "Updated at 1:11 p.m. ET President Obama has commuted the sentences of 46 mostly nonviolent drug offenders, nearly all of whom, the White House says, would have already served their time if they were convicted of the same crime today. \"I am granting your application because you have demonstrated the potential to turn your life around,\" Obama said in a letter to each of the 46 men and women. \"Now it is up to you to make the most of this opportunity. It will not be easy, and you will confront many who doubt people with criminal records can change. Perhaps even you are unsure of how you will adjust to your new circumstances. \"But remember that you have the capacity to make good choices.\" In a note on the White House blog accompanying the announcement, Neil Eggleston, counsel to the president, noted: \"[F]ederal sentencing practices can, in too many instances, lead nonviolent drug offenders to spend decades, if not life, in prison. Now, don't get me wrong, many people are justly punished for causing harm and perpetuating violence in our communities. But, in some cases, the punishment required by law far exceeded the offense. \"These unduly harsh sentences are one of the reasons the President is committed to using all the tools at his disposal to remedy unfairness in our criminal justice system.\" Obama has now issued nearly 90 commutations, mostly to nonviolent drug offenders. NPR's Carrie Johnson tells our Newscast unit the White House will focus this week on sentencing reform. It is expected to be a topic Tuesday when Obama addresses the NAACP's annual conference in Philadelphia, and on Thursday when he visits a federal prison in Oklahoma. Carrie adds that most of those whose sentences were commuted Monday faced at least 20 years behind bars; 14 of them had been prepared to spend the rest of the lives incarcerated, Obama said. \"I believe that at its heart America is a nation of second chances,\" Obama said in a video address. \"And I believe that these folks deserve their second chance.\" \"Last year, the president asked the Justice Department to develop criteria for identifying and recommending for executive clemency those nonviolent, low-level offenders who received harsh sentences they would not receive if sentenced today,\" Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates said in a statement. \"The president's decision to commute the sentences of 46 more individuals today is another sign of our commitment to correcting these inequities. \"We will continue to recommend to the President appropriate candidates for clemency, and we will continue to work with Congress on recalibrating our sentencing laws for non-violent drug offenders.\" Last year the president commuted the sentences of eight people. Here are the 46 people whose sentences Obama commuted Monday: Jerry Allen Bailey — Charlotte, N.C. Offense: Conspiracy to violate narcotics laws (crack) (Western District of North Carolina) Sentence: 360 months' imprisonment; 10 years' supervised release (April 2, 1996) Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to expire on Nov. 10, 2015 Shauna Barry-Scott — Youngstown, Ohio Offense: Possession with intent to distribute cocaine base (Northern District of Ohio) Sentence: 240 months' imprisonment; 10 years' supervised release (Oct. 18, 2005) Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to expire on Nov. 10, 2015 Larry Darnell Belcher — Martinsville, Va. Offense: Possession with intent to distribute cocaine; possession with intent to distribute marijuana (Western District of Virginia) Sentence: Life imprisonment; 10 years' supervised release (Dec. 15, 1997) Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to expire on Nov. 10, 2015 John L. Houston Brower — Carthage, N.C. Offense: Distributed cocaine base (\"crack\") (Middle District of North Carolina) Sentence: Life imprisonment; 10 years' supervised release (June 22, 2002) Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to expire on Nov. 10, 2015 Nathaniel Brown — Orange Park, Fla. Offense: Conspiracy to distribute cocaine (more than 5 kilograms) and cocaine base (more than 50 grams); distribution of cocaine base (two counts) (Middle District of Florida) Sentence: Life imprisonment; 10 years' supervised release (Aug. 1, 2002) Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to expire on Nov. 10, 2015 Norman O'Neal Brown — Hyattsville, Md. Offense: Distribute quantity of mixture or substance containing a detectable amount cocaine base (crack), aiding and abetting (five counts); possess with intent to distribute quantity of mixture or substance containing detectable amount of cocaine base (crack), aiding and abetting (District of Maryland) Sentence: Life imprisonment; 10 years' supervised release (Jan. 15, 1993) Commutation Grant: Prison sentence commuted to expire on Nov. 10, 2015 Joseph Burgos — Chicago Offense: Distribution of cocaine; use of a communication facility in the commission of a felony (Northern District of Illinois) Sentence: 360 months' imprisonment; eight years' sup", "News Headlines: Dec. 11, 2007 Talk About It:Washington Post: Sense in Sentencing -- \"For roughly two decades, federal trial judges have chafed under the constraints of federal sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimums that often forced them to hand down inordinately long sentences. Those injustices have been most pronounced in drug cases, particularly those involving crack cocaine.\" UPDATE: AP: The U.S. Sentencing Commission has voted to make its recent easing of crack cocaine punishment guidelines retroactive. [Listen to today's show for in-depth analysis of the Court's ruling.] Nation:New York Times: Harvard to Aid Students High in Middle Class Reuters: Bible Belt State May Be Crucial In Election The Plain Dealer: More Blacks Appear to Be Adopting White Children Reuters: Civic Groups Slam U.S. for \"Abysmal\" Race Record Chicago Tribune: Black Students at NIU Feel Unsafe After Threats Newsweek: The GOP's Latino Problem People:UPI: Man Accused of Racism Has Black Genes New York Post: Anucha Slam-Dunks Garden for $11.5M in Sex Suit Chicago Sun-Times: Prosecutor: Nailah Stalked Before She Died World:New York Times: At Least 67 Dead in Algiers Bombings Op-Ed:Carl Jeffers: The Reverse Race Card and the Oprah Factor Eugene Robinson: Oprah the Believer", "Good morning, here are our early stories: -- Obama Makes A Last-Ditch Effort For His Signature Health Care Law. -- Israeli Soldier Convicted Of Manslaughter For Killing Wounded Palestinian. -- 14 Months After Elections Began, Haiti Finally Has A President-Elect. And here are more early headlines: Sentencing Phase To Open In Charleston Shooter's Trial. (AFP) Arrests End NAACP-Led Sit-In At Sen. Sessions' Alabama Office. (CNN) Dozens Of Filipinos Sought After Jail Break Out. (New York Times) Credit Reporting Agencies Fined For Deceptive Practices. (Reuters) Canadian Firm Seeks Nuclear Waste Storage Near Lake Huron. (Detroit News) West Coast Crab Fishermen On Strike For Second Week. (SFGate) Storms Kill Georgia Woman, Bringing Southern Death Toll To 6. (AP) Report: Charles Manson Hospitalized For Serious Illness. (Los Angeles Times)", "Updated Saturday at 10:22 a.m. ET President Trump on Friday evening commuted the prison sentence of his longtime friend Roger Stone, a veteran Republican operative who was convicted of lying to Congress about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks during Russia's interference in the 2016 election. \"Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency,\" White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement. \"There was never any collusion between the Trump Campaign, or the Trump Administration, with Russia.\" \"Roger Stone has already suffered greatly,\" she continued. \"He was treated very unfairly, as were many others in this case. Roger Stone is now a free man!\" Stone's attorney Robert Buschel told NPR, \"We are grateful and relieved. Glad this nightmare is over.\" The commutation, which Trump issued days before Stone was to report to federal prison, brings an end to Stone's legal fight — but only further inflames the political battle over his prosecution and the broader Russia investigation. Earlier Friday evening, a federal appeals court had denied an emergency bid from Stone to stay out of prison. The case against Stone was brought by then-special counsel Robert Mueller as part of his probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 election and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign. Stone was indicted on charges of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction. The charges related to his efforts during the 2016 presidential race to act as an intermediary between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks was releasing Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence services, and Stone publicly and privately presented himself as someone with inside knowledge about the group's operations. After the election, when Stone was questioned under oath about the matter by the House Intelligence Committee, he lied to lawmakers about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks. He also tried to prevent an associate from testifying before the committee. After a tumultuous runup to his trial, during which the presiding judge, Amy Berman Jackson, imposed a gag order on Stone after he published a threatening photograph of her, a jury found him guilty on all seven counts in November. After his trial, Stone raised allegations of juror misconduct and tried to get the verdict dismissed. Jackson entertained the motion, even holding a hearing in which she brought back members of the jury for questioning, but she ultimately rejected Stone's bid for a new trial and sentenced him to more than three years in prison. Stone has since appealed his conviction. In an interview this month with ABC News, Attorney General William Barr called Stone's prosecution \"righteous\" and said the sentence handed down was \"fair.\" On Twitter Friday night, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said that \"commuting Roger Stone's sentence is a terrible blow to justice and the rule of law.\" He added: \"Through this act, Trump is saying: 'If you lie for me, if you cover up for me, if you obstruct for me, I will protect you.' \" Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, the lone Republican to vote to convict Trump in his impeachment trial, also blasted the commutation, calling it \"[u]nprecedented, historic corruption\" on Twitter on Saturday morning. COVID-19 complexities Stone was scheduled to report to prison on July 1, but he received a two-week reprieve from Jackson because of concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, he filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to try to postpone his surrender date. The court denied that request on Friday evening. Stone's legal defense fund sent out a fundraising appeal with a message from Stone's wife, Nydia, asking for donations to help buy advertisements online and on Fox TV in the Washington, D.C., area to appeal to the president to keep her husband out of prison. Prisons have become hotbeds of infection, and authorities have sought to mitigate the spread as much as possible, including with releases of inmates who are then expected to confine themselves at home. Stone was the last person charged under the Mueller investigation, and he is one of two Trump advisers to go to trial as part of the probe. The other, Paul Manafort, served as Trump's campaign chairman and is a former business partner of Stone's. Manafort was convicted of a range of crimes. He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison but was released to home confinement this year due to the pandemic. The president has been outspoken about the case against both men. He has repeatedly said that he feels Stone and Manafort were being treated unfairly despite the fact that juries convicted both of them. Trump's views square with his theory that the Russia investigation was a plot by the so-called deep state to hamstring his presidency. Trump also repeatedly left open ", "In Illinois, you can face a prison term of one to three years if you use a weapon unlawfully. But you might serve only half that time, or you could get probation or even boot camp. Chicago alone saw more than 500 murders last year, most by gunfire. Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the current law is not what's needed to fight gun violence in the city. \"In fact, I would like to ... note that the same minimum penalty we have for a gun law is what we have for shoplifting,\" Emanuel has said. A bill backed by the mayor would raise the sentence for unlawful use of a firearm to a three-year mandatory minimum, and require anyone found guilty to serve 85 percent of that time. It's a proposal that Cleopatra Pendleton supports. \"In my community, carrying an illegal gun is not a big deal, but it needs to be a big deal,\" Pendleton says. The death of her 15-year-old daughter, Hadiya, made national headlines when she was killed in a park not far from President Obama's Chicago home shortly after her high school band performed in inaugural festivities. Pendleton says when she learned the man charged with her daughter's murder had served time for another gun crime, it felt like salt being poured in a wound. \"I wonder if a larger, mandatory minimum had been in place, if the person who allegedly shot and killed my daughter would have been in jail and Hadiya would still be alive,\" she says. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says there are at least 108 examples of shootings or murders in 2013 alone that would not have occurred if this bill was already in law. The University of Chicago Crime Lab analyzed the bill. It says people on parole arrested for illegally carrying a firearm are four times more likely than other convicted felons on parole to be arrested for murder, and nine times more likely for a nonlethal shooting. The Crime Lab also says a growing body of research suggests the threat of swift sanctions can deter crime and therefore could hold true for gun violence. Not everyone buys that analysis. John Maki, the head of the nonpartisan John Howard Association, a prison watchdog group, says it is the same old story. \"This is how the United States has gone from a prison population of around 250,000 people in the early 1970s to about 2.3 million right now,\" Maki says. \"It's always on the back of these really horrible tragedies.\" Maki says he thinks people and legislators feel that they have to do something, so prison is held out as some magical solution to the problem. The Illinois Department of Corrections also has a warning. It says the cost of the proposal would be $1 billion over 10 years, with nearly 4,000 inmates added to a prison system already bursting at the seams. But the University of Chicago crime lab says the deterrent effect of the sentencing proposal could actually mean substantially less cost with fewer people going to prison. Daniel Nagin, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University, thinks otherwise. He says people often engaged in gun crimes are not thinking about the length of a prison sentence as they act in the heat of the moment. The real deterrent, he says, is the certainty of getting caught, which has a lot to do with a much more tangible and visible police presence. \"Nothing can be done to bring back the people who have died because of gun violence,\" Nagin says. \"What needs to be done is to look to the future to try to identify the most effective and proven strategies which might reduce their numbers. It's clear that the evidence suggest there are alternatives that are better [and] that will be more effective in that regard than mandatory minimums.\" As sponsors of the legislation push for a vote, negotiations with gun rights advocates like the NRA continue. They argue that under the proposed legislation, law-abiding citizens who make one mistake could face prison time. RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: And I'm Steve Inskeep. Arguments over mandatory minimum prison terms center on the effects they have. Supporters would like to think that mandatory minimums deter people from committing crimes. Critics say those sentences simply take away the discretion of judges and further overcrowd prisons. And that is the debate underway in Illinois. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is the force behind a proposal to require a mandatory prison term for a firearm offense. NPR's Cheryl Corley reports. CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: In Illinois you can face a prison term of one to three years if you use a weapon unlawfully. You could also serve half that time, or you can get probation or boot camp. In Chicago, which saw more than 500 murders last year, most by gunfire, Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the current law is not what's needed to fight gun violence in the city. MAYOR RAHM EMAUEL: And in fact, I would like to take a note that the same minimum penalty we have for a gun law is what we have for shoplifting. CORLEY: The bill backed by the mayor would ", "Social distancing has had a lot of side effects. One is that most crime levels have gone way down. Major cities across the U.S. have recorded a double-digit drop in crime, including drug arrests, home burglaries and aggravated assaults. But while overall crime is down, homicides and shootings have gone up. Chicago is one of the hardest-hit cities, which reported a 51 percent increase in homicides in 2020 compared to 2019. Why has some crime gone down, but other crime gone up? We talked with Richard Rosenfeld, David Abrams, Ojmarrh Mitchell and Michael Flamm to tackle these questions and more. During this episode, we mentioned a previous show we produced on domestic violence during the pandemic. Find it here. Like what you hear? Find more of our programs on our website.", "On his way out of office, Illinois Gov. George Ryan indicates he will commute the death sentences of all of the state's death-row prisoners. A day earlier he pardoned four death-row inmates, freeing three immediately. Hear NPR's Scott Simon, NPR's Cheryl Corley and NPR's David Schaper.", "A Harvard analysis conducted exclusively with NPR suggests most states aren't doing enough coronavirus testing for those states to safely reopen. What happens next in the case of an unarmed black jogger who was shot dead after being chased by two armed white men in Georgia? And, it's back to school for some students in Montana today, but when might classes resume elsewhere?", "A spokesman says Illinois Gov. George Ryan will commute the death sentences of all of the state's 156 death-row prisoners. Ryan has scheduled a news conference for Saturday afternoon. He gave four death-row inmates full pardons Friday, saying they had confessed under police torture. NPR News reports.", "In a letter to president Obama, a former federal judge is asking that a sentence he handed down in 2004 be commuted. \"In looking back on the case, it was one of the most troubling that I ever faced in my five years on the federal bench,\" Paul G. Cassell wrote on Tuesday. Because of prison terms mandated by law, Cassell sentenced Weldon Angelos to 55 years in prison. As the court documents describe, Angelos was a first-time offender when he was convicted of dealing marijuana at 24-years-old. But his case was complicated by the fact that Angelos carried a gun to two drug deals and then a third offense was added when police executed a search warrant and found more guns at Angelos' home. Because of the weapons charges and because of the mandatory minimums crafted by the law, Cassell was forced to issue the 55-year-sentence. At the time, Cassell, who was nominated to the federal bench by George W. Bush in 2001, complained that the sentence was \"unjust, cruel and even irrational.\" \"The 55–year sentence substantially exceeds what the jury recommended to the court,\" Cassell wrote in his sentencing memorandum. \"It is also far in excess of the sentence imposed for such serious crimes as aircraft hijacking, second degree murder, espionage, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and rape. It exceeds what recidivist criminals will likely serve under the federal 'three strikes' provision.\" In his letter to Obama, Cassell said that this sentence was hard to defend when it was imposed, but that he is glad that Obama and his Justice Department have started reviewing these unfair sentences. As we've been reporting, President Obama has commuted the sentences of about 200 men and women who were convicted of committing nonviolent offenses under what the administration has called \"unjust — and now outdated — drug crime sentencing rules.\" Back in 2004, Cassell called for the commutation of Angelos' sentence. Now, as a professor of law at the University of Utah, who stepped down from the federal bench, he's calling for it again. He explains: As for Angelos, his two kids, who were five and seven when he was sentenced, are now teenagers and he is asking President Obama to commute his sentence. Generation Opportunity, which advocates for criminal justice reform, recently spoke to his sister and his sons:", "Paul Manafort, a former associate of President Donald Trump, was released from federal prison this week, over concerns about the spread of coronavirus. The former campaign chairman was convicted during the special counsel’s Russia investigation. He had been confined in a low-security facility in Pennsylvania since June 2018. Meanwhile, the California State University system announced its plans to cancel all in-person classes on its campuses through the fall 2020 semester.  Exceptions may be made for nursing students or others that need access to training equipment. And American sports leagues are continuing efforts to find ways to restart in the face of the pandemic. Major League Soccer is targeting a return to the field in June or July and could conduct its games in a tournament format. We cover the biggest headlines from around the country on the News Roundup.", "Updated at 9:20 p.m. ET Democrats have had no shortage of descriptors for President Trump's decision to commute Roger Stone's prison sentence. Since Trump granted clemency to his longtime confidant Friday night, Democratic lawmakers have described it as \"appalling,\" \"despicable,\" an abuse of power and a \"mockery of our democracy.\" Yet some harsh words Saturday came from a voice within his own party as well. \"An American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president,\" Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, tweeted Saturday morning, describing the move as \"unprecedented, historic corruption.\" The comments come less than a day after Stone received his reprieve from the White House. That call came down Friday night, when Trump abruptly relieved his close adviser of his 40-month prison sentence for lying to Congress, obstructing its investigation and witness tampering. A jury last fall found that Stone supplied lawmakers with false statements during their probe into the 2016 presidential election, in an effort to cover up his outreach to WikiLeaks. The group had obtained — and eventually released — thousands of hacked Democratic emails. In February, Stone received a lighter sentence than he could have gotten — but that did not satisfy the president, a longtime friend of the GOP political operative. \"Roger Stone was targeted by an illegal Witch Hunt that never should have taken place,\" the president tweeted Saturday. As of midday Saturday, Romney was the only prominent Republican to break with the president. It's not his first time doing so. The senator has repeatedly clashed with the president, and he delivered the lone GOP vote for Trump's conviction in his impeachment trial. Other Republicans either have expressed their firm support — as Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Jim Jordan have — or have kept silent. Democrats, however, have felt no such hesitation commenting on Stone's commutation. Among the dozens of Democrats to join the chorus of criticism were three high-profile members of the party: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and former Vice President Joe Biden, the party's presumptive presidential nominee. \"President Trump has once again abused his power, releasing this commutation on a Friday night, hoping to yet again avoid scrutiny as he lays waste to the norms and the values that make our country a shining beacon to the rest of the world,\" the Biden campaign said in a statement released shortly after the commutation. \"He will only be stopped when Americans make their voice heard at the ballot box this fall. Enough.\" Pelosi vowed that \"Congress will take action.\" In a statement Saturday, she called for the introduction of legislation \"to ensure that no President can pardon or commute the sentence of an individual who is engaged in a cover-up campaign to shield that President from criminal prosecution.\" And in an opinion piece published in The Washington Post on Saturday evening, former special counsel Robert Mueller defends Stone's conviction, writing, \"I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office.\" Mueller says that Russia's actions were a threat to America's democracy. He adds that when a witness lies, \"it strikes at the core of the government's efforts to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.\"", "This week, President Obama granted clemency to 20 people involved in America&#8217;s criminal justice system. He pardoned 12 people convicted of crimes from 1964 to 1997, and commuted the sentences of eight federal inmates serving long sentences for drug offenses. Barbara Scrivner was sentenced to prison for 30 years for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine. She was one of the eight pardoned by President Obama and is now scheduled to go to a halfway house and then be released in June. Earlier this year, she spoke with Here & Now&#8217;s Jeremy Hobson about her hopes to have her sentence commuted. We revisit that conversation. \nRelated: Obama Administration Endorses Reducing Sentences For Drug Offenders\n\nGuests\n\nBarbara Scrivner, served 20 years of a 30-year federal sentence for conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine.", "In moments of anger, it can be hard to take a deep breath<em> </em>or count to ten. But public health researcher Harold Pollack says five minutes of reflection can make all the difference between a regular life and one spent behind bars. This week, we visit a Chicago program that helps young men learn how to pause and reflect. Plus, we ask whether we should think of violence as a disease, similar to a blood-borne pathogen in its ability to spread from person to person.", "The Tokyo Olympic Games are now underway, despite the pandemic and controversy. Better masks and masking techniques can help guard against the more transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus. Attorney General Merrick Garland traveled to Chicago to address gun violence.", "150 federal agents are deploying to Chicago as a part of President Trump's plan to quell violence and unrest in U.S. cities. Two new coronavirus vaccines are closer to large scale trials. And Florida teachers head to court, saying an order mandating them to teach five days a week in classrooms goes against the State Constitution.", "Michael Caputo, the top spokesman at the Department of Health and Human Services, confirmed to NPR on Tuesday that he made comments during a Facebook Live event on Sunday that have attracted attention and concern – but he said that some of the comments had been taken out of context. The longtime political strategist did not dispute that he said he believes there are scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who are trying to undermine President Trump and accused them of \"sedition.\" Caputo also raised the specter of violence if Trump wins the election, saying: \"The drills that you've seen are nothing. If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentleman — because it's going to be hard to get.\" Caputo's remarks were first reported by The New York Times. Caputo told NPR's Franco Ordoñez that he had been doing the Facebook Live event on the porch of his Buffalo, N.Y., home with his two young daughters nearby, when a man drove by and threatened him in front of his children, which prompted his comments about violence. He said he responded to the threat emotionally because his daughters were shaken and said he and his family has been harassed and threatened because of his political work. \"Since joining the administration my family and I have been continually threatened and in and out of criminal court dealing with related harassment prosecutions. This weighs heavily on us and we deeply appreciate the friendship and support of President Trump as we address these matters and keep our children safe,\" Caputo, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Public Affairs, said in a statement to NPR. Caputo also noted he has been under pressure at work. He said that the Facebook Live event was done in his personal capacity, not as part of his job, and that he has done them for years. Why was he in Buffalo, away from the HHS headquarters in the capital? According to the Times, Caputo also said that \"I don't like being alone in Washington\" and that there were \"shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.\" Calls for resignation Caputo's remarks have led to calls for his resignation by congressional Democrats, including Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. \"Mr. Caputo has claimed that the president personally put him in charge of his $250 million advertising campaign intended to help America to get back to normal. We now know this is a propaganda campaign that must be defunded immediately. It is not the mission of the Department of Health and Human Services to get the president reelected,\" DeLauro said. In addition, Democrats on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar, seeking to interview Caputo and other top HHS officials \"regarding efforts by the Trump Administration to block the publication of accurate scientific reports related to the coronavirus crisis.\" Critics say loyalists to the president are putting politics over science and filtering official statistics about the pandemic or giving distorted views about the prospects for a vaccine. According to a report in Politico last week, Caputo and other officials tried to block or amend CDC reports, including the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, to make them appear more favorable to President Trump. Caputo is a longtime political operative who worked on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. He also recently published a book titled The Ukraine Hoax: How Decades of Corruption in the Former Soviet Republic Led to Trump's Phony Impeachment. He was a spokesman for President George H.W. Bush's reelection campaign and worked with Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstruction and making false statements during special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Stone's sentence was commuted by Trump. In the 1990s, Caputo lived in Moscow and did work for Russian President Boris Yeltsen.", "As he prepares to leave office, Illinois Gov. George Ryan considers commuting the death sentences against death-row inmates in the state. Ryan declared a moratorium on the death penalty after courts found 13 inmates were wrongly convicted. NPR's Renee Montagne talks with lawyer and novelist Scott Turow, who served on a commission to study capital punishment in Illinois." ]

[ "A nitinol stent is a medical device a doctor may insert to open a patient's blood vessel to relieve a blockage and promote the free flow of blood through the vessel. A number of conditions may call for the use of a stent to reduce the risks of stroke, myocardial infarction, and other potential issues associated with limited blood flow and blocked blood vessels." ]

[ "Nitinol stents arrive in a compressed form, and the doctor opens them up in the patient's body, relying on the metal's memory to snap the stent into shape and hold that shape as long as the stent is in place.", "Consequently, the mechanical behavior of Nitinol under multiaxial conditions remains poorly understood. Nevertheless, because of these unique mechanical characteristics, in combination with excellent biocompatibility, Nitinol is used as self-expanding endovascular stents to scaffold diseased peripheral arteries.", "Nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy, is used in a variety of medical devices. The material’s thermo-mechanical characteristics and its biocompatibility make it ideal for cardiovascular stents, endoscopic instruments, surgical tools and other products. However, nitinol can be challenging to assemble.", "The Innova Self-Expanding Stent System is comprised of two components: the implantable endoprosthesis and the stent delivery system. The stent is a laser cut self-expanding stent composed of a nickel titanium alloy (Nitinol).", "Once the doctor has the stent in the right place, he can open it up to push the walls of the blood vessel open and allow blood to flow freely through it. The stent consists of a fine mesh that will hold the vessel open. A patient with a nitinol stent will need to take blood thinners to prevent clots.", "Heparin-bonded covered stents versus bare-metal stents for complex femoropopliteal artery lesions: the randomized VIASTAR trial (Viabahn endoprosthesis with PROPATEN bioactive surface [VIA] versus bare nitinol stent in the treatment of long lesions in superficial femoral artery occlusive disease).eparin-bonded covered stents versus bare-metal stents for complex femoropopliteal artery lesions: the randomized VIASTAR trial (Viabahn endoprosthesis with PROPATEN bioactive surface [VIA] versus bare nitinol stent in the treatment of long lesions in superficial femoral artery occlusive disease).", "Endovascular stents manufactured from superelastic Nitinol represent a major component in the fight against heart disease. However, accurate characterization of the stress/strain distributions in such stents, which govern their deformation and fracture behavior, is essential for their prolonged safe use in human arteries.", "First-generation Nitinol stents were designed to provide sufficient scaffolding forces to hold open vessels, yet provide enough elasticity to breathe with pulsatile pressure differentials from the cardiac cycle. A variety of clinical studies indicate that these stents perform this primary function quite well.", "ElectroPolishing Nitinol for Stents and other Medical Devices. and Implants Using the FARADAYIC® Process. Objective: This project is developing the capability of the patented. FARADAYIC® Process for electropolishing strongly. passive materials, such as Nitinol (Nickel-Titanium. alloy), without the use of toxic, highly aggressive.", "What is it? The GORE VIABAHN® Endoprosthesis is a flexible, metallic (made from Nitinol)tubular shaped device (stent) which is lined with plastic (made from expanded polytetrafluoroethylene [ePTFE]). The device is mounted on the end of a delivery catheter and held in place by a release mechanism.", "As a metal alloy of nickel and titanium, Nitinol exhibits the unique properties of shape memory and superelasticity. Innovations in the manufacturing and processing of Nitinol have led to a great expansion of Nitinol medical devices in a variety of therapeutic areas.", "Long-term nebulization and medical therapy with stent placement was needed to decrease respiratory clinical signs. Use of a nitinol wire stent for management of severe tracheal stenosis in an eclectus parrot (Eclectus roratus)", "Both gold and cobalt-chromium have proven to be effective and biocompatible stent materials, though gold can be quite expensive. Tanatalum and nitinol are also promising, though the first can be somewhat brittle and the second difficult to manufacture. Ad. The other main type of stent material is polymers. Silicone is well-tolerated by the body, but it is not ideal when it comes to strength and durability. Polyethylene and polyurethane have the opposite problem.", "Nickel titanium. Nickel titanium, also known as Nitinol (part of shape memory alloy), is a metal alloy of nickel and titanium, where the two elements are present in roughly equal atomic percentages e.g. Nitinol 55, Nitinol 60.", "Nitinol is a nickel-titanium alloy distinguished from other materials by its shape memory and superelastic characteristics. Read more about the physical properties of nitinol. Nitinol is a trade name taken from the alloys composing it—nickel (Ni) and titanium (Ti)—and the scientific group that discovered it—the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL).", "Smart alloys - higher. Smart alloys have unusual properties. Nitinol is an alloy of nickel and titanium, and is known as a shape memory alloy. If nitinol is bent out of shape, it returns to its original shape when it is either heated or an electric current is passed through it.", "What is a stent? A stent is a small, mesh-like device made of metal. When a stent is placed inside of a coronary artery, it acts as a support or scaffold, keeping the vessel open. By keeping the vessel open, the stent helps to improve blood flow to the heart muscle and reduce the pain of angina. Stent procedures are usually used along with balloon angioplasty.", "Management Summary Nitinol 60 (60NiTi), an intermetallic nick-el-titanium alloy containing 60 wt % nickel and 40 wt % titanium, is shown to be a prom-ising material for oil-lubricated, rolling and sliding contact applications such as bearings and gears.nlike ce-ramics, Nitinol 60 is electrically conductive. Table I contains a summary of key material properties for conventional and high performance bearing alloys in current use and, for comparative purposes, includes basic properties for Nitinol 55 and Nitinol 60 alloys.", "Definition of nitinol. : a nonmagnetic alloy of titanium and nickel that after being deformed returns to its original shape upon being reheated.", "Cordis Corporation - Nitino/ Devices and Components, Fremont, CA, USA. Summary. Superelastic Nitinol is now a common and well-known engineering material in the medical industry. While the greater flexibility of the alloy drives many of its applications, there are also a large number of. lesser-known advantages of Nitinol in medical devices. This paper reviews 7 of these less-obvious but.", "Nitinol Material Sourcing. As the highest-volume supplier of Nitinol materials for the medical device industry, Confluent Medical Technologies has maintained its position as the premier vendor for all Nitinol sourcing. Count on us to deliver:", "For people named Stent, see Stent (surname). In medicine, a stent is a metal or plastic tube inserted into the lumen of an anatomic vessel or duct to keep the passageway open, and stenting is the placement of a stent.", "In medicine, a stent is a metal or plastic tube inserted into the lumen of an anatomic vessel or duct to keep the passageway open, and stenting is the placement of a stent. There is a wide variety of stents used for different purposes, from expandable coronary, vascular and biliary stents, to simple plastic stents used to allow the flow of urine between kidney and bladder.", "Based upon this preliminary data, it appears that Nitinol 60, despite its high titanium content, is a promising alloy for advanced mechanical systems requiring superior and intrinsic cor-rosion resistance, electrical conductivity and non-magnetic behavior under lubricated contacting conditions.nlike ce-ramics, Nitinol 60 is electrically conductive. Table I contains a summary of key material properties for conventional and high performance bearing alloys in current use and, for comparative purposes, includes basic properties for Nitinol 55 and Nitinol 60 alloys.", "A stent is a tube made of metal mesh, that is inserted into an artery to help keep it open. Heart stents are placed during an angioplasty, and then left in place.There are two kinds of stents. Bare metal stents are the traditional kind, and solely made of metal. With these, there is a chance the artery can become blocked with scar tissue during the healing process.ith the combination of several long arteries, that may be stented along their entire lengths, and the possiblility of putting stents within stents, the amount a person can have is virtually limitless. Having a lot of stents, however, is never be a good thing.", "NiTinol means Nickel Titanium Navel Ordinance Laboratory and it possesses a unique property. It has shape memory, but that was discovered by William J. Buehler and quite by accident.", "The nickel-titanium alloy Nitinol has been used in the manufacture of endodontic instruments in recent years. Nitinol alloys have greater strength and a lower modulus of elasticity compared with stainless steel alloys.he nickel-titanium alloy Nitinol has been used in the manufacture of endodontic instruments in recent years. Nitinol alloys have greater strength and a lower modulus of elasticity compared with stainless steel alloys.", "Stent. An expandable scaffold-like device, usually constructed of a stainless steel material, that is inserted into an artery to expand the inside passage and improve blood flow. Mentioned in: Bile Duct Cancer, Gallbladder Cancer, Lithotripsy, Renal Artery Stenosis, Thrombocytopenia.", "What does the stent do? The purpose of a stent is hold the ureter open and maintain proper drainage of urine. It usually is used temporarily, although in some cases the patient and Urologist elect to manage blockage of the ureter long-term with a stent. When is a stent used? A stent is used in a number of situations. A stent is placed if the Urologist is concerned that urine might not drain", "The most common use for coronary stents is in the coronary arteries, into which a bare-metal stent, a drug-eluting stent, a bioabsorbable stent, a dual-therapy stent (combination of both drug and bioengineered stent), or occasionally a covered stent is inserted. A coronary stent.", "Nitinol metal alloy is one of the most useful alloys used for various purposes. It has numerous important medical applications. It is a nickel- titanium metal alloy with some unique properties. It is also known as Nickel titanium. This alloy exhibits the superelasticity or pseudoelasticity and the shape memory properties. It means this unique metal can remember its original shape and shows great elasticity under stress.", "Video not loaded. Drug-eluting stents are metal stents that have been coated with a pharmacologic agent (drug) that is known to suppress restenosis: the reblocking or closing up of an artery after angioplasty due to excess tissue growth inside or at the edge of the stent.estenosis has a number of causes; it is a very complex process and the solution to its prevention is equally complex. Traditional bare-metal stents have restenosis rates of up to 25%; current 2nd and 3rd generation drug-eluting stents have reduced that rate to single digits." ]

[ "URS Corporation H. Thomas Hicks, 415-774-2700 Vice President & Chief Financial Officer or Sard Verbinnen & Co Hugh Burns / Jane Simmons, 212-687-8080 URS Corporation today announced that it has been awarded a contract with an intelligence community agency for a program to replace and modernize the power and cooling infrastructure across the agency's facilities." ]

[ "Science Applications International Corporation (NYSE: SAI) announced today it was awarded a prime contract by the US Department of Homeland Security to provide tactical and mission critical communications services to the DHS community.", "JTG, inc. announced today that it was competitively awarded a single-award, five-year prime contract by the US Department of State to provide support to the Digital Outreach Team in the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications.", "Science Applications International Corporation announced today it was awarded a prime contract by the United States Air Force to provide design and engineering services in support of the Air Force Materiel Command, and other agencies within the Department of Defense.", "Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $1 billion contract by the US Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency.", "Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, Stratford, Conn., was awarded a $265,646,071 firm-fixed-price contract.", "Late last month, the United States Central Intelligence Agency announced that it is opening a Center on Climate Change and National Security.", "Innovative security systems provider Northrop Grumman Corp., Monday received a contract from the US army to provide Scorpion and Scorpion II unattended ground sensor or UGS systems.", "After winning the ``Ur Fave Artist'' Award at Toronto's MuchMusic Video Awards, Justin Bieber accidentally gave his award away to a very loud and eager fan.", "Kognitio, a global provider of business intelligence and data warehousing solutions, recently announced that it has awarded innovative technology services provider 2e2 a contract for the hosting of Kognitio's Data Warehousing as a Service environments.", "BAE Systems said Tuesday it won a US Army contract worth up to $95 million for automated security systems to control access to military bases.", "Stanley Inc., which provides information-technology services, said Tuesday it received a five-year, $30 million contract from the US Army to provide support services for the US Army Central Command.", "The University of Warwick has awarded a £17m design and build contract to Shepherd Construction.", "FLIR Systems Inc. won a $49.8 million firm-fixed price indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract from the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division in Crane, Ind., for its Short Range - Ground Mobility Visual Augmentation Systems.", "FAA announced Friday that it is soliciting bids for NextGen support contracts with a combined value of around $7 billion, which it said will be ``the largest award in the agency's history.''", "Aker Kvaerner has been awarded a drilling equipment contract by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. Ltd in Korea for an ultradeep drillship.", "Northrop Grumman Corporation was awarded a five-year contract from the US Department of Defense to support theoretical studies and engineering research for Army, Navy and Air Force research and development programs.", "Over 250 suspects have been detained following the Lahore terror attack in which at least 90 people were killed as intelligence agencies feared that terrorists could target minority communities once again.", "CACI International Inc announced today that it has been awarded a $49 million prime contract by the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in Charleston, SC to help the Navy provide operational support to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.", "Carlsbad-based ViaSat has won a $34 million government contract to further develop and produce a special communications systems used by multiple branches of the US military, the Defense Department announced.", "IronKey, maker of the world's most secure flash drive, today announced that it has been awarded a contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide the agency with IronKey secure, managed USB flash drives.", "DR Systems, makers of the Unity RIS/PACS, today announced four new contracts, including two data migrations from legacy PACS, totaling almost $1.57 million.", "Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. announced today that it received a contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory/ Enterprise Business System Program Office at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.", "Science Applications International Corporation announced it was awarded a prime contract by the National Nuclear Security Administration to provide enterprise-wide technical, engineering, and programmatic support services across eight contract areas consisting of program management, nuclear engineering, training, security management, emergency operations, aviation operations, nuclear nonproliferation and emergency management.", "A new law that takes effect today in South Dakota says state agencies must request competitive proposals when awarding or renewing most contracts for professional services exceeding $50,000.", "A terrorist cell busted in Yemen last month after a suicide attack on the US embassy there had links with an Israeli intelligence agency, the state-run Saba news agency reported.", "Science Applications International Corp. won a Navy contract potentially worth more than $108 million to provide engineering and technical support services for the department's Navy Tactical Mobile Program.", "Former Intelligence officer Muchdi Purwoprandjono told Central Jakarta District Court on Tuesday that ``Munir's death is a minor problem'' which is not related to any state institutions like the State Intelligence Agency.", "Eight Americans killed in a military base blast in Afghanistan were agents of the Central Intelligence Agency, CNN reported Wednesday.", "The UK intelligence agency MI5 tried to recruit 'terror suspects' in US custody, a British daily claims.", "NEW jobs are set to be created at Humberside Airport after a significant contract was awarded.", "The Air Force is awarding a firm fixed price contract to McDonnell Douglas Corp., of Long Beach, Calif., for an estimated $7,625,366.", "A bad actor in the Middle East was recently sanctioned by the United States: the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, Iran's primary intelligence organization, known as the MOIS." ]

[ "Elevance Renewable Sciences Inc. recently announced a licensing agreement with Chemtura, a global, specialty chemicals company, for Elevance Aria® WTP technology and market development.\nChemtura will reportedly have global rights to develop, derivatize, manufacture, use and sell products incorporating the Elevance Aria WTP technology in lubricant applications. Elevance has retained rights outside lubricant applications.\n“At Elevance, we employ a strategic partnership business model by engaging with leading companies, like Chemtura, that see value in using our unique building blocks such as our unsaturated esters in distinct market segments,” said Gregory E. Gerhardt, commercial director. “This agreement leverages the new-to-the-world technology present in Elevance Aria WTP technology with Chemtura’s world-class capabilities in lubricant synthetic base stocks, additive synthesis, and sales and marketing infrastructure. We are pleased to partner with Chemtura.”\n“We are excited about adding this unique technology to our tool box,” said David L. Stonecipher, global strategic marketing manager, Chemtura. “It fundamentally enhances our ability to bring next generation, functionalized base stocks and additives to our global customers, ensuring we can deliver differentiated solutions to meet their needs.”\nElevance Aria WTP technology combines the benefits of two key synthetic base stock technologies―synthetic esters and PAOs―into a single high-performing molecule, reportedly providing advanced lubricating properties including lower friction and improved wear, along with reduced foaming and better additive solvency characteristics.\nFor more information, visit www.elevance.com or www.chemtura.com." ]

[ "March 29 Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc -\n* Vanda and UCSF announce license agreement for CFTR activators and inhibitors\n* Under terms of deal, vanda will pay UCSF an initial license fee of $1 million and will be responsible for all development costs\n* In 2017 intends to complete technology transfer activities from UCSF,initiate ind enabling studies for several CFTR indications\n* To acquire exclusive worldwide license from UCSF to develop, commercialize portfolio of cftr activators, inhibitors Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "February 14, 2017 Pennine Petroleum Corporation is pleased to announce that it has signed a Production Sharing Agreement with Albpetrol Sh.A for the exploration and development of the Velca Block in Albania. The finalized PSA contains a license agreement signed by Pennine, Albania's Ministry of Energy and Industry, and Albpetrol, the country's state-owned energy firm, for a six -year exploratory lease-convertible to a 25-year production lease, upon discovery of oil and/or natural gas accumulations.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at InvestorIdeas.com.", "April 24 (Reuters) - Attunity Ltd:\n* ATTUNITY SIGNS NEW MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR TECHNOLOGY LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH EXISTING OEM PARTNER\n* ATTUNITY LTD - REPLACING AN OLDER OEM AGREEMENT, NEW AGREEMENT INCLUDES $3.5 MILLION IN TOTAL LICENSING FEES Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "Dec 11 (Reuters) - Ardelyx Inc:\n* Ardelyx announces license agreement with Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Industrial Development Company Limited for Tenapanor in China\n* Ardelyx - under terms of agreement, Ardelyx will receive upfront payment of $12 million, is eligible to receive additional milestones of up to $113 million\n* Ardelyx Inc - Fosun Pharma will have exclusive rights to market and sell Tenapanor in China\n* Ardelyx - under terms of agreement, co will receive tiered royalty payments on net sales from Tenapanor ranging from mid-teens to 20 percent\n* Ardelyx Inc - agreement also provides Fosun Pharma rights to commercialize Tenapanor for other indications for which it is approved in United States Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "Feb 14 ChemoCentryx Inc\n* Vifor Pharma and ChemoCentryx announce expansion of avacopan agreement for rare renal diseases\n* ChemoCentryx Inc - vifor pharma has gained rights to commercialize avacopan in Asia, including Japan and Middle-East\n* ChemoCentryx Inc - ChemoCentryx retains all rights in united states and china\n* ChemoCentryx Inc - agreement gives Vifor Pharma rights to commercialize Avacopan for orphan, rare renal diseases in all markets outside U.S. , China\n* ChemoCentryx Inc - will receive an upfront cash commitment of usd 20 million in return for new rights, plus tiered double-digit royalties on potential net sales\n* ChemoCentryx Inc - upfront cash commitment is in addition to usd 85 million upfront paid under original May 2016 licensing agreement Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "April 3 Enzymotec Ltd:\n* Neptune and Enzymotec reach patent agreement ending all litigation\n* Enzymotec Ltd - Enzymotec to make a one-time payment of us$1.63 million to Neptune\n* Enzymotec Ltd - Enzymotec grants Neptune a worldwide and royalty-free license to its krill-related patents\n* Enzymotec Ltd - Neptune extends Enzymotec's worldwide and royalty-free license to its krill-related patents\n* Enzymotec Ltd - co, Neptune Technologies entered into broad patent cross-licensing agreement, which ends all outstanding litigation between companies Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "April 6 Richter Gedeon Vegyeszeti Gyar Nyrt\n* Evestra - announced it has signed a collaboration partnership agreement with Gedeon Richter Plc\n* Evestra - under terms of agreement, evestra will perform certain research and development activities on a female urological product\n* Evestra - under terms co to perform activities in exchange for licensing commercialization rights for certain territories outside U.S. To Gedeon Richter\n* Evestra - deal consists of upfront payments for research, early development funding as well as clinical development, sales performance milestones Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "April 5 Energy Recovery Inc-\n* Energy Recovery signs licensing agreement with alderley for centrifugal products in the gcc\n* Energy Recovery - 10-year licensing agreement will grant alderley exclusive rights to sell and promote energy recovery centrifugal line of products\n* Alderley will have the rights to sell and promote the line of products in middle east region\n* In return, co will receive a one-time royalty for each isoboost or isogen unit sold Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "May 2 Celyad Sa:\n* Celyad grants to Novartis a non-exclusive license for its allogeneic TCR-Deficient CAR-T Cells Patents\n* This license agreement is related to two targets currently under development by Novartis\n* Under the terms of the agreement Celyad receives an upfront payment and is eligible to receive success based clinical, regulatory and commercial milestone payments\n* If all success based milestones are achieved, Celyad is eligible to receive payments, including the upfront payment, totalling $96 million\n* In addition, Celyad will receive single digit royalties based on net sales of the licensed target associated products\n* Novartis has the option to extend the agreement to additional targets and/or to convert its license into an exclusive license. Celyad retains all rights to grant further licenses to third parties for the use of allogeneic CAR-T cells Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)", "Today , CTC Global announced the signing of an agreement with General Cable which implements an expanded ACCC licensing arrangement. Under this new agreement, General Cable has been granted the rights to manufacture, promote and sell high-capacity, low-loss ACCC bare overhead transmission and distribution conductor in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Electric Energy Online.", "April 3 Resonant Inc-\n* Resonant expands licensing agreement with existing customer\n* Resonant Inc - signed an extension to a licensing agreement with an existing customer, a rffe component vendor\n* Resonant Inc - upfront payments and milestone payments have been agreed upon, but will not be disclosed due to confidential nature of such agreements\n* Resonant Inc - expanded agreement encompasses development of resonant's fifth quadplexer, and second for customer\n* Resonant Inc - extension covers design of resonant's fifth quadplexer for chinese market Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "Dec 11 (Reuters) - Almirall SA:\n* ALMIRALL AND ATHENEX ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP FOR THE TREATMENT OF ACTINIC KERATOSIS\n* ALMIRALL SA - CO AND ATHENEX HAVE ENTERED INTO A PARTNERSHIP TO DEVELOP AND COMMERCIALIZE KX2-391 IN UNITED STATES AND EUROPE\n* ALMIRALL - ATHENEX WILL GRANT EXCLUSIVE LICENSE TO ALMIRALL TO RESEARCH, COMMERCIALIZE KX2-391 IN THE U.S., EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, INCLUDING RUSSIA\n* ALMIRALL SA - UNDER TERMS OF PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT, ATHENEX WILL RECEIVE AN UP-FRONT FEE AND NEAR-TERM PAYMENTS OF UP TO $55 MILLION\n* ALMIRALL SA - ATHENEX WILL BE ELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE LAUNCH AND ADDITIONAL INDICATIONS MILESTONES FOR $65 MILLION\n* ALMIRALL SA - DEAL INCLUDES SALES PERFORMANCE MILESTONES OF KX2-391 ESTIMATED TO BE $155 MILLION\n* ALMIRALL - THERE WILL BE TIERED ROYALTIES STARTING AT 15% BASED ON ANNUAL NET SALES, WITH INCREMENTAL INCREASES IN ROYALTY RATES WITH INCREASED SALES\n* ALMIRALL SA - ATHENEX WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR CONDUCTING ALL PRECLINICAL AND CLINICAL STUDIES UP TO U.S. FDA APPROVAL Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "April 10 Resonant Inc\n* Resonant Inc - Resonant secures three new licensing agreements with existing tier one fabless RFFE component vendor\n* Resonant - new licensing deals encompass 2 high volume bands that were converted from joint development agreements (JDAS), as well as a new quadplexer\n* Resonant Inc - upfront payments and milestone payments have been agreed upon, but will not be disclosed Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "March 31 Precise Biometrics\n* Precise Biometrics enters into agreement with Zeitec for the licensing of Precise Biomatch mobile\n* Says agreement includes a per unit license fee, and annual fee's for right to use precise biometrics algorithm solution and for support and maintenance.\n* Says currently projecting that some initial revenue generated under agreement will be recognized starting from Q1 of 2017 Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Stockholm Newsroom)", "May 3 Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc\n* Karyopharm and Anivive Lifesciences sign exclusive global license agreement for Verdinexor for Animal Health Applications\n* Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc - Karyopharm to receive $1 million upfront payment\n* Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc - Karyopharm then eligible to receive up to $43.5 million in future milestones, plus royalties Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–March 19, 2018–\nKFx Medical, LLC announced that it has entered into a license agreement with Wright Medical Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:WMGI) relating to KFx patents used in knotless double row rotator cuff repair.\nUnder the agreement, Wright and its affiliates will have the right to promote the use of products and techniques for knotless double row rotator cuff repair as claimed in US Patent number 7,585,311 and related patents and applications for the life of those patents. In addition, KFx and Wright agreed to dismiss the related pending litigation between the parties.\nArthrex, Inc. has paid in excess of $35m in damages and interest for its infringement of KFx’s Knotless Double Row Fixation method as described in KFx’s U.S. Patent No. 7,585,311.\nTerms of the licensing agreement were not disclosed.\n“We are proud to have our innovation recognized by Wright. Previously we announced our licensing agreements with Smith & Nephew, Inc. (NYSE:SNN), Mitek, a Johnson & Johnson Company (NYSE:JNJ), and ConMed (NASDAQ:CNMD) for the same patents. I am pleased with the licensing arrangement with these four world leaders and knowing KFx’s valuable double row knotless rotator cuff technology will reach even more patients,” indicated Tate Scott, President and Chief Executive Officer.\nAbout KFx Medical, LLC\nKFx Medical LLC was founded in 2003 to develop products for tissue fixation in a variety of orthopedic surgical procedures performed on the shoulder, knee, foot, and ankle. KFx provides simple systems for orthopedic surgeons focused on sports medicine. The company is privately held. Investors include Alloy Ventures, Charter Life Sciences, Arboretum Ventures, Montreux Equity Partners, and MB Venture Partners.\nView source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180319006145/en/\nKFx Medical, LLC\nTate Scott\nPresident and Chief Executive Officer\n619-742-2010\nTate.Scott@kfxmed.com\nwww.kfxmedical.com", "March 28 Selvita SA:\n* Signs with Berlin-Chemie AG from Menarini Group license agreement concerning compound SEL24\n* Under the agreement Menarini Group gets exclusive rights to research, develop and commercialization of SEL24 in the whole world\n* Deal is worth at maximum 379.1 million zlotys ($96.89 million) Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ($1 = 3.9125 zlotys) (Gdynia Newsroom)", "Aug 14 (Reuters) - Immersion Corp\n* Immersion enters into licensing agreement with Yomuneco for gaming and VR applications\n* Immersion Corp says signed an end-user license agreement with Tokyo-based Yomuneco, Inc., which is an equity-method company of Gumi Inc Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "Prometic Life Sciences (OTCQX:PFSCF -2.4% ) enters into licensing agreements with affiliates of Shenzhen Royal Asset Management Co., Ltd., related to its previously announced joint venture. The new contracts cover the development, manufacturing and commercialization of PBI-4050, PBI-4547 and PBI-4425 in China. A new subsidiary has been formed, Prometic ChinaCo, whose initial focus will be on pulmonary and liver fibrosis.\nUnder the terms of the deal, Shenzhen will provide $33M in funding, $23M of which will be deployed in H2, followed by additional tranches next year. Shenzhen's ownership stake in Prometic ChinaCo will increase to as high as 25% when the funding is completed.\nPrometic ChinaCo will be able to extend sub-licenses in China and will receive royalties on net sales from such agreements.\nPBI-4050 and PBI-4547 are candidates to treat fibrosis. PBI-4425, an analogue of PBI-4050, is a candidate to treat pulmonary emphysema and cutaneous hyperplasia (pink/red bumps on the skin).", "May 2 Bluebird Bio Inc\n* Bluebird bio enters lentiviral vector patent license agreement with Glaxosmithkline for commercialization of gene therapies\n* Bluebird bio - under terms of agreement, gsk will non-exclusively license certain bluebird patent rights related to lentiviral vector technology\n* Bluebird bio- financial terms of agreement include an upfront payment to bluebird as well as potential development and regulatory milestone payments\n* Bluebird bio inc - financial terms of agreement also include low single digit royalties on net sales of covered products Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "May 2 Bluebird Bio Inc\n* Bluebird bio inc- entered into a worldwide license agreement around its proprietary lentiviral vector platform with novartis pharma ag\n* Bluebird bio inc- financial terms of agreement with novartis include an upfront payment to bluebird as well as milestone and royalty payments\n* Bluebird bio-under terms novartis to non-exclusively license certain of co's patent rights to develop, commercialize chimeric antigen receptor t cell therapies for oncology Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "Aug 14 (Reuters) - AAP IMPLANTATE AG:\n* ANNOUNCES EXPLORATION OF STRATEGIC ALTERNATIVES TO CREATE MORE VALUE\n* ‍THERE IS NO SET TIME TABLE FOR THIS PROCESS OF EXPLORING STRATEGIC ALTERNATIVES​\n* IS EXPLORING CO-DEVELOPMENT-/LICENSE AGREEMENTS, JOINT VENTURE AGREEMENTS TO CORPORATE TRANSACTIONS (E.G. MERGER, SHARE OR ASSET DEAL, CARVE OUT) Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)", "Aurinia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AUPH) is up 4% after hours on robust volume in response to its announcement that it has inked a license agreement with Merck Animal Health granting it global rights to develop and commercialize voclosporin ophthalmic solution (VOS) for the treatment of dogs with dry eye syndrome.\nUnder the terms of the agreement, Aurinia will receive an upfront payment, milestones and royalties on net sales. Merck Animal will be responsible for all remaining clinical development related to VOS in animal health. Aurinia retains all rights for human uses. Specific financial terms are not disclosed.", "April 13 PVH Corp\n* PVH announces licensing agreement with USA Legwear for Warner's socks and hosiery\n* PVH - Warner's product offering to include women's sheer hosiery, tights, leggings, thigh highs, knee highs, trouser socks, among other things\n* PVH - 2 units entered license deal with USA legwear under which USA Legwear to manufacture, sell, distribute women's hosiery, socks under Warner's brand Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "KUCHING: Analysts see minimal improvements to OldTown Bhd (OldTown) following the announcement of its venture into Myanmar with direct license outlets in the city of Yangon.\nIn a listing on bursa Malaysia last Friday, the food and beverage (F&B) giant announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Kopitiam Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd has executed a License Agreement with Nikmat Mujur Sdn Bhd (Nikmat Mujur) and Low See Nam for the operation of three direct license OldTown Café outlets for a 24-month period.\nIn order for Nikmat Mujur to operate these outlets, thelicensee will obtain non-exclusive rights to use the OldTown trade name and marks, its developed business systems and training to sell approved products and specialised services.\nFor the aforementioned rights, Nikmat Mujur would be required to pay OldTown a one-time total of US$150,000, a US$60,000 Area License fee at the end of 24 months, and a monthly royalty fee of US$1,500 per outlet for the duration of its operations.\nFollowing this news, the research arm of Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd (Kenanga Research) released a company update on OldTown indicating its optimism on the development as it would provide the company with a means to establish a stronger foothold in a new market.\n“In addition, we believe that this will enable the group to test the brand acceptance of its product in a more cost-effective manner before considering establisjhing full-owned outlet or pursuing aggressive retail distribution,” added the research arm.\nIn the event that Nikmat Mujur intends to operate further outlets other than the specified three direct license outlets, a Master License agreement may be granted to Nikmat Mujur which would render them sole operators of OldTown outlets within Yangon or Myanmar.\nThe research arm of Kenanga Investment Bank Bhd (Kenanga Research) believes that this would be highly probable given the stable economic growth and outlook of Myanmar’s economy as well as the sizeable 5.3 million population in Yagon.\nDespite this optimism, there is expected to be only minimal improvement to OldTown’s earnings as the License Agreement has stipulated that Nikmat Mujur would have a 9 month construction period to establish the pilot outlet in Myanmar.\nA low base of initial café outlets is also expected as the licensee, Nikmat Mujur will need time to adjust to the unfamiliar business and environment.\nAs such, the research arm will only be tweaking its FY18E earnings for OldTown by an immaterial increase of 0.3 per cent to account for the additional license fees revenue and expected product sales to these new licensed outlets.\nGiven this minimal impact on net earnings, the research arm will also be maintaining its ‘outperform’ call and target price of RM2.11 which is based on a FY18E price earnings ratio (PER) of 15.1 times.\n“Valuation is undemanding in view of the sturdy balance and strong cash flow, which will allow the company to continue rewarding shareholders with dividends.\n“In addition, we believe the share price weakness since the removal of the group’s Shariah-compliant had been overplayed and may offer entry opportunity as the group’s fundamental and growth prospect remain unchanged,” concluded the research arm.", "April 6 Cydex Pharmaceuticals Inc\n* Marinus Pharmaceuticals Inc - on march 31, 2017, entered into a license agreement and a supply agreement with Cydex Pharmaceuticals Inc - sec filing\n* Marinus Pharmaceuticals Inc-under terms of supply agreement, co required to purchase all of requirements for Captisol with respect to Ganaxolone from Cydex\n* Marinus Pharmaceuticals Inc- Cydex granted co exclusive license to use Cydex Captisol drug formulation system, related intellectual property\n* Marinus Pharmaceuticals Inc-under terms of supply agreement, Cydex is required to supply co with Captisol for such purposes, subject to certain limitations\n* Marinus Pharmaceuticals Inc-as consideration for license,co paid upfront fee, required to make additional payments on achievement of specified milestones\n* Marinus Pharmaceuticals Inc- will be required to pay royalties to Cydex on sales of Ganaxolone in low-to-mid single digits based on levels of annual net sales Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:", "Canada’s Nemaska Lithium and Korean chemical company LG Chem have signed an offtake agreement that provides for the supply of battery grade lithium hydroxide by Nemaska to LG.\n“We are pleased with this first step towards establishing a long-term commercial relationship between LG and Nemaska. The signing of this agreement is a clear vote of confidence by LG in our business plan and our capacity to be a long-term supplier of lithium hydroxide,” said Nemaska president and CEO Guy Bourassa.\nAdvertisement\nUnder this agreement, Nemaska agrees to supply LG, on a take-or-pay basis and through its wholly-owned subsidiary Nemaska Lithium Shawinigan Transformation, with 7 000 t/y of lithium hydroxide, which is produced at Nemaska’s commercial plant in Shawinigan, Quebec, for an initial five-year period, scheduled to start in October 2020.\nNemaska is entitled, if ever necessary, to reschedule the start of the supply period, within certain parameters set out in the agreement and based on the anticipated commissioning, ramping up and production start date for the Shawinigan plant.\nAdvertisement\nNemaska will be operating the Whabouchi mine, also in Québec. The spodumene concentrate produced at the Whabouchi mine will be processed at the Shawinigan plant using a unique membrane electrolysis process for which Nemaska holds several patents.", "Aug 14 (Reuters) - Eve Investments Ltd\n* Seeks trading halt pending announcement by company regarding an update to licensing agreements for Omni Innovation Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (bangalore.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com)", "March 31 SCANDINAVIAN CHEMOTECH AB\n* ITS DISTRIBUTOR SPA INC. GETS PHILIPPINES' FDA APPROVAL FOR IQWAVE SALES IN THE PHILIPPINES Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)", "PARIS, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – April 17, 2017) - Emblem Corp. (TSX VENTURE:EMC) (“Emblem” or the “Company”) announced that the board of directors of the Company has approved the granting of 280,000 incentive stock options (the “Options”) to a consultant performing investor relations activities and employees of the Company. The Options are exercisable at a price of $2.60 per share for a period of five years and are subject to vesting as to one-third of the number of Options granted on each of April 30, 2018, 2019 and 2020.\nAbout Emblem\nEmblem is licensed under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (the “ACMPR”) to cultivate and sell medical marihuana. Emblem carries out its principal activities producing marihuana from its facilities in Paris, Ontario pursuant to the provisions of the ACMPR and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (Canada) and its regulations.\nNeither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.", "Aug 14 (Reuters) - Asymchem Laboratories Tianjin Co Ltd :\n* Says it signed an investment framework agreement with local government of Dunhua city, regarding green pharmaceutical key technology industrialization project\n* Says the total investment of the project is 600 million yuan\nSource text in Chinese: goo.gl/udEVTq\nFurther company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)", "Govt focusing to give relief to power users\nIslamabad\nPrime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Tuesday directed the Establishment Division to review the need to cut down on number of occupational groups of Federal Civil Services in line with reduced domain of federal government after the 18th Amendment.\nChairing a meeting on Civil Service Reforms at the PM Office, the Prime Minister observed that there was a need to review the methodology of induction in order to address issues resulting in low success rate in the competitive examinations.\nThe Prime Minister directed that process of legislation should be initiated to give effect to the proposal.\nIt was also decided to continue the consultative process to review the incentive structure for the bureaucracy which was the biggest impediment in getting a quality human resource in the civil services.\nMeanwhile, a detailed briefing was given to the Prime Minister by Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal on various proposals aimed at restructuring of the present structure of the civil service in order to make it more vibrant, professional and capable of bracing modern day challenges.\nIt was decided to undertake an in-depth analysis of the FPSC results data for the past three years and to make comparative analysis of the recruitment process with other developing countries.\nOn improving standards of professional training, it was decided, in principle, to upgrade and elevate National School of Public Policy to the status of National University of Public Policy and Administration. The meeting was attended by Chairman FPSC Naveed Akram Cheema and senior officials of Planning, Establishment and Finance Divisions.\nPrime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Tuesday said the government was cognizant of the problems faced by consumers in view of the power shortage and therefore was focusing on providing relief to the domestic and industrial consumers.\nThe Prime Minister expressed these views while chairing a meeting of the federal cabinet here at the PM Office.\nThe Cabinet lauded the efforts of former Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, the Ministry of Power and the Cabinet Committee on Energy to have achieved the milestone of enhanced power generation which stood greater than the demand of electricity.\nThe Prime Minister informed the Cabinet that several power projects were still in the implementation stage that would further enhance the generation capacity.\nThe Cabinet approved the signing of agreement on economic cooperation for the establishment of Joint Commission between Pakistan and Czech Republic.\nThe Cabinet also approved a proposal for the regulations of arms licenses for prohibited (automatic) weapons and lifting of ban on non-prohibited bore arms license. mAccording to the proposal, all automatic weapons shall be required to be converted to semi-automatic by authorized dealers within a specified time and get new licenses in lieu of the previously issued licenses.— APP" ]

[ "A lysosome (derived from the Greek words lysis, meaning to loosen, and soma, body) is a membrane-bound cell organelle found in most animal cells (they are absent in red blood cells).nzymes of the lysosomes are synthesised in the rough endoplasmic reticulum. The enzymes are released from Golgi apparatus in small vesicles which ultimately fuse with acidic vesicles called endosomes, thus becoming full lysosomes." ]

[ "What function do the lysosomes in an animal cell perform? Lysosomes hold enzymes that were created by the cell. The purpose of the lysosome is to digest things such as food or even the cell when it dies.", "When a cell is deprived of oxygen its lysosomes tend to burst and release their contents into a cell what happens to the cell? Since lysosomes produce digestive enzymes, the cell will literally start to eat itself. Lysosomes even do this on purpose sometimes to recycle old cells.", "What is the function of lysosomes in an animal cell? How are animal cells formed?", "What do vesicles store and transport? _____ What organelles do they pinch off of? _____ Lysosomes and Endosomes. What organelle do lysosomes bud off of? _____ What is the main function of lysosomes? _____ What are pathogens? _____ What organelle do endosomes bud off of? _____ What is the main function of endosomes? _____ What do we call vesicles that are larger than 100 nanometers? _____ Special Transport Structure in Plant Cells. What are plasmodesmata? _____ Why are plasmodesmata needed in plant cells? _____ Label the following organelles of the endomembrane system on the picture below: endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi, vesicle, endosome, lysosome, and nuclear envelope. Homeostasis and Cell Function What do homeostatic mechanisms do?", "What would happen if a cell's lysosomes burst? Quick Answer. If a cell's lysosomes burst, the enzymes released would severely damage various components of the cell, potentially killing it. Lysosomes are small, membrane-bound vesicles, or containers, which the cell fills with powerful digestive enzymes for use when needed to digest food items.", "What can happen when a lysosome burst inside the cell and all the enzymes are released in the cytoplasm? when lysosomes bursts in the cytoplasm it enzymes will try to digest or break down the cell and organelle. Since lysosomes produce digestive enzymes, the cell will literally start to eat itself.", "The central digestive system of a cell is called the lysosome. The lysosome is the organelle within a cell that serves as its digestion center. In the centre of a cell there is a nucleus which controls the cell, acting as a brain. The lysosome is the digestive center in animal cells. The Nucleus.", "While peroxisomes look similar to lysosomes, they are generally bigger than lysosomes. Peroxisomes are found near mitochondria and chloroplasts, while lysosomes can be found anywhere in the cell. The cytoskeleton is the structure that gives a cell shape, holds organelles in place, and lets parts of the cell move.hile peroxisomes look similar to lysosomes, they are generally bigger than lysosomes. Peroxisomes are found near mitochondria and chloroplasts, while lysosomes can be found anywhere in the cell. The cytoskeleton is the structure that gives a cell shape, holds organelles in place, and lets parts of the cell move.", "Plant cells do not contain lysosomes. Lysosomes are present in the cells of animals, and they are responsible for breaking down waste and other cell debris.", "Cells of these tissues/organs contain abundant lysosomes. * The name lysosome originated from Greek words Lysis (meaning destroy/dissolve) and Soma (meaning body) * Animal cells may contain numerous lysosomes (several hundred) plant and yeast cells typically have a single, large lysosome (vacuole)", "Structural Biochemistry/Cell Organelles/Lysosome - Lysosomal Defects. 1 In human cells, when lysosomes lack enzymes they can generate storage disease. People with these defects are usually missing one or more of the Lysosomal hydrolysis enzymes.", "Lysosomes: Cell Organelles There are two primary types of cells: prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Lysosomes are organelles that are found in most animal cells and act as the digesters of a eukaryotic cell.", "These organelles contain digestive enzymes. Lysosomes keep cells clean and recycle materials. A cell contains many lysosomes. The lysosome has a plasma membrane surrounding it, which protects the rest of the cell from the destructive enzymes contained within the organelle.", "Plant cell vacuoles perform a number of functions in a cell including: Plant vacuoles function similarly in plants as lysosomes in animal cells. Lysosomes are membranous sacs of enzymes that digest cellular macromolecules. Vacuoles and lysosomes also participate in programmed cell death.", "Cell Death and Lysosomes. Any description of lysosomes as suicide bags requires them to be linked to the death of a cell. There are three major morphologically distinct pathways of cell death, and lysosomes have been found to be linked with all of them.", "A. lysosomes and cell membrane B. cell membrane and vacuole C. ribosomes and mitochondria D. cytoplasm and cell wall 2 Which two features indicate that a cell is a plant cell and not an animal cell? A. nucleus, lysosome B. cell membrane, flagella C. cell wall, vacuole D. lysosome, vacuole. 1. A 2.", "Structural Biochemistry/Cell Organelles/Lysosome - Lysosomal Defects. 1 In human cells, when lysosomes lack enzymes they can generate storage disease. 2 Enzymes that are used by the lysosome are synthesized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and are transported to the Golgi apparatus (GA).", "home / medterms medical dictionary a-z list / enzyme, lysosomal definition Medical Definition of Enzyme, lysosomal Enzyme, lysosomal: An enzyme in an organelle (a little organ) called the lysosome within the cell. Lysosomal enzymes degrade (break down) macromolecules (large molecules) and other materials (such as bacteria) that have been taken up by the cell during the process of endocytosis.", "The membrane-bound structure that contains digestive enzymes is the lysosome. Lysosomes contain enzymes that break down organic macromolecules such as carbohydrates, fats and proteins. All animal cells contain lysosomes, but they are most present in the cells of the immune system, such as white blood cells. Keep Learning.", "What organelle is found only in plant cells with the job of destroying worn out cell parts? lysosomes and vacuoles - but they are also found in animal cells. don't know of any just found in plant cells.", "1. Broken cell organelles may be also destroyed by lysosomes. 2. Release of the contents of the lysosmes into the cytoplasm is fatal for cells Lysosome with destructive chemicals in it Lysosomes with partially digested material Lysosomes – small vesicular organelle s which contain a battery of digestive enzymes (~50 types)", "Report Abuse. Lysosomes are found in all eukaryotic cells (the human body is made up of eukaryotic cells). The lysosome in the body would have to be the digestive system (mainly the stomach).Lysosomes secrete digestive enzymes that break down cells or dead organelles.Likewise, the stomach breaks down food via the acid Pepsin.he lysosome in the body would have to be the digestive system (mainly the stomach). Lysosomes secrete digestive enzymes that break down cells or dead organelles. Likewise, the stomach breaks down food via the acid Pepsin.", "chloroplast, central vacuole, lysosome. mitochondrion, cell wall, central vacuole. chloroplast, cell wall, lysosome. chloroplast, central vacuole, cell wall. The ____________________ builds compounds, whereas the ________________ breaks things down.", "The vesicle then fuses with the lysosome and the lysosomal enzymes carry out their appointed task of destruction (by hydrolysis). Amazingly, the lysosomal enzymes do not normally damage the cell itself.", "Split and merge into it. Answer by Neodarwinian. Confidence votes 22.7K. cytoplasm..yes. lysosomes...no. In plant cells, the large vacuole acts as the lysosomes by breaking down large molecules into smaller ones. In fact the acids found in lysosomes are actually contained in a plant cell vacuole.ADDED: actually the newest information is that some plants do have hydrolytic enzymes that preform all the functions of lysosomes and all, in reality, lysosomes.ysosomes...no. In plant cells, the large vacuole acts as the lysosomes by breaking down large molecules into smaller ones. In fact the acids found in lysosomes are actually contained in a plant cell vacuole.", "A prokaryotic cell does not contain well-defined membrane-bound organelles. Most of the organelles which a eukaryotic cell contains are absent in a prokaryotic cell. The lysosome is one among them. Lysosomes are small membrane-bound sac-like structures which release digestive enzymes that break down food. They act as a waste bin of the cell and keep the cell clean. Lysosomes are present in eukaryotic cells but a prokaryotic cell lacks them.", "The two cellular structures found in animal cells but not in plant cells are the centrosome and the lysosome. The centrosome is the microtubule-organizing center of the cell, giving rise to the... The two cellular structures found in animal cells but not in plant cells are the centrosome and the lysosome.", "The enzymes in one lysosome could not digest a cel because the PH of the lysosome is lower than the neutral cytoplasm and therefore the lysosome enzymes would not be able to function fully in the cells.", "The secretion of lysosomal enzymes from macrophages could occur through lysosomal secretion, an active process occurring in many hematopetic cell types (19), or from the fusion of lysosomal tubules with the plasma membrane, observed previously in dendritic cells (20,21).", "What organelle break down and recycles worn out cells? The lysosome breaks down and recycles worn out cells. It also produces enzymes that aid in digestion of other substances.", "MA Cell biology 2: golgi, lysosomes, intracellular vesicles and cellular inclusions this organelle functions in modificatio… What are the main characteristics of th…", "1 Proteins in the lysosomal membrane pump hydrogen ions from the cytosol into the lumen of the lysosomes. 2 Rupture of one or a few lysosomes has little impact on a cell because the lysosomal enzymes are not very active at the neutral pH of the cytosol." ]

[ "Questions & Answers Fully charged, It lasted 4 hours and still have 35% charge. It comes with Instruction manual and Usb charger." ]

[ "4. How Long Does a Juul Take to Charge? When the Juul battery is completely empty, it will typically take 45 to 60 minutes to fully recharge.", "How long does it take to become licensed? It takes approximately 90 days.", "How long does the test take? The test usually takes 5 to 10 minutes.", "How long does it take? A one-color gel manicure takes up to 45 minutes. How long does it last? A gel manicure can last anywhere between two to three weeks.", "How long does a gamertag change take? 24-48 hours to take effect on all services.", "How long does this take to dry? This treatment takes approximately 30 minutes to dry.", "A charge can be pending on your account for up to five days. There are several factors that affect how long a pending charge will appear on your credit card. These include when you made the transaction and how long it takes the merchant to process it.", "How long does it take to transfer? It typically takes just over 3 weeks to transfer an ISA.", "How long does it take to get an expungement in North Carolina? This entire expungement process can take anywhere from six to twelve months. And while that may seem like a long time, the wait is well worth the peace of mind you will have knowing that your charge(s) have been expunged.", "leof D How long does a ceremony take? Your ceremony will take between 30 - 45 minutes.", "How long does it take to get naturalized? The application process takes about six (6) months.", "#2 - How long does it take to become a Zumba instructor? It may sound surprising to those who haven't completed any fitness qualifications/CPDs before, but the answer to how long does it take to become a Zumba instructor? is simply 1-2 days.", "How long does a vascular ultrasound of the liver take? The ultrasound will take about 60 minutes to complete.", "How long does the trip take? Sailing time is approximately 90 minutes.", "How long does it take for the WA Driver's license to arrive in mail? 7-10 days, does not include weekend.", "How long does it take to get hired? Depends, usually 2-3 months.", "2) How long does the Canada visa processing time in Kenya take? It generally takes 7-14 days.", "How long does an inspection take? Typically, a home inspection takes 2-1/2 to 3 hours.", "How long does a prostate MRI take? A prostate MRI generally takes approximately 30–45 minutes.", "Approximately how long does it take for your liver glycogen stores to be depleted? 18 hours.", "How long does a cheque take to be cleared? It takes 3-7 business days for a cheque to clear once deposited, as long as funds are available for it to clear.", "How long does it take to watch every episode of Steven Universe? 33.5 hours.", "How long does a Gretna Green wedding ceremony take? The ceremony takes around 20 minutes to half an hour.", "First, these are the major differences between the flagship S20 Ultra and the other two: ... S20 Ultra has 100X Space Zoom, while S20 and S20 Plus max out at 30X. S20 Ultra has a massive 6.9\" screen size compared to a 6.7\" display on the S20 Plus and a 6.2\" screen on the S20.", "How long does it take to set up DEWA? After you submit your documents, pay DEWA deposit and setup charges (and so set up your DEWA account), your connection will be activated within 24 hours.", "How To Connect With Garmin Inside The Runkeeper App. You can establish a connection between Garmin and Runkeeper online and in the phone app! Once you've connected your Garmin Connect account with Runkeeper, future syncing will be automatic.", "How long does it take to discharge a mortgage? Generally it takes between 14-21 business days to complete the discharge process.", "How long does it take to receive a new health card? Home / How long does it take to receive a new health card? It takes 4 to 6 weeks for an updated health card to be delivered by mail. Note you may apply for one up to 6 months prior to its expiry date.", "How long does it take to resize a ring? \"Resizing a ring usually takes one to two weeks,\" says Gandia.", "That's about 8 hours to replace parts and reassemble. How long does it take to do this job?", "How long does it take to replace a citizenship certificate? The USCIS may take six months to process a request for a replacement citizenship certificate.", "How long does the application process take? About 1-2 weeks with background check." ]

[ "Couple points to fully understand. Canada has 5 main parties, not 2 like the US. Only one of the 5 parties is 'right' the rest are moderate to left. Also: the PM isn't elected by popular vote like the president or something. Instead he is just a member of parliament like anyone else. Then he is elected from the members of the house of commons (it's always the leader of the 'majority' party) Think Harry Reid or John Beohner, not Obama. So, roughly only 33% of Canadians voted for his party (they one a majority because the 'left' and 'moderate' votes got split so hard). Even less than that voted for Harper himself. Furthermore hes doing all sorts of 'right' things. Austerity, removal of environmental protections, and so forth. Which 66% of people in the last election didn't vote for." ]

[ "* Israel doesn't really need Canadian support. * It's good for Harper politically. To the best of my knowledge, the Conservatives & religious people in Canada are pretty pro-Israel, just like in America. * Reddit is pretty anti-Israel. A lot of people aren't. I think that always seems to escape the minds of Redditors, who think that support of Israel is because of AIPAC or something. * It's entirely possible that Harper is just very pro-Israel. That's well within his right. The entire West is pretty pro-Israel. Canada appears to be closer to the United States than Western Europe. Harper himself appears to be more enthusiastically pro-Israel than President Obama.", "What it means depends on who you ask. Certainly the legalization of marijuana has been promised, and electoral reform was a soft promise from the Liberals. Is the Liberal/Conservative distinction the same? Not really? In some ways, but honestly The Conservative party is arguably closer to the Democrats than the GOP in many respects. Many people would call the Canadian Liberal party centre-left or just centrist. The New Democratic Party is much more left. The Greens too. (If we're counting the Greens. They always get Elizabeth May's riding, but that's it. 1 seat out of 338.) Consider for a moment though that Stephen Harper leads (well, led. He resigned after losing this election it's being reported) the most right-wing party in Canada. (That actually gets more than a dozen votes, anyway.) Even so he didn't fight against our socialized medicine or lack of abortion law.", "The Canadian Senate is unelected and unaccountable. They used to serve for life, now they serve until they're 75. It's a dumping ground for partisan hacks or failed politicians - Harper's latest round of appointees includes several former CPC MPs who were defeated in the 2011 election. There have been scandals, like Senators claiming thousands of dollars for monthly travel between Toronto and Ottawa or other such fraud. Generally it's offensive to a lot of Canadians that we waste a bunch of money on a largely unnecessary branch of the government, especially one that isn't even elected. I'm not personally for abolition, but I'm definitely for term limits and elected Senators.", "It's because there are a lot of shows that are scheduled earlier in Canada than in the US, so the Canadians get the first shot at recording and uploading them. America's ABC airs Grey's Anatomy at 8 PM, but Canada's CTV airs it at 7 PM, same time zones. So it's finished in Canada by the time it starts in America. This means that if it takes 5 minutes for someone to upload and 5 minutes for you to download, you can download the Canadian version and finish watching it 10 minutes before your roommate has finished watching the American broadcast.", "The \"Chinese\" is of Italian origin. Marco Polo was the one to give us many of the names of Asian countries, and that's one reason so many countries there all have \"-ese\" endings like Vietnamese, Burmese, and Japanese. You can still see this in Italian in a number of words that use the same suffixes that we don't do in English: inglese (English), francese (French), danese (Danish) etc. American / Canadian are from normal Latin conjugation, but I have no idea why Canadian isn't Canadan, since that how you would normally conjugate a name ending with an \"a.\"", "If I might expand on this question - there was a history of discrimination and strongly negative views against Franco-Americans in Maine for many years, to the point where Stephen King references the likelihood of being stabbed in a bar by a man who only speaks french in one of his early books, but I've never encountered a good primary source and would love to read more about the local behavior and attitude towards the Canadian French in Maine.", "One thing to remember with a parliamentary system such as the UK is that the parliament can overrule the Prime Minister and can also decide that they no longer want the PM as the PM. The PM's only party can also decide they no longer want the PM to be leading the party and choose another person. This means that even if the parliament has great say over many different things the Prime Minister is always at the whim of the parliament.", "> This just seems to be a bit archaic, The name maybe, but for a PM it's important that it appears that he and his party are of one mind. Whips make that happen, both by making sure the party follows the PM, and by taking care that the PM knows what his party won't follow, so he can avoid trying to get them to do it in the first place. In all, it seems to work, so why change it? > and in some cases, surely illegal? Afaik there are no historical cases of Whips crossing going too far and actually commiting crises. Or no known cases, at the very least.", "This is why we dislike him: _URL_0_ He should be in jail for a very long time, but he keeps getting absurdly light sentences that the rest of the country wouldn't get, on the basis of his popularity and wealth.", "Why not let Stephen tell you himself? _URL_0_", "All because something bad happens to someone, or a group of people, it does not mean that people who previously disliked the person/group will immediately come to like them. Now, I don't have any particular dislike for Jewish people. I think the Holocaust was horrible. But if I disliked Jews, why would the Holocaust make me like them? Wouldn't it make me happy that a bunch of people who I dislike are dead? The same logic can be applied to the people in your question. Why would the death of Jews make anti-Semites suddenly like Jews?", "A lot of the money is going to foreign suppliers. It goes something like this: 1) The value of the Canadian Dollar goes down 2) Canadian companies start having to pay more Canadian Dollars for the same goods when purchasing those goods from non-Canadian suppliers 3) Canadian companies raise the retail prices of those goods to reflect the increased costs from #2 4) Canadian consumers have to pay more for the same goods, but wages remain the same You may ask: why not just source goods from domestic (Canadian) suppliers? Well, it's not that simple. Many domestic suppliers will, in turn, source their goods from foreign suppliers or it may be the case that certain components which are used to manufacture the goods may be obtained from foreign suppliers. There may also be no suitable/equivalent domestic manufacturer/supplier of the goods.", "the short answer is that it is because of the country you live in (I'm guessing the USA). If I were to ask the question as a Canadian it would have been \"why is Juno beach the most famous front of the Normandy invasion during WW2?\" Relative fame has everything to do with storytelling. As to why Omaha is more important than Utah beach (the other American beach), the main reasons are that first, more Americans landed at Omaha (almost twice as many) and secondly, it was the far harder fight, with around 5000 casualties, compared to 200 at Utah.", "Today was voting day for the federal election, and the liberals appear to have gotten a majority government. Stephen Harper from the conservatives has been voted out after almost 10 years as prime minister. Our new prime minister is Justin Trudeau, who happens to be the son of our 15th prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Edit: In relation to the two main parties in the USA, the Conservatives are similar to the Republicans, and the Liberals are similar to the Democrats. Unlike in the states, Canada also has a 3rd party called the New Democratic Party (NDP) who have very similar policies to the Liberals. This becomes an issue because the left wing vote usually gets split between those two parties while the right wing vote goes to only one party. Many voters coordinated this election with \"strategic voting\" to get around the vote splitting problem and got the liberal majority as a result.", "I was a currency trader by accident. When I was a small child, my family took a trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. I exchanged $10 USD and received a Canadian $20. I never used that Canadian $20, and it sat in my change jar for many years. I took a trip to Canada a few years ago, and I exchanged an American $20 for a Canadian $20. Good thing I still had my old Canadian $20 (for which I had only paid $10 USD!).", "Don't you have a textbook? Why are you going straight to Google? \"Popular sovereignty,\" not because I'm in the habit of doing other people's homework, but because I can't resist a trivia question. Now give me a 1000-word report on Stephen Douglas and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.", "Tax incentives and the lower Canadian dollar value vs the greenback. Where I'm from (Vancouver, BC), the government will offer tax credits to production companies thereby lowering costs. Compound that with a favourably low Canadian dollar and it's easy to see why so many productions set up camp here. Decades of this favourable climate has also lead to a highly trained/talented workforce available to the film industry.", "How do *you* decide whom you like and dislike...?", "Minor correction: Why is there a misconception that Canadians call ham \"bacon\"?", "I'm not completely sure if these kinds of questions are allowed on this sub as well, but I can try to answer you in any case. I'm also a Canadian, starting her PhD in Art History this fall. I've been at two different Canadian universities for my undergrad and master's degrees and will be starting my third this fall, and I know a number of people who attended other programs. Feel free to PM me for some advice if you'd like! I'd be happy to answer any of your questions as best I can. There's also /r/arthistory which is a great place to know about at this stage and they may be able to provide you with some other useful information (though not necessarily Canadian-related).", "Because if they can get their local government to help out, then why should they? Rich people dislike wasting money as much as anyone else.", "The big difference is that Canadians pay income tax only on money earned as residents of Canada, whereas Americans pay income tax on global earnings no matter where they are resident. As a result, in its simplest form, a Canadian on an American team would pay US taxes. An American on a Canadian team will pay Canadian AND US taxes (though tax treaties ensure it's not as bad as the full income tax of both countries). It's even more complicated than this, as many states and provinces charge income tax on away games, arguing your salary for the evening was earned in their jurisdiction. At the end of the day, it's great to be the accountant for a professional athlete. It's also why so many professional athletes actually maintain their homes in states without state income tax (Texas and Florida are the big one), to preserve investment capital gains and dividends.", "White is a very neutral color. It won't really 'bother' anyone. Sure, some people will find a red plane or a green one appealing, but many others will dislike it. But who dislikes white? Also, a white color heats up less quickly than e.g. black, reducing the AC costs for the cabin.", "Ass heat? You're asking why we generally dislike noticing/thinking about other peoples ass heat. Just.. to clarify.", "Sometimes they are different. A forum might have DMs saved somewhere on your profile, but not PMs. Most of the time they're used interchangeably. Twitter calls them DMs, though I don't know why they chose that over PM. Maybe because you can DM an entire group? Or maybe, as Anthony Weiner found out, DMs aren't always so private.", "I think because a lot of people were expecting more from him. He's made plenty of improvements, but not the leaps and bounds that some people were expecting/hoping for.", "It really depends on the individual. Asexual people present in many different likes/dislikes/tolerances. You may wish to take a look at the asexual reddit: /r/asexuality", "Because so many Irish fled the famines and broken economy for other parts of the Empire. Southern Italy also shipped a lot off to better opportunities elsewhere. As did Poland, for example. Or a small portion of Southern China, which is why so many American and Canadian citizens of Chinese descent speak Cantonese (only about 5 percent of China speaks it today)", "He didn't do or did the opposite of many of the things he promised to do during his campaign. Also, IMHO, people expected him to be almost superhuman when he got into office, so when he proved to be mediocre they became upset.", "Because the majority of the press is owned by people who's interests are being challenged by him and they don't like that one bit Don't listen to the press, listen to the man then make up your own mind", "His approval rating is very high right now. You are getting a skewed view from Reddit and Facebook.", "Yarr! Yer not alone in askin', and kind strangers have sometimes even explained: 1. [ELI5:Why do we have favorite foods? ](_URL_5_) 1. [ELI5: What causes favorites? Favorite food, color, etc. Why do we have them? ](_URL_1_) 1. [ELI5: The psychology behind a favorite food of one being a hated food for another and an acquired taste for some? ](_URL_2_) 1. [ELI5: Why you like the taste of some foods and not others ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: Why do we like/dislike different foods? ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5: Why do we like certain foods more than others? ](_URL_4_)" ]

[ "The whistleblower who prompted an impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump never met or spoke with congressman Adam Schiff, the Democrat leading impeachment hearings in Congress, a source familiar with the whistleblower's contacts said." ]

[ "At the start of Wednesday's historic House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings, Republicans tangled with the committee's chairman, Rep. Adam Schiff, over witnesses the Republicans wanted testimony from, including the whistleblower. (Nov. 13)", "Democrat Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, said the impeachment inquiry will hear from an aide to William Taylor, top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, who allegedly overheard a conversation between Gordon Sondland, a former political donor appointed as a senior diplomat, and President Donald Trump. Also following Wednesday's first open impeachment hearing, Republican Jim Jordan renewed his call for the protected whistleblower to testify.", "A top aide to Rep. Devin Nunes has been providing conservative politicians and journalists with information and misinformation about the anonymous whistleblower who triggered the biggest crisis of Donald Trump's presidency, two knowledgeable sources tell The Daily Beast.", "If anyone is unhappy with Trump's decision not to share information with Rep. Adam Schiff, consider the fact that the House was recently given the opportunity to censure Schiff and they opted not to.", "Democrats and Republicans got into a shouting match behind closed doors on Tuesday while interviewing a witness in the impeachment investigation, with Democrats accusing Republicans of trying to out the anonymous whistleblower who sparked the impeachment inquiry, according to five sources from both parties.", "Trump says House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff is the biggest leaker in Washington; chief White House correspondent John Roberts reports.", "President Trump is demanding the whistleblower whose complaint led to the current impeachment inquiry be revealed. Lawrence O'Donnell talks to Joel Brenner about why the law protects a whistleblower's right to anonymity and what Trump's attacks could mean for future whistleblowers.", "In her first press conference since public impeachment hearings began, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday scolded reporters who used Republican talking points about the whistleblower the anonymous intelligence official whose identity President Trump and his allies are insisting must be made public. \"When you talk about the whistleblower, you're coming into my wheelhouse,\" Pelosi said. The House speaker also accused the president of...", "The GOP wants Hunter Biden and the whistleblower to testify in the impeachment hearings. Rep. Adam Schiff, head of the House Intelligence Committee, says he's willing to consider Republican requests. But our panel says Democrats are likely to argue against some of their choices, especially those two.", "Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Oct. 30 announced he was filing an ethics complaint against House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) for how Schiff has conducted the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.", "House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) on Nov. 6 announced the first public impeachment inquiry hearings.", "Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff and ranking Republican Devin Nunes on Wednesday differed in their opening statements as the public impeachment inquiry hearings began.", "Democratic lawmakers leading an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump have heard days of testimony from a parade of senior government officials. But they have yet to hear from the whistleblower who sparked the probe.", "Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume on Ukraine whistleblower allegedly being named in media reports.", "New York Post columnist Miranda Devine gives her take after day one of the public impeachment hearings that did not include the whistleblower.", "Rep. Adam Schiff caused a stir when he interrupted the Republican counsel questioning Ambassador William Taylor, explaining that Taylor did not have to answer questions with \"facts not in evidence.", "In a previously unreported contact, Johnson met in July with a former Ukrainian diplomat who has circulated unproven claims that Ukrainian officials helped Hillary Clinton in 2016.", "Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for a key witness in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump to be given the same protections that are afforded to whistleblowers.", "Ja'Miya Howard is a happy and active kid, almost always smiling. Yet in occasional times of sadness she talks about missing her father. Yes, missing him. \"Now, she's never met him,\" said Ja'Miya's mother, Daneisha Freeman. \"It's just the relationship she longs for.\" No, Ja'Miya has never actually seen or touched or her dad, slain UConn football player Jasper Howard. Freeman was four months ...", "Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., on Wednesday took steps to try to force a vote on his motion to condemn and censure House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., for his \"egregiously false and fabricated\" reading of President Trump's July phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky during a hearing last month.", "House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., delivers his opening remarks in the first public hearing in the impeachment inquiry of President Trump.", "President Trump is demanding the whistleblower who alerted investigators to his call with the Ukrainian president testify in person, which Trump refused to do during the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. During his July testimony at a House Intelligence hearing, Mueller said he had found Trump's answers to be \"generally\" untruthful.", "These are heady but perilous days for Mr. Schiff, the inscrutable and slightly nerdy chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who is leading the impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump.", "Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) opened the door on Thursday to subpoenaing a cadre of top Republican targets as part of his panel's oversight work. Pressed if he would issue subpoenas for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former Vice President Biden or his son Hunter Biden or the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment inquiry, Johnson stressed that he...", "For all the talk this week about the Eagles' history with the Patriots, the most important Eagle doesn't have any. New England is one of five NFL teams Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz has never faced. Not in the regular season (the teams last met that way in 2015, the year before Wentz was drafted), not in Super Bowl LII, of course, and not even in their 2018 preseason matchup, which Wentz sat ...", "The senior White House lawyer who placed a record of President Donald Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president in a top-secret system also instructed at least one official who heard the call not to tell anyone about it, according to testimony heard by House impeachment investigators this week.", "Lawmakers were defending the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment inquiry after President Trump and Sen. Rand Paul called for the individual to be identified.", "House Republicans want Hunter Biden and the whistleblower to testify at impeachment hearings, suspect arrested in the disappearance of missing college student Aniah Blanchard, and the world marks 30 years since the Berlin Wall came down.", "White House aides insist that Ukraine whistleblower should be questioned; chief White House correspondent John Roberts reports.", "A senior official was set to tell House impeachment investigators that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top officials stymied a show of solidarity for the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, according to a person familiar with his closed-door testimony.", "One of the loudest voices emerging from House Democrats impeachment inquiry about President Trump's alleged abuse of power has come from a man who has yet to utter a word publicly about the probe: former national security adviser John Bolton.", "House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff strongly signaled that Democrats would focus their impeachment case against President Donald Trump around a \"bribery\" charge. According to audio in a new NPR interview, Schiff argued that the Founders had a \"broader\" definition of bribery that included abuse of power and breach of the public trust by elected officials, suggesting […]" ]

[ "the \"Hollywood\" Sign" ]

[ "Jump It", "mumblety-peg", "herring", "\"Square Pegs\"", "long jump & high jump", "Rita Hayworth (she suffered from Alzheimer's before her death)", "actress (Sarah Siddons)", "Sign the Constitution", "Best Supporting Actress", "Supporting Actress Oscar", "from", "the triple jump", "stop signs", "Quadruple jump", "Long jump", "jump ball", "jump the shark", "jumping jacks", "her coronation", "her pocket", "a jump start", "her mouth", "her handkerchief", "Jump rope", "Her father", "parachute jump", "Red herring", "her grandfather", "her marriage", "high jump", "her fingernails", "Her hair" ]

[ "The Army is charging former Green Beret Maj. Mathew Golsteyn with premeditated murder. The victim was an unarmed Afghan whom Golsteyn suspected of being a Taliban fighter and bomb-maker. President Trump has muddied the case by commenting about it on Twitter. Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young talks with Jason Dempsey (@Jason_K_Dempsey), senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a retired Army officer who served in Afghanistan." ]

[ "The U.S. Navy said Thursday that it will proceed with a hearing to consider the expulsion of Special Operations Chief Eddie Gallagher from the Navy SEALs, despite his support from President Trump. Gallagher and three supervising officers were informed of the administrative review board hearing, set for Dec. 2, on Wednesday. \"The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher's Trident Pin,\" said Trump in a tweet earlier Thursday. \"This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!\" The Trident Pin is a symbol of membership in the SEALs. In July, Gallagher was acquitted of murdering a wounded Islamic State militant in Iraq in 2017, but he was convicted on the single charge of posing with the body of the dead prisoner. Last week Trump restored Gallagher's rank after he had been demoted to petty officer first class. But the president did not pardon Gallagher for his offense. In a statement issued late Thursday, Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, Chief of Information, said: \"The Navy follows the lawful orders of the President. We will do so in case of an order to stop the administrative review of SOC Gallagher's professional qualification. We are aware of the President's tweet and we are awaiting further guidance.\" The White House didn't respond to an NPR request for comment on the tweet. Gallagher's lawyers say Navy brass is seeking to expel him from the SEALs in retaliation for Trump's reversal of his demotion. They filed a complaint with the Navy Inspector General claiming that Naval Special Warfare Commander Rear Adm. Collin Green is defying the president. \"How can Admiral Green credibly preach about preserving good order and discipline while publicly flouting the orders of the commander in chief?\" Gallagher's attorney Timothy Parlatore said as quoted by the Associated Press. If a review board decision goes against Gallagher, he can then appeal to the Navy's Personnel Command.", "A former Army Green Beret officer who was awarded the Silver Star, the nation's third highest award for valor, for his actions in a fierce 2010 battle in Marjah, Afghanistan, was notified last week he is being charged by the Army with premeditated murder. That officer is Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, a 2008 West Point graduate. The victim was an unarmed Afghan whom Golsteyn suspected of being a Taliban fighter who made a bomb that killed two Marines from his unit in the Marjah fighting. Golsteyn said as much in an October 2016 interview broadcast on Fox News. \"Did you kill the Taliban bomb maker?\" Fox News anchor Brett Baier asked the former Green Beret. \"Yes,\" Golsteyn replied. Baier's question referred to a three-year Army investigation of Golsteyn that began in 2011, the same year Golsteyn reportedly told the CIA about the killing during a polygraph test for a job interview. That initial Army probe did not result in any formal charges against Golsteyn, but he was stripped of his medal as well as his Special Forces tab and put on extended leave. It was Golsteyn's public statement on Fox that prompted the second Army investigation, a probe that has now led to his being charged with murder. The case got wide attention over the weekend when it was discussed on Fox News' Fox and Friends morning show. It also caught the attention of President Trump, a regular viewer of Fox and Friends. \"At the request of many, I will be reviewing the case of a 'U.S. Military hero,' Major Matt Golsteyn, who is charged with murder,\" Trump tweeted minutes after the Fox discussion on Sunday morning. \"He could face the death penalty from our own government after he admitted to killing a Terrorist bomb maker while overseas.\" Because Trump is the U.S. military's commander in chief, some military legal experts are dismayed that he chose to weigh in publicly on a case which has not yet reached the stage of a court-martial. \"It's clear, on its face, that this is unlawful command influence,\" says Gary Solis, a former Marine prosecutor and judge who has presided over 330 courts-martial and written extensively on the law of war. \"It gives the appearance, if nothing else, that the commander in chief is putting his thumb on the scales of justice.\" Solis' chief concern is that Trump may set a new precedent by using his power to issue a preemptive pardon to Golsteyn. \"He should not be allowed to walk away from what he has admitted to doing,\" Solis says of Golsteyn. \"The message that sends, the precedent that it sets, is just too significant to allow to happen. ... we can't allow anyone in the armed services to admit to murder with no consequences.\" There was no reply to a request for comment from Golsteyn's lawyer, San Diego-based Phillip Stackhouse. Perhaps the former Green Beret's greatest defender in Washington has been Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a former Marine who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. \"He is not a murderer,\" Hunter wrote of Golsteyn last week in a letter to Trump. \"He is an elite warrior that was executing a mission that he was trained to do. He engaged an Afghan bombmaker, who had built the bomb that was responsible for the death of two Marines only days prior.\" Hunter added that he believed the record would show Golsteyn's actions were lawful, and that the Army has \"failed one its most dedicated and faithful warriors.\" In his interview on Fox, Golsteyn argued that he killed the suspected Taliban fighter to prevent him from killing more U.S. troops as well as the Afghans who identified his affiliation. \"It is an inevitable outcome\" Golsteyn said, \"that people who are cooperating with the coalition forces, when identified, will suffer some terrible torture or be killed.\" Solis, who teaches the law of war at West Point, rejects Golsteyn's rationale for what appears to have been a summary execution. \"He had to have known, as a captain in the Army, that what he was doing was wrong,\" Solis says. \"You and I and probably most of the public can appreciate what he was thinking and why he was doing it, and sympathize — but you can't kill a prisoner. That's it.\" \"I'm just glad I'm not the convening authority who has to send him to court,\" Solis adds, \"but that's where he has to go.\"", "National security adviser John Bolton is leaving his job after months of disagreement with President Trump over the direction of foreign and national security. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson speak with Rep. Michael Waltz (@RepMichaelWaltz), the Republican representing Florida&#8217;s 6th congressional district and a member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is a former Green Beret and served in Afghanistan. &nbsp; This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "The Army's Green Berets have gained a reputation over the decades for their toughness and fighting skills. They served with local forces in Vietnam, and in recent years, they've deployed repeatedly to Iraq and Afghanistan. The list of their deployments continues to grow: Niger. Somalia. Yemen. Syria. Philippines. Now a fight appears to be growing inside the Green Beret community. An anonymous and scathing 12-page letter that begins — \"Our Regiment has a cancer, and it is destroying the SF (Special Forces) legacy, its capability and its credibility\" — has gone viral over the past few weeks among active-duty and retired soldiers. It charges that the Green Beret command at its Fort Bragg, N.C., school has lowered training standards and graduated Green Berets who are \"markedly and demonstrably weaker; and quantifiably projecting measurable risk and liability onto the teammates with which they serve.\" It is signed: \"A concerned Green Beret.\" The letter writer's identity remains a mystery at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. But the command does not dispute its authenticity and has responded with a letter of its own, signed by the officer who runs the school, Maj. Gen. Kurt Sonntag. It's addressed to the men and women at the school. \"Many of you have seen the anonymous letter calling into question the integrity of our training standards and the quality of the Soldiers being produced. Let me be clear,\" Sonntag writes in his letter, a copy of which was provided to NPR by the command, \"I would be proud to serve with each and every one of our Special Forces Qualification Course graduates, and I stand behind the quality of every Soldier we send to the operational force.\" The general went on to say that \"no fundamental SF standard has been removed. No academic or character performance standards have been adjusted.\" The Green Berets community weighs in NPR reached out to nearly a dozen current and former Green Berets — none of whom wanted their names used — and got a mixed reaction to the dispute. Some see the anonymous letter writer as disgruntled or lacking in sufficient experience or being unaware of the bigger picture, namely the difficulty in recruiting and retaining Green Berets. There are some 7,000 active-duty Green Berets, and officials say they could lose hundreds in the coming years because of the strain of repeated deployments and failure to meet recruiting targets. Others say the letter writer is raising some important issues. They contend that the quality of the Special Forces soldiers has decreased for at least several years. \"We don't want to lose quality for quantity,\" said one veteran Green Beret stationed at Fort Bragg, who requested anonymity. \"You can't mass produce special operators.\" This noncommissioned officer said that he only has a few years left to serve and that he'll stick it out. But if he had 10 more years, he says, he would opt out. He said the loss of veteran operators and the increase in less-competent Green Berets is having an impact. \"It's killing morale,\" he said. Still, this Green Beret empathized with the command. \"I see it from both sides. The recruiting pool is gone. They're in a tough spot.\" One Green Beret who served with Sonntag in Afghanistan praised his leadership skills and recalled him saying that all Green Berets have a responsibility to make sure every one of them succeeds. Charges are detailed and specific In the anonymous letter, the \"concerned Green Beret\" takes on physical fitness workouts — where he claims that instructors are punished for making them too hard — and says there are instances of favoritism and cheating. The author's examples of below-standard students and maligned trainers are complete with names, rank, units and dates. As far as training, the anonymous letter says students can no longer wash out for failing to pass physical tests, ranging from a 5-mile run to a 12-mile march with a heavy pack to dozens of pushups and situps. Instead, these tests became \"diagnostic\" to determine the student's level of achievement. The only way out of Green Beret training is voluntarily withdrawal or injury. \"To say that standards have not been eliminated would be laughable, were it not so tragic,\" the anonymous letter states. In his letter, Sonntag defended the diagnostic approach as opposed to simply washing out a student. Such an effort gives instructors \"more time to prepare the students for these events. Students must meet these standards prior to joining the operational force,\" the general wrote. Those who applied and passed the physical tests and assessment to become a Green Beret student, the general wrote, should be able to make it through the more than yearlong qualifying course. If such an assessment \"is correct, and we believe it is, the [Special Forces Qualifying Course] is not a place where high attrition rates should occur.\" Sonntag declined an interview request from NPR. Instead, he agreed to address a few questions t", "President Trump took to Twitter this morning about how the suspect in Tuesday's terror attack in New York City got into the country and criticizing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.", "Members of Edward Gallagher's unit are scheduled to testify against him at the trial in San Diego. President Trump and others have criticized the military's decision to prosecute the case.", "Best-selling author Joe McGinniss has died at the age of 71. He was known best for his incisive books on Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign and the murder case of a former Green Beret doctor.", "The Green Berets, elite Special Forces whose specialty is counterinsurgency, are known in the military as the \"quiet professionals.\" But a few years ago, their commander decided to make a film that gives them something of a shout-out. Now, Why We Fight Now is proving to be timely — especially because counterinsurgency is the kind of war being fought in Afghanistan. The film, co-produced by Frank Capra Jr. (who died just as the film was being completed), has no narration and consists mostly of Green Berets talking about their work. Its title is a nod to the World War II series produced by Hollywood filmmaker Frank Capra for the U.S. War Department, Why We Fight. The new film was directed by Mark Benjamin, a 62-year-old Manhattan filmmaker — who might seem an odd choice for the job. \"I've always been anti-war and never thought I would ever work for the military,\" Benjamin says. A Director's Evolution On the wall in Benjamin's office is a poster of Che Guevara. But there's also a picture of a Green Beret handing a piece of food to a child in Afghanistan. Benjamin's political evolution is due in no small part to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He knew people who died and has made several films dealing with the day's repercussions. \"Because of Sept. 11, I became this liberal hawk,\" he says. \"My own political perspective on global conflicts, democracy, capitalism, human rights — everything changed. I certainly became more militant. I think we should go after terror wherever it is, you know. I support that.\" The military chose Benjamin because it wanted someone who had made both documentaries and commercials. \"They wanted it to be slick and they wanted it to be a film that would promote Special Forces,\" he says. Benjamin's crews filmed Green Berets in action in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Colombia and Africa. There was a premiere screening a year ago at Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, N.C. 'We Figured The Army Would Squash It' Roger Carstens, a former Green Beret who is now a non-resident fellow at the think tank Center for a New American Security, watched the film at Fort Bragg with a Green Beret friend who had recently returned from Afghanistan. \"We both felt it did a great job of telling what we in Army Special Forces do in our approach to countering insurgencies and dealing with an unconventional threat,\" Carstens says. \"But we also figured the Army would squash it.\" It didn't. The film was broadcast on the Armed Forces network on Sept. 11 this year. Since then, according to a source in Special Forces, a superior in the Special Operations Command ordered that the film be edited to tone down statements about Green Berets being best suited for counterinsurgency work. Edited For Television? There is a rivalry between the Green Berets and others in Special Operations Command, as well as with other branches of the armed services — all of them competing for tight budget dollars. \"I think the Army is wrestling with resource battles,\" Carstens says. \"Where do we put our personnel and our money into creating the Army of the future? And so as an Army general, I'm not sure I'd want Special Forces to come out and say, 'Hey, Coach, we have the answer.' \" The Green Berets are currently adding five new battalions, according to one Green Beret officer. Representatives from the unit declined to be interviewed on the record. The film's associate producer, Chris Cooney of Screen Gems, says military brass in Special Forces is picking the right moment to \"deploy\" this film. And Cooney confirms that the film is currently being edited — for television. \"We don't know whether or not it will be picked up, but the editing is to tailor it for television programming,\" Cooney says. \"It should be seen by the general public because it has a message that I think lay people should understand.\"", "In a series of tweets over the weekend, President Trump called off a potential deal with the Taliban, throwing into question a reported plan to draw down the troop presence there.", "Last week, through a series of tweets, President Trump seemed to be endorsing a new ban on transgender troops. NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Ken Ochoa, an army drill sergeant.", "Iranians chanted &#8220;death to America&#8221; on Monday on the streets of the country&#8217;s capital city Tehran, where a funeral was held for Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general killed by a U.S. strike on Friday. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson speak with Rep. Michael Waltz (@RepMichaelWaltz), the Republican representing Florida&#8217;s 6th congressional district and a member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is a former Green Beret and served in Afghanistan. Waltz says he would have found it &#8220;irresponsible to not take action&#8221; against Soleimani because of the general&#8217;s actions in the region. This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "Updated at 9:03 a.m. ET A day after the deadly terrorist attack in New York City that killed at least eight people, President Trump said suspect Sayfullo Saipov should get the death penalty and that he would consider sending Saipov to Guantanamo Bay even though he has already been charged in civilian court. Saipov was arrested Tuesday after police said he drove a rented pickup truck into a pedestrian and bicycle path in Manhattan, mowing down dozens of people. The 29-year-old suspect, who is a native of Uzbekistan and a legal resident of the U.S., was charged Wednesday in federal court with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Authorities said they found a note in the truck pledging loyalty to the Islamic State. The president, asked by reporters on Wednesday if he would consider sending the suspect to the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center, said: \"I certainly would consider that,\" adding: \"Send him to Gitmo, I would certainly consider that, yes.\" At a White House briefing later, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether Trump thinks Saipov should be classified as an enemy combatant. She responded, \"I believe we would consider this person to be an enemy combatant, yes.\" Later on Twitter, though, the president appeared to backtrack from this approach. \"Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system...\" Trump tweeted Thursday morning. \"...There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!\" Still, one theme did remain clear: Trump's displeasure with the speed of the U.S. criminal justice system. \"We also have to come up with punishment that's far quicker and far greater than the punishment these animals are getting right now,\" he said Wednesday. \"They'll go through court for years. And at the end, they'll be — who knows what happens,\" Trump said. \"We need quick justice and we need strong justice. Much quicker and much stronger than we have right now.\"", "A North Carolina jury convicted a former CIA contractor of assaulting a detainee in Afghanistan. The victim died after being beaten severely during an interrogation by David Passaro, who was once a Green Beret medic. The verdict marks the first time a U.S. civilian has been convicted of prisoner abuse overseas.", "About two dozen people gathered in the cold yesterday outside the police headquarters in Albuquerque, N.M., to protest another fatal police-involved shooting. Albuquerque police say an officer shot and killed John Edward O&#8217;Keefe late Tuesday night after he fired at officers during a foot chase. Albuquerque was already on edge, even before the shooting. Tuesday&#8217;s death was the 28th at the hands of police since 2010. Last year, the U.S. Department of Justice found Albuquerque police regularly used excessive force, and the city agreed to reforms. And, just this week, a prosecutor brought murder charges against two Albuquerque officers who killed a mentally ill homeless man in last March. Phil Stinson, a former police officer who studies police behavior at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, discusses these cases with Here & Now&#8217;s Robin Young. \nSee a video of the March 2014 shooting of a homeless man\nRelated: Video Shows Police Officer In Tears After Shooting Unarmed Man\n\nGuest\n\nPhilip Stinson, assistant professor in the criminal justice department at Bowling Green State University. He tweets @philstinson.", "Military awards given to prosecutors in a case against a SEAL who was acquitted of murder in the death of a prisoner in Iraq have been revoked by the Navy's top official after President Trump tweeted Wednesday that the commendations should be withdrawn. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer ordered seven Navy Achievement Medals and three letters of commendation given to the prosecution team be rescinded, Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jereal Dorsey said Wednesday, hours after a pair of scathing tweets from the president. In the high-profile case, Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher was found not guilty by a military jury of premeditated murder of the 17-year-old Islamic State prisoner in 2017. In early July, Gallagher was sentenced to a demotion in rank and a reduction in pay for posing with the dead captive's body. The jury heard testimony from fellow SEALs that Gallagher stabbed the captive in the neck, but one of the witnesses dramatically changed his story at trial, saying that in an act of mercy, he had killed the prisoner by blocking his airway after Gallagher stabbed him. A SEAL sniper and medic, Gallagher, 40, was serving his eighth deployment at the time of the incident. He is a 19-year Navy veteran who had previously been awarded the Bronze Star. He was also accused of shooting unarmed Iraqi civilians but was acquitted on those counts as well. The prosecution's case was plagued by problems, including a sanction from the military judge for violating the defendant's constitutional rights. The lead prosecutor, Cmdr. Christopher Czaplak, was removed from the case for conducting a warrantless surveillance program aimed at tracking emails sent by the defense team. Prosecutors were also accused of granting immunity in an effort to block defense witnesses from testifying, according to the Navy Times. In Trump's tweets on Wednesday, the president said the prosecutors had been \"ridiculously given\" the awards, adding, \"Not only did they lose the case, they had difficulty with respect ... to information that may have been obtained from opposing lawyers and for giving immunity in a totally incompetent fashion.\" The president's remarks via Twitter on Wednesday marked the third time that he had publicly commented on the case. After Gallagher's acquittal in early July, Trump tweeted his congratulations, writing: \"Glad I could help!\" Former Pentagon spokesman David Lapan, a retired Marine colonel, told The Associated Press that the personal intervention of the president represented the \"further politicization of the military,\" calling it \"ludicrous ... in the face of so many more important and pressing personnel issues.\"", "NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman, along with radio producer Graham Smith and photographer David Gilkey, have been in Afghanistan for weeks covering the U.S. military buildup that is part of the Obama administration's new strategy for the war against Taliban insurgents. This week, Bowman and company spent time in remote western Afghanistan with the Green Berets. The way these Army Special Forces troops work reveals much about the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. They spend more time helping to rebuild villages than they do battling enemy fighters. At a small Army outpost called Firebase Thomas, Green Berets pull on their body armor. Special Forces soldiers don't need to shave. So picture lumberjacks in uniform — they are all beards and bulk. They are armed with machine guns, grenade launchers and assault weapons. Most of the team climbs aboard huge armored trucks. A few others hop on all-terrain vehicles. They rumble out of Firebase Thomas, named for another Green Beret killed in action near here. On this day, they are touring Herat province's Zerkoh Valley, a 30-mile-long stretch of green that was once a Taliban stronghold. It's not a combat mission. Instead, they're working their way to the end of the valley to check on projects to help local villagers, including a medical clinic they are expanding. The unit is led by a Green Beret captain, a West Point graduate. For security reasons, he and other soldiers in the unit do not want their names in this report. In the village of Azizabad, the captain points to a pair of low concrete buildings, just off the highway. Other Special Forces soldiers joke that the captain prefers building clinics to what they call \"kinetic operations\" — killing insurgents. \"We do the kinetic thing when we have to, but I'm not super worried about what other teams think of us. I think our performance speaks for itself and what we've done out here. I definitely think we're going in the right direction,\" the captain says. The new clinic building will have a small lab for blood tests. And it will have a new birthing room. A doctor on duty says that when the clinic is completed, it will draw more doctors here. \"It's really important for the people,\" he says. Winning The Hearts And Minds? The Green Berets say they've had success reaching out to the locals. But will winning the hearts and minds of the locals help win the war? The Special Forces convoy bounces down a dirt road toward another construction project. A minaret rises above fields. The mosque is 150 years old. Workers haul bricks and boards, part of a project to expand the mosque, paid for with money from American taxpayers. A village elder overseeing the project stops to talk to the Green Berets and tells how the Americans helped him remove shrapnel from a wound he suffered two decades ago during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Wheat fields stretch out on both sides of the mosque. It is a vital crop here and has played a role in relations between locals and the Taliban. The Green Beret captain explains that there is a temporary truce between the local elders and the Taliban fighters in order to protect the wheat fields. \"If something happens during a firefight, an insurgent shoots an RPG, I mean everything is so dry out here that these farmers will lose everything,\" the Special Forces captain says. So, the insurgents stop the shooting to allow the villagers to harvest their crops. Perhaps that's the Taliban's plan for winning hearts and minds? The Special Forces convoy departs Azizabad and heads farther south. To avoid roadside bombs, the Green Berets abandon the roads and cut across the desert. The enemy is nearby, as evidenced by transmissions on the radio. It is the Taliban. They are watching the Americans. \"Hey, we're hearing some chatter on the radio,\" a soldier says. \"They're asking each other which direction we are going in. Those are the questions they are asking each other,\" a translator says. The ATVs speed across the desert ahead of the convoy and disappear in a cloud of dust. The armored vehicles lumber behind, like elephants, until the next stop. \"There's always someone talking about getting us,\" the solider adds. The Green Berets stop at a school in need of repairs, near the village of Kuhak. A group of elders crosses an open field, a long, bobbing line of turbans and robes. Their leader lashes out in a 20-minute tirade of complaints about the Afghan government. \"If the government keep these people disappointed, I am 100 percent sure the people will turn back, and they won't be helping the government anymore,\" the elder says. The Green Beret Captain assures the elder that help is on the way. But the conversation raises another question: Can Afghanistan govern itself? \"One of the things that he needs to understand is the government does care about you,\" the captain instructs his translator to tell the elder. \"The government realizes that you have a security situation out here, and that is one of the", "President Trump's latest strike at the media involves a tweet of a video recorded during a professional wrestling event of him tackling a person whose face is superimposed with the CNN logo.", "On Twitter, President Trump responded Wednesday morning to the guilty verdict of his former campaign chairman and the guilty plea of his former lawyer and fixer.", "In Afghanistan, corruption is a daily plague. It comes in many forms: a piece of land for a warlord with connections to the national government, a bribe to a customs agent to look the other way as a shipment of heroin passes through. Corruption takes other forms, too, such as kidnappings, ransom demands and bodies left out in the hills — all with the help of Afghan officials. On a recent day, and on short notice, a Green Beret team has been called to a meeting, known as a shura, at a village school in Shindand district in Afghanistan's western Herat province. A long, snaking line of cars and minivans rolls in, kicking up plumes of dust. Tribal elders, 150 of them, pour out of the vehicles. They are dressed in turbans and robes. Most have long white beards. They surround an American soldier who has a thick beard, too. The Afghans know him well. They call him Mullah Jamal. Like other Green Berets on sensitive missions, he asked that his real name not be used. Kidnappings A Fact Of Life Inside the school auditorium, an elder addresses the Americans. Through a translator, he complains about kidnappings and ransom demands. Soon, it becomes clear the meeting has been called to discuss the recent kidnapping of a gas station owner — a wealthy man in this poor society. But there is a twist: One person allegedly involved in the kidnapping is the subgovernor of Herat province — the No. 2 official in the area. The elder says that kidnappings are a fact of life. What makes this one all the more painful is that the government official who should be helping them is part of the problem. None of this is new to the U.S. soldier known as Mullah Jamal. The burly, 24-year-old Arab-American, who studied economics at the University of Arizona, is this Green Beret unit's intelligence officer. The elders and the Americans say the deputy governor is a former Taliban commander, who is still in touch with his old comrades. They say his brother is directly involved in the kidnapping ring. Death Threats Real In the middle of the meeting, one of the elders pulls out a cell phone, puts it on speaker and calls the kidnapper — a notorious criminal named Noor Wdin. For more than a month, he has held the gas station owner, demanding $20,000 in ransom. The kidnapper says the deadline is that day. Suddenly, a stocky, younger man rises from his chair. He calls out and begins to cry, wiping away tears and stumbling toward the Americans. The elders coax him back to his seat, where he slumps over and weeps. The translator says the kidnapper has said that if the ransom is not paid that day, they will kill the gas station owner, the weeping man's brother. It's no idle threat. The elders say this ring has carried out more than two dozen kidnappings. Some families who don't pay receive another cell phone call — telling them where to pick up the bodies of their loved ones. Problems Extend Beyond Kidnappings The Americans promise they will help, that they will contact the deputy governor. That's the easy part. The harder part involves building a better government — that's what the Green Beret team leader tells the elders. \"I understand that your family gets kidnapped. I understand that you want results quickly,\" he tells the crowd. \"It may fix your one problem, but the way you fix this is by fixing the government. If the subgovernor is broken, then we can fix it. And again, it's hard, it's a lengthy process, but it's the right way to do things for your country.\" It is, in essence, a civics lesson from the Americans, who are trying to help Afghans understand how government is supposed to work. The Green Beret captain says this is done by voting, by putting their names on petitions, by demanding action. The tribal leaders are living what Washington calls \"lack of governance,\" a key obstacle to success in Afghanistan. The elders say they have appealed to the governor, the police chief and others. If the Americans can't help, they say, they may take matters into their own hands: pick up a gun and seek revenge. But the Americans explain how doing something like that would be a step backward. Mullah Jamal, the Green Beret, appeals to them. He asks for two days to sort out the kidnapping. The elders say they are willing to give the Americans a chance and file out of the auditorium. Tip Of The Iceberg Two days pass and the Special Forces team has contacted the subgovernor, who tells them the gas station owner is still alive. Now, the Green Berets — including Mullah Jamal — drive to pay a visit to the kidnapper, who lives nearby. A half-hour later, the U.S. soldiers return, empty-handed but optimistic. \"Just by virtue of us being interested, it does go a long way,\" Mullah Jamal says. He feels as if he is making progress, but just on this one case. \"You guys haven't even seen the tip of the iceberg. There are probably five or six other kidnappings in Shindand district. Do we know about them? No. The only reason why we know about this is because it's directly l", "NPR's Michel Martin speaks with Gary Solis, a former U.S. Marine company commander and military judge, about President Trump's clearing of military personnel accused of war crimes.", "Twitter permanently banned an account believed to be linked to Iran's supreme leader Friday after it posted a threatening image that included former President Donald Trump. The account, @khamenei_site, was linked to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's website, The Associated Press reported. And the same account had previously posted portions of Khamenei's speeches and official content. However, a Twitter spokesperson told the AP that the account was fake, without elaborating on how it determined that. The image that resulted in the ban, Trump playing golf in the shadow of what appears to be an aircraft, is captioned \"Revenge is certain,\" written in Farsi. The same image can be found on Khamenei's English website. Below the picture is a quote from Khamenei from last month: \"Soleimani's murderers and those who ordered his murder must face revenge. ... Both the murderers and those who ordered it should know that revenge may come at any time.\" Trump and other administration officials have said the U.S. targeted Qassem Soleimani — a powerful Iranian general and a key strategist against the U.S. — who was killed in an airstrike last year. Trump's social media presence was all but silenced after he was accused of inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. As a result, both Twitter and Facebook moved to ban him permanently from their platforms. \"After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,\" a Twitter statement said. Trump was also banned from the @POTUS account for the last days of his term and from his reelection campaign account.", "Appearing before a podium at the White House, President Trump issues a statement on the shooting at a Virginia baseball field and says the suspect has died from his injuries.", "President Trump is once again lashing out at the FBI, mounting a Twitter attack against Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who's planning to retire soon.", "A tenet of a strong ethics code calls for journalists to minimize the harm their work might cause. To that end, a lieutenant colonel thought NPR may have endangered the life of an Afghan farmer. The farmer was quoted by his first name in a story about Afghans cooperating with the Americans against the Taliban. NPR's military correspondent, Tom Bowman, has been embedded with different American military units this month trying to tell the story of the U.S. effort to drive the Taliban out of the Kandahar region in southern Afghanistan. Bowman's 7-minute piece last week on All Things Considered took listeners along on a five-day Green Beret patrol with Afghan commandos moving toward Ezabad, a village that is right in the middle of Taliban country. \"Over the coming months,\" said Bowman on air, \"Eli and his team hope to create an armed community watch program in the village as another line of defense against the Taliban. Similar watch groups are up and running in the farming areas north of Kandahar city. The Green Berets are working, literally, one village at a time.\" Eli is a 32-year-old Green Beret from Idaho who Bowman interviewed. Bowman did not use Eli's last name for security reasons. But Bowman did name a farmer who Eli and his team were trying to recruit for an armed security watch against the Taliban. BOWMAN: The farmer's name is Nabi. He's tall, thin and nervous. He squats on a mat inside his house, together with the soldiers. The Americans ask him about the Taliban. He says they slip into the village quietly. They intimidate the villagers. They'll send what's known as a night letter, a written threat to beat or kill anyone who supports the Americans. NABI: (Through translator) They will drop night letters in the mosque and they told everybody, hey, I don't want to see anybody help out American guys and, you know, staying with them and talking to them. So, I don't want to see anybody around here doing that. BOWMAN: Here in Ezabad, some of the villagers support the Taliban. Others are just scared and unwilling to choose sides. Eli asks Nabi to side with the Afghan government and join an armed security watch to help the village fight the Taliban. Nabi won't commit. Eli isn't about to let him off so easily. ELI: Okay, hey, is he ever going to come have lunch with me and the men? NABI: (Through translator) He says I'm not sure, but I'll be there. ELI: How about tomorrow so we can plan on it? At one 1:00? Unidentified Man: (Speaking foreign language) BOWMAN: Sure enough, the next day, Nabi visits the American compound and says he'll join the armed community watch. It's one small victory for the Green Berets. Tom Bowman, NPR News, Kandahar province, Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Kraig Kenworthy (USMC) called to say he was infuriated that NPR used the farmer's first name. Kenworthy complained that by revealing the farmer's name and location, Bowman had essentially put a target on his forehead that meant he would be made an example of by the Taliban. Rather than minimize harm, Kenworthy said NPR demonstrated a \"frivolity for life.\" Bowman, who is in Afghanistan on a 5-week assignment accompanying U.S. military units, replied by email that he had asked the Special Forces unit he was with if it would be ok to use the farmer's first name. \"They said no problem,\" said Bowman. \"Again, this guy is taking part in a very PUBLIC effort: community watch program, where he will essentially take up arms against the Taliban, and walk around his village. This guy is in no way a secret source of some kind.\" Bowman and his editor, Bruce Auster, said this was not a tough call for them because people in the village of Ezabad already knew the farmer had decided to work with the Americans. \"This case did not raise the issue in the way other examples might,\" said Auster. \"The chief reason is that the farmer in the story was signing up for a very visible role with the Americans. People in the village where he lived would know about it. So we were not revealing anything that the man wasn't making public himself.\" The Green Beret unit Bowman was with did not complain about the story after hearing it. I asked J.D. Gordon, a retired Navy Commander and former Pentagon spokesman, if he felt NPR had endangered the farmer. \"At a quick glance, it does appear that NPR was within its rights to use the Afghan farmer's first name in the story about the patrol with U.S. forces,\" said Gordon. \"Tom Bowman interviewed the farmer 'on-the-record' alongside the U.S. soldier, who also used a first name. If there was any objection to the interview or a request that his name not be used, the farmer could have made that abundantly clear at the time. Furthermore, Mr. Bowman states that he clarified his intent to use the farmer's first name with the U.S. forces at the scene, who could have also raised an objection at that time.\" This is an example where NPR did discuss how to identify the farmer but thought it was important to humanize him by sharing his f", "Updated at 6:25 p.m. ET President Trump told reporters at the White House that he was \"sticking up for the armed forces\" in his pardons of military personnel. The commander in chief has repeatedly intervened on behalf of the Navy SEAL recently convicted of misconduct. And Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump did it again over the weekend, directly ordering him to allow Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher to retire as a SEAL. \"I spoke with the president on Sunday. He gave me the order that Eddie Gallagher will retain his Trident pin,\" Esper told reporters on Monday at the Defense Department, referring to the insignia designating Gallagher as a member of the elite commando force. The order from the commander in chief effectively put an end to proceedings by a Trident review board that were called by the commander of Navy special warfare, Rear Adm. Collin Green. The panel was charged with deciding whether Gallagher and three of his supervising officers were fit for duty. In Gallagher's case, the board was set to convene next week. On Monday, Esper also reiterated his reasons for asking Navy Secretary Richard Spencer to tender his resignation on Sunday. He accused Spencer of circumventing the appropriate channels, including Esper himself, to engage in direct negotiations with the White House to allow Gallagher to remain a SEAL. Meanwhile, Spencer was saying publicly that the Trident review board process should be allowed to play out. \"This proposal was completely contrary to what we agreed to and contrary to Secretary Spencer's public position,\" Esper said, adding that he was \"completely caught off guard by this information and realized that it had undermined everything we had been discussing with the president.\" Esper tried to undo the perception that Spencer's dismissal was tied to the specifics of Gallagher's case, saying instead that it was over the chain of command. Hours later Trump pushed back for granting clemency to Gallagher and pardoning two Army officers earlier this month. He said it was an unfair to try put away \"warriors\" like Gallagher, Army Captain Clint Lorance and Maj. Matthew Golsteyn. Lorance was convicted of murder six years ago while Golsteyn was about to face trial for the alleged murder of a Taliban bombmaker. \"We're not going to do that to our people,\" Trump said. The move went against the advice of military leaders. He also criticized former President Barack Obama for commuting the sentence of Chelsea Manning, a soldier who was convicted of leaking classified documents. The standoff between Trump and the Navy's top brass began even before Gallagher's court-martial trial over the summer. Gallagher, who served multiple tours in Iraq, was accused of a slew of crimes, including the murder of a wounded Islamic State prisoner. In the end, he was acquitted of all but one charge — posing with a dead detainee. Part of his sentence included a demotion to the lower rank of petty officer first class. Trump subsequently overturned that decision, commanding the Navy to promote Gallagher back to chief petty officer. Green's decision to initiate a review of Gallagher's fitness as a SEAL was seen as a rebuke of the president's order. In his resignation letter, Spencer suggested that his dismissal was indeed connected to Gallagher's review rather than any communication back channels. \"Unfortunately it has become apparent that in this respect, I no longer share the same understanding with the Commander in Chief who appointed me, in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline,\" Spencer wrote. \"I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States.\" On Sunday, Trump also linked Spencer's ouster to Gallagher. \"I was not pleased with the way that Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher's trial was handled by the Navy. He was treated very badly but, despite this, was completely exonerated on all major charges. I then restored Eddie's rank,\" the president tweeted. Then he introduced another reason for pushing Spencer out: \"Large cost overruns from past administration's ... contracting procedures were not addressed to my satisfaction.\" The president added that he would nominate Kenneth Braithwaite as the next Navy secretary. \"A man of great achievement and success, I know Ken will do an outstanding job!\" Trump said. Gallagher's attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told the Navy Times that neither he nor his client foresaw such fallout. \"With this personnel change, this institution will improve and no one will go through the ordeal Eddie went through. At the end of the day, the most important duty any of us have is protecting America,\" Parlatore said. \"This case is completely bananas,\" he added. Gallagher said he is \"overjoyed\" that the president stepped in on his behalf once again. In an interview on Fox & Friends that aired Sunday morning, Gallagher name-checked G", "President Trump tweeted that he should have never picked Jeff Sessions as his attorney general. David Greene talks with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.", "Tweets from President Trump on Sunday, telling Democratic female members of Congress to go back to their countries of origin, have led to new accusations of racism against him.", "President Trump's tough \"law and order\" response to the protests over George Floyd's death has unleashed criticism from top military brass, and may even be dividing his own party.", "The Trump administration continued to play loose with facts in week three. President Trump took aim at one of his favorite targets — the media — accusing them of not reporting terrorist attacks. The very list of attacks the White House released hours later contradicted those claims. Trump again cited incorrect statistics on the country's murder rate, though a day later he did use the right numbers. Press secretary Sean Spicer had his own \"Bowling Green massacre\" moment when he referred multiple times to a terrorist attack in Atlanta that never happened. And at the end of the week, President Trump again brought up false claims that there were illegal voters in the November election. But the number of false claims we're finding have decreased this week. We've highlighted eight issues or statements below. And throughout the week you can find us annotating the president's tweets for more context, too: \"It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported. In many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons and you understand that.\" Trump speaking on Monday to U.S. service members at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., claiming that the media weren't covering terrorist attacks and may have ulterior motives for doing so Later Monday night the White House put out a (typo-ridden) list of 78 attacks to back up that surprising allegation from the president. But instead their list included many high-profile terrorist attacks that had, in fact, drawn wall-to-wall media coverage, such as the June 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting and recent terrorist attacks in San Bernardino, Calif., and in Paris and Nice, France. As Politifact noted, \"the media reported on every one of the incidents in some fashion, except an alleged October 2015 nondeadly attack in Egypt that we could not independently verify. Whether the media covered the events enough is a matter of opinion, but it would be wrong to suggest the events weren't covered at all.\" In an interview which aired Monday with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, Trump claims only 109 people were affected by travel ban The chaos that the hastily-implemented executive order unleashed two weeks ago was way more far-reaching than that. Politifact found that, \"On top of 60,000 valid visas affected by the order, there could be an additional 64,000 admitted refugees barred entry to the United States. That's nearly 1,140 times as many people as Trump claimed.\" Trump in a Tuesday meeting with U.S. chiefs of police and sheriffs: \"I'd say that in a speech and everybody was surprised because the press doesn't like to tell it like it is. It wasn't to their advantage to say that. But the murder rate is the highest it's been in, I guess, 45 to 47 years.\" Trump has made similar incorrect claims about the murder rate many times and has been fact checked on it many times. As NPR's Camila Domonoske reported this week: \"According to the FBI, the murder rate for 2015, the last year for which data are available, was 4.9 per 100,000 people. Every year between 1965 and 2010, the FBI reported a higher rate than that.\" On Wednesday, Trump correctly cited murder statistics the day after making the mistake, meriting a CNN headline. White House press secretary Sean Spicer cites a non-existent Atlanta terrorist attack These claims in fact came last week but gained attention this week. CNN broke down how three times, Spicer talked about a terror attack in Atlanta. The Atlanta police department told CNN that they had \"no record of an Islamic attack in the City of Atlanta,\" and that the last terror attack had been the 1996 Olympic bombing which was done by a U.S. citizen protesting abortion rights. This week, the White House confirmed that Spicer had meant to refer to the recent night club shooting in Orlando. Trump attacks CNN's Chris Cuomo on Twitter CNN's Chris Cuomo interviewed Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Thursday morning about Blumenthal's reports that Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch had called Trump's attacks on the judiciary \"demoralizing.\" Trump then tweeted that Cuomo had not asked Blumenthal about a years-old controversy, in which Blumenthal had falsely stated that he served in Vietnam. Cuomo responded by showing that he had, in fact, asked Blumenthal about his past falsehoods. Yemen raid — success or failure? The first military raid that Trump ordered as president has been the subject of much controversy after it resulted in the death of nearly two-dozen civilians and U.S. Navy SEAL Ryan Owens. Spicer defended it in his Tuesday briefing, calling it \"highly successful\" and said that \"anybody who undermines the success of that raid owes an apology and [does] a disservice to the life of Chief Owens.\" He was referring to Arizona Sen. John McCain, who had characterized the raid a failure. Trump swiped back at McCain, a former Vietnam POW on Twitter. As NPR's Domenico Montanaro, Tom Bowman and Danielle Kurtzleben reported, \"The binary choice of success or ", "President Trump tweeted Wednesday morning, &#8220;We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter),&#8221; following Tuesday&#8217;s deadly truck attack in Manhattan by an Uzbek green card holder who officials say was inspired by ISIS. Political analysts Angela Rye (@Angela_Rye) and Paris Dennard (@PARISDENNARD) join Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young and Jeremy Hobson to discuss the developments, and also where Republicans are now on their tax cut plan after delaying its release until Thursday.", "A former contractor for the CIA is found guilty on four counts related to the beating death of a prisoner in Afghanistan. David Passaro is the first American civilian convicted of prisoner abuse in the Middle East. A onetime Green Beret medic, Passaro could face up to 11 1/2 years in prison when sentencing takes place later this year.", "A military jury in San Diego has acquitted Navy SEAL Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of all but one count of war crimes in a case that revolved around the killing of a 17-year-old ISIS prisoner who had been wounded and died in U.S. custody. The jury convicted Gallagher of posing with the body of the dead prisoner. The jury began deliberating on Monday, nearly two weeks after another SEAL, Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Corey Scott, shocked the courtroom by claiming that he, not Gallagher, killed the captive. Scott had been granted immunity from criminal charges as a lead prosecution witness in the case against Gallagher, who was accused of stabbing the ISIS prisoner in the neck with a knife. In court, Scott said that he blocked a tube that was helping the wounded prisoner breathe and that he killed the youth as an act of mercy. Prosecutors said Scott's narrative in court was wildly different from what he said in interviews, and they accused him of trying to protect his former superior from a long prison term. But Gallagher's defense attorney said that the junior members of his SEAL team resented him and plotted against him, as KPBS reporter Steve Walsh told NPR on Monday. \"Gallagher was jubilant following Scott's testimony, celebrating with his family outside the courtroom,\" as NPR reported. \"Prosecutors were visibly upset by the turn of events.\" The ISIS prisoner died in Syria in May 2017. Gallagher was also accused of shooting unarmed civilians in Iraq in 2017, including a school-age girl. Gallagher's wife, Andrea, has been a vocal supporter of her husband, defending him in national media outlets and maintaining a Facebook page. In an update on Tuesday, she urged, \"Please pray for a Not Guilty verdict and the TRUTH to finally set us Free as the jury deliberates again today so this nightmare can end.\" The trial has brought several surprising turnabouts. In late May, the judge in the case ordered Gallagher released from official custody, citing interference by prosecutors who tried to track defense lawyers' emails. Defense attorneys had sought to have the case dismissed after prosecutors were found to have tracked communications in an attempt to clamp down on leaks to the news media. Within days of that decision, the judge removed the lead prosecutor, Navy Cmdr. Christopher Czaplak, who admitted to sending a digital tracking device to defense attorneys and a journalist covering the case. The military jury also had the authority to downgrade some of the charges against Gallagher — for example, it could have reduced a murder charge to attempted murder or aggravated assault, as Walsh reported. The case also drew the attention of President Trump, who tweeted in support of Gallagher after Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Matt Gaetz of Florida sent Trump a letter on his behalf. Pushing for Gallagher to be released from custody, Trump said, \"In honor of his past service to our Country, Navy Seal #EddieGallagher will soon be moved to less restrictive confinement while he awaits his day in court.\" The president's tweet went out on March 30. As KPBS's Walsh reported, the message seemed to help Gallagher get moved from the brig to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. But he remained in custody until late May. In their closing arguments, lawyers on both sides of the case told the jury that witnesses had lied in court, The Associated Press reported. Prosecutors also urged the jury to consider texts that Gallagher sent about the dead prisoner, along with a photo of the corpse. In one message, he said it was a \"great story\" and that he \"got him with my hunting knife.\" Witnesses also said that Gallagher, who was then serving in his eighth deployment, recited his reenlistment oath near the body." ]

[ "The Bob Newhart Show" ]

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[ "It is used on agricultural crops but is also found in medications for dogs and cats. It is of low toxicity to humans." ]

[ "The first law is that a robot shall not harm a human, or by inaction allow a human to come to harm. The second law is that a robot shall obey any instruction given to it by a human, and the third law is that a robot shall avoid actions or situations that could cause it to come to harm itself.", "How are locust swarms dangerous? There have been no reports of locust swarms harming humans directly. However, they can harm humans indirectly as are capable of destroying the agricultural economy of a country.", "Yes, flea beetles are harmful to small plants and seedlings. But they are not harmful to humans or pets.", "Both natural and human-made chemicals have the potential to harm humans. Toxic chemicals can occur naturally. For example, rattlesnake poison and botulin are both naturally occurring chemicals that harm humans. Botulin is the toxin which causes food poisoning and is produced by bacteria.", "are detritus worms harmful to humans? you're totally fine!", "Deterioration is that stage of food spoilage at which it can be eatable by humans and will cause no harm. While spoilage of food means it is unfit for humans consumption. If anyone will eat this, than he/she will be harmed by the food.", "These blooms are pumping poison into the air, known as brevetoxin, which may be harmful to humans if inhaled.", "If a product is labeled as Oeko-Tex certified it is completely free from harmful chemicals and safe for human use. To attain Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certification, the fabric has been tested and certified to be free from harmful levels of more than 100 substances known to be harmful to human health.", "Hazardous Waste. waste with properties that make it dangerous or potentially harmful to human health or the environment.", "There are no known scientific data which clearly demonstrate that the consumption of low TDS water by humans will or will not lead to harmful effects on the human body.", "But, like any other organism, they can also inflict harm, particularly to humans. Most harmful protists are classified as animal-like protists that act as parasites, or organisms that benefit from causing harm to other organisms.", "Burning any scented candles is a NO for those of us who own birds. They emit harmful things into the air which may not bother humans but are harmful to birds.", "Safety is the condition of being protected from harm or other non-desirable outcomes, caused by non-intentional failure. Security is the condition of being protected from harm or other non-desirable outcomes caused by intentional human actions or human behavior.", "Human interaction The dogfish poses little threat to humans, but if it is not handled properly, the spines on its dorsal fins can give a harmful wound.", "LED streetlights are no more harmful to humans and animals than other kinds of streetlights. ... And, unlike other types of streetlights, LED streetlights actually offer the potential to control the amount of short-wavelength light that they emit. Myth: All short-wavelength light is harmful to humans and animals.", "According to Rick Vetter of the University of California at Riverside, the daddy long-legs spider has never harmed a human and there is no evidence that they are dangerous to humans.", "Harm reduction, or harm minimization, refers to a range of public health policies designed to lessen the negative social and/or physical consequences associated with various human behaviors, both legal and illegal.", "In some symbiotic relationships, one of the organisms benefits but the other is harmed. That is called parasitism. An example of this is a tapeworm in a human. The tapeworm gains nourishment, while the human loses nutrients.", "Severe infestations damage plants. It can't infect humans and won't hurt you if you touch it. While it is not directly harmful to humans, it does harm to potential food sources. By causing flowers to die or never bloom at all, powdery mildew prevents plants from growing fruit.", "Understanding how bacteria harm amoebas might be useful for understanding such diseases, and developing treatments for them. Though the bacteria Shu et al. studied are not toxic to humans, they are closely related to bacteria that are harmful.", "Some opponents of stem cell research argue that it offends human dignity or harms or destroys human life. Proponents argue that easing suffering and disease promotes human dignity and happiness, and that destroying a blastocyst is not the same as taking a human life.", "Biofilms form in virtually every imaginable environment on Earth; they can be harmful or beneficial to humans. In fact, the human body has biofilms in the mouth and intestinal track that can protect our health or harm it. Dental plaque is a common example of a biofilm that forms on tooth surfaces.", "Bleach has a strong irritating odor and releases chlorine gas that can be harmful to human health. When using it as a disinfectant, it must be diluted to avoid harm to your health.", "Environmental policy is defined as “any action deliberately taken to manage human activities with a view to prevent, reduce, or mitigate harmful effects on nature and natural resources, and ensuring that man-made changes to the environment do not have harmful effects on humans or the environment,” (McCormick 2001).", "Radiation Emission These charged particles are the harmful radiation that is dangerous to living organisms. However, not all radiation emitted from the elements is harmful to humans and are classed as alpha and beta ray radiation.", "Potential for Harm. Designed to be impossible for humans to hear, dog whistles aren't inherently harmful for your animal -- to an extent. ... While a human can hear sounds around 23 kHz, dogs can hear sounds up to 45 kHz -- a significantly higher frequency.", "The vast majority of ants are intrinsically not harmful to humans. ... In fact, there are cases where a large number of fire ants bite a single human being, causing massive anaphylaxis and eventually death. The ants that invade your home are unlikely to be this harmful unless you identify them as fire ants or red ants.", "In this relationship, all of the benefits go to the parasite; the host is harmed by the relationship. An example is a human and a tapeworm living in the intestines. The tapeworm derives food (and shelter) from the human host; the human is denied the nutrition that is consumed by the tapeworm.", "No, not all algal blooms are harmful Harmful algal blooms are blooms of species of algae that can have negative impacts on humans, marine and freshwater environments, and coastal economies. ... Blooms can block light to organisms lower in the water column, or even clog or harm fish gills.", "A: No, not all exotic species are considered harmful. ... Invasive species, however, are exotic organisms that have gone beyond being useful and have become harmful. A species is not usually recognized as invasive until it causes some sort of harm or cost to the ecology, economy, or to human health.", "In simple terms, a hazard is a dangerous situation or event that carries a threat to humans. A disaster is an event that actually harms humans and disrupts the operations of society. Hazards will be considered disasters once they affect humans, but if they occur in an unpopulated area, they will remain hazards.", "Some pesticides are quite hazardous, as they can be harmful to humans and other living things. They can contaminate land, the air, food crops, water ways and seriously harm or kill native animals, pets and domestic animals." ]

[ "CCTV has been released of a missing student who has not been seen since a night-out with friends last week.\nDuncan Sim, 19, was last seen at about 11.15pm on Wednesday March 14 outside Madras rugby club in St Andrews.\nPolice said they are “very concerned” for the first-year chemistry student who failed to return to his accommodation at Agnes Blackadder Hall in the Fife town.\n.@policescotland missing student urgent appeal: Duncan Sim, 1st yr chemistry undergrad & Agnes Blackadder Hall resident, last seen Wed 14 March, socialising with friends in St Andrews. Anyone who has seen or spoken to Duncan since Wed please dial 101 & quote incident ref no 2987 pic.twitter.com/HZWQBD0DFl — Univ of St Andrews (@univofstandrews) March 16, 2018\nVolunteers have joined the coastguard, search and rescue dogs and a police helicopter to search for Mr Sim but no trace has been found.\nOfficers have now released CCTV from the night showing the suit and tie Mr Sim was wearing when last seen.\nHe is white, 6ft, of medium build, with brown hair and green eyes.\nMr Sim was last seen at Madras rugby club (Police Scotland/PA)\nChief Inspector Steven Hamilton said: “Duncan has now been missing for a significant amount of time and we are very concerned for his welfare.\n“The response from the public and our partner agencies has been fantastic, and we are thankful for their support as we continue in our efforts to trace Duncan.\n“I would appeal specifically to anyone who may have seen Duncan, or a man matching his description, outside Madras rugby club at around 11.15pm on Wednesday night.\n“We have released an image of Duncan from earlier in the evening showing the clothing he was wearing when last seen.\n“I would ask the public to view this image and come forward if they saw Duncan after 11.15pm on Wednesday evening.\n“I would also ask local residents in the St Andrews area to check their gardens, outbuilding and cars as Duncan may have entered to seek shelter and which can help us establish his current whereabouts.”" ]

[ "Police have released CCTV images as they continue the search for a woman who went missing from her Leeds home two weeks ago.\nIt is hoped the images, which show Svitlana Krasnoselska at work in the city on March 17, will help to jog someone's memory.\nThese CCTV images show Svitlana Krasnoselska at work in Leeds last month.\nThe 40-year-old, who is known to friends as Lana and is originally from Ukraine, was last seen at her home in Micklefield at about 5am on Monday, April 3.\nDespite extensive enquiries, officers have been unable to establish her current whereabouts.\nDetective Inspector James Entwistle, of Leeds District CID, said: \"It has been over two weeks now since anyone has seen Lana, and her family are still desperate to hear that she is okay.\n\"We are continuing to carry out extensive enquiries to trace her and hope that these images, taken before she went missing, will help to jog someone's memory.\n\"We remain very concerned for her welfare and urgently need to find out where she is.\n\"We would ask that anyone who has seen her or who has any information that could assist in tracing her contact us as soon as possible.\"\nLana is described as 5ft 3in and of medium build, with dark shoulder-length hair which currently has blonde highlights in it.\nShe was believed to be wearing a black coat with a fur hood and carrying a black handbag with a metal circle detail on it.\nMs Krasnoselska lived in Dunhill Rise, Halton, between September 2016 and March.\nOfficers are keen to hear from anyone who knew her or who had contact with her during that time to help build up a picture of her lifestyle and the people she knew.\nAnyone with information is asked to contact Leeds District CID via 101, quoting log number 716 of April 5.", "Image copyright Family photo Image caption Corrie Mckeague, from Dunfermline, Fife, was last seen at 03:25 BST on 24 September 2016\nThe search of a landfill site for missing RAF airman Corrie Mckeague, who vanished during a night out in September 2016, has ended.\nPolice believe Mr Mckeague climbed into a waste bin in Bury St Edmunds and was taken away by a bin lorry.\nThe search of a site at Milton, Cambridgeshire, restarted in October after a search there ended earlier in the year.\nSuffolk Police said \"no trace\" of the airman had been found.\n'Debt of gratitude'\nThe force said it was \"content\" he was not in the landfill areas that had been searched and the investigation into his disappearance would continue.\nMr Mckeague's mother, Nicola Urquhart, said by searching the waste site the police had given her \"immeasurable peace of mind\".\nHis father Martin said they had a \"lifelong debt of gratitude\" to all those involved in searching for his son.\nImage copyright PA Image caption The latest landfill search focused on an area next to the original excavation site\nMr Mckeague, who was 23 at the time he went missing, was last seen at 03:25 BST on 24 September 2016.\nHe was captured on CCTV entering a bin loading bay known as the Horseshoe and his phone was tracked as taking the same route as a bin lorry.\nPolice started a 20-week search of the landfill site in March before ending it in July.\nThe latest excavation has been focused on an area next to the site of the original search.\nDet Supt Katie Elliott said there were \"a number of theories\" about what happened to Mr Mckeague and they were \"continuing to test the evidence\".", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nA missing teenager has been spotted on CCTV cameras walking in Manchester city centre while holding hands with a man.\nAlicia Moran, 14, of Linthwaite, Huddersfield, was last seen at her home at around 4.30pm on Easter Sunday.\nIn a CCTV image issued by police, Alicia can be seen walking along Market Street, in Manchester city centre , holding hands with a man.\nThe pair were seen walking past Jessops camera shop.\nWest Yorkshire Police want to speak to the man in connection with their investigation and are appealing for anyone who recognises him to get in touch.\n(Photo: West Yorkshire Police)\nAlicia’s family are said to be “very concerned for her welfare”.\nDetectives believe she still could be in the Manchester area.\nThe teenager is described as slim, 5ft 4ins tall and has her hair in a messy bun.\nShe was last seen wearing a black woolly coat and a mini dress.\nDet Insp Craig McKay, of Kirkless CID, said: “We are continuing enquiries to find Alecia and are very concerned for her welfare as are her parents.\n“We do now believe she is in the Manchester area and would like to speak to the man pictured who she has been seen with.\n“I would ask that man, Alicia, anyone who can identify this male, or anyone who has any information about Alecia’s whereabouts to contact Kirkless CID at West Yorkshire Police on 101 referencing West Yorkshire Police log 618 of April 16.”", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nPolice are hunting for a man who appeared to take pictures from underneath two young girls’ skirts at Manchester Piccadilly.\nThe man was travelling on a Northern Rail service, between Blackpool North and Manchester Piccadilly, on July 12.\nWhen he left the train at around 1.15pm he began to follow two young girls who had walked past him on the platform.\n(Image: PA)\nThe man then stood behind them as they waited to board a train, kneeled down and appeared to take a picture or film up their skirts for a couple of seconds using a smart phone.\nThe girls reported the incident to police and officers have now launched an investigation to trace the man.\n(Image: BTP press office)\nMum's appeal to find the 'kind woman' who bought teen daughter a ticket after she missed her\nBritish Transport Police have released a CCTV image of a man they wish to speak to.\nA statement said: “Officers have now released images of a man they would like to speak to in connection with the incident, who they believe may have information that could help with the investigation.\n“They would also like to speak to anyone who was at the station and may have seen anyone who was acting suspiciously around two girls.”\nAnyone with any information can call BTP on 0800 40 50 40 or text 61016 citing reference 279 10/08/2017.", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nImages of a man seen with a schoolgirl who went missing on Easter Sunday have been released by police in a bid to find her.\nAlicia Moran, 14, from Linthwaite, Huddersfield, went missing from home on Sunday afternoon.\nThe teenager was last spotted in Manchester.\nPolice have released a CCTV image of a man they would like to speak to in connection with the schoolgirl's disappearance, The Examiner reports.\n(Photo: PA)\nOfficers said they want to speak to the man, or anyone who may know him, as they believe he may be with the teenager.\nAlicia's family are very concerned for her welfare.\nPolice released a CCTV picture of a man they want to speak to after a sighting at the city’s Arndale Centre.\nAlicia is described as slim, 5ft 4in tall with her hair in a messy bun.\nShe was last seen wearing a back woolly coat and a mini dress.\nDet Insp Craig McKay, of Kirklees CID, said: “We are continuing enquiries to find Alecia and are very concerned for her welfare as are her parents.\n“We do now believe she is in the Manchester area and would like to speak to the man pictured who she has been seen with.\n“I would ask that man, Alicia, anyone who can identify this male, or anyone who has any information about Alicia’s whereabouts to contact Kirklees CID at West Yorkshire Police on 101 referencing West Yorkshire Police log 618 of April 16.”", "NC The research team has been given until August 31 to complete the task\nStudents from Abertay University in Dundee will read through press articles as part of a live Police Scotland investigation into nearly 30 cold cases across the country. More than 20 psychology, criminology and forensic science students will focus on Scottish newspaper cuttings relating to cases of unidentified bodies and body parts, which have never been matched to a missing person or victim. It is hoped the project will highlight possible links for further investigation, potentially leading to forensic tests which technological advances have recently made possible. Dr Penny Woolnough, senior lecturer in forensic psychology and associate director of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, who is leading the project, said: “This is a fantastic operation for our students to be involved in, not only because it gives them industry experience but there’s also a real chance they may turn up some useful information. Students from Abertay University in Dundee will read through press articles as part of a live Police Scotland investigation into nearly 30 cold cases across the country.\nMore than 20 psychology, criminology and forensic science students will focus on Scottish newspaper cuttings relating to cases of unidentified bodies and body parts, which have never been matched to a missing person or victim. It is hoped the project will highlight possible links for further investigation, potentially leading to forensic tests which technological advances have recently made possible. Dr Penny Woolnough, senior lecturer in forensic psychology and associate director of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, who is leading the project, said: “This is a fantastic operation for our students to be involved in, not only because it gives them industry experience but there’s also a real chance they may turn up some useful information. “People go missing for a whole range of reasons, including mental health issues, family or financial problems and even foul play, so there are a huge number of angles for the team to look at.” The students will look at articles dating back to 1971 which mention remains found in city, town and rural locations, as well as at sea.\nGETTY [STOCK IMAGE] The students will look at articles dating back to 1971\nI hope that the work we are conducting ends up providing some closure to families Psychology student Sarah Webb", "Police are growing 'increasingly concerned' about Duncan Sim, 19 (pictured), after the university student went missing five days ago\nThousands of people have joined the search for a missing student who was last seen five days ago, with police 'very concerned' for his well-being.\nDuncan Sim, 19, has not been seen since leaving an event at Madras Rugby Club in St Andrews, Scotland at about 11.15pm on Wednesday, March 14.\nSince then, hundreds of volunteers have combed through the town of Fife in an attempt to find him.\nFive days in, he has not been found with police and volunteers growing increasingly desperate.\nPolice said they are 'very concerned' for the first-year chemistry student who failed to return to his accommodation at Agnes Blackadder Hall in the Fife town.\nVolunteers have joined the coastguard, search and rescue dogs and a police helicopter to search for Mr Sim but no trace has been found.\nPolice have now released a CCTV image of Mr Sim, taken on the night he disappeared after being out with friends.\nChief Inspector Steven Hamilton of Fife Police said: 'Duncan has now been missing for a significant amount of time and we are very concerned for his welfare.\n'The response from the public and our partner agencies has been fantastic, and we are thankful for their support as we continue in our efforts to trace Duncan.\n'I would appeal specifically to anyone who may have seen Duncan, or a man matching his description, outside Madras rugby club at around 11.15pm on Wednesday night.\n'We have released an image of Duncan from earlier in the evening showing the clothing he was wearing when last seen.\n'I would ask the public to view this image and come forward if they saw Duncan after 11.15pm on Wednesday evening.\nHundreds of volunteers are searching for Mr Sim with the group posting flyers to houses in the town of Fife (pictured)\n'I would also ask local residents in the St Andrews area to check their gardens, outbuilding and cars as Duncan may have entered to seek shelter and which can help us establish his current whereabouts.'\nA Facebook group coordinating searches for the missing student has more than 1,600 members.\nCaptain of University of St Andrews Rugby Club, Ben Peddie, has led the volunteer search.\nMr Beddie posted the following update yesterday: 'Hi all. Many thanks again for everyone's hard work over the last three days in the efforts.\n'We and the police feel that as a volunteer search force, we have exhausted all current possible/plausible search locations.\nThe police have now released a CCTV image of Mr Sim taken on the night of his disappearance\n'We have also managed to flyer the vast majority of residential areas in NE Fife. To that end there will not be any mass organised searches or flyering tomorrow. This may however change if there is a change in circumstances dictated by the police searches which will of course be continuing.\n'Thank you again for everyone who has helped out, fantastic effort from all.'\nMr Sim is described by police as a white male, six feet tall, of medium build.\nHe has brown hair, green eyes and when last seen was wearing a grey-coloured suit jacket, white shirt, and a blue and white tie.\nHe has failed to return to his student accommodation or make contact with anyone since the night in question.\nAccording to friends and relatives, this is out of character for the first-year chemistry student.\nHe is originally from the Duns area of the Scottish Borders and a number of his hometown friends and relatives have traveled to join the search.\nIn a shocking twist, family members of Mr Sim revealed that internet trolls have been creating sick fake profiles of the 19-year-old and sending friend requests to volunteer searchers.\nRelative Fiona Sim wrote on Facebook: 'The police have advised us that there has been people making fake Facebook pages of Duncan, using his photos and sending people friend requests.\n'Obviously this is completely unacceptable and the police are investigating who may be behind this.'\nSergeant Sharon Holmes of Fife Police Division had earlier said: 'We are growing increasingly concerned for Duncan's welfare and are eager to trace him as soon as possible.\n'I would urge anyone who may have seen Duncan, or a man matching his description, to contact us immediately.\n'In addition, anyone with information that can help us trace his whereabouts is asked to get in touch with us as soon as possible.'", "Police searching for a West Yorkshire teenager believe she may be in Manchester with the man pictured in this CCTV image.\nAlecia Moran was last seen at her address in Linthwaite, Huddersfield, at around 4.30pm on Sunday.\nAn appeal for information on her whereabouts was issued yesterday amid concerns from police and her family about the 14-year-old's welfare.\nPolice 'very concerned' for welfare of missing girl, 14\nDetective Inspector Craig McKay, of Kirklees CID, said: \"We are continuing enquiries to find Alecia and are very concerned for her welfare as are her parents.\n\"We do now believe she is in the Manchester area and would like to speak to the man pictured who she has been seen with.\"\nAlecia is described as slim and 5ft 4in, with her hair in a messy bun. She was last seen wearing a black woolly coat and a mini dress.\nDet Insp McKay said: \"I would ask that man, Alecia, anyone who can identify this male, or anyone who has any information about Alecia's whereabouts to contact Kirklees CID at West Yorkshire Police on 101, referencing West Yorkshire Police log 618 of April 16.\"", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nReports say that two teen girls who have been missing in Dundee have now been traced.\nA statement from Police Scotland said that Kaitlyn Findlay, 18, has been traced safe and well, while friends of Rhiannon, 17, report that the teen has been in touch and is safe.\nRhiannon had been missing since December 28th and Kaitlyn since December 30th.\nHeartbroken mum of missing RAF serviceman Corrie McKeague shares video of her son singing in Hogmanay appeal", "Police have stepped up the search for a St Andrews university student who has not been seen in almost a week.\nDuncan Sim, 19, has not been in contact with friends or family since leaving an event at Madras Rugby Club in the Fife town at about 11.15pm on Wednesday, March 14.\nThe first year chemistry undergraduate was due to arrive at another venue with a group of fellow students.\nThe alarm was raised after the teenager failed to return to his halls of residence the next morning. Friends described his disappearance as completely out of character.\nChief superintendent Colin Gall said yesterday the search for Mr Sim was now a divisional priority for Fife police, with other regional and national divisions sending assistance. A helicopter was deployed to aid officers on the ground.\nPolice have also released CCTV from the night showing the suit and tie Mr Sim was wearing when last seen.\nHe is white, 6ft, of medium build, with brown hair and green eyes.\nChief inspector Steven Hamilton said: “Duncan has now been missing for a significant amount of time and we are very concerned for his welfare.\n“The response from the public and our partner agencies has been fantastic, and we are thankful for their support as we continue in our efforts to trace Duncan.\n“I would appeal specifically to anyone who may have seen Duncan, or a man matching his description, outside Madras rugby club at around 11.15pm on Wednesday night.\n“We have released an image of Duncan from earlier in the evening showing the clothing he was wearing when last seen.\n“I would ask the public to view this image and come forward if they saw Duncan after 11.15pm on Wednesday evening.\n“I would also ask local residents in the St Andrews area to check their gardens, outbuilding and cars as Duncan may have entered to seek shelter and which can help us establish his current whereabouts.”\nHundreds of people, including many from the student’s hometown of Duns in the Scottish Borders, have formed search parties in St Andrews and the surrounding area.\nMadras Rugby Club captain Ben Peddie has led the volunteer effort. “Our holiday started on Friday but people delayed their journeys home just so they can help,” he told the BBC.\n“We’ve had huge number of Duncan’s community from the Borders coming up to help too. Hundreds of us have been searching open land, farm land, verges. We went seven miles out of town and back in and had about 200 people out helping with the efforts.\n“We are making sure we are here for everyone who is wondering where Duncan is. We’ve got groups looking after each other really.\n“We are using Madras clubhouse as a hub for people who want to come in and have a chat. Businesses and the university have been very great in providing food and drinks for us.”\nThose with information can contact St Andrews Police Station via 101, quoting incident number 2987 of 15 March.\nMeanwhile, Mr Sim’s relatives have hit out at fake Facebook pages which were set up in the wake of his disappearance.\nProfile pages, pretending to be that of the teenager, were set up using pictures of him. Friend requests were then sent to relatives.", "Concerns are growing for a Bristol University student who is missing.\nSofia Fareed was visiting Brighton for the bank holiday weekend and had travelled there by coach.\nShe had stayed with friends in a local hostel on the night of Sunday, April 16.\nThe 19-year-old was last seen by friends on Monday morning.\nSussex Police say they are growing increasingly concerned.\nA force spokesperson said: \"Sofia is Asian, 5' 4\", very long black hair with some dreadlocks and was last seen wearing a green cardigan, baggy multi-coloured patchwork trousers and carrying a green canvas bag.\n\"We believe she is still in Brighton and would like to ensure she is safe and well.\n\"Anybody who knows her whereabouts is asked to contact police with relevant information on 101 or online and quote serial 314 of 17/04.\"", "Police are hunting for two suspects after a 17-year-old boy's face was burned with acid in a daylight attack as he stood outside a chicken shop.\nThe teenager was severely scalded in the attack while he was with a friend and surrounded by other members of the public.\nEmergency services rushed to the scene and took the victim to a nearby shop where his face was doused in water, before he was then taken to hospital.\nThe attack took place outside Pepe's Peri Peri Chicken shop in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey.\nTwo black males have since been pictured on CCTV who the police are now searching for in connection with the incident\nTwo black males have since been pictured on CCTV who the police are now searching for in connection with the incident.\nOne had braids and a black jumper with what appeared to be white text on the front, and another with short-cropped hair and a moustache and wearing a navy Puma jumper.\nA Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'Detectives from Kingston are investigating a noxious substance attack outside a fast-food restaurant in Kingston and have released CCTV images of two men wanted for questioning in relation to the incident.\n'The victim, a 17-year-old, suffered facial burn injuries in the attack, which happened in broad daylight. He was with a friend out for an afternoon on Fife Road in Kingston when he was assaulted outside Pepe's Peri Peri Chicken shop.\nThe attack took place outside Pepe's Peri Peri Chicken shop in Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey\n'The incident took place in the early evening and there were numerous people around.\n'Paramedics from the London Ambulance Service were called and the victim went to a nearby shop where his face was doused in water.\n'There have been no arrests made and inquiries continue.'", "Have your say\nPolice who had issued an urgent appeal for information to trace a man who has gone missing in Leeds say he has been found safe.\nAdam Spenceley, aged 34, was reported missing shortly after 2am today (Wednesday) from Leeds General Infirmary after he had attended the A&E department.\nimages from the hospital CCTV this morning.\nWest Yorkshire Police was \"very concerned\" for him and believed he may be sleeping rough in a vehicle.\nThe force has tweeted that he has been found safe and well.", "Students have launched a bid to save a Fife College course from closure.\nStudents have launched a bid to save a Fife College course from closure.\nThe HND practical journalism course at the college’s St Brycedale campus is set to be scrapped.\nFife College says it will continue with the HNC course, but students who signed up expecting to do the two year course say they weren’t told.\nThey have launched a campaign on social media and also met with college management in a bid to get more information.\nThey have also raised the issue with Shirley Anne-Somerville, the Kirkcaldy-born Minister for Education in the Scottish Government.\nThe issue was also raised at Holyrood by Claire Baker MSP who said the decision to cut the course was unacceptable.\nThe college says plans to end the HND were made known before the start of term – a point disputed by students.\nThe course is also accredited by the NCTJ, journalism’s national training organisation, and its links to Sunderland University, where some students have gone on to complete their course, are also under review.\nThe plan is to discontinue the second year of the course and withdraw NCTJ exams for 2018-19 – but that latter point was key to students signing up in order to gain an industry accreditation which many employers insist on when recruiting.\nThe Press understands lack of numbers is one key factor behind the decision.\nA college spokesman said: ‘‘This change has been made due to a reduction of students over recent years progressing on to the second year HND course - many are opting to use the HNC as a stepping stone on to university or employment.\n‘‘Students were made aware of this change in June, before the course began.’’\nThe decision has sparked a backlash.\nThe NCTJ is investigating the plan to scrap the HND – the Press understand the organisation was not informed.\nThe National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Scotland is also backing the students’ case.\nDominic Bascombe, Scotland organiser, said: ‘‘The number of colleges offering fully accredited courses is shrinking in Scotland and it is vital that students have the opportunity to study journalism.\n“We are calling on Fife College to reconsider its decision.’’\nA students’ spokesman added: “We are deeply concerned that the college undertook so little engagement with key stakeholders to inform their decision– at the very least we had expected them to consult with industry about employment opportunity for students.”\nMs Baker raised the closure with the Minister for Higher Education during education questions at Holyrood.\nShe said: “I understand that Fife College has taken this decision halfway through a course and that is disappointing.\n‘‘These students have made an investment in Fife College and they should expect that to be honoured.\n“All students who sign up to a course should expect to be able to complete it. For students halfway through to be told that they can no longer sit the exams that enticed many of them to sign up in the first place is unacceptable. ‘‘\nShe said she was also disappointed that the Scottish Government ‘‘failed to accept that courses should not be cut halfway through’’ adding: ‘‘If this is allowed to happen what confidence can any student have in their course.’’\nMs Baker added: “Fife has a proud tradition of great writers and fine journalists. We should be looking to cultivate this.\n“Transferring to Sunderland University is not a realistic option for many of the students based in Fife and closing this course leaves Glasgow as the only place in Scotland to be NCTJ accredited.\n“Fife College must ensure that the students currently on their Practical Journalism course are able to complete it to the full HND level.”", "Police have appealed for help to track down a young man who went missing earlier today.\nOfficers in Peterlee have issued a photo of Declan Freeman as they try to track him down.\nThey say they are concerned for his welfare.\nHe was last seen at around 11.30am in the Beverley Way area of the town.\nAnyone who has seen him is asked to call Durham Constabulary on 101.", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nConcern is growing for two teenagers reported missing in West Lothian.\nAbbie Wilson and Craig Westwood, who are both 15, were last seen in the West Calder area at around 8.30pm on Saturday (February 11).\nPolice are now appealing for help in tracing the pair as they have yet to return to their homes or make contact with family.\nIt is believed Abbie and Craig are still in each other’s company and anyone who knows their current whereabouts, or who can assist with our inquiries, is asked to come forward.\nAbbie is described as white, around five feet tall with a slim build, long brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen wearing a burgundy puffa jacket, black jeans, and trainers and had a black backpack.\nCraig is described as five feet eight, medium build, short black hair, brown eyes. When last seen, he was wearing a grey hooded top, grey joggers and black converse trainers.\nAnyone with information that can help in tracing Abbie and Craig is asked to contact officers by calling 101.", "The teenager was last seen at around 11.15pm on Wednesday outside Madras Rugby Club in St Andrews.\nPolice: The CCTV still was captured on the night Mr SIm went missing. Police Scotland\nPolice have issued a CCTV image of teenager who went missing after a sports night out.\nDuncan Sim, 19, was last seen at around 11.15pm on Wednesday outside Madras Rugby Club on Old Station Road in St Andrews, Fife.\nPolice Scotland said the search has involved the coastguard, search and rescue dogs and an air support unit.\nOfficers have also been studying CCTV and conducting door-to-door enquiries in the town in a bid to map Duncan's last known movements.\nThe still issued by police on Monday was captured on the night Mr Sim went missing.\nMeanwhile, the Mr Sim's family hit out after fake Facebook pages were set up claiming to be him.\nChief inspector Steven Hamilton said: \"Duncan has now been missing for a significant amount of time and we are very concerned for his welfare.\n\"The response from the public and our partner agencies has been fantastic and we are thankful for their support as we continue in our efforts to trace Duncan.\n\"I would appeal specifically to anyone who may have seen Duncan, or a man matching his description, outside Madras Rugby Club at around 11.15pm on Wednesday night.\"\nCommenting on the CCTV, CI Hamilton said: \"We have released an image of Duncan from earlier in the evening showing the clothing he was wearing when last seen.\n\"I would ask the public to view this image and come forward if they saw Duncan after 11.15pm on Wednesday evening.\n\"I would also ask local residents in the St Andrews area to check their gardens, outbuilding and cars as Duncan may have entered to seek shelter and which can help us establish his current whereabouts.\"\nDuncan is white 6ft and of medium build.\nHe has brown hair, green eyes and was last seen wearing a grey-coloured suit jacket, white shirt and a blue and white tie.\nAnyone with information is asked to contact St Andrew's Police Station on 101.\nWant to receive the latest headlines straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our 'Morning Briefing' newsletter. Subscribe This field is required. That doesn't look like a valid e-mail format, please check. That e-mail's already in our system. Please try again. Please tick the box below to confirm your subscription Thanks for subscribing to our 'Morning Briefing' newsletter. Subscribed Want to receive the latest headlines straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our 'Morning Briefing' newsletter. Thanks for subscribing to our 'Morning Briefing' newsletter. Subscribe\nDownload: The STV News app is Scotland's favourite and is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from Google Play. Download it today and continue to enjoy STV News wherever you are.", "The video will start in 8 Cancel\nGet daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nAston University has moved to reassure students after a teenager was stabbed as he waited for a taxi.\nThe 19-year-old student was knifed on Aston Street, near Aston University, just after midnight on September 19.\nHe was rushed to hospital but was released the next day and is expected to make a full recovery.\nA spokesman for Aston University said they were working with police and said they have the tightest security on site.\nPatrols have been increased following the attack.\nDetectives issued a picture of a man they wanted to trace in connection with the incident.\nWest Midlands Police said the public should call police if they spotted him.\nA spokesman for the university said: “We are aware of this incident and are working with the police in their investigation.\n“We would like to remind our students that we have a team of fully-trained security staff, extensive CCTV across campus, and security patrols offering 24-hour security on campus.\n“If any of our staff or students have any information about this incident, please get in touch with our security team or the police.”\nDet Con Laurence Green, of West Midlands Police, said: “We are working hard to piece together what happened.\n“We’re following numerous leads, and forensic opportunities are on-going.\n“In addition to this the local neighbourhood team have increased patrols in the area and these will continue for as long as necessary.”\nAnyone with information should call Crimestoppers, in confidence, on 0800 555 111.", "The family of Libbi Toledo, the teenager who was found dead in Kirkcaldy after going missing last month, have announced details of her funeral.\nLibbi’s mum Judi said via a post on social media that the funeral would be in Brechin, where Libbi originally came from, next week.\nThe service will take place at Brechin Cathedral on Wednesday, October 11, at 2.30pm.\nThe announcement comes just a few days after police officially confirmed the identity of the body found at a former scrapyard in Smeaton as being Libbi.\nThe 17-year-old went missing from her accommodation in Kirkcaldy on Monday September 11, which prompted a search and appeal by police in Fife.\nHer body was discovered on Thursday, September 21.\nHer father, who lives in America, has launched an online fundraising appeal in the hope of raising cash for the funeral and family traveling costs.", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nA top detective was rapped by Greater Manchester Police after obtaining evidence which helped nail a dangerous clubland thug who knocked out his son.\nThe head of the force’s Major Incident Team Pete Jackson was placed under investigation even though he uncovered key CCTV colleagues had missed.\nIt’s one of a series of revelations made by former Detective Superintendent Pete Jackson whose whistleblowing sparked a three year police watchdog investigation.\nThe CCTV prompted police to re-open the case and the key evidence helped police bring violent Anthony Bamgbose to justice.\n(Photo: GMP)\nGMP closed down the investigation into the savage attack on 18-year-old student Thomas Jackson within hours of the incident after officers missed key CCTV footage of the brutal city centre assault.\nHis furious detective superintendent father walked from his son’s bedside at Manchester Royal Infirmary - where he was being treated for two fractures to his jaw - and immediately found the footage he says his colleagues had missed near Albert Square.\nIt showed the attacker get out of a taxi and knock Thomas out, leaving him unconscious on the road for five minutes.\nBamgbose was later jailed for 23 months after he admitted the unprovoked assault on Thomas and his friend, who had also been knocked unconscious.\nBut Thomas’s dad Pete, then the head of GMP’s major incident team, ended up in trouble with his own force for conducting his own investigation in his own time.\nThe now retired officer says that he was amazed to find himself the subject of an internal disciplinary inquiry for grilling colleagues over the standard of the investigation.\nThe six-month probe concluded there was no evidence he had directly accessed information on Bamgbose on GMP computer systems while his anger had been ‘poor judgement’ rather than a disciplinary offence, according to an internal GMP report seen by the M.E.N.\nDet Supt Jackson was recommended for ‘constructive developmental feedback’.\nMr Jackson told the M.E.N: “I was disgusted by the police response to an incident which could have resulted in my son’s death and the death of his friend. I just didn’t believe there would be no CCTV in Albert Square. I walked from the MRI down Oxford Road and conducted my own enquiries.\n“I went and stood in what was left of the pool of blood where my son lay, looked up and within seconds I saw two CCTV cameras which captured the whole incident.\n(Photo: Sean Hansford)\n“I asked the pub manager and he played the CCTV back. The first frame I saw was my son unconscious on the floor. That’s what should have happened already as part of normal enquiries.\n“The standard of the investigation was a disgrace. In fact, there was no real investigation at all. Without my intervention, a really dangerous man wouldn’t have been brought to justice.\nDeputy Chief Constable Ian Pilling conceded there had been ‘poor investigative practice’ which resulted in ‘management action’ for those who missed the CCTV.\nHe added: “Separately the conduct of another officer was investigated following concerns about his inappropriate involvement in the inquiry and he received constructive developmental feedback.”", "A CCTV still image of a man police want to speak with regarding the theft of a wallet from the pokie room at the Gowrie Road Hotel in Toowoomba on Monday, May 28.\nA CCTV still image of a man police want to speak with regarding the theft of a wallet from the pokie room at the Gowrie Road Hotel in Toowoomba on Monday, May 28. QPS\nA MAN has been caught on camera stealing an elderly man's wallet which fell out of his pocket at a Toowoomba hotel.\nThe 82-year-old man was playing the pokies at the Gowrie Road Hotel on Monday when his wallet fell out of his back pocket onto the floor.\nThe man realised his wallet was missing when he moved to another machine at the hotel, sometime between 3pm and 3.30pm, and went back to his original seat looking for it.\nThe hotel's CCTV recorded another man picking the wallet up from the floor, checking the contents and leaving the venue.\n\"No attempt has been made to return the wallet to the owner,\" police said.\n\"Police are requesting any information that would assist with identifying the depicted male.\"", "Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email\nPolice Scotland have issued an appeal to trace two missing teenage girls in Dundee.\n17-year-old Rhiannon Lyons, who went missing on December 28th was last spotted in the Forres Crescent area of Dundee at approximately 10.15pm.\nKaitlyn Findlay, 18, was last spotted in Blackness Road at around 8pm on December 30th.\nThe two disappearances are not thought to be connected.\nRhiannon is described as being five feet eight inches tall and of slim build. She was last seen wearing a white t-shirt, black jeans and blue trainers and was carrying a cream handbag.\nKaitlyn is described as being five feet three inches tall, of slim build with long brown hair. She is understood to have been wearing a grey Nike hooded top black jeans and black Adidas trainers. She was also carrying a black leather handbag with silver studs.\nAnyone who knows where Rhiannon or Kaitlyn is, or who has information that could assist officers in tracing her, should call 101 or speak to any police officer.", "Rhiannon Lyons, 17, pictured, has not been seen since around 10.15pm on December 28\nPolice have launched a search for a missing 17-year-old girl who disappeared five days ago.\nRhiannon Lyons, 17, was last seen in Dundee at around 10.15pm on Wednesday, December 28.\nShe is 5ft 8in with a slim build and was wearing a white t-shirt, black jeans and blue trainers when last seen.\nShe was also carrying a cream handbag when she was seen at the time in Forres Crescent, Dundee.\nOfficers are appealing for anyone with information to contact police on 101.\nIt comes after another girl missing in the Dundee area was found earlier today.\nKaitlyn Findlay, 18, of Dundee, went missing at around 8pm on December 30.\nBut Police Scotland confirmed she had been found safe and well in Dundee at around 10am this morning.\nPolice also confirmed they do not believe there is a link between the girls.\nA force spokesman said: 'There is no information to suggest that missing Rhiannon Lyons and Kaitlyn Findlay are known to each other.\n'They are being treated as separate inquiries.'", "A man has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of Alesha MacPhail, the schoolgirl who went missing on the Isle of Bute on Monday, police have said.\nThe body of the six-year-old was found in woodland a little more than two hours after she was reported missing at about 6.30am.\nPolice Scotland renewed their appeal for witnesses to come forward.\n“The response to our earlier public appeals has been significant,” said Det Supt Stuart Houston on Wednesday. “However, despite this evening’s major development, I am still appealing for anyone who was in the Ardbeg Road area of Bute on Sunday night or in the early hours of Monday and who may have information about Alesha’s death to contact us.”\nHe added: “Anyone who has CCTV at their home or business, or indeed any motorists with dashcam footage which might help with our investigation are also urged to get in touch.”\nThe arrested man has not been named.", "Image copyright RTÉ Image caption A three-acre site of woodland was cleared over the weekend as part of the investigation into Trevor Deely's disappearance\nExcavation work is expected to begin at a site in Dublin sealed off by police investigating the disappearance of a man almost 17 years ago.\nTrevor Deely, 22, was last seen walking home from a Christmas party in the Baggot Street area in December 2000.\nA new search for Mr Deely began on Saturday after detectives received new information.\nA three-acre site at woodland in Chapelizod was cleared over the weekend.\nThe area is beside the R112 road which runs down to the River Liffey.\nPolice began the search after receiving new information during a complete review of Mr Deely's disappearance by a cold case review team set up last December.\nMedia playback is unsupported on your device Media caption CCTV footage from the night Mr Deely went missing\nDetectives were told he was killed by a known criminal he met by chance in the Baggot Street area, and that his body was buried at a site some 8km away, reports Irish national broadcaster RTÉ.\nAnalsyis: Dyane Connor, RTÉ News\n\"New information emerged since the review team began its work last December.\n\"Gardai [police] received information saying that Trevor was killed by a known criminal in the Baggott Street area and that his body was buried in this site in Chapelizod.\n\"This site is about 8km from where Trevor was last seen in the Baggott Street area.\n\"I understand gardai don't have an actual spot within that site where he is supposedly buried, so it's quite a big search operation.\n\"I imagine its going to take some time given the sheer scale of the area.\"\nCCTV footage from the night Mr Deely went missing was enhanced in England using specialist technology.\nIt shows Mr Deely talking to a man dressed in black outside the Bank of Ireland - where Trevor worked - on Baggot Street.\nIt is understood Mr Deely had gone to his office to get an umbrella after the party at a nearby hotel.\nDetectives released the footage in April and appealed for the man to come forward.\nImage copyright RTÉ Image caption Earlier this year a team of six detectives began conducting a complete review of Mr Deely's disappearance\nThey believe he was the same man captured on CCTV following Mr Deely, who was originally from County Kildare, a short time later on Haddington Road.\nOn Saturday, police said the man seen in the CCTV has not yet been identified and they renewed their appeal for him to come forward.\nThey have said the search of the site at Chapelizod is expected to take a number of weeks.", "Police in Kirkcaldy have confirmed that a man reported missing has been found.\nScott William Porter had been reported missing after not being seen since July 2.\nHowever Police Scotland confirmed on Wednesday evening that he had now been traced safe and well.", "A teenager is devastated after losing his phone contain the final pictures of his gran.\nTyler Robertson left the matte black iPhone 7 in the back of a taxi following a night out on New Year's Eve.\nThe 19-year-old climbed into the taxi, behind McDonald's in Smithy Street, South Shields, and headed home to Hebburn at about 3am, yesterday.\nHowever, at 11.35pm on New Year's Eve Tyler's gran had passed away at home - just hours after he had snapped some final pictures wit her.\nMum Nicola Robertson, from Hebburn,is now offering a £100 reward if the phone can be found.\nNicola said: \"He's absolutely devastated.\n\"He'd been to see his gran, who had been poorly for quite seem time, a bit earlier in the day and he took some picture of them together.\n\"She then sadly died a few hours later. His phone had ran out of battery and when in the taxi home he'd asked his girlfriend to keep it and it must have dropped on the floor.\n\"We're not bothered about the actual phone, it's the pictures we want and they weren;t backed up.\"\nIf you have found Tyler's phone call Nicola on 07869014070", "Police are urgently appealing for information trace a man who has gone missing in Leeds.\nAdam Spenceley, aged 34, was reported missing shortly after 2am today (Wednesday) from Leeds General Infirmary after he had attended the A&E department.\nimages from the hospital CCTV this morning.\nWest Yorkshire Police says it is \"very concerned\" for him and believe he may be sleeping rough in a vehicle.\nHe is described as white, five feet, eight inches tall, slim, with strawberry blonde hair and is pictured on the hospital CCTV.\nDet Insp Phil Jackson, of Leeds District CID, said: “We are very concerned for Adam’s welfare and urgently need to find him and check that he is okay.\n“We have some information that suggests he may be sleeping rough in a vehicle and we would like to hear urgently from anyone who has seen him or who has any information that could assist in tracing him.”\nAnyone with information is asked to contact Leeds District CID via 101 quoting log number 158 of July 4.", "Police are appealing for witnesses to the incident in the Borders town of Hawick.\nHawick: Police are appealing for witnesses to the incident (file pic). Google 2017\nA hunt has been launched by police for a knifeman seen near the A7.\nPolice received reports of the man armed with a blade in the Borders town of Hawick on Sunday night.\nThe incident happened at about 8.50pm on a walkway between the A7 and Galalaw Road.\nHe is described as 5ft 6in to 5ft 8in with short dark hair.\nThe suspect was believed to be wearing a black body warmer, white short sleeved shirt, denim jeans, black boots and a cap with a camouflage pattern on it.\nPolice said he was last seen heading down the walkway towards Guthrie Drive.\nAnyone who may have seen the man in the area or recognises the description is urged to contact the police on 101.\nWant the inside story from John MacKay? Sign up to the 'MacKay Mail' newsletter. Subscribe This field is required. That doesn't look like a valid e-mail format, please check. That e-mail's already in our system. Please try again. Please tick the box below to confirm your subscription Thanks for subscribing to our 'MacKay Mail' newsletter. Subscribed Want the inside story from John MacKay? Sign up to the 'MacKay Mail' newsletter. Thanks for subscribing to our 'MacKay Mail' newsletter. Subscribe\nDownload: The STV News app is Scotland's favourite and is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from Google Play. Download it today and continue to enjoy STV News wherever you are.", "Police have issued a CCTV image of a woman who may have information that could help officers investigating a burglary at business on the outskirts of Shipston.\nA bench was stolen during the incident that police believe occurred at around 4.30pm on Wednesday March 28.\nThis dog was with the woman at the time\nOfficers have also released a picture of the dog that was accompanying the woman.\nAnyone who can help police identify the woman or provide information that could help police with their investigation is asked to call 101 and quote incident 279 of 12 April 2018.", "Authorities in Bermuda have confirmed the death of a 19-year-old American student who went missing over the weekend.\nScroll for more content...\nActing Assistant Commissioner of Police James Howard announced Monday that Mark Dombroski's body was found in a moat at Fort Prospect.\nHoward said foul play has not been ruled out and forensic officers are examining the scene where the body was found.\n\"We extend our heartfelt condolences to the Dombroski family,\" Howard said during a news conference after the body was found.\nDombroski, a freshman at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, was a member of the rugby team and was on the island to compete in the 2018 Ariel Re Bermuda International 7s Rugby Tournament.\nThe tournament ended on Saturday. According to police, \"It then appears that Mark along with friends and family went out to socialize.\"\nAccording to police, Dombroski was last seen by his family and friends just after midnight Sunday at a restaurant called The Dog House.\n\"The Saint Joseph's University community is heartbroken tonight to learn from the Bermuda Police Services (BPS) in Hamilton that student Mark Dombroski has died. We extend our deepest sympathies to the Dombroski family along with Mark's teammates, classmates and friends,\" read a statement from the university on Monday.\n\"Saint Joseph's students in need of counseling or ministry have been informed of available services. The circumstances of Mark's death are still under investigation by the BPS. During this difficult time, we ask for your understanding and that you respect the privacy of Mark's family and friends.\"\nPolice were notified of Dombroski's disappearance at 9:39 a.m. Sunday and Howard said police \"within an hour mobilized officers to commence looking through CCTV and checking for the young man.\"\nPolice confirmed that \"CCTV footage indicates that Mark was seen alone at 1:09 a.m. Sunday, March 18, walking east along Front Street just past the junction with King Street. He was wearing a green T-shirt, khaki pants and black shoes. He appeared to be using a cellphone device.\"\nBermuda Police Services are asking anyone with information to contact police headquarters.", "Police investigating the rape of an 81-year-old woman in south London are hunting for her red jacket which was taken during the horrifying ordeal.\nThe distinctive Marks and Spencer jacket has “important evidential value” and may have been discarded in the Balham area, detectives said.\nThe woman is said to have been followed by her attacker after getting off the number 155 bus in Balham High Road at about 8.30pm on February 10.\nPolice said she was forcibly taken to a secluded area near Rinaldo Road and raped twice.\nThe victim received injuries in the attack and was taken to hospital. She was later taken to a Haven Sexual Assault Referral Centre, where she was supported by specialist officers.\nDetective Inspector Melissa Laremore, from SOECA, said: \"The victim's distinctive red Marks and Spencer jacket went missing after the attack.\n\"My investigators are working to trace it in and around the local area as it is of important evidential value. If you have any knowledge of its whereabouts, please get in touch.\"\nDetectives want to speak to the witness in this CCTV image (Met Police)\nIt comes after detectives released CCTV of a male witness seen walking on Rinaldo Road on the evening of the incident. He is still yet to come forward.\n“He was wearing a jacket with a distinctive American flag design on the back,” added Detective Inspector Laremore.\n“A CCTV image of this man has now been released. I would urge him to come forward and contact police.”\nA 41-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with the incident. He is currently remanded in custody to appear at Kingston Crown Court on Friday, 10 March.\nAnyone with information is asked to contact police on 020 8649 3105 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111." ]

[ "Jeffrey Skilling, Enron's former CEO, is expected to take the witness stand in Houston. Skilling and his boss, Ken Lay, claim they didn't do anything illegal to cause the collapse of Enron. And Skilling is expected to testify that he didn't know about the illegal actions of finance-chief Andrew Fastow." ]

[ "Enron's former chief accounting officer pleads guilty to securities fraud and agrees to cooperate with federal prosecutors in return for a reduced prison sentence. Richard Causey now is expected to testify against former top Enron executives, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.", "The former chief accountant for Enron, a once high-flying energy trading company that collapsed amid allegations of massive stock fraud, will plead guilty to unspecified charges Monday. The plea bargain likely means Richard Causey will testify against his two former bosses, Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. Farai Chideya discusses the reasons behind the deal with <EM>Fortune</EM> magazine writer Peter Elkind, co-author of <EM>Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room</EM>.", "Madeleine Brand speaks with a former Enron employee Rudy Sutherland about his reaction to the verdict in the trial of former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling, who were convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges.", "Enron Executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling go on trial next week. Enron went from the country's seventh-largest corporation to the country's second-largest bankruptcy. So what really happened at Enron? Film director Alex Gibney gives us a behind-the-scenes look and shares some insights from his film, <EM>Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room</EM>.", "Jurors in the Enron trial hear a sixth day of testimony from the failed energy company's former head of investor relations, Mark Koenig. He has testified that Enron's earnings were sometimes changed at the last minute to please Wall Street and that top executives were aware of the changes.", "For the thousands of Enron workers left unemployed and stripped of their pensions, the guilty verdicts of Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling do little to improve their situation. NPR's Melissa Block talks with Sherron Watkins, a former Enron vice president who blew the whistle on the shady accounting at the company. She testified that she had warned Lay about Enron's financial problems. Watkins said her job was threatened as a consequence.", "Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling could have his more than 24-year prison sentence reduced by as many as 10 years under a deal announced Wednesday by the Justice Department. The agreement with Skilling's lawyers, which still needs the approval of a federal judge, would reduce the former Enron chief's sentence to between 14 and 17 1/2 years. \"Today's agreement will put an end to the legal battles surrounding this case,\" Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, said in a statement. \"Mr. Skilling will no longer be permitted to challenge his conviction for one of the most notorious frauds in American history, and victims of his crime will finally receive the more than $40 million in restitution they are owed.\" Skilling was sentenced in 2006 for his role in the collapse of the energy trading giant, a collapse that cost thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in people's retirement. NPR's Wade Goodwyn reported last month on the agreement that was under consideration at the time: \"For many, 24 years in prison for Skilling seemed exactly right. But a lot has changed since then. Wall Street's stunning collapse and Bernie Madoff's brazen thievery cast a new light on Skilling's acts. And then there was the sentence of Enron's Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow. Fastow was the mastermind behind the so-called off-balance-sheet partnerships, and he stole millions from Enron. \"Yet because he testified against Jeff Skilling and Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay, Fastow served just six years and is now out of prison. For some, that's cast doubt on the fairness of Skilling's serving four times Fastow's sentence. Most important, on appeal, Skilling's conviction has endured some battering in the federal courts. \"In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously nullified Skilling's honest services fraud conviction, ruling there was no bribe or kickback to Skilling. An appeals court subsequently upheld Skilling's convictions on other counts but said his sentence must be reduced.\" The Associated Press reports that U.S. District Judge Sim Lake is to hold a June 21 hearing in Houston to make a final decision on the sentence.", "The jury in the trial of former Enron executives Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay on fraud and corruption charges began deliberations Wednesday morning. The two face prison for their part in the collapse of what was once the dominant player in the energy trading market.", "Jeffrey K. Skilling who was convicted on fraud and other charges related to the collapse of one-time energy colossus Enron will have another day in court, this time the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his appeal. Among the problems Skilling claims occurred during his 2006 trial was intense negative pretrial news coverage which he said made it impossible for him to receive a fair trial. Skilling, who was Enron's president and also at different times served as its chief operating and executive officers, also claimed he was unfairly convicted under the \"honest services\" fraud statute. That statute was used by federal prosecutors who charged him with depriving shareholders of his honest services. The \"honest service\" charge was one of 19 counts on which he was convicted. He is currently serving a 24-year term at the Federal Correctional Institution in Englewood, Colo. The Justice Department unsuccessfully argued against the high-court review, arguing that Skilling had indeed received a fair trial.", "A federal judge sentences Jeffrey Skilling, the former CEO of Enron, to 24 years and four months in prison. U.S. District Judge Sim Lake also turned down Skilling's request to remain free while he appeals his conviction of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors. Skilling, 52, was convicted of those charges in May; the energy giant he once led collapsed in 2001. In addition to a prison sentence, Judge Lake also handed down an order for Skilling to pay $45 million in restitution to Enron investors. Witnesses for and against Skilling -- including Skilling himself -- testified before the sentence was announced in Houston. Robert Siegel talks with Houston Chronicle business reporter Tom Fowler. MELISSA BLOCK, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel. A federal judge in Houston has sentenced a former CEO of Enron to 24 years and 4 months in prison. Jeffrey Skilling was convicted in May of fraud, conspiracy, insider trading and lying to auditors. He was acquitted of nine counts of insider trading. This afternoon, the judge turned down Skilling's request to remain free while he appeals his conviction. Skilling testified that his sentence and hearing in Houston and business reporter Tom Fowler of the Houston Chronicle was at the court. Tom Fowler, how does the sentence that Skilling received - 24 years and four months - compared with what he might have gotten? Mr. TOM FOWLER (Houston Chronicle): Well, actually it's the absolute bottom range of what the judge said he could receive. Under sentence and guidelines the judge earlier in the hearing said after taking into consideration the damages that he caused, shareholders and other factors including him lying to FCC several years ago, they put the range between 24 years and 30 years. So essentially he got the lowest of the judge thought he could give him under the sentencing guidelines. SIEGEL: When Skilling testified today, what did he say in his own behalf? Mr. FOWLER: Essentially, he said - he's saying that there's a lot - he felt that there's a lot of misconception about him not having any remorse. And he said that he was remorsed. So, but it wasn't the strongest statement of that. He said that he did feel badly for people who lost all their investments and so forth, but really it has ended up and was very adamant about that he's innocent of these charges. I'm innocent of every one of these charges, he told the judge. And is going to continue his constitutional right to continue to appeal. SIEGEL: You said in effect, I did no wrong and I'm deeply remorseful about it. Mr. FOWLER: Actually he even brought up the credit rating of the company. I'll just reiterated his run on the bank theory that he's set from the very beginning that the company didn't have a strong enough credit rating and basically in late 2001, everyone lost faith in the company from a little bit of badness. SIEGEL: Who else apart from Jeffrey Skilling testified today? Mr. FOWLER: There's about - I'd say about 10 ex-employees and shareholders who got up and spoke including actually two of the victims. They're called victims - people who'd lost money actually said, spoke on his behalf, in favor from Sherrie Serra(ph) who's this former administrator. The (unintelligible) got up and actually asked the judge to consider giving him a lesser sentence. SIEGEL: But those who indeed were testifying on the other side were there to say you should sentence him very, very harshly because of what he did to us? Mr. FOWLER: Oh yeah. There's people who we've all spoke and tuned in the past interviews and they were very angry about everything that is done and one person called him a thief and a drunk and sort of laid it on pretty thick. There's a lot of anger in the courtroom, that's for sure. SIEGEL: Now, apart from Skilling's anticipated appeal of the sentence, is this the end of the Enron prosecutions? Mr. FOWLER: Well, it's the end of the larger items. There's still three former British bankers who are here in Houston who are extradited here. They have a trial coming up some time next year. There's still an Enron broadcast case that's still out there. And actually, there's still a lot of the civil things going on. Actually, the government just filed a move today to seize the assets of Ken Lay to a civil forfeiture. So there's other things that are smaller, not that requires much attention but this is really the last major event that I think a lot of people were looking for. SIEGEL: And are the nerves still raw in Houston over Enron? Mr. FOWLER: I think it's tamed a little bit. I think between the Skilling sentencing and then last month we had Andrew Fastow's sentence and he got a sentence that was a lot smaller than many people thought of. I think that sort of re-irritated the wounds in some ways. So it's still an issue here, but a lot of people are moving on. SIEGEL: Thank you very much, Tom. Mr. FOWLER:", "Jury selection begins in the trial of former Enron chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. Mike Pesca uses audio clips from the documentary film <EM>The Smartest Guys in the Room</EM> to recap some key moments before the energy-trading company collapsed in the fall of 2001.", "Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling disputes allegations that he approved moving part of an Enron division into a more profitable one to hide $200 million in losses. Wednesday marked Skilling's seventh day of testimony in his fraud and conspiracy trial, and his third day of cross-examination. ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: In Houston, prosecutors have wrapped up three days of cross-examination of former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Berkowitz questioned Skilling about whether he had hidden hundreds of millions of dollars of company losses. Joining me now from the federal courthouse in Houston is NPR's Wade Goodwyn, and, Wade, the heart of today's exchanges, as I understand it, between the prosecution and Skilling, has been an internal transfer of losses from one division to another. Why is that so important in this case? WADE GOODWYN: Well, it's important because Jeff Skilling was promoting these divisions as adding value to Enron stock. For example, Skilling was out in public saying that Enron's broadband division, by itself, was worth $40 a share. Well, that's fine, but Skilling has got to back up these proclamations by showing in the company's financial statements that these divisions were making money and were actually worth what he said they were. But let's say the retail division was not making money, it was losing money, a lot of money, $200 million in just a few months. If Enron had reported that kind of loss for the retail division, it would've had a dramatic impact on Enron's stock value overall. And even more than that, it would've cast Skilling in a very bad light, make it appear like he couldn't be trusted. So prosecutors allege that Skilling ordered that those retail losses be secretly transferred into the wholesale division, which was making huge profits trading natural gas. And there was prosecution testimony from David Delaney, who headed up that retail division, that Skilling pressured him into going along with this scheme. Delaney has already pleaded guilty to his role, and so Skilling has to swim upstream against that unhappy fact, too. SIEGEL: And, again, the point here for the prosecution was that Skilling was hiding what would've been a red flag to analysts and investors by sticking these losses in another division. GOODWYN: That's right. SIEGEL: And what does Skilling say about that? GOODWYN: He said it didn't happen that way at all, and David Delaney is being pressured by the government to lie to save his own skin, even though Delaney's skin doesn't need to be saved, because Delaney didn't commit any crime. It's a tricky argument Skilling has to make. The prosecution's strength has been the dozen or so former Enron executives that have testified for the government after pleading guilty. In order to claim his innocence, Skilling also has to assert that these executives are innocent, too, since the government's alleging they were all involved in the conspiracy. So today Skilling argued that he didn't think that the retail division was going to have any losses at all, and that the transfer of the division's financial books had nothing to do with trying to hide $200 million in losses, it was just for efficiency's sake. SIEGEL: Wade, this cross-examination has been going on for quite a while. You're getting old watching Sean Berkowitz and Jeff Skilling go at each other. How is it going? GOODWYN: It's interesting to watch, because these are two very fine intellects. Sean Berkowitz is a strong trial lawyer, and to help him prepare for this cross, you can bet he's been tutored by some of the country's best business minds. Skilling also is very smart, and he knows not only Enron's business like the back of his hand, but business in general like the back of his hand. And he's had the advantage of some of the best legal minds in the country preparing him. So even though Berkowitz is operating on Skilling's turf, they were evenly matched. Berkowitz had a line of questions he was using to try to create a narrative. Skilling didn't want the jury to hear Berkowitz's version of the story. So Skilling was forever trying to add information that would mitigate whatever point Berkowitz was trying to make. And the way this manifested itself was a constant struggle between the two of them as to who was going to have control of the floor. Since Berkowitz was the prosecutor, Skilling usually lost. SIEGEL: And still more to come in this confrontation. GOODWYN: Still more to come. We've got, Skilling's last day will probably be on the stand tomorrow. SIEGEL: Okay, thanks. That's NPR's Wade Goodwyn, talking to us from Houston.", "Disgraced former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling — convicted of conspiracy, fraud and insider trading related to the 2001 collapse of the Houston-based energy company — has gotten a decade subtracted from his 24-year sentence. Skilling, 59, has been in prison since he was convicted and sentenced in 2006. With the sentence reduction on Friday and time off for good behavior, he could go free in 2017. \"This is not an easy decision,\" U.S. District Judge Simeon Lake said as he reduced the sentence to 14 years. At the hearing, Lake acknowledged the gravity of Skilling's crimes as well as his charitable works in Houston, and in prison, where he reads to a blind inmate and teaches English and Spanish, according to Reuters. As part of the deal, $40 million of Skilling's fortune, which has been frozen since 2006, will be released and distributed to Enron employees who suffered losses when their company stock suddenly became worthless. The Associated Press says: \"The Justice Department said that in an effort to resolve a case that's gone on for more than 10 years, it agreed to an additional reduction of about 20 months as part of a deal to stop Skilling from filing any more appeals. Federal prosecutors say the deal will allow for the distribution of $41.8 million of Skilling's assets in restitution to victims of Enron's 2001 collapse. Even with the reduced sentence, Skilling's prison term is still the longest of those involved in the Enron scandal. He was the highest-ranking executive to be punished. Enron founder Kenneth Lay's similar convictions were vacated after he died of heart disease less than two months after his trial.\"", "Defense attorney Daniel Petrocelli delivers an impassioned closing argument in the fraud and conspiracy trial of former Enron executives Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay. With defense lawyers finishing their closing arguments, the case is set to go to the jury. Michele Norris talks live with NPR's Wade Goodwyn.", "Former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling's first day of cross-examination saw him defend his sale of millions of dollars in Enron stock. He also repeatedly denied that he advised his ex-wife and girlfriend to sell their Enron stock, too.", "Federal prosecutors in Houston charge former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling in a 42-count indictment that accuses him of conspiracy, insider trading and securities and wire fraud. The charges imply that Skilling was aware of Enron's financial troubles more than a year and half before the company's collapse. Hear NPR's Wade Goodwyn.", "After finding former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling guilty on several counts in their conspiracy and fraud trial, the jury of eight women and four men met with reporters to explain their thinking.", "Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling pleads not guilty as he is indicted on fraud and insider trading charges. Federal prosecutors say Skilling lied about Enron's finances and intentionally deceived investors. Skilling was released after posting bail set at $5 million. Hear NPR's Wade Goodwyn.", "Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling formally surrenders to the FBI in Houston, after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to the company's collapse. Skilling is the highest-ranking former Enron executive to date to face criminal charges. Hear NPR's Bob Edwards and Mary Flood of the <EM>Houston Chronicle</EM>.", "During the opening day of the Enron fraud and conspiracy trial, federal prosecutors present their case against former executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling. Defense lawyers also give their opening statements. The energy giant collapsed in 2001 -- the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history at the time.", "The trial of Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling has prompted some observers to ask, once again, how so many experts were deceived about the financial health of the company. Mike Pesca profiles one Enron investor almost taken in by the illusion of success -- University of Houston business historian Joseph Pratt. He spent many months poring over Enron's records between 1999 and 2001, and far from becoming a skeptic, he wound up almost investing all his money in the company.", "Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling has appealed his fraud convictions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the justices have decided to take his case. They will decide if his trial should have been moved out of Houston and if the law used to win the bulk of his convictions is unconstitutionally vague.", "Enron's former chief accounting officer, Richard Causey, is expected to enter a guilty plea Wednesday rather than stand trial. That could be bad news for the energy corporation's former chairman, Kenneth Lay, and its ex-chief executive officer, Jeffrey Skilling. The Houston Chronicle's John Roper has details of the case.", "Jeffrey Skilling's sentencing for his part in the Enron collapse takes place in Houston. Skilling is the former CEO of Enron, and is accused of pushing the company to bankruptcy in 2001.", "Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling are closer to learning whether their futures lie in prison or liberty. Testimony ended early this week in Lay and Skilling's federal fraud and conspiracy trial, and the jury of eight women and four men return Monday to hear 12 hours of closing arguments. The judge, prosecutors and lawyers for the defense all agree on one thing at this point: This jury is eager to begin deliberating. They've heard more than three months of evidence, and more importantly, they've now heard from the chairman and CEO. The received wisdom among legal experts at the beginning of the Enron trial was that CEO Skilling might do himself serious damage on the stand, a consequence of his arrogance and his temper. Both were qualities for which he was famous at Enron. Chairman Lay on the other hand was perceived as an affable, glad-handing, grandfatherly type who just might save himself by winning over the jury. Both men face the prospect of spending decades in prison if convicted of fraud and conspiracy. But Skilling surprised the pundits by keeping his temper in check, allowing his attorney to guide him through his version of why Enron collapsed. The problem for Skilling wasn't his performance on cross-examination, either. It was what came before -- the parade of his former colleagues, all top executives at Enron, who pointed their fingers at him while admitting their own guilt. His lawyer was forced to argue that these executives were actually innocent, every one of them, and that the Justice Department had managed to intimidate them into pleading guilty. But Lay was supposed to have an easier time of it. The crimes he is alleged to have committed all occurred during the last four months of the company's existence. He was looking toward retirement as chairman of Enron when Skilling announced in August 2001 that he was walking away from the CEO job. Lay was compelled to step back in immediately. It was a fateful decision that ended up putting Lay in the courtroom, next to Skilling. Lay is accused of lying to his employees, investors and analysts about the true financial condition of Enron. Lay's defense is that he believed everything he said, that Enron was a strong company with a bright future. But Enron did not have a bright future; it spiraled down the drain. Lay repeatedly argued that the prosecution's second-guessing of many of the decisions and statements he made during those last four months was a waste of time. Yes, everyone makes mistakes, Lay explained. But unlike prosecutors, he was making decisions in real time. And Lay made it clear that about the only thing he would have changed if he could do it over again was the hiring of Andy Fastow, Enron's crooked chief financial officer. And therein may lie what now appears to be Lay's biggest problem. With every minute on the stand, Lay's sense of being wrongly accused grew. Unlike Skilling, Lay wore his status as defendant as a badge of honor and evidence of long-suffering. He was indignant and not afraid to show it. Several times Lay dressed down his own lawyer George Secrest in front of the court. \"Where are you going with this Mr. Secrest?\" he asked from the witness stand, as if he were the prosecuting attorney objecting to his own lawyer's line of questioning. An editorial cartoon in the Houston Chronicle showed Lay on the witness stand, barking, \"You're incompetent, you're misleading the jury and you're wasting time!\" Judge Sim Lake is pictured leaning in to Lay to remind him, \"That's your lawyer, Mr. Lay.\" Why was Lay doing this, openly displaying his impatience with his own lawyer? No one in the courtroom could be sure. Secrest did seem thrown a bit off stride. Lay's lead attorney, Mike Ramsey, had been sickened with serious cardiovascular illness in the middle of the trial and Secrest had to move from being a backup to the lead. Reporters began hearing rumors that Lay had taken control of his defense, couldn't be reined in, couldn't stop being Chairman. Lay was caught by prosecutors trying to phone potential trial witnesses before and even during the trial. He didn't seem to care that he was upbraiding his own attorney. Lay was angry that he was up there, that prosecutors felt free to second-guess his every decision as chairman of Enron, and that, courtesy of the trial, the whole world got to rummage through his personal finances like an unwanted guest through his medicine cabinet. The \"grandfatherly\" Lay was not available for questioning, to his own lawyer and certainly not to Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hueston. When Hueston began his cross-examination, the courtroom crackled with animosity. On direct, Lay had bemoaned his condition as a victim of character assassination. But Lay and Michael Ramsey had been vocal outside the courtroom, calling the prosecution's witnesses \"trained monkeys\" and \"liars.\" Presumably, the jury was not supposed to know that Lay and his lawyer said these things because they'", "Audio tapes that show how Enron executives manipulated the energy market and drove up prices won't be allowed in the ongoing trial of former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffery Skilling -- but they're already available on the Web. Alex Chadwick talks with Eric Christiansen, assistant general counsel to the Snohomish County Public Utilities District in Washington state, about the recordings of the incriminating phone conversations. Christiansen fought to obtain the tapes, and then made them available to the public -- and the U.S. Department of Justice.", "Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was indicted on 42 counts of fraud and insider trading Thursday. He is the third former Enron executive to be charged in a month. Now questions are being raised about whether authorities will indict Enron's No. 1 man, former Chairman Ken Lay. NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports.", "NPR's Cheryl Corley gives an update on the Arthur Andersen trial. David Duncan testified for a fourth straight day in a Houston courtroom. He pleaded guilty last month to obstruction of justice for shredding Enron-related documents material.", "Madeleine Brand speaks with Bethany McLean of <em>Fortune</em> magazine about this week's testimony from former CEO Jeffrey Skilling. McLean interviewed Skilling for a report on Enron in 2001, and her work helped expose the company's problems.", "David and Tom Gardner discuss Jeff Skilling's congressional testimony, Enron's connection to the film Star Wars, and more of the week's top stories.", "Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, once a high-flying energy trader credited with making Enron one of the most successful corporations in America, now sits in a federal prison serving out a 24-year prison sentence. His lawyers told the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that his conviction should be reversed because he did not get a fair trial and because one of the statutes used to convict him is unconstitutional. Enron's collapse put more than 5,000 people out of work, wiped out more than $2 billion in employee pensions and rendered worthless $60 billion in Enron stock. One-time CEO Skilling was accused of knowing the company was a hollow shell, hiding that fact from shareholders, and at the same time selling his own stock before word got out that the company was crumbling. The government prosecuted Skilling on 18 counts of securities fraud and lying to auditors, and also for conspiracy to deprive the shareholders of his honest services. Skilling's lawyers contend that the honest services law is unconstitutionally vague, and that it tainted the entire trial. They also contend that because the company's collapse was devastating to the Houston economy, and because Enron's leaders were pilloried in the local media, that Skilling could not get a fair trial in Houston where Enron was based. Skilling's lawyer Sri Srinivasan told the justices on Monday that passions ran so high in Houston that the entire U.S. Attorney's Office, some 150 lawyers strong, recused itself from the prosecution. When the case came to trial, said Srinivasan, 80 percent of the jury pool expressed anger or negative views of the defendants. The trial judge not only refused to move the trial out of Houston, but spent only five hours conducting jury screening, Srinivasan said. Compare that, he said, to \"the Oklahoma City bombing case,\" which \"was transferred from Oklahoma City to Denver,\" and still the judge spent 18 days on jury selection. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg seemed skeptical of Srinivasan's comparison: \"I'm unaware of any case in which we have said a change is mandatory when what's involved is money rather life or limb.\" \"The Oklahoma City bombing case,\" she noted, \"was a capital case.\" Justice Samuel Alito asked if a more lengthy screening of the potential jurors, would have made it possible to find a fair and impartial jury in Houston. The danger is that in a case like this, Srinivasan responded, is that where only 46 potential jurors are questioned and where passions are running so high, \"there is too great a risk\" of an unfair trial. There may be 12 jurors who could be unbiased, he said, but the ordinary screening procedure is not adequate. Justice Stephen Breyer asked, \"When does a judge have to do more than is ordinary?\" Srinivasan answered that there has to be \"a wave of public passion\" with a \"pervasive animus directed towards the defendant.\" Lawyer Srinivasan then turned to the second part of his argument, the honest services statute, which makes it a crime for corporate officers or government officials to deprive shareholders or citizens of their honest services. Srinivasan said that the law is so \"unconstitutionally vague\" it is not clear what conduct is illegal. Chief Justice John Roberts seemed unconvinced: \"I don't understand the difficulty,\" he said, saying Skilling concealed information from shareholders \"in a way that harmed them.\" Justice Ginsburg pursued the point: \"He owned shares and he had information that those shares were inflated,\" she said. Further, \"Skilling then sold those shares at a great profit to himself.\" The shareholders didn't have that information and were left holding the bag. Srinivasan dodged the question by stating that the government's definition of honest services is so broad it would \"convert almost any lie in the workplace\" into a felony — even lying about using a computer for personal purposes. Representing the government, Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben contended that the jury selection in Skilling's case was perfectly proper. The judge, he said, worked with the lawyers to create a 14-page juror questionnaire \"designed to ferret out\" problems. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the only justice who has been a trial judge, indicated some concerns: \"Can you tell me any other high-profile case\" where the questioning of potential jurors \"lasted only five hours?\" No, acknowledged Dreeben. Breyer noted that one potential juror had lost $50,000-$60,000 in the Enron collapse, and the judge refused to excuse her for cause. That meant Skilling's lawyers had to use up one of their limited number of automatic challenges to eliminate her from the jury panel. Remarked Sotomayor, \"I would find it strange that we would permit jurors who are victims of the crime to serve as jurors.\" Justice Anthony Kennedy weighed in, saying it was hard for him to think that the jury screening \"would have been much shorter\" even in an ordinary case. Dreeben replied that the jury was, in fact, fair, and he noted that Skillin", "A federal jury in Houston convicts the two former top executives at Enron -- Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling -- of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud in the collapse of the former energy-trading giant. Lay and Skilling now face lengthy prison sentences. Skilling's lawyer said he would appeal the verdict. The verdict in one of the biggest white-collar trials in American history came after the jury deliberated over six days before convicting Skilling on 19 counts out of 28, and Lay on all counts, including four counts of bank fraud in a separate trial. Standing in the packed courtroom, Lay's and Skilling's faces were portraits of anxiety as they awaited the decision. Skilling stood next to his lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, and Lay stood near the back of the defense table so his wife, Linda, could be by his side. Judge Sim Lake read the jury's verdict and Skilling was first: \"guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty...\" Lake's voice rang out the word 19 times as he read off the counts. With Lay next, Judge Lake repeated his guilty refrain. After more than four years of investigation and prosecution, the verdict was an overwhelming success for the federal government. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hueston said the outcome is a message to chief executives around the nation. \"CEOs cannot hide behind accountants; they can't hide behind lawyers; they can't hide behind claims of ignorance,\" he said, \"especially when they're paid tens of millions of dollars to be faithful stewards of shareholders and investors.\" Afterward, the jury of 8 women and 4 men met with the media to explain their findings on the charges of fraud, conspiracy and insider trading. After 16 weeks together, they said they were like a family, and that they are proud of themselves. And they were emphatic that Lay and Skilling were the ones in charge and accountable for the disastrous outcome at Enron. Lay and Skilling, facing decades in prison, will be sentenced on Sept. 11. MELISSA BLOCK, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. MICHELE NORRIS, host: And I'm Michele Norris. The verdict in one of the biggest white-collar trials in American history is in and it is overwhelmingly guilty. Today, a jury convicted former Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling on charges of fraud, conspiracy and insider trading. The jury deliberated over six days before convicting Lay on all counts and Skilling on 19 counts out of 28. In a moment we'll hear reaction from one former Enron employee who helped blow the whistle on the company. First, more on the verdict from NPR's Wade Goodwyn, who was in the courtroom. WADE GOODWYN reporting: As they awaited their fate in the packed courtroom, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling were portraits of anxiety. Skilling stood next to his lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, and Ken Lay stood near the back of the defense table so his wife could be by his side. As the jury filed in, the tension was so high it seemed hard to get a breath. Judge Sim Lake read the jury's verdict and Skilling was first. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. Lake's voice rang out the word 19 times as he read through the counts. Next was Lay and Judge Lake repeated his guilty refrain. The former chairman of Enron was found guilty of every count of conspiracy and fraud he faced. Lay's wife, Linda, began to weep into her husband's shoulder even before his decision was read. Skilling and Petrocelli were the first to leave the courthouse and they put as brave a face on as they could. Mr. DANIEL PETROCELLI (Attorney for Jeff Skilling): We had a trial. Obviously it did not come out the way we had hoped. It doesn't change our view of what happened at Enron and it certainly doesn't change our view of Jeff Skilling's innocence. The jury saw it differently. That was their right and we will take it from here and continue to fight the good fight. GOODWYN: When Jeff Skilling was asked whether he'd ever admit he is guilty and whether he ever committed any crimes, he was succinct. Mr. JEFF SKILLING (Former CEO, Enron): Obviously I'm disappointed, but you know, that's the way the system works. GOODWYN: After more than four years of investigation and prosecution, today's verdict was an overwhelming success for the federal government. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Houston wanted to make sure this outcome was understood as a message to CEOs around the nation. Mr. JOHN HOUSTON (Assistant U.S. Attorney): CEOs cannot hide behind accountants. They can't hide behind lawyers. They can't hide behind claims of ignorance. That's especially when they've been paid tens of millions of dollars to be the faithful stewards of shareholders and investors. GOODWYN: Afterwards, the jury of eight women and four men met with the media to explain their verdict. After 16 weeks together they said they were like a family, a bond closer than friendship, and that they were proud of themselves and their careful deliberations. And they were emphatic that Lay and Skill" ]

[ "Federal climate experts said that it was going to be warmer and drier than usual in California this winter." ]

[ "NOAA has issued its winter outlook for this year, and depending on how you feel about snow, you may want to pack your bags. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicts that much of the \"Northern Plains,\" including Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas, will see above-average precipitation for the winter of 2019-2020. For those who don't like snow, that could be discouraging. But at least temperatures are looking less...", "A milder-than-average winter is predicted across much of the country, federal forecasters said in the official U.S. winter outlook released Thursday.", "Strong northerly winds, known as 'sundowners,' will create an extended period of high fire danger over a large part of Southern California. The winds and the fire risk will continue through Sunday night and can be strongest in some cases during the evening and overnight hours. \"Dry, warm air accompanying the winds will add significantly to the fire threat by making brush more flammable,\" according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Courtney Travis....", "The U.S. Drought Monitor maps show increasing levels of drought in the state. A dry monsoon undercut the drought relief the state gained last winter.", "Dry weather across California has made the air gritty, kept fire risk up, and presented challenges to Lake Tahoe ski resorts, who hope to open in the next week or two.", "Gusty winds and bone-dry conditions have Northern California firefighters on high alert.", "Last month's firestorms that saw dozens of homes consumed by flames across Southern California was just the beginning of what's expected to be a long, dry fire season for the region. The potential for destructive blazes will remain higher than usual for the rest of the year, with above-average temperatures and weak rainfall extending tinderbox conditions, according to the latest seasonal ...", "Wildfires are erupting across California as dry air, dangerous winds and high temperatures take over the Golden State.", "Amid a devastating fire season, the arrival of the wet season in much of California is running behind normal -- and experts say rain may fail to reach some areas until at least the middle of December. The wet season, which is officially declared once measurable precipitation falls on a given area, typically runs from October until April or May. After a later end to the 2018-2019 wet season, the drying period and the fire season had a later start...", "Unusually warm temperatures above Antarctica this month caused the ozone hole to shrink to its smallest size on record according to NOAA scientists.", "Those stray snowflakes you saw flying through the Lehigh Valley on Tuesday were not indicative of what's to come this winter -- at least not through the remainder of this month, nor through the month of December. That's the word from the team at Empire Weather, which provides localized forecasts for The Morning Call. Its staff is predicting a warm start to winter, with increasing cold ...", "WASHINGTON (AP) Expect big swings in weather this winter, government forecasters say. The National Weather Service says the large global forces that help drive broad patterns of winter weather are weak, which often makes for more dramatic changes in local weather every few weeks. It also makes it harder to forecast. \"This is not one of our most confident forecasts,\" said Mike Halpert, deputy director of the service's Climate Prediction Center....", "A wildfire in Sonoma County, California has tripled in size from strong winds and dry conditions; Claudia Cowan reports from the scene.", "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its winter forecast for Florida see what to expect.", "Severe thunderstorms with the potential for isolated tornadoes will threaten the south-central United States after dark on Sunday. The necessary ingredients for thunderstorm development are not expected to come together until Sunday evening, leaving the afternoon hours dry, sunny and very warm across the region. However, weather conditions are predicted to change rapidly after sunset.", "Before a warm-up from this dead-of-winter weather comes later this week, there'll be a chance for snow overnight, and it'll likely play a factor in Wednesday's commute.", "A warning from Memphis Fire Department on how you can stay warm, safely, during this winter weather", "Finally, there's some relief: Dangerous fire weather conditions have expired in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, as Santa Ana winds were expected to continue weakening and overnight fog along the coast was expected to return by Sunday night.", "How effective has the secret formula been in predicting winter weather? The post How Accurate Has the Farmers' Almanac Predicted Winter Weather? appeared first on Reader's Digest.", "Russell, who spent two seasons in Los Angeles with the Lakers before getting traded to the Brooklyn Nets, apparently missed the warm weather, and Minnesota is no match for California in that department.", "AccuWeather's annual winter forecast is out, and water temperatures over the Indian Ocean are forecast to play a significant role in Asia's weather pattern this season by limiting stormy conditions over a large part of the continent. Drier weather will have implications on drought conditions as well as air quality and smog during winter. \"The Indian Ocean Dipole, as it is called, is forecast to be positive during much of this winter,\"...", "Tonight is a night where you may just want to stay in and stay warm and dry.", "A new report by the Army Corps of Engineers says Californians may have to add risk of flooding in desert communities to their list of hardships.", "There's nothing that warms you up quite like dancing and singing to your favorite songs. This winter, it's time to get cozy. Musicians from around the world are making their debut or returning to the Big Apple to perform this winter. Here seven must-see winter concerts in New York City. SuperM If K-pop is your thing, you do not want to miss the avengers of K-pop, Super M. Super M is comprised of members from various big-name k-pop groups such as...", "Our classic chicken soup is the perfect dish to warm you up all winter long.", "Cold air is settling in across much of the U.S. this weekend, while the fire weather threat in Southern California is finally over.", "Santa Ana and Diablo winds, the pattern responsible for frequent and strong wind events in California, are forecast to end soon.", "Santa Ana winds will increase the fire threat across parts of California. A storm system moving into the northwestern United States on Friday will bring areas of rain and mountain snow to the region.", "Winter is the perfect time to make hearty recipes in your Dutch oven. These wholesome recipes will keep you and your family toasty and warm even on the chilliest nights. The post 35 Dutch Oven Recipes for Winter appeared first on Taste of Home.", "SAN FRANCISCO It was a problem that California had come to dread. Weather models were signaling extreme winds and dry conditions from one end of the state to the other. The risk of wildfires was high. Pacific Gas & Electric, the giant utility whose power lines and transformers have been blamed for a series of disastrous wildfires in recent years, was determined to prevent another one. Just before last weekend, the company informed state...", "Wind-driven wildfires burned largely uncontrolled in tinder-dry California early on Tuesday, as firefighters battle blazes threatening thousands of homes in a race against time with even stronger gusts expected later. Colette Luke has more.", "DENVER -- The Denver area has been enjoying sunny and dry conditions the last few days along with seasonal temperatures in the mid-50s. Friday will be warm, with highs jumping about 10 degrees, putting most of metro Denver in the upper 60s and close to 70 degrees. A cold front arrives on Saturday. It will bring weekend temperatures back into the seasonal 50s. There is a chance for a few rain ..." ]

[ "Blondie" ]

[ "10%", "here be dragons", "10 Downing Street/No. 10", "\"King of All Media\"", "\"Hit me!\"", "a hit man", "Interstate 10", "the Pac-10" ]

[ "By Kevin Saylor Site might help break o" ]

[ "The regime has watched the media more closely since last September's uprising by monks.", "Microsoft Windows users need to watch out for several flaws in non-Microsoft media players.", "The UK's most senior military officer Iraq blames media coverage for attacks on Black Watch soldiers.", "Landmark Communications, a Norfolk media company that turned weather-watching into a billion-dollar cable enterprise, is looking to sell.", "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said on Friday he plans to resign after four years of mixed success in pushing a deregulatory approach to the telecommunications and media industries.", "Fox News Channel has fired the host of its weekly \"Fox News Watch\" show that discusses the performance of the news media.", "Once the province of media power players, Allen & Co.&#39;s annual moguls retreat now mixes titans of business, young technology entrepreneurs and political rainmakers.", "Media consumers have been watching the writers’ strike from the sidelines, but they might take notice if the awards season is replaced by marches and pickets.", "While Virgin Media promises great things on-demand Customers of Virgin Media sitting down to watch Ultimate Volcano on Sky One last night were shut off a minute into the programme and presented with the following message:…", "Nineteen million people tuned in to watch the Live Earth concerts on NBC and cable channels affiliated with the network, according to Nielsen Media Research.", "Knowing when to raise or lower your PPC bids depends on the underlying patterns in your campaigns, which are affected by your overall media mix. The complexity of your non-search media plan will determine how difficult it will be to make the right decisions in your search campaigns.", "After decades of dictating what British viewers watch, broadcasters must adapt to the democratic values of the Internet or die, leading media executives said on Friday.", "Watching the World Cup on television may not only kill you, but could give you facial paralysis first, Chinese state media warned on Thursday.", "A month after Katie Couric's heavily promoted debut as anchor of the \"CBS Evening News,\" the viewership ratings presented by Nielsen Media Research offer a mixed message about the extent of her success.", "Media & professional: The BBC hails iPlayer catch-up service as the biggest change in the way we watch television since the introduction of colour 40 years ago.", "Young Chinese couples should think twice about getting too affectionate in public in the Chinese capital -- the chances are they are being watched, state media said on Wednesday.", "The Indianapolis Colts' rainswept victory over the Chicago Bears averaged more than 93 million viewers on Sunday, making it the second most-watched Super Bowl and third most-watched U.S. telecast ever, Nielsen Media Research reported.", "I would like to watch DVDs on my computer with a program that works better than Windows Media Player. Are there any free ones available?", "Media executives in Hollywood and on Wall Street are nervously watching a court case involving Walt Disney that will test whether directors can be held responsible", "About 6,300 people, on average, on any given weekday, are watching the new Fox Business Network, according to early estimates compiled by Nielsen Media Research.", "Transformers is a movie in 2007 because of the toy-media industrial complex invented in the 1980s. That's when sprawling lines of figures started to be marketed as characters in a ready-mixed narrative, making them must-have collectibles.", "A surge of admirers who came to watch actor Aishwarya Rai shoot a commercial in Dubai caused massive jams on city roads, local media reported.", "Vietnam has suspended a popular news Web site for failing to obtain a government operating license, state-controlled media reported Wednesday.", "Some four billion people are expected to watch the 2008 Beijing Olympics on television, a billion more than the Athens Games in 2004, state media reported on Wednesday.", "Microsoft is giving students free access to its most sophisticated tools for writing software and making media-rich Web sites.", "'Down with link sellers' Google has confirmed that the recent update to its \"visible PageRank\" system is an effort to crackdown on sites trying to rig this closely-watched web popularity contest.…", "Seven people were killed early on Saturday when a car plowed into roadside spectators watching a high-speed street race in a town near Washington, according to media reports.", "France&#39;s decision to back a leading socialist to head the IMF brought mixed reactions at home on Sunday, while media reports suggested Italy and Poland might yet put forward competing candidates.", "China shut down 44,000 Web sites and arrested 868 people for Internet pornography last year, state media said Wednesday.", "More than 62 million US viewers tuned in to the first of three presidential debates in this year's election campaign, making it the most watched since 1992, according to Nielsen Media Research.", "A Web site commissioned by the TSA to help travelers whose names were erroneously listed on airline watch lists had security issues, a Congressional report says.", "The new breed of portable media players is finally here, but the devices are too small to comfortably watch movies on and too bulky to compete with my MP3 music player." ]

[ "Williams, 29, who spent two seasons with the Blues between 2011 and 2013, was a free agent after fellow Women's Super League (WSL) top-flight club Notts County folded in April.\nShe is the third ex-Notts County player to find a new club on the same day.\nLiverpool signed one of her England team-mates, defender Amy Turner, while Wales international Angharad James has gone to Yeovil.\nLeicester-born Williams was voted Players' Player of the Year at the FA Women's Football Awards in 2011.\nShe then scored an injury-time equaliser when Birmingham beat Chelsea on penalties to win the Women's FA Cup in 2012.\nAnd she was part of the Blues team who narrowly missed out on the WSL title on the final day of the season in 2014, scoring 14 goals in as many games.\nWilliams, who started at home-town club Leicester City prior to joining Doncaster Belles, signed for Chelsea in 2014 before moving on in 2015 to Notts County." ]

[ "The 24-year-old England international has been with the Blues since 2011 after coming through the youth system at Arsenal Ladies.\nShe has also spent time out on loan at Nottingham Forest and Los Angeles Strikers.\n\"This is a fantastic move for me and I am really looking forward to the start of the season,\" she said.\n\"I had a great year with Chelsea Ladies last season winning the double but this is a brilliant move for me and hopefully I can help Liverpool Ladies to improve on last season.\"\nHer move to Liverpool was announced shortly after Chelsea completed the signing of England's Karen Carney from Birmingham City Ladies.", "The Notts County Ladies striker has been selected in manager Mark Sampson's squad for the matches against Norway and Sweden in Spain in late January.\nLeicester-born Williams, 28, was last called up in April 2013 and was \"shocked\" by her international return.\n\"I never retired from England and never gave up on the idea of playing again,\" she told BBC Radio Leicester.\n\"But it got to a point after three years where I thought, 'I've had my time'.\n\"At first I thought someone was having me on.\"\nWilliams' club team-mates Carly Telford, Jo Potter, Jade Moore and Ellen White have also been chosen.\nIt was England Lionesses regular Bassett who alerted Williams to the good news about being part of the 28-player squad for the games against Norway at La Manga Club on Sunday, 22 January, and Sweden at the Pinatar Arena on Tuesday, 24 January.\nWilliams said: \"She texted me to say 'you really need to check your emails'.\n\"She's like my fairy godmother; she watches over me. She's brilliant.\"\nThe last of 13 caps Williams won came under Hope Powell in 2013, and she is thrilled to be involved under Sampson for the first time, with the chance to prove she is worth keeping in the squad for Euro 2017 in the Netherlands.\n\"I will be like a kid in a sweet shop,\" the former Leicester, Birmingham and Chelsea forward said. \"It's doing something I love doing every day. I can't wait to get out there.\n\"For me, it is going out there and showing him what I have got. Hopefully I can impress and get called up to the next camp.\"\nOn 10 January, Williams signed an extended contract with Notts, having been with the Women's Super League One club since 2015.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nThe 25-year-old former Everton Ladies forward is the first English player to join the Catalan club since Gary Lineker's move to the Nou Camp in 1986.\nDuggan has scored 15 goals in 47 senior appearances for England and is part of their squad for Women's Euro 2017.\nBBC Sport understands no transfer fee was exchanged, as Duggan's contract had been set to expire in November 2017.\nAfter arriving from Everton in November 2013, Duggan helped City win the Women's Super League One title for the first time in 2016 and was part of the squad that won this year's Women's FA Cup.\nShe was also part of the England side that finished third in the 2015 Women's World Cup in Canada.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\n\"FC Barcelona are known all over the world for playing attractive football and I naturally wanted to be part of that,\" Duggan said. \"I think my style of play will suit the team and I'm honoured to be part of the club.\n\"My new coach Fran Sanchez has told me that their ambition is to win the Women's Champions League and the club have made that very clear with their signings over the years.\n\"I've had a lot of success in England and I've really enjoyed my time with Manchester City but I wanted to challenge myself even further by playing abroad. I'm also looking forward to learning Spanish and living in the city.\"\nLike City, Barcelona reached the Women's Champions League semi-finals for the first time in their history in 2016-17, and finished second in the Spanish top flight last term.\nThey have increased their investment in women's football markedly in recent years, re-signing Spain midfielder Vicky Losada from Arsenal in November.\nBarcelona are in talks with the American National Women's Soccer League about entering a team for 2018, having opened a permanent office in New York in September.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nThe NWSL has never previously included a European side but is fully professional, in contrast to the Spanish top tier, which includes some semi-professional sides.\nDuggan scored four goals in four league appearances in the 2017 Spring Series and a fine individual goal in the Women's Champions League.\nThe Liverpool-born striker will become the only member of the current England Women squad to be based abroad.\nIn total, she scored 31 goals in 74 appearances for Manchester City.", "England take on the three top-ranked teams in the world - the USA, Germany and France - in the tournament.\nHead coach Mark Sampson has made seven changes to the squad that lost to Norway and drew with Sweden in January.\nNotts County striker Rachel Williams retains her place, while Chelsea forward Eniola Aluko is left out again.\nEngland face France in their opener on 1 March in Pennsylvania.\nThey then face the hosts and world champions in New Jersey on 4 March and European and Olympic champions Germany in Washington on 7 March.\nFollowing that, Sampson's squad are expected to play several other friendlies before their Euro 2017 campaign gets under way against Scotland on 19 July in the Netherlands.\nEngland came third in the SheBelieves Cup last year, drawing with France and losing narrowly to Germany and the US.\nSampson said: \"Last year we came close but didn't get over the line. This year we need to put that right and find our way to win. We are improving with every camp and we go to the US in the best shape we have been as a group.\n\"We'll be coming up against some really tough opposition but winning this tournament has to be our objective and would be a real feather in our cap going into the Euros.\"\nGoalkeepers: Karen Bardsley (Manchester City), Siobhan Chamberlain (Liverpool), Mary Earps (Reading)\nDefenders: Laura Bassett (Notts County), Millie Bright (Chelsea), Lucy Bronze (Manchester City), Rachel Daly (Houston Dash), Steph Houghton (Manchester City), Jo Potter (Notts County), Alex Scott (Arsenal), Casey Stoney (Liverpool), Demi Stokes (Manchester City)\nMidfielders: Isobel Christiansen (Manchester City), Jade Moore (Notts County), Jordan Nobbs (Arsenal), Jill Scott (Manchester City), Fara Williams (Arsenal)\nForwards: Karen Carney (Chelsea), Toni Duggan (Manchester City), Nikita Parris (Manchester City), Jodie Taylor (Arsenal), Rachel Williams (Notts County), Ellen White (Birmingham City).", "Versatile forward Clarke, 27, has signed from Notts County Ladies, where she spent the previous six years.\nShe scored five times in 15 league appearances for Notts last season.\nCoombs, 26, who has two England caps and spent 2016 on a season-long loan at Liverpool from Chelsea Ladies, has joined the Reds on a permanent deal.\nLiverpool, who finished fifth in WSL 1 last season, begin their Spring Series campaign away to promoted Yeovil Town on 23 April, following their Women's FA Cup semi-final at Manchester City on 17 April.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nOf the 23 England Lionesses that finished third overall in Canada, 17 made league appearances on Sunday.\nA new club-record crowd of 2,102 saw Manchester City beat Birmingham City 1-0 at the Academy Stadium.\nThe average attendance of Sunday's WSL 1 games was 78% higher than the average for the first half of the 2015 season.\nThe 2,061 who saw Liverpool win 3-1 at Arsenal was more than two-and-a-half times the crowd for the Gunners' last home game.\nMeanwhile, more than 1,200 fans watched Chelsea beat Bristol Academy 4-1 at Staines Town, while nearly 1,000 people were at the Hetton Centre to see Sunderland snatch a late win over Notts County.\nThe results saw Chelsea extend their lead at the top of WSL 1 to five points, while Manchester City and Liverpool's wins mean there are now just four points separating second and sixth.\nSouth Korea forward Ji So-Yun was among the goalscorers for Chelsea, who have won five of their seven league games so far.\nEngland midfielder Fara Williams' long-range strike opened the scoring for Liverpool, as they secured their first away points of the season.\nLionesses forward Toni Duggan gave Man City their second league win of 2015, while Birmingham remain winless so far, along with bottom-club Bristol.\nBeth Mead's stoppage-time strike moved Sunderland up to third - continuing the Lady Black Cats' impressive start to life in WSL 1 after their promotion last year.", "The 32-year-old was a member of England's World Cup squad that finished third in Canada earlier this year.\nShe had a spell on loan at Notts County last season and left Arsenal Ladies at the end of the campaign.\nHer arrival follows Thursday's signing of Sophie Ingle and she told the club website: \"This is a fantastic move for me and I cannot wait to get started.\"\nReds manager Scott Rogers said: \"This is a really important signing for the club - Siobhan is an England international whose experience will be crucial next season.\"", "The 22-year-old, who will cost an undisclosed fee, has agreed a two-and-half-year contract.\nShe netted twice in 20 games for Birmingham in 2016, helping them finish fourth and reach the Continental Cup final, which they lost to her new club.\nLawley is Nick Cushing's side's first new signing of the winter.\n\"I'm excited for the opportunity to show my potential and what I can do,\" she told the Manchester City website.\n\"I sat down with Nick and spoke about how I can improve as a player - under his leadership and alongside the quality players that are already here.\n\"I want to become a better player and I hope it will help my international career as well. These facilities and the standard of football will push me on.\"\nShe will officially join Manchester City when the WSL transfer window re-opens in January.", "The 21-year-old scored 11 goals while on loan at the Blues as they finished runners up in the Women's Super League.\nThe England Under-23 international is the sister of Natasha Jonas - Britain's first female Olympic boxer.\n\"I'm really happy to have signed permanently. I'm so glad because here at City I feel I've got a place I can call home,\" she told the club website.\n\"It was an easy decision for me. I wanted to stay in WSL 1 and I didn't want to go to any other club.\"", "The Norway international, 23, is their fourth foreign signing in three months.\n\"Signing Andrine is another wonderful addition to the club and the FAWSL,\" said Blues Ladies manager David Parker.\n\"Her stature in the game is already up there with the most promising players in Europe. We want to help her achieve the status she is capable of reaching, as one of the best players in Europe.\"\nThe signing of Hegerberg follows the arrival of three Germans, striker Isabelle Linden from Champions League holders FFC Frankfurt, full-back Corina Schroder from Liverpool and defender Marisa Ewers from Bayer Leverkusen.\nThey have all been signed for the second half of the Womens Super League season, which will resume for Blues on 29 June at home to Arsenal.\n\"I've had three good years in Gothenburg,\" said twice-capped Hegerberg, who has signed subject to international clearance.\n\"But I felt the time was ready to take on a new challenge and I can't wait to get stuck in with Birmingham.\"\nBlues went into the mid-season break after two wins in three matches to climb to third in WSL 1, seven points behind leaders Manchester City.", "After Jo Potter's strike was parried, Allen struck home from close range in the second half.\nThe visitors had chances to secure a point with Angharad James, Ellen White and Ellen White going close.\nThe three points means the Blues sit third, just a point off the top two while Notts County remain sixth.\nMatch ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Notts County Ladies 0.\nSecond Half ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Notts County Ladies 0.\nRachel Yankey (Notts County Ladies) is shown the yellow card.\nMelissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) is shown the yellow card.\nFoul by Emily Westwood (Birmingham City Ladies).\nAngharad James (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Ellie Brazil replaces Freda Ayisi.\nAttempt saved. Leanne Crichton (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.\nSubstitution, Notts County Ladies. Aileen Whelan replaces Ellen White.\nCorner, Notts County Ladies. Conceded by Jade Moore.\nFoul by Melissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies).\nAmy Turner (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Emily Westwood (Birmingham City Ladies).\nRachel Williams (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nAttempt saved. Melissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal.\nFoul by Jessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies).\nDanielle Buet (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nJade Moore (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Rachel Williams (Notts County Ladies).\nSubstitution, Notts County Ladies. Rachel Williams replaces Aivi Luik.\nJade Moore (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Angharad James (Notts County Ladies).\nAttempt missed. Jade Moore (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the right.\nAttempt saved. Emily Westwood (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.\nJessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Jessica Clarke (Notts County Ladies).\nSubstitution, Notts County Ladies. Danielle Buet replaces Maja Krantz.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Laura Bassett.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Fern Whelan.\nFoul by Remi Allen (Birmingham City Ladies).\nLeanne Crichton (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nAttempt saved. Emily Westwood (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1, Notts County Ladies 0. Remi Allen (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from very close range to the centre of the goal.\nCorner, Notts County Ladies. Conceded by Remi Allen.\nCorner, Notts County Ladies. Conceded by Sophie Baggaley.\nAttempt saved. Jessica Clarke (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner.\nSecond Half begins Birmingham City Ladies 0, Notts County Ladies 0.\nFirst Half ends, Birmingham City Ladies 0, Notts County Ladies 0.\nMelissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nFoul by Aivi Luik (Notts County Ladies).", "Mel Lawley's late cross was parried by keeper Rachael Laws into the path of Wellings and she finished.\nBirmingham went close to taking the lead within seven minutes as Chloe Peplow fired over after finding space on the edge of the box.\nSunderland defended well but were unable to keep the hosts out.\nThe Lady Black Cats remain in seventh on six points, having won just once this season.\nBirmingham City Ladies manager David Parker:\n\"I'm not really relieved, it's more a feeling of satisfaction and justification because we fully deserved the result and now we can put Arsenal and Chelsea under high pressure.\n\"I said to the girls before the game that if we have aspirations to get into the Champions League, no disrespect to Sunderland, but we need to be winning these games.\n\"We were able to get to the ball into the final third all throughout the game today and for some reason we struggled to make that final ball count and it looked like it we wouldn't be able to make the breakthrough.\n\"But full credit to the girls, they absolutely deserved it. And I'm absolutely delighted for Charlie because her persistence today has paid dividends.\"\nSunderland Ladies manager Carlton Fairweather:\n\"Massively frustrating in the manner of the defeat, especially how cheaply we've given the goal away in the last few minutes because the girls, by and large, defended heroically.\n\"Birmingham are a good side and although they had a lot of the ball they didn't really cause us any major issues throughout, it's something that we'll hopefully learn from.\n\"Games are coming thick and fast now and we need to make sure we can defend well and see the job through to the final minutes.\n\"On balance it was really one piece of individual play that has caused us to come unstuck today, with Mel Lawley's cross.\"\nMatch ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Sunderland Ladies 0.\nSecond Half ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Sunderland Ladies 0.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Steph Bannon.\nFoul by Abbey-Leigh Stringer (Birmingham City Ladies).\nMegan Beer (Sunderland Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nIsabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nFoul by Steph Bannon (Sunderland Ladies).\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Marisa Ewers replaces Freda Ayisi.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1, Sunderland Ladies 0. Charlie Wellings (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from the right side of the six yard box to the top right corner.\nFoul by Jessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies).\nDanielle Brown (Sunderland Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nAttempt missed. Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Alex Windell with a cross.\nAttempt blocked. Freda Ayisi (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Alex Windell.\nSubstitution, Sunderland Ladies. Megan Beer replaces Abby Holmes.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Hayley Sharp.\nHand ball by Kerys Harrop (Birmingham City Ladies).\nSubstitution, Sunderland Ladies. Keira Ramshaw replaces Lucy Staniforth.\nSubstitution, Sunderland Ladies. Charlotte Potts replaces Rachel Furness.\nDelay over. They are ready to continue.\nDelay in match Rachel Furness (Sunderland Ladies) because of an injury.\nFoul by Alex Windell (Birmingham City Ladies).\nMadelaine Hill (Sunderland Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nAttempt saved. Lucy Staniforth (Sunderland Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top centre of the goal. Assisted by Danielle Brown.\nAttempt blocked. Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Freda Ayisi.\nAbbey-Leigh Stringer (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Lucy Staniforth (Sunderland Ladies).\nDelay over. They are ready to continue.\nDelay in match Rachael Laws (Sunderland Ladies) because of an injury.\nIsabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nFoul by Abby Holmes (Sunderland Ladies).\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Beth Mead.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Abby Holmes.\nAttempt blocked. Melissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from the left side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Jessica Carter with a cross.\nDelay over. They are ready to continue.\nDelay in match Rachel Furness (Sunderland Ladies) because of an injury.\nFoul by Abbey-Leigh Stringer (Birmingham City Ladies).\nRachel Furness (Sunderland Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nDelay over. They are ready to continue.\nDelay in match Rachael Laws (Sunderland Ladies) because of an injury.\nFoul by Kerys Harrop (Birmingham City Ladies).", "After the pre-season transfer window from 1 January to 18 March and the first half of the league campaign, Manchester City Women lead the WSL 1 table ahead of defending champions Chelsea Ladies and third-placed Birmingham City.\nKeep up to date with all of the key confirmed signings before the season resumes on 26 June.\nMedia playback is not supported on this device\nIn\nKatie McCabe (Shelbourne FC, forward)\nDanielle van de Donk (Goteborg FC, midfielder)\nFara Williams (Liverpool, midfielder)\nJosephine Henning (Paris St-Germain, defender)\nAsisat Oshoala (Liverpool, striker)\nOut\nSiobhan Chamberlain (Liverpool, goalkeeper)\nChioma Ubogagu (Houston Dash, forward)\nJade Bailey (Chelsea, midfielder)\nCarla Humphrey (Doncaster Rovers Belles, midfielder, on loan)\nIn\nAndrine Hegerberg (Kopparbergs/Gothenburg, midfielder)\nIsabelle Linden (FFC Frankfurt, striker)\nMarisa Ewers (Bayer Leverkusen, defender)\nCorina Schroder, (Liverpool, defender)\nAnn-Katrin Berger (PSG, goalkeeper)\nOut\nJo Potter (Unattached, midfielder)\nJade Moore (Unattached, midfielder)\nRemi Allen (Reading, midfielder)\nChristina Torkildsen (Coventry United, midfielder)\nKaren Carney (Chelsea, midfielder)\nChelsea Weston (Notts County, defender)\nBecky Spencer (Chelsea, goalkeeper)\nIn\nKaren Carney (Birmingham City, winger)\nBecky Spencer (Birmingham City, goalkeeper)\nJade Bailey (Arsenal, midfielder)\nBeth England (Doncaster Rovers Belles, midfielder)\nOut\nMarija Banusic (Eskilstuna, forward)\nMarie Hourihan (Manchester City, goalkeeper)\nJenna Dear (Everton, midfielder)\nLaura Coombs (Liverpool, midfielder, on loan)\nMillie Farrow (Bristol City, striker, on loan)\nJodie Brett (Bristol City, midfielder, on loan)\nAtlanta Primus (Yeovil Town, midfielder)\nIn\nJess Sigsworth (Notts County, striker)\nAnna Moorhouse (Durham, goalkeeper)\nBecky Easton (Liverpool, defender)\nKatrin Omarsdottir (Liverpool, midfielder)\nNatasha Dowie (Liverpool, striker)\nCarla Humphrey (Arsenal, midfielder, on loan)\nAlexandra Gummer (Adelaide United, defender)\nMaz Pacheco (Liverpool, defender, on loan)\nOut\nBeth England (Chelsea, midfielder)\nIn\nSophie Ingle (Bristol City, midfielder)\nSiobhan Chamberlain (Arsenal, goalkeeper)\nLaura Coombs (Chelsea, midfielder, on loan)\nCaroline Weir (Bristol City, midfielder)\nEmma Lundh (Lillestrom SK, striker)\nMandy van den Berg (Lillestrom SK, defender)\nNatasha Harding (Manchester City, midfielder)\nAlex Greenwood (Notts County, defender)\nShanice Van De Sanden (FC Twente, striker)\nOut\nBecky Easton (Doncaster Rovers Belles, defender)\nIngrid Ryland (undisclosed club, defender)\nLine Smorsgard (undisclosed club, striker)\nKatrin Omarsdottir (Doncaster Rovers Belles, midfielder)\nLibby Stout (Boston Breakers, goalkeeper)\nNatasha Dowie (Doncaster Rovers Belles, striker)\nFara Williams (Arsenal, midfielder)\nLucy Staniforth (Sunderland, midfielder)\nHannah Dale (Bristol, midfielder, on loan)\nCorina Schroder, (Birmingham City, defender)\nMaz Pacheco (Doncaster Rovers Belles, defender, on loan)\nIn\nTessel Middag (Ajax, midfielder)\nMegan Campbell (Florida State University, defender)\nJane Ross (Vittsjo, striker)\nMarie Hourihan (Chelsea, goalkeeper)\nNikita Parris (Everton, striker)\nKosovare Asllani (Paris St-Germain, striker)\nOut\nKrystle Johnston (Sunderland, midfielder)\nEmma Lipman (Sheffield FC, defender)\nKathleen Radtke (MSV Duisburg, defender)\nNatasha Flint (Notts County, striker)\nAlex Brooks (Everton, goalkeeper, on loan)\nNatasha Harding (Liverpool, midfielder)\nGeorgia Brougham (Everton, defender)\nIn\nJo Potter (Unattached, midfielder)\nJade Moore (Unattached, midfielder)\nLizzie Durack (Havard University, goalkeeper)\nNatasha Flint (Preston North End, striker)\nMegan Walsh (Everton, goalkeeper)\nMaja Krantz (Linkoping, defender)\nAngharad James (Bristol City, midfielder)\nAivi Luik (Melbourne, defender)\nChelsea Weston (Birmingham, defender)\nRachel Yankey (Arsenal, midfielder, on loan)\nOut\nJess Sigsworth (Doncaster Rovers Belles, striker)\nAlex Greenwood (Liverpool, defender)\nDesiree Scott (Kansas City, midfielder)\nIn\nRemi Allen (Birmingham City, midfielder)\nKayleigh Hines (Oxford United, midfielder)\nAmber Stobbs (Washington Spirit, striker)\nJade Boho-Sayo (Bristol City, striker)\nMary Earps (Bristol City, goalkeeper)\nOut\nEllie Wilson (Bristol City, defender)\nIn\nLucy Staniforth (Liverpool, midfielder)\nKylla Sjoman (Celtic, defender)\nKrystle Johnston (Manchester City, midfielder)\nRachel Pitman (DePaul University in Chicago, defender)\nOut\nRebekah Bass (Middlesbrough, midfielder)\nSarah McFadden (Durham, defender)", "She made 10 appearances for Durham Women last term, but her departure was announced two days ago.\n\"With training more, I want to improve both technically and physically, and then if I'm given the opportunity to play I'll take it and play well,\" she told the Belles website.\n\"When she played against us, she was outstanding,\" said boss Glen Harris.", "Yankey, 36, is one of England's most-capped players with 129 appearances and has been with Arsenal for 11 years.\n\"Everyone in and around the game is more than aware of the devastating effect she can have on a game,\" manager Rick Passmoor told the club website.\nArsenal allowed Yankey to leave after signing Nigeria forward Asisat Oshoala.\nAustralia international defender Luik, 31, signed a two-year deal while ex-Birmingham City and Doncaster Belles defender Weston, 26, also agreed a contract with the Lady Pies.\nLuik won the W-League title with Melbourne this season and has also played for Brisbane Roar, as well as Danish side Brondby.\n\"Aivi has a wealth of experience, something which will only help our younger defenders,\" Passmoor added. \"Chelsea has great experience in the WSL, having been an ever-present in the league over the seasons.\"\nAnother of their pre-season signings, Natasha Flint, left the Women's Super League One club earlier this week.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nThe Birmingham City captain has scored 23 times since making her international debut against Italy in 2005.\n\"Karen is a great person and incredible football talent; in my eyes one of the best in the world,\" said Sampson.\nA record attendance of 55,000 is expected for the national team's first match at Wembley.\nEight of the Team GB side that beat Brazil at Wembley in the 2012 Olympics are in the squad to face the European champions.\nCasey Stoney, whose partner Megan Harris gave birth to twins last week, is excluded on fitness grounds.\nThe game marks the beginning of preparations for the FIFA Women's World Cup, which takes place in Canada next summer. England qualified with 10 wins out of 10.\nKaren Bardsley (Manchester City), Siobhan Chamberlain (Arsenal), Carly Telford (Notts County); Laura Bassett (Chelsea), Lucy Bronze (Liverpool), Alex Greenwood (Everton), Steph Houghton (Manchester City), Claire Rafferty (Chelsea), Alex Scott (Arsenal), Demi Stokes (University of South Florida); Karen Carney (Birmingham City), Jade Moore (Birmingham City), Jordan Nobbs (Arsenal), Jo Potter (Birmingham City), Jill Scott (Manchester City), Fara Williams (Liverpool); Eniola Aluko (Chelsea), Jess Clarke (Notts County), Toni Duggan (Manchester City), Fran Kirby (Reading), Lianne Sanderson (Boston Breakers), Kelly Smith (Arsenal), Jodie Taylor (Washington Spirit).", "The 20-year-old re-signed for the Vixens on loan from Chelsea for the Women's Super League One Spring Series, which begins on 22 April.\nA Bristol City statement on Wednesday said: \"A scan last week confirmed she has ruptured her ACL a few weeks ago.\"\nThe ex-England Under-19 striker scored 11 goals in all competitions in 2016.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nSunderland's Rachael Laws, 25, has been called up to replace the 32-year-old Liverpool keeper, who has a knee injury.\nEngland face Belgium in Rotherham on Friday, before travelling to Zenica to play Bosnia on Tuesday.\nThe Lionesses have won both their qualifying games so far.\nGoalkeepers: Karen Bardsley (Manchester City), Rachael Laws (Sunderland), Carly Telford (Notts County)\nDefenders: Laura Bassett (Notts County), Lucy Bronze (Manchester City), Gilly Flaherty (Chelsea), Alex Greenwood (Liverpool), Steph Houghton (Manchester City), Alex Scott (Arsenal), Casey Stoney (Arsenal), Demi Stokes (Manchester City), Amy Turner (Notts County)\nMidfielders: Katie Chapman (Chelsea), Jordan Nobbs (Arsenal), Jo Potter (Birmingham City), Jill Scott (Manchester City), Fara Williams (Arsenal)\nForwards: Eniola Aluko (Chelsea), Karen Carney (Chelsea), Gemma Davison (Chelsea), Toni Duggan (Manchester City), Fran Kirby (Chelsea), Ellen White (Notts County).", "The Lionesses will face Norway on Sunday 22 January and Sweden two days later with both games in Murcia.\nNotts County striker Rachel Williams returns to the squad for the first time since April 2013.\nHer team-mates Ellen White and Carly Telford are recalled along with Chelsea duo Millie Bright and Claire Rafferty.\nEngland are preparing for July's European Championship in the Netherlands and Sampson said: \"This camp gives us the chance to kick off a massively exciting year for us on the right foot.\n\"We have a lot of work to do to be the team we want to become at the Euros. Our aim this year is to hit the highest levels we ever have and ultimately to win the Euros,\n\"As we are in pre-season we may be a little off the pace football-wise but I expect the players to be physically and psychologically ready to compete.\"\nSquad\nGoalkeepers: Karen Bardsley (Manchester City), Siobhan Chamberlain (Liverpool), Mary Earps (Reading), Carly Telford (Notts County)\nDefenders: Laura Bassett (Notts County), Gemma Bonner (Liverpool), Millie Bright (Chelsea), Lucy Bronze (Manchester City), Gilly Flaherty (Chelsea), Steph Houghton (Manchester City), Jo Potter (Notts County), Claire Rafferty (Chelsea), Alex Scott (Arsenal), Demi Stokes (Manchester City)\nMidfielders: Isobel Christiansen (Manchester City), Jade Moore (Notts County), Jordan Nobbs (Arsenal), Jill Scott (Manchester City), Fara Williams (Arsenal)\nForwards: Karen Carney (Chelsea), Danielle Carter (Arsenal), Rachel Daly (Houston Dash), Gemma Davison (Chelsea), Toni Duggan (Manchester City), Nikita Parris (Manchester City), Jodie Taylor (Arsenal), Rachel Williams (Notts County), Ellen White (Notts County)", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nLucy Bronze headed the opener following a free-kick and crossed for Izzy Christiansen to crash home the second.\nLloyd's header capped a fine 14-minute spell to make it 3-0 by the break.\nCharlie Wellings' goal gave Birmingham brief hope, but Jill Scott's fierce shot sealed City's victory in front of a competition-record crowd at Wembley.\nThe 2016 Women's Super League champions are now in possession of all three main domestic honours - the first team to do so since Arsenal Ladies in 2011.\nBirmingham had knocked out holders Arsenal and 2015 champions Chelsea to make the final, but the 2012 winners never looked like repeating that feat on their first trip to Wembley in front of 35,271 fans.\nBefore 2014, Manchester City Women had never lifted a major trophy - but they are now closing in on a potential clean sweep of all four domestic honours in the space of nine months.\nHaving won the WSL and Continental Cup last year, they will hope to add the WSL Spring Series to their Women's FA Cup success.\nManchester City, who also reached the Champions League semi-finals in May, had never even played in the top flight when Birmingham won the FA Cup in 2012.\nCity's relentlessly aggressive pressing game and dominant defence laid the foundation for a ruthless victory which was as good as sealed by the interval.\nBirmingham's inability to retain possession under persistent pressure led to them conceding territory and numerous free-kicks and corners, where City's set-piece superiority twice told in a one-sided first half.\nMoments after a near-post corner almost brought an opening goal for Megan Campbell with a neat flicked effort, Bronze darted in to convert Campbell's inviting inswinging free-kick for a 1-0 lead.\nBronze then bustled Paige Williams out of possession and picked out Christiansen with a delightful cross.\nCity's preference to stretch play and attack down the flanks had meant that, despite being 2-0 up, Lloyd was a peripheral figure for the opening 30 minutes.\nShe had shown glimpses of her technical ability and vision but made her quality count when she rose above flapping Blues keeper Ann-Katrin Berger to head home another Campbell cross following a short corner.\nCity stayed in control despite facing an improved Blues side after the break, with the lively Nikita Parris having a shot tipped wide and Steph Houghton sending a header off target.\nBirmingham were rewarded for their efforts through Wellings' curled effort, but Scott showed some nifty footwork to fire in a fourth goal after good work by substitute Toni Duggan.\nManchester City captain Houghton, who will also lead England at Euro 2017 this summer, described the FA Cup as \"the one we were missing\" after their final triumph.\n\"Credit to all the girls and all the staff, we've worked so hard,\" she told BBC Radio 5 live. \"We've had a tireless schedule, but we were the best team on the day.\n\"The aim was to win as many trophies with this team as I could. To be captain of this club is unbelievable - but to win the FA Cup at Wembley, it's what dreams are made of.\"\nMatch ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Manchester City Women 4.\nSecond Half ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Manchester City Women 4.\nAttempt missed. Georgia Stanway (Manchester City Women) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Carli Lloyd.\nAttempt saved. Stephanie Houghton (Manchester City Women) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal.\nAoife Mannion (Birmingham City Ladies) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\nFoul by Aoife Mannion (Birmingham City Ladies).\nCarli Lloyd (Manchester City Women) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nOffside, Manchester City Women. Carli Lloyd tries a through ball, but Toni Duggan is caught offside.\nJessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\nAbbie McManus (Manchester City Women) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Jessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies).\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Abbey-Leigh Stringer replaces Paige Williams.\nFoul by Jessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies).\nIsobel Christiansen (Manchester City Women) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nAttempt blocked. Charlie Wellings (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\nCorner, Manchester City Women. Conceded by Paige Williams.\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Chloe Peplow replaces Andrine Hegerberg.\nLucy Bronze (Manchester City Women) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nFoul by Kerys Harrop (Birmingham City Ladies).\nAttempt missed. Ellen White (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box is high and wide to the left. Assisted by Jessica Carter with a cross.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1, Manchester City Women 4. Jill Scott (Manchester City Women) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the top left corner. Assisted by Toni Duggan.\nAnn-Katrin Berger (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Georgia Stanway (Manchester City Women).\nSubstitution, Manchester City Women. Abbie McManus replaces Megan Campbell.\nOffside, Birmingham City Ladies. Kerys Harrop tries a through ball, but Paige Williams is caught offside.\nKaren Bardsley (Manchester City Women) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Ellen White (Birmingham City Ladies).\nAttempt blocked. Ellie Brazil (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Jessica Carter.\nCorner, Manchester City Women. Conceded by Meaghan Sargeant.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1, Manchester City Women 3. Charlie Wellings (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from the right side of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Ellie Brazil.\nAttempt missed. Stephanie Houghton (Manchester City Women) header from the centre of the box misses to the right. Assisted by Toni Duggan with a cross following a corner.\nCorner, Manchester City Women. Conceded by Kerys Harrop.\nAttempt missed. Stephanie Houghton (Manchester City Women) header from the centre of the box misses to the right. Assisted by Toni Duggan with a cross following a corner.\nSubstitution, Manchester City Women. Georgia Stanway replaces Nikita Parris.\nCorner, Manchester City Women. Conceded by Ann-Katrin Berger.\nAttempt saved. Toni Duggan (Manchester City Women) left footed shot from the left side of the six yard box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Isobel Christiansen.\nAttempt missed. Stephanie Houghton (Manchester City Women) right footed shot from outside the box is high and wide to the left from a direct free kick.\nFoul by Aoife Mannion (Birmingham City Ladies).\nCarli Lloyd (Manchester City Women) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Paige Williams (Birmingham City Ladies).", "The 33-year-old, who has won a record 165 caps for her country, was part of the Lionesses' squad that reached the Euro 2017 semi-finals.\n\"I knew when I finished the league last year with Arsenal that Reading was the only club I wanted to come to,\" Williams told the club website.\n\"The club wants to win trophies and I want to be a part of it.\"\nWilliams joined Arsenal in 2016, following eight years at Everton and four with Liverpool, with whom she twice won the Women's Super League.\nShe began her career with Chelsea and has also played for Charlton.\nWilliams has been to seven major tournaments with England, including helping Mark Sampson's side to third place at the 2015 World Cup, and was part of the Great Britain squad at the 2012 Olympic Games.\nReading manager Kelly Chambers said: \"Signing Fara shows where the club is at now and our ambition of where we want to go.\n\"We want to be competing with the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City at the top of the table and bringing in the likes of Fara will help us do that.\"", "Germany forward Linden, who was signed from Frankfurt, nodded in from a Kerys Harrop cross to salvage a point.\nMelissa Fletcher had put the hosts ahead, meeting an Emma Follis cross to head home after the break.\nReading goalkeeper Mary Earps made a series of fine saves, but could do nothing to deny Linden on 73 minutes.\nReading Women: Earps, Jane, Hines, McGee, Follis (Allen 74), Bruton, Boho-Sayo (Jones 80), Davies, Perry, Fletcher (Ward 68), Rowe.\nSubstitutes not used: Sansom, Bartrip, Roche, Walkley\nBirmingham City Ladies: Windell, Carter, Harrop, Ayisi (Scofield 57), Linden, Hegerberg, Stringer (Peplow 68), Lawley, Wellings, Mannion, Berger.\nSubstitutes not used: Baggaley, Edwards, Shroder, Haines, Johnson\nAttendance: 691\nReferee: Ashvin Degnarain\nMatch ends, Reading Ladies 1, Birmingham City Ladies 1.\nSecond Half ends, Reading Ladies 1, Birmingham City Ladies 1.\nAttempt missed. Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) header from very close range misses to the left.\nAttempt blocked. Connie Schofield (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\nAttempt blocked. Connie Schofield (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\nMelissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Remi Allen (Reading Ladies).\nIsabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) is shown the yellow card.\nKylie Davies (Reading Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies).\nLauren Bruton (Reading Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Chloe Peplow (Birmingham City Ladies).\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Kylie Davies.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Mary Earps.\nAttempt saved. Charlie Wellings (Birmingham City Ladies) header from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.\nFoul by Nia Jones (Reading Ladies).\nJessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nLauren Bruton (Reading Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Kerys Harrop (Birmingham City Ladies).\nFoul by Sophie Perry (Reading Ladies).\nMelissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nSubstitution, Reading Ladies. Nia Jones replaces Jade.\nLauren Bruton (Reading Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Connie Schofield (Birmingham City Ladies).\nSubstitution, Reading Ladies. Remi Allen replaces Emma Follis because of an injury.\nGoal! Reading Ladies 1, Birmingham City Ladies 1. Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) header from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Kerys Harrop.\nAttempt missed. Rachel Rowe (Reading Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right.\nAttempt missed. Andrine Hegerberg (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from outside the box is too high.\nAttempt saved. Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom left corner.\nSubstitution, Reading Ladies. Helen Ward replaces Melissa Fletcher.\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Chloe Peplow replaces Abbey-Leigh Stringer.\nFoul by Jade (Reading Ladies).\nJessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nAttempt missed. Abbey-Leigh Stringer (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box is too high following a corner.\nAttempt blocked. Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Rebecca Jane.\nAttempt missed. Connie Schofield (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from outside the box is too high following a set piece situation.\nFoul by Lauren Bruton (Reading Ladies).\nMelissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nMelissa Fletcher (Reading Ladies) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.", "Women's FA Cup winners Arsenal, who beat Sunderland 5-1 on Saturday, struggled to break down a hard-working, organised Blues side, who remain third.\nBirmingham have now gone five consecutive games without conceding.\nJordan Nobbs' low shot was held by Birmingham's debutant goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger in the closing stages.\nAnother debutant, midfielder Andrine Hegerberg, headed Birmingham's best chance of the game over from close range.\nFourth-placed Arsenal rallied late on but were denied any clear-cut goal-scoring opportunities for much of the contest.\nBirmingham remain one point above the Gunners, who have a game in hand, but both clubs lost ground on second-placed Chelsea, who thrashed Sunderland 5-0.\nBlues boss David Parker gave debuts to Norway midfielder Hegerberg, ex-Paris St-Germain keeper Berger and substitute Isabelle Linden, following the departures of England midfield duo Jo Potter and Jade Moore, and all three impressed with their displays.\nBirmingham City boss David Parker: \"It was another cracking performance and yet I still want more, there is still so much more to come from this group, it's quite scary.\n\"Teams are looking at us and thinking we have lost a few players - but look at the players we have added and the kids coming through too. We are growing so quickly and so much, and there is so much more to come from this group.\n\"It was a great save from our new goalkeeper (Berger), she's played against the best for PSG in the big Champions League games and when you have someone who can make crucial game-defining saves, and distribute the ball like her, it's a real asset to have.\"\nArsenal manager Pedro Martinez Losa: \"I thought we deserved a little bit more in the second half but you have to accept results.\n\"On another day we probably would have taken the points, so we're not happy but obviously we value one point away from home and I'll take it in a very competitive game.\n\"Birmingham are full of confidence and you have to give them credit, they were well organised and we knew it was going to be very difficult to score here. Teams will come here and drop points.\"\nMatch ends, Birmingham City Ladies 0, Arsenal Ladies 0.\nSecond Half ends, Birmingham City Ladies 0, Arsenal Ladies 0.\nAttempt blocked. Freda Ayisi (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Emily Westwood.\nFoul by Dominique Janssen (Arsenal Ladies).\nAndrine Hegerberg (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nAttempt missed. Dominique Janssen (Arsenal Ladies) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Jordan Nobbs with a cross following a set piece situation.\nChloe Peplow (Birmingham City Ladies) is shown the yellow card.\nEmma Mitchell (Arsenal Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nFoul by Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies).\nFoul by Fara Williams (Arsenal Ladies).\nKerys Harrop (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nAttempt saved. Jordan Nobbs (Arsenal Ladies) left footed shot from the right side of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.\nDominique Janssen (Arsenal Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Andrine Hegerberg (Birmingham City Ladies).\nDominique Janssen (Arsenal Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nFoul by Abbey-Leigh Stringer (Birmingham City Ladies).\nCasey Stoney (Arsenal Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nDangerous play by Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies).\nJosephine Henning (Arsenal Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Melissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies).\nOffside, Birmingham City Ladies. Melissa Lawley tries a through ball, but Isabelle Linden is caught offside.\nAttempt blocked. Melissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.\nJosephine Henning (Arsenal Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Jessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies).\nSubstitution, Arsenal Ladies. Dominique Janssen replaces Daniëlle van de Donk.\nCorner, Arsenal Ladies. Conceded by Emily Westwood.\nAttempt blocked. Jordan Nobbs (Arsenal Ladies) right footed shot from the right side of the box is blocked. Assisted by Alex Scott.\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Chloe Peplow replaces Alex Windell.\nAttempt missed. Fara Williams (Arsenal Ladies) left footed shot from outside the box misses to the right.\nVicky Losada (Arsenal Ladies) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\nFoul by Vicky Losada (Arsenal Ladies).\nEmily Westwood (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nJosephine Henning (Arsenal Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies).\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Fara Williams.\nFara Williams (Arsenal Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Melissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies).\nFoul by Jordan Nobbs (Arsenal Ladies).\nAndrine Hegerberg (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nHand ball by Isabelle Linden (Birmingham City Ladies).", "Coates, who replaced Glen Harris in charge of Women's Super League One's bottom side, saw her side go behind to Rachel Williams' swivel and shot.\nThe Belles levelled with a goal from former Lady Pie Jess Sigsworth.\nEngland player Telford left the field after landing awkwardly, before Ellen White lobbed home the hosts' winner.\nTelford had her knee in a brace, as her side's victory leaves them sixth in WSL 1, seven points above Doncaster.\nCoates' side are yet to earn a point in their opening four matches since promotion to the top flight, but have three games in hand over the side above them, Sunderland.\nNotts County Ladies defender Laura Bassett:\n\"It's a relief but we deserved it.\n\"The moves we put together and the chances we created mean everybody's really pleased, and so they should be.\n\"Belles have some fabulous players and with the new manager we knew we were going to get a tough game, so we had to start with intensity, especially in the second half of the game to get the win.\"\nDoncaster Rovers Belles boss Emma Coates:\n\"I was really happy with the first-half performance but we struggled to get the ball out wide in the second half.\n\"We were tiring but I'm not sure if it's physical or psychological. We have to get ourselves out of a bit of a lull at times and manage the game better when we're on top.\n\"I told the girls it's tough to take because that's the best we've played all season.\n\"Time isn't on our side but we've got more to build on from what we saw when we get teams back to Doncaster.\"\nMatch ends, Notts County Ladies 2, Doncaster Rovers Belles 1.\nSecond Half ends, Notts County Ladies 2, Doncaster Rovers Belles 1.\nAttempt missed. Katrin Omarsdottir (Doncaster Rovers Belles) right footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high from a direct free kick.\nHand ball by Leanne Crichton (Notts County Ladies).\nAttempt saved. Lauren Cresswell (Doncaster Rovers Belles) left footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner.\nSubstitution, Notts County Ladies. Chelsea Weston replaces Maja Krantz.\nCorner, Doncaster Rovers Belles. Conceded by Amy Turner.\nRachel Williams (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Samantha Tierney (Doncaster Rovers Belles).\nRachel Williams (Notts County Ladies) hits the left post with a header from the centre of the box.\nRachel Williams (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Sophie Barker (Doncaster Rovers Belles).\nFoul by Maja Krantz (Notts County Ladies).\nKatrin Omarsdottir (Doncaster Rovers Belles) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nSubstitution, Doncaster Rovers Belles. Samantha Tierney replaces Rachel Newborough.\nCorner, Notts County Ladies. Conceded by Rachel Newborough.\nAttempt blocked. Rachel Williams (Notts County Ladies) left footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked.\nCorner, Notts County Ladies. Conceded by Leandra Little.\nFoul by Maja Krantz (Notts County Ladies).\nKatrin Omarsdottir (Doncaster Rovers Belles) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nFoul by Aivi Luik (Notts County Ladies).\nRachel Newborough (Doncaster Rovers Belles) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nAttempt missed. Jessica Clarke (Notts County Ladies) left footed shot from the centre of the box is too high.\nGoal! Notts County Ladies 2, Doncaster Rovers Belles 1. Ellen White (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Amy Turner.\nJessica Clarke (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nFoul by Katrin Omarsdottir (Doncaster Rovers Belles).\nSubstitution, Notts County Ladies. Leanne Crichton replaces Angharad James.\nAttempt missed. Rachel Williams (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right.\nFoul by Maja Krantz (Notts County Ladies).\nKatrin Omarsdottir (Doncaster Rovers Belles) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nCorner, Notts County Ladies. Conceded by Sophie Barker.\nHand ball by Jessica Sigsworth (Doncaster Rovers Belles).\nFoul by Danielle Buet (Notts County Ladies).\nKatrin Omarsdottir (Doncaster Rovers Belles) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nAttempt missed. Aivi Luik (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from the right side of the box is too high.\nEllen White (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Leandra Little (Doncaster Rovers Belles).\nSecond Half begins Notts County Ladies 1, Doncaster Rovers Belles 1.\nSubstitution, Notts County Ladies. Megan Walsh replaces Carly Telford because of an injury.\nFirst Half ends, Notts County Ladies 1, Doncaster Rovers Belles 1.", "The England Under-23 international scored 14 goals last season as Doncaster finished second in WSL 2 and were promoted back to the top flight.\nEngland, 21, said: \"I feel I am at the stage in my career to test myself at a higher level.\n\"There is no doubt that will happen at Chelsea, not just during games but in every training session.\"\nHer arrival is Chelsea's fourth signing of the close season. They have also brought in midfielders Karen Carney and Jade Bailey and goalkeeper Becky Spencer.\nEngland will be reunited with Chelsea assistant manager Paul Green, who signed her during his time at Doncaster.\n\"Beth is a great character and a young player who is hungry to develop and improve her game,\" said Green.", "Norway international midfielder Hegerberg, 23, made her Blues debut in Wednesday's Women's Super League One goalless draw against Arsenal.\n\"At first I wasn't that interested,\" Hergerberg told BBC WM.\n\"But after talking to both David and Marcus and hearing their plans, they caught me.\"\nHegerberg became Birmingham's fourth foreign signing since April when she joined from Swedish side Kopparbergs/Gothenburg following the departures of Jo Potter, Jade Moore and Remi Allen.\nWith the club keen to return to the level that saw them reach the Champions League semi-finals two years ago, Hegerberg is looking forward to helping realise that ambition.\n\"To be a part of the football development here in England - which is fantastic - is something I want to contribute to,\" she said.\n\"The Champions League is something I want to be part of and hopefully we'll make it some day.\n\"It's been amazing so far - I've come to a really good club.\"\nBlues' draw with the Gunners kept them third in the WSL 1 table, six points behind Chelsea Ladies in second place and eight adrift of leaders Manchester City.", "The England striker put the visitors ahead after two minutes, heading home Alex Greenwood's free-kick.\nShe netted her second after connecting with Danielle Buet's impressive cross and was denied a hat-trick when another effort was ruled out for offside.\nLiverpool's best chances fell to Rosie White and Natasha Dowie.\nThe Lady Magpies will face Arsenal in the final at Rotherham on 1 November, having already finished FA Cup runners-up in August.\nRachel Williams looked a constant threat for County and the midfielder forced the Liverpool defence into two last-ditch clearances following a couple of powerful headers.\nThe defeat marked the return of Liverpool midfielder Fara Williams, who came on for the last 10 minutes following three months out with a hamstring injury.\nNotts County striker Ellen White:\n\"This is another milestone, obviously we wanted to do a bit better in the league but this is a massive cup for us.\n\"We want to go to the final and put in a big performance and do it for our coaches more than anything. Rotherham's an incredible stadium and we'll look forward to facing Arsenal.\"\nLiverpool Ladies manager Matt Beard:\n\"I felt we gave a good account of ourselves but Notts County deserved to win it.\n\"I thought especially in the second half we were good and created some chances but we've got 10 players who have come through our centre of excellence and nine players out injured.\n\"All nine of them probably would be in the starting XI and you can't legislate for that.\"\nLiverpool Ladies: Gibbons, Ryland, Beckwith, Murray, Pacheco, Dale (Staniforth 60), Ormarsdottir, Zelem (Williams 81), Hodson, Dowie, White (Green 72).\nSubstitutes not used: Darbyshire, Wild.\nNotts County Ladies: Telford, Walton, Turner, Bassett, Greenwood, Buet, Scott, Crichton; Clarke, Williams, White (Whelan 87).\nSubstitutes not used: Chamberlain, Whelan, Plumptre, Hassall, O'Neill.\nReferee: Ian Hussin\nAttendance: 538", "Eni Aluko's shot and Karen Carney's header made it 2-0 by the sixth minute, with strikes from Gemma Davison and Ji So-Yun earning a 4-0 half-time lead.\nCarney hit the bar after the break but Chelsea could not add to their tally.\nThe win took the Londoners back to within 10 points of leaders Manchester City, with two games in hand.\nUnbeaten City beat Reading Women 2-0 earlier on Sunday to briefly stretch their WSL lead to 13 points.\nCity have three league matches left, including one against Chelsea. Even if they lose that match, City need only two wins to be certain of clinching the league title.\nBirmingham captain Emily Westwood:\n\"Those first 30 minutes were the worst we've played all season and I'd like to apologise to our fans.\n\"We gave the ball away inside our own half for every one of their four goals.\n\"We were really poor, but credit to Chelsea they were really on it today.\n\"In the first half they were turning us, getting in behind us, exposing our weaknesses, and we were never in it.\"\nChelsea forward Karen Carney:\n\"That was the first time we've really clicked as a team this season and it was a fantastic performance.\n\"All the forwards scored and I was pleased to get a goal, but I refused to celebrate out of respect for Birmingham.\n\"Everybody's saying the title's theirs (Manchester City) because they're 10 points clear, but we've got two games in hand and we've still got to go to their place.\n\"So there's no way we're giving up - we're the reigning champions and we're not going to give that up without a fight.\"\nMatch ends, Birmingham City Ladies 0, Chelsea Ladies 4.\nSecond Half ends, Birmingham City Ladies 0, Chelsea Ladies 4.\nKaren Carney (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Aoife Mannion (Birmingham City Ladies).\nFoul by Hannah Blundell (Chelsea Ladies).\nMelissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nAttempt missed. Gemma Davison (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left.\nAna Borges (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Jessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies).\nAttempt saved. Jade Bailey (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal.\nSubstitution, Chelsea Ladies. Bethany England replaces Eniola Aluko.\nKaren Carney (Chelsea Ladies) hits the bar with a right footed shot from outside the box.\nSubstitution, Chelsea Ladies. Ana Borges replaces Claire Rafferty.\nAttempt missed. Eniola Aluko (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the right.\nSubstitution, Chelsea Ladies. Jade Bailey replaces Ji So-Yun.\nKerys Harrop (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Karen Carney (Chelsea Ladies).\nJessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nFoul by Claire Rafferty (Chelsea Ladies).\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Alex Windell replaces Marisa Ewers because of an injury.\nFoul by Jessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies).\nClaire Rafferty (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nDelay in match Marisa Ewers (Birmingham City Ladies) because of an injury.\nAttempt missed. Claire Rafferty (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high.\nAttempt missed. Emily Westwood (Birmingham City Ladies) left footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the left.\nJessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nFoul by Millie Bright (Chelsea Ladies).\nFoul by Kerys Harrop (Birmingham City Ladies).\nNiamh Fahey (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nJessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick on the right wing.\nFoul by Claire Rafferty (Chelsea Ladies).\nSecond Half begins Birmingham City Ladies 0, Chelsea Ladies 4.\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Chloe Peplow replaces Andrine Hegerberg.\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Kirsty Linnett replaces Abbey-Leigh Stringer.\nFirst Half ends, Birmingham City Ladies 0, Chelsea Ladies 4.\nAttempt missed. Melissa Lawley (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is just a bit too high.\nFoul by Katie Chapman (Chelsea Ladies).\n(Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Katie Chapman.\nEniola Aluko (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick on the right wing.", "Carney, who signed from Birmingham in December 2015, scored four goals in 21 appearances last season.\nThe 29-year-old has won 125 caps for England, and was part of the side which finished third at the 2015 World Cup.\n\"She's one of the best players in her position in the world,\" manager Emma Hayes told the club website.\n\"We are still to see the best of Karen Carney at this football club, which is a big statement considering how well she performed last season.\n\"There is still room for improvement and now she's settled into the club, we'll see her go up another level.\"", "Meaghan Sargeant nodded Blues ahead with their first effort on goal.\nDrew Spence sent the game into extra-time, making it 1-1 with a fine right-footed shot into the top corner.\nBlues keeper Ann-Katrin Berger made a string of saves in normal time and the shootout as Chelsea's hopes of a third successive trip to Wembley were ended.\nBerger foiled Millie Bright from the spot after Eniola Aluko hit the post for the London club, who were beaten by Arsenal in last year's final, having lifted the trophy in 2015, in what was the first Women's FA Cup final hosted at the national stadium.\nBirmingham, who beat Chelsea at Ashton Gate in their only previous final appearance in 2012, take on a Manchester City side that overcame Liverpool 1-0 to keep alive their bid for a fifth trophy in the space of nine months.\nThe final on 13 May will be the first time either side has played at Wembley.\nMatch ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1(4), Chelsea Ladies 1(2).\nPenalty Shootout ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1(4), Chelsea Ladies 1(2).\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1(4), Chelsea Ladies 1(2). Ellen White (Birmingham City Ladies) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner.\nPenalty saved! Millie Bright (Chelsea Ladies) fails to capitalise on this great opportunity, right footed shot saved in the bottom right corner.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1(3), Chelsea Ladies 1(2). Kerys Harrop (Birmingham City Ladies) converts the penalty with a left footed shot to the top right corner.\nPenalty saved! Eniola Aluko (Chelsea Ladies) fails to capitalise on this great opportunity, right footed shot saved in the bottom left corner.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1(2), Chelsea Ladies 1(2). Sarah Mayling (Birmingham City Ladies) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the top left corner.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1(1), Chelsea Ladies 1(2). Hannah Blundell (Chelsea Ladies) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom right corner.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1(1), Chelsea Ladies 1(1). Aoife Mannion (Birmingham City Ladies) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom left corner.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1(1). Maren Mjelde (Chelsea Ladies) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the top left corner.\nPenalty Shootout begins Birmingham City Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1.\nSecond Half Extra Time ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1.\nAttempt saved. Katie Chapman (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the top centre of the goal.\nAttempt saved. Charlie Wellings (Birmingham City Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the centre of the goal.\n(Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Ramona Bachmann (Chelsea Ladies).\nAttempt missed. Eniola Aluko (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box is too high.\nAttempt saved. Katie Chapman (Chelsea Ladies) header from the right side of the six yard box is saved in the top centre of the goal.\nFoul by Abbey-Leigh Stringer (Birmingham City Ladies).\nKatie Chapman (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nAttempt saved. Ramona Bachmann (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom right corner.\nSecond Half Extra Time begins Birmingham City Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1.\nFirst Half Extra Time ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Katie Chapman.\nAttempt saved. Maren Mjelde (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the bottom left corner.\nFoul by Abbey-Leigh Stringer (Birmingham City Ladies).\nKatie Chapman (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Paige Williams (Birmingham City Ladies).\nHannah Blundell (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFirst Half Extra Time begins Birmingham City Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1.\nSecond Half ends, Birmingham City Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1.\nCorner, Birmingham City Ladies. Conceded by Maren Mjelde.\nJessica Carter (Birmingham City Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Drew Spence (Chelsea Ladies).\nSubstitution, Birmingham City Ladies. Charlie Wellings replaces Freda Ayisi.\nCorner, Chelsea Ladies. Conceded by Sarah Mayling.\nAoife Mannion (Birmingham City Ladies) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.\nFoul by Aoife Mannion (Birmingham City Ladies).\nKatie Chapman (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nGoal! Birmingham City Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1. Drew Spence (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from the left side of the box to the top right corner.", "Eniola Aluko tapped in her ninth league goal of the season at the second attempt to put Chelsea in front and ensure she beat Manchester City's Jane Ross to the golden boot.\nAileen Whelan fired in to level after good work from Rachel Williams.\nBut Ji So-yun bundled in Aluko's cross and Beth England lashed home a minute later to seal Chelsea's win.\nMatch ends, Notts County Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 3.\nSecond Half ends, Notts County Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 3.\nAttempt missed. Leanne Crichton (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right. Assisted by Niamh Cushin following a set piece situation.\nAttempt missed. Niamh Cushin (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the left following a set piece situation.\nFoul by Jade Bailey (Chelsea Ladies).\nAileen Whelan (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick on the left wing.\nOffside, Notts County Ladies. Aileen Whelan tries a through ball, but Taome Oliver is caught offside.\nCorner, Chelsea Ladies. Conceded by Angharad James.\nAna Borges (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Alice Hassall (Notts County Ladies).\nAttempt missed. Laura Rafferty (Chelsea Ladies) header from the centre of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Ana Borges with a cross following a corner.\nCorner, Chelsea Ladies. Conceded by Jo Potter.\nOffside, Chelsea Ladies. Gilly Flaherty tries a through ball, but Eniola Aluko is caught offside.\nGilly Flaherty (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Aileen Whelan (Notts County Ladies).\nSubstitution, Chelsea Ladies. Laura Rafferty replaces Ji So-Yun.\nAttempt missed. Millie Bright (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Ji So-Yun.\nDelay over. They are ready to continue.\nDelay in match Ana Borges (Chelsea Ladies) because of an injury.\nAna Borges (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nFoul by Rachel Williams (Notts County Ladies).\nSubstitution, Chelsea Ladies. Miri Taylor replaces Karen Carney.\nFoul by Eniola Aluko (Chelsea Ladies).\nLaura Bassett (Notts County Ladies) wins a free kick in the defensive half.\nSubstitution, Notts County Ladies. Niamh Cushin replaces Charlotte Steggles.\nAttempt saved. Karen Carney (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box is saved in the bottom right corner. Assisted by Drew Spence with a headed pass.\nSubstitution, Chelsea Ladies. Drew Spence replaces Niamh Fahey.\nAttempt blocked. Millie Bright (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked. Assisted by Ji So-Yun.\nDelay over. They are ready to continue.\nDelay in match Karen Carney (Chelsea Ladies) because of an injury.\nKaren Carney (Chelsea Ladies) wins a free kick in the attacking half.\nFoul by Laura Bassett (Notts County Ladies).\nGoal! Notts County Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 3. Bethany England (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Karen Carney.\nGoal! Notts County Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 2. Ji So-Yun (Chelsea Ladies) with an attempt from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner.\nAttempt missed. Aileen Whelan (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box misses to the right. Assisted by Charlotte Steggles.\nAttempt missed. Ana Borges (Chelsea Ladies) right footed shot from the right side of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Eniola Aluko.\nAttempt missed. Alice Hassall (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from the left side of the box misses to the left.\nAttempt missed. Charlotte Steggles (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from the left side of the box misses to the left. Assisted by Rachel Williams.\nAttempt missed. Angharad James (Notts County Ladies) right footed shot from outside the box is too high. Assisted by Alice Hassall.\nSecond Half begins Notts County Ladies 1, Chelsea Ladies 1.", "Media playback is not supported on this device\nThe 28-year-old winger has agreed a two-year deal with the Blues, who won the Women's Super League title and the FA Women's Cup double last season.\n\"The team established themselves as the top club in the country and I'm excited about the prospect of helping to build on that,\" she told Chelsea's website.\n'It is the right point in my career to begin a new challenge.\"\nCarney has won 110 international caps and was a member of the England side which finished third at the World Cup earlier this year.\nShe has previously played under Chelsea manager Emma Hayes at Arsenal Ladies and Chicago Red Stars.\n\"Karen was a major target and a genuine world-class addition to the squad,\" Hayes said.\n\"She is a student of the game and brings additional leadership to our squad.\n\"I see Karen complimenting the talent we already possess in the final third. All our attacking players will benefit hugely from her vision and passing.\"" ]

[ "One theory I have heard is that basically *everything* is a new experience for them, and they don't yet routines in place for dealing with things that seem trivial to adults. Me: I dropped my pen. Drat. I will pick it up and then resume writing. Toddler: I dropped my toy. FUCK! WHAT DO I DO? IT'S ALL SO INTENSE!" ]

[ "what differentiates one moment from the next. if you want to be more specific, you'll get a more specific answer.", "This is because there is no moment when you fall asleep. Falling asleep is a gradual process with a slow slipping away of awareness over several minutes, not something where you're awake one moment and asleep the next.", "Damage to a child’s psychological and nervous system largely doesn’t happen in the singular moment of violence. The damage happens in every single moment afterwards when they are bracing themselves for it, fearing it happening again, modulating their behaviour in expectation for it, and developing unhealthy perceptions/fears/mistrust in their caregivers - even if the next blow may never come. This is why “even once” is irrelevant to how much harm it causes.", "Your eye can only pick out some of what's going on. When the wheel is spinning that fast you are seeing it at one moment and then the next moment the wheel has actually rotated 'almost' a complete rotation so it appears to have rotated slightly backwards.", "Related question: In that moment when they light the fire and they are waiting for it to reach the person and then become hot enough to kill... there must have been an awkward lull in the event. What happened, did someone keep making speeches or did everyone stand there silently waiting for the screaming to begin?", "> there's really no such thing as \"pages\" on Reddit. Instead, you're saying \"give me the links (from my current 50 subreddits at this time) #1 to #[page size] as ranked by voting right now at this exact moment\"... When you go to the next page, you're saying \"give me links #[page size] to #[page size2] *at this exact moment\"... This is why you may see duplicate links from page to page! A link that was #23 a minute ago may be #26 now because of people voting things up and down", "The reason people jump off cliffs, climb a cliff, or put themselves in situations that might cause serious injury is because in these situations the mind is forced to focus on the moment. The past and future disappear. This is also the same reason people get drunk, take drugs, and another reason why sex is so nice, they quiet the mind and afford one a moment to just be in the moment.", "|Recent psychological theories of crying emphasize the relationship of crying to the experience of perceived helplessness.[10] From this perspective, an underlying experience of helplessness can usually explain why people cry. For example, a person may cry after receiving surprisingly happy news, ostensibly because the person feels powerless or unable to influence what is happening. A theory from the Wikipedia article on crying. The source is a non-free paper", "'Twas oft asked here. Ye may enjoy these: 1. [ELI5:Why do we cry? What is the connection of tears coming out of our eyes with sadness or even happiness. ](_URL_1_) 1. [[ELI5] Why do we cry when we are sad? ](_URL_3_) 1. [ELI5: How and why do we cry? ](_URL_0_) 1. [ELI5: Why do we produce tears when we are sad? ](_URL_2_) See also: /r/totallynotrobots ;-)", "Try the following experiment. In a dark room, shine a flashlight on the ceiling and watch it for a moment. Shut it off, and the light will appear to take a moment to fade--or so your brain says. Now, shut your eyes and turn the flashlight on. Turn the flashlight off, and as quickly as you can, open your eyes. Notice how there is no longer any light fading? That's because the fading you saw the first time was an illusion. Your brain interpreted it as a fade, averaging between the brilliance one moment and the darkness the next. This is related to persistence of vision, the way the brain interprets a series of still images as a continuous motion.", "I believe it would mean that you should do something for the thrill and happiness of actually doing it at that moment, not for the prestige that you might have over other people when you tell them about it.", "Because our bodies are like toddlers. It wants what it wants in the moment and it doesn't consider the future. When there is an itch, it wants the itch to go away. It doesn't register pain from the scratching because the signal from the itch is overwhelming it. We only feel like pain later, once the itch is gone and the pain signal can get through.", "This is caused by a chemical your brain releases during more pleasurable moments known as dopamine. This chemical is what makes people happy when they eat, laugh, listen to music, etc. When the release occurs you occasionally get goosebumps from it. I'm not sure on why it happens more often with movies or music then other experiences, but that's what happens.", "Like, growls, screams, and cries? That's an animal instinct to either frighten the enemy or call for help. Useful stuff. Lots of animals don't ever cry or scream when in danger because they are not social animals. They don't hep each other. But we do.", "\"Moment\" and \"Torque\" is the same thing. Moment is just a lot less frequently used in English. Many other languages actually use \"Moment\" almost exclusively. \"Moment of Inertia\" is the objects rotational resistance to \"Moment\" or \"Torque\", just as \"Mass\" is the objects linear resistance to to \"Force\". & #x200B; Fun fact: In Danish \"Angular momentum\" translates to \"Movement amount moment\", where \"Movement amount\" is momentum. So it is literally the \"Momentum Moment\", or the moment that momentum creates.", "The same reason certain smells or even ambient sounds can. Your brain associated those sensations with a particular moment or series of moments. The sensation and the moment are inextricably linked i your memories, so experiencing one triggers a memory of the other.", "I mean everything is diamagnetic to some degree. That's why you can levitate a frog like this: _URL_0_ However, be careful that you're not confusing an ELECTRIC dipole moment with a MAGNETIC one. Water, for example, has an electric dipole moment, not a magnetic one and thus is not ferromagnetic. In a hand-wavy way we can say that an electric dipole has to do with unbalanced charge, a magnetic dipole with unbalanced spin.", "> How do scientists tell the difference between a large rock and that of one with a core? Basically through measuring the body's moment of inertia about its rotational axis. Bodies of the same mass and size will have a different moment of inertia if the concentration of that mass is different. For example, a uniform sphere has a moment of inertia of (2/5)MR^2 , where M is the mass and R is the radius. If the body is spherical but the mass is concentrated towards the center then the moment of inertia will be less than that of a uniform sphere of that same mass and radius (i.e. the coefficient in front will be less than 2/5). See [Wikipedia: List of moments of inertia](_URL_2_), [Wikipedia: Moment of inertia](_URL_1_), [Moment of Inertia (C.R. Nave, GSU)](_URL_0_).", "This is the speed light travels at. For an object with non-zero mass, it would take infinite energy to get it to the speed of light, which is one way to understand why that can't happen. But for photons (the particles of which light is made), things are different. Photons have no mass, which turns out to mean they always have to travel at the speed of light. From the moment they are created to the moment they are observed, they travel at the speed of light.", "the cold receptors also respond to high temperatures, this is why when you touch something really cold for a moment it feels warm. It takes your brain a moment to register that the hot receptors are not being activated as well.", "Fire flys only glow for brief moments when they feel happy. They can only use it for a few seconds before they're depleted. Just like if you started jogging and got tired and walked for a portion. The fire flys live life each and erry day glowing for happiness and it's they're only true cause.", "Overall, research shows that this ear-splitting noise has the same frequency as that of a crying baby and a human scream, indicating that these sounds are tied to survival. For instance, people attuned to these frequencies may rescue a crying infant sooner, improving the baby's longevity.", "Perhaps she felt that she could retain some dignity and demonstrate a defiant strength by remaining calm under the imminent threat of death. Or perhaps she was partially sedated. Or a number of other possibilities. Not everyone goes out kicking and screaming. Some accept their fate and would rather not prolong the last moments when they are as horrible as this poor woman faced.", "The same way a drug can make you sad or depressed after. All those good chemicals are being overproduced and pumped in at once. Once the moment is gone you are left with a below average amount of happy chemical. And that is what makes you sad.", "We've taught ourselves to associate major keys with upbeat, happy emotions, and minor keys with sad or scary emotions. It's conditioning. For years, you've heard major keys played during happy moments, and minor keys played during sad. That repetition sinks in, and you associate each key with an emotion. [Here's an article about it.](_URL_0_)", "Probably not in the context you intended, but as of recently, because a variant of it was made kind of famous by a video game: *Far Cry 3.* The quote in full: *Did I ever tell you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact… same fucking thing… over and over again, expecting… shit to change.* I know Einstein is apparently credited (emphasis on apparently) with saying this but if you've been seeing this phrase used more recently I'd wager a few sandwiches it's because it's one of the most memorable moments of Far Cry 3 and even enjoyed some time as a widely spread meme.", "ELI 5 on why no one has taken high quality images of Sasquatch, UFOs, or Ghosts. They do not exist. Maybe someday Aliens will visit but they aren't flying around kidnapping rednecks at the moment.", "Give me a moment to find a source, but I've heard a lot that major/minor scales correlate to pitch intervals in human speech. We tend to use major (\"happy\") intervals for positive responses, minor (\"sad\") intervals for negative, and perfect fourths or fifths for neutralk responses.", "The question is better rehashed as 'why don't robots walk forward more'? Us humans, the only bipedal mammal we know of and what we base bipedal robots off, have ears, and in our ears we have onnoard apparatuses that help us balance. From the moment we develop these, we gradually learn about gravity, and eventually how to fight it. That's why toddlers well... toddle. Currently, there's very little technology that allows for such intelligent balance control for robots, and the stuff that we have is far too expensive/experimental for any sufficient usage. Instead, we have to make them waddle for them to find balance, which of course makes them rather slow.", "DJs cue up the right moment in the song as the previous song is playing. This is why they wear headphones, so they can hear where they are in the next song before they start playing it through the speakers. A simple DJ setup is simply two media players. They cue up song after song and then fade between them so there is no gap in the music.", "Every single atom has a magnetic moment. In materials however the direction of this magnetic moment is (generally) randomly distributed, resulting in no net magnetic moment of the material. Magnetic materials can realign their atoms giving a uniform magnetic moment in the same direction.", "A dipole in an electrical field experiences a torque (tau = **p** x **E** , where p is the dipole moment and E is the field). It's \"moment\" in the sense that \"moment\" is another word for \"torque\"." ]

[ "Product Description. Standard Process Cataplex D 90 Tablets supports calcium transport from GI tract to blood. Cooperates with Cataplex F. Use for rickets, calcium assimilation problems, nose bleeds, hemorrhage, delayed healing, lack of exposure to sun, hypotension and low blood calcium. Gluten Free." ]

[ "My 59 year old husband has been using this product, in addition to other Standard Process products, for 5 years at the recommendation of his kinesiologist. Within a week of starting the Cataplex-B he began noticing an increase in energy, stamina, and mental clarity, as well as mood stability.", "For what purpose are salt tablets used? Cataplex F tablets contain omega-3 fatty acids from flaxseed and iodine to support thyroid health. Each tablet contains 40 percent of the daily value of vitamin B6 and 60 percent of the daily value of iodine. Users should consume one tablet with every meal or as instructed by a doctor.", "Standard Process Cataplex GTF includes the following ingredients: Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Niacin, Chromium and a Proprietary Blend containing bovine liver, nutritional yeast, dried buckwheat (leaf), buckwheat (seed), bovine pancreas, Cytosol extract, inositol, L-cysteine hydrochloride, bovine adrenal Cytosol extract, and oat flour.", "Product Features. Cataplex B contains three essential B vitamins, particularly vitamin B1 (thiamine), Vitamin B3 (Niacin) and Vitamin B6. Vitamin B1 is known to be an important part of the energy production process from carbohydrates.", "Cataplex® F: This product is good for people with all kinds of skin conditions, thyroid dysfunction, ridged nails, poor hair quality, dry skin, muscle cramps, Charlie horses, sunburn, sun poisoning, sun sensitivity, tissue calcium starvation, calcium absorption problems, herpes simplex and prostate problems.", "Cataplex B is a B vitamin supplement claimed to be introduced on the market in 1934. Consumer reviews available online praise its quality and effectiveness for a number of health concerns, ranging from lack of energy and mood instability to alleviating Restless Leg Syndrome symptoms.", "Tags: absorbable calcium supplement, adequate calcium, alternative medicine program, BodyTalk, calcium lactate, calcium supplement, calcium supplements, Cataplex F, chronic muscle, free health newsletter, leg cramps, muscle cramps, standard process, supplement calcium.", "Catapres is FDA-approved for the treatment of essential hypertension in adults and children over the age of 12. An epidural form is approved for treatment of refractory cancer pain. Catapres is used in children to treat ADHD. This use is not FDA approved, but it is a widely accepted use.", "Difference Between Drop D, Drop C and Standard E. This lesson is for those Drop D and C players for bands like Attack Attack!, Escape The Fate, Falling in Reverse, Three Days Grace, and Papa Roach. This guide is to help beginners to be able to play rhythm guitar parts of post-hardcore and other dropped tuning songs. The first thing we should cover is the difference between E Standard, Drop D, Drop C, and what bands use what tuning. Standard is what most guitarists use (standard for a reason): EADGBE. Now, power chords in a standard song might look like this:", "The 8-D method of problem solving is appropriate in cause unknown situations and is not the right tool if concerns center solely on decision-making or problem prevention. 8-D is especially useful as it results in not just a problem-solving process, but also a standard and a reporting format.", "The complete vitamin B complex is composed of two primary divisions, Cataplex B and Cataplex® G; each with complementary actions. Cataplex B contains different components of the B complex that are stimulatory to the metabolic, cardiovascular, and central and peripheral nervous systems.", "Thus, the sum of the squares of the deviation from the average divided by 4 is 22.8/4 = 5.7. Remember, this number contains the squares of the deviations. To get to the standard deviation, we must take the square root of that number. Thus, the standard deviation is square root of 5.7 = 2.4. The equation for a sample standard deviation we just calculated is shown in the figure. Control charts are used to estimate what the process standard deviation is. For example, the average range on the X-R chart can be used to estimate the standard deviation using the equation s = R /d 2 where d 2 is a control chart constant (see March 2005 newsletter).", "To get to the standard deviation, we must take the square root of that number. Thus, the standard deviation is square root of 5.7 = 2.4. The equation for a sample standard deviation we just calculated is shown in the figure. Control charts are used to estimate what the process standard deviation is. For example, the average range on the X-R chart can be used to estimate the standard deviation using the equation s = R /d 2 where d 2 is a control chart constant (see March 2005 newsletter). Use of Standard Deviation", "Optaflexx®* (ractopamine hydrochloride) is the first cattle feed additive proven to, when fed during the last 28 to 42 days of the finishing period, increase live weight gain, improve feed efficiency, and increase yield without affecting beef's natural taste, tenderness, and juiciness.ptaflexx is approved to be fed during the last 28 to 42 days of the finishing period. Table 1 and Figure 2 illustrate performance expectations when Optaflexx (200 mg/head/day) is fed to steers.", ",. f!!!!?J ‘c stcM’KkMcJ 4’ ‘d),] Pwcess@ The information contained herein is accurate and Standard process Inc. has substantiationthat the statements are truthful and not misleading.Sincerely yours,Ann HoldenStandard Process Inc. —.# ? ,W $ $ 0 STANDARD PROCESS INC.", "Cataplex® G: This product promotes nerve relaxation, vasodilation and fat metabolism. It is good for numbness, hypertension, paraesthesia, liver disease, stress syndrome, mental illness, insomnia, hyperactivity and nerve regeneration. It also helps with digestive bloating and is the main vitamin for the liver.", "What is a set of policies, procedures, standards, processes, practices, tools, techniques, and tasks that people apply to technical and management challenges? A. SDLC B. Methodology C. Waterfall (?) D. Agile 11. Which of the following is an issue related to the waterfall methodology?", "The coronoi d process articulates with what depression on the distal end of the humerus?", "Standard Process Chewable Congaplex 90 Tablets is a PRIMARY product for cold, flu or any systematic infection. Dosage can be used at relatively high levels in acute situations. One-two every half hour initially, then reducing to one or two hourly and finally 6-12 per day for at least one week past crisis. Ideal for children.", "What is the standard deduction used for? a. The standard deduction is the minimum size a deduction can be to be counted. b. The standard deduction is claimed automatically, before other deductions are calculated. c. The standard deduction is the minimum deduction that anyone may claim. d. The standard deduction is the maximum allowable deduction.", "As R&D outsourcing has become the standard in which many companies do their research and development, the process of finding a chemist for hire to add to your R&D team has certainly changed as well.", "European manufacturers tend to use a standard AA, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, ... scale thus avoiding the DD, DDD, EE confusion. In the interests of providing a standard scale, 85b.org has adopted a simple cup-size scale based on what is believed to be closest to a standard.", "Olaplex is a bond multiplier containing a single active ingredient, Bis-Aminopropyl Diglycol Dimaleate.Olaplex works by finding single sulfur hydrogen bonds and cross linking them back together to form disulfide bonds before, during and after services.Disulfide bonds are broken via chemical, thermal, and mechanical processes.Olaplex is the only product of its kind with 8 worldwide patents publishing soon. Olaplex is free of silicone, sulfates, phthalates, DEA, aldehydes, and is never tested on animals.isulfide bonds are broken via chemical, thermal, and mechanical processes. Olaplex is the only product of its kind with 8 worldwide patents publishing soon. Olaplex is free of silicone, sulfates, phthalates, DEA, aldehydes, and is never tested on animals.", "Polydioxanone is used for biomedical applications, particularly in the preparation of surgical sutures. Other biomedical applications include orthopedics, plastic surgery, drug delivery, cardiovascular applications, and tissue engineering.t is obtained by ring-opening polymerization of the monomer p-dioxanone. The process requires heat and an organometallic catalyst like zirconium acetylacetone or zinc L-lactate. It is characterized by a glass transition temperature in the range of −10 and 0 °C and a crystallinity of about 55%.", "ASTM C 1492 Standard Specification for Concrete Roof Tiles. ASTM D 226 Standard Specification for Asphalt-Saturated Organic Felt Used in Roofing and. Waterproofing(Organic Felt) with Mineral Granules. ASTM D 312 Standard Specification for Asphalt Used in Roofing.", "D and C (Dilation and Curettage) In this article. Dilation and curettage (D&C) is a brief surgical procedure in which the cervix is dilated and a special instrument is used to scrape the uterine lining. Knowing what to expect before, during, and after a D&C may help ease your worries and make the process go more smoothly. Here's what you need to know.", "The standard pharmaceutical preparation, acepromazine maleate, is used in veterinary medicine in dogs, and cats. It is used widely in horses as a pre-anaesthetic sedative and has been shown to reduce anaesthesia related death.", "5. According to the lecture, what energy source is Earth using primarily for its internal processes? a. [Interior heat] b. [Geothermal energy] c. [Solar energy] d. [Radioactive Decay] e. [Magma] 6. According to the lecture, what energy source is Earth using primarily for its external/surficial processes? a. [Interior heat] b. [Geothermal energy] c. [Solar energy] d.", "It also is used as an acid cata-lyst in organic reactions. Beryllium fluoride and beryllium hydroxide are used commercially in the production of beryllium metal and be-ryllium alloys, and beryllium fluoride is used in the manufacture of glass and nuclear reactors (Sax and Lewis 1987).t also is used as an acid cata-lyst in organic reactions. Beryllium fluoride and beryllium hydroxide are used commercially in the production of beryllium metal and be-ryllium alloys, and beryllium fluoride is used in the manufacture of glass and nuclear reactors (Sax and Lewis 1987).", "1 Pfizer hires Catalent to make smaller format Advil using Optigel tech. Pfizer Inc. has awarded Catalent Pharma Solutions the long-term manufacturing contract for a smaller version of its over-the-counter (OTC) painkiller Advil (ibuprofen).", "Worldwide, chloroform is also used in pesticide formulations, as a solvent for fats, oils, rubber, alkaloids, waxes, gutta-percha, and resins, as a cleansing agent, grain fumigant, in fire extinguishers, and in the rubber industry.CDCl 3 is a common solvent used in NMR spectroscopy.Deuterochloroform is produced by the haloform reaction, the reaction of acetone (or ethanol) with sodium hypochlorite or calcium hypochlorite. The haloform process is now obsolete for the production of ordinary chloroform.DCl 3 is a common solvent used in NMR spectroscopy. Deuterochloroform is produced by the haloform reaction, the reaction of acetone (or ethanol) with sodium hypochlorite or calcium hypochlorite. The haloform process is now obsolete for the production of ordinary chloroform.", "The preference for the POA chemotype of Cat’s Claw has been validated by scientific research. MediHerb tests each batch of Cat’s Claw to determine that only the preferred chemotype is used to manufacture our Cat’s Claw products." ]

[ "NEW DELHI: Shares of Shipping Corporation of India surged as much as 15.90 per cent in early trade after reports that Niti Aayog proposed around 26 per cent strategic stake sale in the company, which could fetch about Rs 960 crore to the exchequer.The scrip was trading 11.34 per cent up at Rs 88.35 around 9.30 am (IST). Shares of the company opened at Rs 92 and touched a high and low of Rs 92 and Rs 87.40, respectively, in trade so far.The government, at present, holds 63.75 per cent stake in Navratna PSU Shipping Corporation of India. After the sale of 26 per cent stake, the government holding in the company will come down to 37.75 per cent.According to a report by PTI, sources said the proposal would soon go to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.For the quarter ended March 31, 2017, the company reported net profit of Rs 92.36 crore, down 58.78 per cent, against Rs 224.04 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Net sales of the company declined 5.09 per cent on year-on-year basis to Rs 897.73 crore. It had reported net sales of Rs 945.85 crore in the same period last year.On the BSE, 11.43 lakh shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 2.53 lakh shares in the past two weeks.The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 92 on June 15, 2017 and a 52-week low of Rs 55.75 on November 21, 2016." ]

[ "The government plans to sell minority stake in seven PSUs, including bluechips such as IOC, SAIL and NTPC, which have a potential to raise over Rs 34,000 crore.\nThe department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) has come out with RFPs for appointing merchant bankers and legal advisors for stake sale in these PSUs.\nThe other companies which are on the radar include NHPC, PFC, REC and NLC India Ltd. DIPAM Secretary Neeraj Gupta said no timeframe has been fixed for these disinvestments and the RFPs are merely a decision to appoint merchant bankers.\n\"The process is routinely done to explore the possibility of disinvestment. There is no imminent disinvestment in any of these PSUs,\" Gupta said.\nAn official source said these stake sales will take some time to happen as there are already 12 PSUs for which the government has secured approval from the Cabinet to go ahead with disinvestment. As per the RFP, the government plans to sell 3 per cent stake in Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), 10 per cent each in SAIL, NTPC, NHPC and PFC.\nBesides, a 15 per cent stake in NLC India (formerly Neyveli Lignite Corporation) and 5 per cent in REC is proposed to be put on the block. At the current market prices, the stake sale could fetch the exchequer about Rs 34,000 crore, including Rs 13,000 crore from NTPC, Rs 6,000 crore from IOC and Rs 2,500 crore from SAIL.\nBesides, a minority stake sale in PFC could fetch Rs 4,000 crore, that in NHPC could garner Rs 3,000 crore, NLC (Rs 2,000 crore) and REC (Rs 1,000 crore).\nThe government currently holds 58.28 per cent in IOC, 69.74 per cent in NTPC, 75 per cent in SAIL and 74.50 per cent in NHPC. Besides, it holds 90 per cent in NLC India, 67.80 per cent in PFC and 60.64 per cent in REC.\nIn the 2017-18 Budget, the government set a target of Rs 46,500 crore to be mobilised through minority stake sale and Rs 15,000 crore from strategic disinvestment. In 2016-17 fiscal, the government had raised over Rs 46,247 crore from disinvestment.", "NEW DELHI: The government has kicked off the process of selling its entire stake in Scooters India , marking the beginning of strategic sale of loss-making and non-core public sector entities that also has Air India on the list.The Department of Heavy Industries has invited global expressions of interest (EoIs) for strategic divestment of entire 93.74% government stake in the company.The EoIs have to be submitted by May 7, 2018. Lucknow-based Scooters India (SIL), which manufactures three wheelers under brand name Vikram, made a net loss of Rs 10.3 crore in FY17 against a profit of Rs 5.48 crore the year before. The company’s share closed flat at Rs 53 on Monday.The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management has appointed Resurgent India as the adviser to manage the transaction. Before the disinvestment, the company will hive off off non-core land of 89.69 acres out of its total land bank of 147.499 acres.“The Government of India has ‘in-principle’ decided to disinvest 100% of its equity shareholding in SIL (which is equivalent to 93.74% of the total paid-up equity share capital of Scooters India) through strategic disinvestment with transfer of management control,” the invite said. The government has already given in-principle approval to strategic disinvestment of 17 central public sector undertakings. These include Pawan Hans, Bharat Earth Movers, Dredging Corporation of India and Air India.The selection is based on a criteria devised by NITI Aayog – “high priority” and “low priority” based on national security, sovereign function at arm’s length, and market imperfections and public purpose. Those falling in the ‘low priority’ are in the strategic disinvestment list.", "NEW DELHI: Outgoing Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya has said the closure of 18-20 sick public sector units (PSUs) have gone \"very well\", even as he made a case for expediting privatisation of loss making state-owned companies.\nThe Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had asked government think-tank Niti Aayog to look into viability of sick state-run companies.\n\"Closure of 18-20 sick PSUs have gone very well actually. And 17 loss-making PSUs are cleared for privatisation by the cabinet. Unfortunately, progress on those have been slow.\n\"But it is happening in many cases, transaction advisers have been appointed. So even (in the case of) PSUs that were identified for strategic disinvestment, (progress) is happening, only thing is that it is slower,\" Panagariya told .\nThe government has budgeted to raise Rs 72,500 crore through stake sale in PSUs in the current fiscal. This includes Rs 46,500 crore from minority stake sale, Rs 15,000 crore from strategic disinvestment and Rs 11,000 crore from listing of PSU insurance companies.\nAnswering questions on labour reform, Panagariya said he thinks the government does want to do labour reforms.\n\"The labour ministry has been working on four different labour codes (Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security & Welfare and Safety and Working Conditions) which will replace the 40 plus laws that currently exists at the central level.\"\nWhen asked about his meeting with leaders of Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh(BMS), Panagariya said after \"their criticism they (BMS leaders) had come here and we had one hour long chat\".\n\"We may not agree on everything but you know, ultimately I see what is in the national interest,\" he said.\nPanagariya was often outspoken on issues including labour reforms, privatisation of Air India and sick PSUs, for which RSS-affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) had accused Niti Aayog of furthering corporate lobby's agenda in the country.\nTalking about the economic growth, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman said, \"We should grow this year (2017-18) at about 7.5 per cent. In the fourth quarter of this fiscal, we might touch 8 per cent growth.\"\nAsked about his views on debate about shifting fiscal to January-December from April-March, Panagariya said there is a \"need to check what kind of costs we pay for it\".\n\"Aligning fiscal to calendar year will also align our growth data to calender year. The other argument is January- December probably aligns better with the crop year of the farmers and vast majority of India depends on agriculture,\" he added.", "Moneycontrol News\n11:36 am USFDA approvals: Alkem Laboratories rallied as much as 2.2 percent and Wockhardt gained 4.5 percent intraday after companies received drug approvals from the US health regulator\nAlkem has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for Itraconazole capsule, which is used in treatment of fungal infection.\nMeanwhile, another healthcare company Wockhardt has received tentative approval from US FDA for Bendamustine Hydrochloride injectable, which is used in treatment of different types of cancer.\n11.20 am Market Check: Benchmark indices continued to be volatile in morning trade, with the Nifty hovering around 9600 level after digesting Federal rate hike.\nThe 30-share BSE Sensex was down 14.45 points at 31,141.46 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 16.65 points to 9,601.50.\nThe market breadth turned strong as about 1,359 shares advanced against 903 declining shares on the BSE.\nReliance Industries was the biggest contributor to Sensex' gain again, up 1.5 percent. Healthcare stocks were buzzing as Sun Pharma, Lupin, Dr Reddy's Labs, Cipla and Aurobindo Pharma surged 1-6 percent.\n11:00 am Buzzing: Inditrade Capital share price hit a 52-week high of Rs 59.20, rallying 20 percent intraday after the wife of ace investor Porinju Veliyath picked up a stake in the company.\nAs per bulk deals data on the Bombay Stock Exchange, Shilpa Porinju Veliyath has purchased 1.42 lakh equity shares (representing 0.6 percent of total paid up capital) at Rs 45.74 per share.\nForeign portfolio investors also have 2.84 percent shareholding in the company, out of which 2.16 percent stake is held by CLSA Global Markets as of March 2017.\nIncorporated in 1994, Inditrade Capital (formerly known as JRG Securities) is engaged in equity and commodity broking businesses, with strong presence in South India.\n10:45 am SAMCO on Fed rate hike: Irrespective of the short term knee jerk reaction, there is no direct correlation between interest rates hikes and adverse stock market reactions, Jimeet Modi, CEO, SAMCO Securities feels.\nFor example: During Dow’s bull journey in 1994 to 1995 the interest rates were increased from 3.75 to 5.75 over a period of 15 months – 18 months wherein still the Dow rose from 3500 to 5000 by December 1995. There are many instances wherein no such meaningful correlation is found.\nHowever when interest rate hikes reaches an extreme in the range of 5-6 percent, that’s the time US markets have cranked substantially. Thus there is more room for interest rate hikes from the current 1 percent which may not impact the markets in the short term. But if the US market succumbs to deep sell off, Indian market too will be adversely impacted, Jimeet Modi said.\n10:25 am Buzzing: Repco Home Finance shares rallied as much as 4.4 percent intraday after the housing finance company raised Rs 272 crore from the World Bank subsidiary.\n\"Securities allotment committee of the board of directors, on June 14, has approved the allotment of 2720 secured, redeemable, non-convertible, non-cumulative debentures (SRNCD) of face value of Rs 10 lakh each aggregating to Rs 272 crore on private placement basis to International Finance Corporation,\" the company said in its filing.\nRepco raised funds at the rate of 8.05 percent on a semi-annual basis, for a tenure of 7 years. The fund allotment date is June 14, 2016 and maturity date would be May 18, 2024.\nThese debentures are rated as AA by rating agency CARE and are secured by book debts & pari-passu charge on immovable property.\n10.07 am Market Check: The broader markets outperformed equity benchmarks after Federal Reserve hiked interest rate by 25 basis points to 1.25 percent, which was on expected lines.\nThe 30-share BSE Sensex was up 18.30 points at 31,174.21 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 12.25 points to 9,605.90.\nThe BSE Midcap index was up 0.2 percent and Smallcap gained 0.5 percent on positive market breadth. About 1,148 shares advanced against 713 declining shares on the BSE.\nAurobindo Pharma was top gainer among Nifty stocks, up 3.5 percent followed by NTPC, Adani Ports, Bharti Airtel, Dr Reddy's Labs and Sun Pharma whereas GAIL, Coal India, Asian Paints, TCS, L&T, Bank of Baroda and BPCL were under pressure.\n9:59 am Market Outlook: The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the policy making arm of the US Federal Reserve, hiked its rates on expected lines, by 25 basis points.\nThe FOMC also said that it will begin reducing its USD 4.5 trillion balance sheet this year.\nVK sharma, Head - Private Client Group, HDFC Securities feels the US Fed statement is apparently hawkish.\nWhile the FOMC has laid out a plan to reduce its balance sheet size, it has not said when they would begin reducing the balance sheet, Sharma said.\nThe yields on the 10-year have risen yesterday in the US. Crude has fallen afresh. This should further help Indian markets, he feels.\n9:45 am Stake sale: Shipping Corporation of India shares hit a 52-week high of Rs 92, up as much as 16 percent in morning trade after NITI Aayog recommended the government to cut stake in the company by 38.75 percent.\nThe NITI Aayog has drafted a recommendation which proposes to bring down the government's stake in the company to 25 percent from current 63.75 percent. The deal could potentially earn the government around Rs 960 crore for the exchequer.\nThe recommendation will soon be sent to cabinet committee of economic affairs.\nNITI Aayog has recommended the Ministry of Shipping to divest stake in SCI in multiple tranches.\nGovernment should sell 26 percent stake in SCI in first round and subsequently, government should transfer management control, it said in its draft.\n9:30 am FII View: Mahesh Nandurkar of CLSA said analysis of agri stress indicates that Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Haryana may follow up with farm loan waivers, taking the total farm loan waivers to about USD 28 billion from USD 10 billion.\nAssuming these are staggered over five years, the annual rise in consolidated fiscal deficit works out to 25 bps of GDP. Else, other developmental expenditure would be compromised, potentially softening a capex cycle upturn, he added.\nHe feels this would dampen investor sentiment on PSU banks and NBFCs.\nAlso read - Buy, Sell, Hold: 4 stocks, 1 sector & 1 event on analysts' radar\n9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks started off trade on a flat note again, as investors digested 25 basis points rate hike by Federal Reserve in its latest policy meeting.\nThe 30-share BSE Sensex was up 18.21 points at 31,174.12 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 7.65 points to 9,610.50.\nReliance Industries extended gains, up 0.75 percent on top of 3 percent rally in previous session.\nAdani Ports, ITC, Bharti Airtel, Tata Motors, Hero Motocorp and ONGC were others gainers while TCS, L&T, ICICI Bank, Infosys and HDFC were under pressure.\nIn midcap space, City Union Bank, PNB, IDBI Bank, Bhushan Steel, Balaji Telefilms and Prism Cement were down over a percent while Ginni Filaments surged nearly 12 percent. Emkay Global was up 5% and SPARC gained 4 percent.\nShipping Corporation of India rallied 12 percent on stake sale buzz.\nMeanwhile, the Indian rupee opened marginally higher at 64.27 per dollar versus previous close of 64.30.\nMohan Shenoi of Kotak Mahindra Bank said as expected, US FOMC hiked the rate by 25 bps, hinting one more rate hike in 2017. As the event was already priced-in, global currency market reaction was muted.\nHe expects the rupee to trade in a range of 64-64.35/dollar today.\nAsian equities turned cautious after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the second time this year, as was widely expected by markets. Hong Kong's Hang Seng and Australia's ASX 200 slipped over a percent.", "Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya. (File) Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya. (File)\nOutgoing Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya has said the closure of 18-20 sick public sector units (PSUs) have gone “very well”, even as he made a case for expediting privatisation of loss making state-owned companies. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) had asked government think-tank Niti Aayog to look into viability of sick state-run companies. “Closure of 18-20 sick PSUs have gone very well actually. And 17 loss-making PSUs are cleared for privatisation by the cabinet. Unfortunately, progress on those have been slow.\n“But it is happening in many cases, transaction advisers have been appointed. So even (in the case of) PSUs that were identified for strategic disinvestment, (progress) is happening, only thing is that it is slower,” Panagariya told PTI.\nThe government has budgeted to raise Rs 72,500 crore through stake sale in PSUs in the current fiscal. This includes Rs 46,500 crore from minority stake sale, Rs 15,000 crore from strategic disinvestment and Rs 11,000 crore from listing of PSU insurance companies.\nAnswering questions on labour reform, Panagariya said he thinks the government does want to do labour reforms.\n“The labour ministry has been working on four different labour codes (Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security & Welfare and Safety and Working Conditions) which will replace the 40 plus laws that currently exists at the central level.”\nWhen asked about his meeting with leaders of Bharatiya Majdoor Sangh(BMS), Panagariya said after “their criticism they (BMS leaders) had come here and we had one hour long chat”.\n“We may not agree on everything but you know, ultimately I see what is in the national interest,” he said.\nPanagariya was often outspoken on issues including labour reforms, privatisation of Air India and sick PSUs, for which RSS-affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) had accused Niti Aayog of furthering corporate lobby’s agenda in the country.\nTalking about the economic growth, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman said, “We should grow this year (2017-18) at about 7.5 per cent. In the fourth quarter of this fiscal, we might touch 8 per cent growth.”\nAsked about his views on debate about shifting fiscal to January-December from April-March, Panagariya said there is a “need to check what kind of costs we pay for it”.\n“Aligning fiscal to calendar year will also align our growth data to calender year. The other argument is January-December probably aligns better with the crop year of the farmers and vast majority of India depends on agriculture,” he added.\nFor all the latest Business News, download Indian Express App", "has moved higher by 15% to Rs 140 on the BSE in intra-day trade, after the company announced the termination of an agreement with companies to acquire Nigrie cement grinding unit and Bhilai Jaypee Cements due to its inability to complete the deal within the stipulated timeframe.\non May 31, 2017 had executed share purchase agreement entered into between the Company and Jaiprakash Associates for the acquisition by the Company of 74% equity shares of Bhilai Jaypee Cement from Jaiprakash Associates; and business transfer agreement entered into between the Company, Jaiprakash Power Ventures and Jaiprakash Associates, for the acquisition by the Company of the Nigrie Cement Grinding Unit, as going concern from Jaiprakash Power Ventures.\nUnder the provisions of the Share Purchase Agreement and the Business Transfer Agreement, either party is entitled to terminate the agreement if the closing does not take place within the expiry of 12 months from the date of execution of the Share Purchase Agreement and the Business Transfer Agreement, as the case may be.\nAccordingly, since the closing has not been achieved within the said period of 12 months, the Company has terminated the Share Purchase Agreement and the Business Transfer Agreement with notice to the other parties, said in a regulatory filing.\nDespite of todays an over 10% rally, shares of Orient Cement has underperformed the market by falling 17% in past three months. On comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 2.5% during the same period.\nAt 11:41 am; the stock was trading 10% higher at Rs 133 on the BSE, against 0.37% rise in the benchmark index. The trading volumes on the counter more than doubled with a combined 624,090 shares changed hands on the BSE and NSE.\nJaiprakash Associates was trading 2% lower at Rs 15.45, while Jaiprakash Power Ventures down 1% at Rs 3.50, trading close to its 52-week low of Rs 3.41 touched on May 14, 2018 on the BSE.", "Indian state-run has launched a share sale to qualified institutions to raise at least 30 billion rupees ($466.2 million) with an upsize option for another 20 billion rupees, according a source and a deal term sheet.\nPunjab National Bank, the second-biggest state-run lender in the country, is looking to sell the shares at an indicative price of 168 rupees each, according to the source and the term sheet.\nThe stock closed at 172.95 rupees on Monday.\nThe total fund-raising of 50 billion rupees, including the upsize option, is aimed at boosting the bank’s capital ratio.\nIndia’s state-run banks are raising funds as part of a recapitalisation plan in which New Delhi will inject 1.35 trillion rupees through recapitalisation bonds, while the lenders are required to raise on their own about 580 billion rupees.\nBank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley and PNB Investment Services are the banks managing the sale.", "India's largest software services firm TCS today said its shareholders have approved a Rs 16,000 crore share buyback plan.\nThe buyback programme, which was passed through a special resolution, saw 99.81 percent of the total number of valid votes being cast in favour of the proposal, the company said in a regulatory filing.\nThe proposed shares under the buyback represent 2.85 percent of the total paid up equity share capital at Rs 2,850 per equity share.\nIn February, the board of TCS had approved the proposal to buy back up to 5.61 crore equity shares for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 16,000 crore.\nThe buyback is proposed to be made from the shareholders of the company on a proportionate basis under the tender offer route using the stock exchange mechanism, TCS had said earlier.", "On December 11, 2017 Morgan Stanley France SAS sold 73,31,990 shares of NBCC India at Rs 260.40 on the BSE.\nHowever, Societe Generale bought 73,31,990 shares at Rs 260.40.\nIn the previous trading session, the share closed down 2.02 percent or Rs 5.25 at Rs 254.10.\nThe share touched its 52-week high Rs 291.75 and 52-week low Rs 143.34 on 08 November, 2017 and 26 December, 2016, respectively.\nCurrently, it is trading 12.9 percent below its 52-week high and 77.27 percent above its 52-week low.\nMarket capitalisation stands at Rs 22,869.00 crore.", "NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar played down his remark, saying that Gujarat has done well to allocate more budgetary resources for social sector schemes in 2018-19 financial year (File) NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar played down his remark, saying that Gujarat has done well to allocate more budgetary resources for social sector schemes in 2018-19 financial year (File)\nA day after NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar said that Gujarat lagged behind in health and education, the state government told the Assembly that the Aayog “made some superficial observations” and if required “necessary changes” will be made to improve the situation in the two sectors.\nMeanwhile in Delhi, Kumar played down his remark, saying that Gujarat has done well to allocate more budgetary resources for social sector schemes in 2018-19 financial year. In a reply to a question by Radhanpur MLA Alpesh Thakor, Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said, “NITI Aayog has made some superficial observations.\nWe will study those observations, and if some changes are required to be made, then it will be done.” “I had stated that Gujarat has done well to allocate more budgetary resources for 2018-19 for the social sectors,” Kumar said, adding that Gujarat has not lagged behind in health and education.\nFor all the latest India News, download Indian Express App", "The benchmark gained 0.92 per cent on Friday, ahead of the outcome of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meet. This rally helped register their first weekly gain in the past three weeks. The benchmarks gained 1.2 per cent during the week. Last week, they were down two per cent.\nHowever, market participants caution that the situation could still be precarious, as foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) are continuing to take money off the table. FPIs have sold shares worth ~2,668 crore during the week.\nFriday’s gain was led by metal stocks. The benchmark BSE rose 0.7 per cent and the National Stock Exchange’s 50 gained 0.9 per cent at the close in Mumbai. All 19 sector gauges compiled by BSE advanced, paced by the S&P BSE Metal Index’s 3.1 per cent rally. Tata Steel climbed 4.6 per cent to its highest closing since January 2011, after posting a quarterly surge in domestic sales. “There’s a lot of support for equities from domestic fund flows and once the pace of recovery for earnings begins, we will start seeing justification for the stock prices,” said Nitasha Shankar, senior vice-president and head of research at YES Securities (India).“India is still better placed vis-a-vis emerging (EMs). Local funds were net buyers of Indian equities for 14 straight months through September, countering redemptions by foreign investors in the past two months. Companies will start reporting July-to-September earnings next week”.Shankar expects 50 profits to rise as much as 13 per cent for the year through March 2018 and as much as 19 per cent in the next 12 months.Vinod Nair, Head of research, Geojit Financial Services, said, “Market rebounded led by a surge in the metal stocks on account of rise in global commodity prices. Additionally, expectations from the GST Council meet to get reduction in rates and faster refund gave thrust to small-cap and mid-cap stocks to outperform. Global market remains positive due to better outlook on the US employment data and tax reforms.”The gains in the broader market were in line with the benchmark indices. Also, there were nearly two advancing stocks for every one declining on the BSE.", "* NSE index up 0.18 pct, BSE index 0.11 pct higher\n* Markets taking a breather - analyst\n* Indian Oil Corp hits record high\nBy Tanvi Mehta\nApril 10 Indian shares were little changed on Monday as investors waited for cues from the March-quarter corporate results season before taking any large positions.\nIndian shares have gained in double-digits so far this year, sending the broader NSE index to a record high of 9,273.90 last week, on the back of strong foreign investments and hopes for additional economic reforms.\nAnalysts said the January-March earnings would likely be key to determine whether those gains can be sustained.\nInfosys Ltd, the country's second largest software services company, will start the earnings season on Thursday.\n\"Markets are taking a breather, possibly, we will take some directional call from then onwards,\" said Gaurang Shah, Vice President, Geojit Financial Services.\n\"It's only prudent that we consolidate for some time, given the run-up that we've seen.\"\nThe broader NSE index was up 0.18 percent at 9,215.15 as of 0558 GMT, helped by gains in energy stocks.\nThe benchmark BSE index was 0.11 percent higher at 29,739.05.\nIndian Oil Corp Ltd rose as much as 3.3 percent to a record high. It gained 3 percent on Friday after a report that state-run oil marketing companies were mulling a plan that would allow daily changes in the price of automotive fuels.\nBhushan Steel Ltd surged as much as 8.3 percent to its highest since Aug 10, 2015 after Business Standard reported that the company last month submitted its final proposal for debt restructuring under the central bank's S4A scheme.\nHowever, Reliance Communications Ltd fell as much as 4.1 percent after the Economic Times newspaper reported on Saturday that the company laid off more than 600 roles, citing people familiar with the matter. (Reporting by Tanvi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)", "To extend the National Health Mission to 2020, a think-tank led by Narendra Modi and the finance ministry in March told health officials to rework the original proposal. Photo: HT\nNew Delhi: India’s health ministry has trimmed its cost estimates for extending its main public health programme by 25% after criticism from a federal think-tank over inefficiency and slow progress, according to government documents seen by Reuters.\nThe new estimate of $25 billion for a three-year extension of the flagship health programme, down from an initial figure of about $33 billion, comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushes a multi-pronged agenda to revamp health services.\nPlanned reforms include streamlining spending and bureaucracy, slashing prices of life-saving drugs and medical devices, and nudging companies such as PepsiCo to make more healthy products.\nTo extend the National Health Mission to 2020, a think-tank led by Modi and the finance ministry in March told health officials to rework the original proposal with “realistic” budget expectations and to incorporate lessons from neighbours such as Nepal and Bangladesh, the documents show.\nIn response, the health ministry has resubmitted a plan with lower cost estimates and a list of targets to be achieved by 2020, including strengthening health infrastructure and reducing tobacco use.\nThe finance ministry, which will review the plan for approval this month, did not respond to a request for comment. The federal think-tank, NITI Aayog, declined to comment.\nIndia’s National Health Mission is one of the world’s largest public health programmes. It provides free drugs and treatment to millions of rural poor and helped to eradicate polio.\nBut the public health system is in a shambles and India ranks poorly on key indicators—more than a million children die every year before reaching the age of five.\nAfter focusing on maternal and child health for years, the programme will broaden priorities to tackle a growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, according to the documents.\nThe ministry has proposed increasing spending to treat such ailments from about $150 million this year to $1.5 billion in 2019-20, according to the new proposal which includes spending contributions from states.\nThe annual funding for strengthening the health system, including ramping up infrastructure and the work force, will more than double to about $3 billion in 2019-20, the documents show.\nThe new funding estimates are in line with a goal of raising health spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2025, from 1.15%, a health ministry official said.\nCriticism, revamp\nThe NITI Aayog was at first against the continuation of the National Health Mission, according to a record of government meetings reviewed by Reuters.\nDuring a March meeting to discuss the proposal, the NITI Aayog’s health adviser said the programme needed a “course correction” and needed to improve standards.\nThe adviser, Alok Kumar, also pointed out that despite investment in the programme, public facilities were not attracting enough patients, documents showed.\nBecause rural hospitals in India are often dilapidated and suffer from a shortage of doctors, it is not uncommon for people to shun them and travel long distances in search of quality healthcare.\nIn the reworked plan, the ministry has prioritised out-patient departments, and aims to reduce premature mortality from cancer or heart ailments by a tenth and cut tobacco use by 7% by 2020, the documents showed.\nKumar pointed out in the March meeting that Bangladesh and Nepal had performed “better with even lower resources”. Kumar declined to comment.\nData from World Health Organization (WHO) shows that Nepal, for example, had an under-five mortality ratio of 35.8 per 1,000 births, compared with India’s ratio of 47.7.\nHealth officials acknowledged in the meeting that results had yet to achieve levels of neighbouring countries. Reuters", "The NITI Aayog CEO also said, \"Tourism is essentially civilisational in character, one can't have garbage and say we have heritage sites.\"\nNITI Aayog CEO Kant asserted that it is not government's business to decide what tourists should eat or drink. (Photo: ANI)\nNew Delhi: Amid Indian states prohibiting consumption of alcohol and beef, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant averred that such restrictions will adversely affect nation's tourism industry.\nKant asserted that it is not government's business to decide what tourists should eat or drink.\n\"Indian states can't get into what a tourist wants to eat and drink. Just not possible...what he wants to eat and drink is his individual business and not the State’s business,\" he said while addressing the World Economic Forum in New Delhi.\nAnswering a poser that whether the states banning beef and alcohol have failed to realise that a country needs to extend every facility required by tourists if it wishes to flourish, Kant said, \"I have been a long term believer on a couple of things. Tourism is essentially civilisational in character, one can't have garbage and filth and say that we have great heritage sites. So, India must focus on cleanliness. It is number one. Number-2 it's about seamless experience.\"\n\"I have said it all the time that for a tourist...it’s about creating experiences. In the evening he wants to relax and he wants to chill out and therefore you need to create that evening experience for (him) in terms of Indian culture,\" he added.\nMadhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Daman have announced their plans to ban sale of liquor, while Gujarat, Bihar, Nagaland and Manipur are already dry states.", "To access the newsletter, click on the link: here If you would like to receive this newsletter via email, please register at: here FACTORS TO WATCH 10:00 am: Bajaj Finance post-earnings analyst conference call in Mumbai 10:30 am: NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar, Oil Secretary K. D. Tripathi, Central Electricity Authority Chairperson R. K. Verma, Power Secretary A. K. Bhalla at India Energy Congress in New Delhi. 11:00 am: Cummins India post-earnings analyst conference call in Mumbai. 1:30 pm: Ashok Leyland post-earnings analyst conference call in Mumbai. 4:00 pm: Ceat post-earnings analyst conference call in Mumbai. 4:30 pm: Godrej Properties post-earnings analyst conference call in Mumbai. LIVECHAT - WEEKAHEAD Reuters EMEA markets editor Mike Dolan discusses the upcoming week's main market inflection points at 1630 IST. To join the conversation, click on the link: here INDIA TOP NEWS •India prioritises rural spending, healthcare in budget as election looms Eyeing an election next year, India's government announced massive spending for rural areas and projected economic growth above 8 percent in an annual budget on Thursday that won broad approval from economists, though bond and share markets fell. •Budget spurs inflation worries ahead of RBI policy India's federal budget could push up inflation and prompt the central bank to raise interest rates sooner, analysts said on Thursday, raising the probability of a scenario that could hurt the nascent economic recovery. •Budget to sting buyers of Apple's iPhones, Audi cars, other luxury brands India outlined a farmer-friendly budget on Thursday, but for its burgeoning middle class, who aspire to own luxury goods ranging from Ray-Bans to iPhones, and Zippos to Fitbits - imported goods are set to get a whole lot costlier. •India's April-Dec fiscal deficit touches 113.6 pct of full-year target India reported a fiscal deficit of 6.21 trillion rupees for April-December or 113.6 percent of the budgeted target for the current fiscal year that ends in March. •India vows to eliminate use of cryptocurrencies India will move to stamp out use of cryptocurrencies, which it considers illegal, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday, launching a no-holds-barred attack on virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. •India's Ashok Leyland Q3 profit surges, beats estimates Ashok Leyland reported a near threefold rise in quarterly profit on Thursday, beating analysts' estimates, helped by higher export volumes and domestic sales of medium and heavy commercial vehicles. •Info Edge India to sell stake in food delivery firm Zomato to Alibaba's Ant Info Edge India said it will sell a stake in food delivery firm Zomato Media to Ant Financial, Alibaba Group Holding's payment affiliate, for $50 million. •India factory growth cools to 3-month low in Jan on weaker demand Indian factory growth cooled to a three-month low in January as weaker domestic demand dragged on output despite firms keeping price increases to a minimum, a business survey showed on Thursday. GLOBAL TOP NEWS •Amazon posts largest profit in its history on sales, tax boost Amazon.com reported a profit near $2 billion, the largest in its history, as the online retailer drew millions of new customers to its Prime fast-shipping club for the holiday season and as changes to U.S. tax law added to its bottom line. •Strong iPhone prices, cash plans buoy Apple shares after muted outlook Stronger iPhone prices and hints by Apple that it could return more than half of its $285 billion in cash to shareholders eased concerns among investors, even as the world's biggest technology company gave a disappointing revenue outlook for the current quarter. •Alphabet's earnings miss profit estimates as spending grows Google parent Alphabet missed quarterly profit forecasts as steady ad sales growth was offset by increased spending to promote its consumer gadgets, YouTube video app and cloud computing services, the U.S. technology company said. LOCAL MARKETS OUTLOOK (As reported by NewsRise) •The SGX Nifty Futures were trading at 10,926.00, trading down 1.09 percent from its previous close. •The Indian rupee will likely open flat to weaker against the dollar, in line with most Asian peers, tracking a sell-off across most global shares that may spillover to the local equities. •Indian government bonds are likely to extend their fall as investors await a fresh supply of notes through a weekly auction. The yield on the 7.17 percent bond maturing in 2028 is likely to trade in a 7.57 percent -7.63 percent band till the auction result. GLOBAL MARKETS • Wall Street stocks gave up early gains on Thursday as bond yields rose and technology stocks retreated ahead of a host of high-profile earnings. • The euro neared multi-year peaks as talk of policy tightening in Europe and expectations that inflation is set to gear higher drove up borrowing costs globally. • The dollar nursed losses against a basket of currencies and was on track for a weekly fall as investors focused on renewed economic strength in the eurozone. • The U.S. Treasuries market started February on a sour note with the 10-year yield hitting a near four-year peak on Thursday as investors booked profits on curve-related bets ahead of Friday's jobs report. • U.S. oil rose for a third day after a survey showed strong compliance with output cuts by OPEC and others including Russia, offsetting concerns about surging U.S. production. • Gold prices inched down ahead of U.S. jobs data due later in the day as traders looked for guidance on the course of monetary policy for the remainder of the year. CLOSE FII INVESTMENTS EQUITIES DEBT PNDF spot 63.73/63.76 February 1 $171.80 mln $217.90 mln 10-yr bond yield 7.71 pct Month-to-date $2.04 bln $1.69 bln Year-to-date $2.04 bln $1.69 bln For additional data: India govt bond market volumes Stock market reports Non-deliverable forwards data Corporate debt stories [IN CORPD] Local market closing/intraday levels [IN SNAPSHOT] Monthly inflows [INFLOWS RTRS TABLE IN] ($1 = 63.9700 Indian rupees) (Compiled by Yoganand KN in Bengaluru)", "Mumbai: The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty opened lower on Thursday. The Indian rupee, tracking Asian cues, falls against the US dollar. The shares of Adani Ports and Bharti Airtel rise, whereas those of TCS, Gail, and Coal India fall. Counters such as realty, oil and gas, auto, healthcare and FMCG traded positive. The NSE Nifty too edged up by 3.25 points, or 0.03%, at 9,621.40.\nCaution set in after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points (bps) and announced its plans to start paring its bond holdings. Major gainers that supported the indices were Bharti Airtel, Adani Ports, NTPC, Dr Reddy’s, Cipla, Hero MotoCorp, RIL, ITC and Hind Unilever, rising by up to 1.37%. Traders said building of fresh long positions amid continued buying by domestic institutional investors (DIIs) kept bullish sentiment intact. DIIs bought shares worth Rs71.65 crore, while foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold shares worth Rs161.13 crore on Wednesday, as per provisional data.\n■ 11.05am: Aviation stocks trade higher. SpiceJet Ltd shares rise 2.6%, Jet Airways India Ltd shares rise 2.1%, InterGlobe Aviation Ltd shares rise 2.3%.\n■ 11.00am: Oil marketing companies trade lower. Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd shares fall 2.4%, Hindustan Petroleum Corp shares fall 1.8%, Indian Oil Corp shares fall 1.2%.\n■ 10.45am: Realty stocks gains. DLF Ltd rose 2%, HDIL 1.8%, Prestige Real Estate 1.7%, Godrej Properties 1.7%, Sobha 1.4%, Indiabulls Real Estate 1.2%.\n■ 10.30am: Cadila Healthcare Ltd rose 2.1% to Rs 539.85 after the company said in a notice to BSE that Zydus got final approval from the USFDA for Acyclovir for injection USP.\n■ 10.13am: Shipping Corp. of India (SCI) shares rise as much as 16% (Rs92) after Niti Aayog proposes stake sale in the company. Currently the scrip is trading at Rs87.35, 10% higher than its previous close.\n■ 9.33am: BSE Sensex trades lower by 20 points, or 0.07%, to 31,136, while the Nifty 50 falls 20 points, or 0.21%, to 9,598.\n■ 9.30am: Reliance Industries Ltd rose 1% to Rs1,368. According to CNBC report, Mukesh Ambani will hold press conference along with British Petroleum in Delhi on Thursday.\n■ 9.25am: Jindal Saw Ltd rose 3% to Rs75.55 after the company said its holding in US unit brought down to 19%; closed down unit in Spain; sold shareholding in Singapore unit.\n■ 9.20am: Central Bank of India fell 2.1% to Rs99.50 after its said Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has initiated “prompt corrective action” (PCA) for state-run Central Bank of India over high bad loans and negative return on assets\n■ 9.10am: Shipping companies were trading higher. Shipping Corp Of India rose 12%, Great Eastern Shipping Co Ltd rose 3.5%. Shreyas Shipping & Logistics Ltd 4.4%.\n■ 9.08am: Banking stocks fell. Punjab National Bank fell 2.3%, Dena Bank 1.8%, Indian Overseas Bank 1.7%, Bank of Baroda 1.6%, IDBI Bank 1.5%, UCo Bank 1.5%, Union Bank of India 1.4%, Oriental Bank of Commerce 1.2%, Canara Bank 1.2%, Syndicate Bank 1.1%, Yes Bank 1.1%, Bank of India 1.1%, Indian Bank 1.1%, Andhra Bank 1%, Axis Bank 0.8%.\n■ 9.05am: The 10-year bond yield was at 6.502% compared to its previous close of 6.474%. Bond yields and prices move in opposite directions.\n■ 9.00am: Asian currencies were trading mixed. Thai baht was up 0.15%, Malaysian ringgit 0.09% and Japanese yen rose 0.04%. However, Taiwan dollar was down 0.07%, Indonesian rupiah 0.07% and Singapore dollar fell 0.05%.\nWith inputs from PTI", "Deepak Nitrite on Monday said its board has approved raising up to Rs 150 crore through sale of shares to institutional investors.\nIn a filing to the BSE, the company informed that the board of directors approved raising of funds by way of Qualified Institutions Placement (QIP) of equity shares up to Rs 150 crore.\nThe board approved conducting a postal ballot for obtaining the approval of the shareholders for QIP, the filing said.", "MUMBAI, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Indian state-run Punjab National Bank has launched a share sale to qualified institutions to raise at least 30 billion rupees ($466.2 million) with an upsize option for another 20 billion rupees, according a source and a deal term sheet.\nPunjab National Bank, the second-biggest state-run lender in the country, is looking to sell the shares at an indicative price of 168 rupees each, according to the source and the term sheet.\nThe stock closed at 172.95 rupees on Monday.\nThe total fund-raising of 50 billion rupees, including the upsize option, is aimed at boosting the bank’s capital ratio.\nIndia’s state-run banks are raising funds as part of a recapitalisation plan in which New Delhi will inject 1.35 trillion rupees through recapitalisation bonds, while the lenders are required to raise on their own about 580 billion rupees.\nBank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley and PNB Investment Services are the banks managing the sale. ($1 = 64.3500 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy and S. Anuradha of IFR; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)", "The government has decided to \"wait and watch\" for the next three-four months before taking a call on disinvestment of national carrier Air India due to prevalent market condition specially high fuel prices, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said today. The government's proposed stake sale in Air India failed to attract any initial bidder when the deadline for bidding ended on May 31.\n\"Market condition is not right for Air India disinvestment now. In view of this we are keeping a wait and watch policy for the next three to four months,\" Gadkari, who holds multiple portfolios such as road, transport, highways, shipping and water resources.\nThe minister said given the high fuel prices at present, the viability of the move will be judged before going ahead with the disinvestment process.\nUnder the Air India disinvestment plans, the government was to sell 76 per cent stake in the national carrier along with complete divestment of low-cost arm Air India Express and a 50 per cent stake in Air India SATS Airport Services Pvt Ltd -- an equal joint venture with Singapore-based SATS.\nEarlier, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha had said the government was committed to strategic disinvestment of Air India. \"What the modalities are, what the circumstances are, we have to monitor and evaluate as we go along,\" he had said.\nAt the end of March 2017, the carrier had a debt burden of around Rs 48,877 crore. Of the total amount, Rs 17,360 crore was related to aircraft and Rs 31,517 crore pertained to working capital loans.\nIn May, Air India's market share stood at 12.8 per cent.", "The committee of creditors (CoC) of bankrupt Binani Cement on Wednesday issued a letter of intent (LoI) to Aditya Birla Group’s UltraTech Cement for acquisition of the cement company under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) process.\nThe move follows Monday’s meeting, at which CoC voted in absolute majority in favour of the revised resolution plan submitted by UltraTech, which has offered to pay around Rs 7,960 crore for the debt-laden cement maker.\n“As the company has already received the CCI (Competition Commission of India) approval, the resolution plan is now subject to the approval by NCLT,” UtlraTech Cement said in a stock exchange filing on Wednesday. The company said that the acquisition of Binani Cement (BCL) would provide it access to large reserves of high-quality limestone and increase its presence in the country. FE\nFor all the latest Business News, download Indian Express App", "State-owned lender IDBI Bank today said it will sell 30 per cent stake in NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Ltd (NEGIL).\nThis is a part of exercise to exit from non-core business.\nThe \"board of directors of IDBI Bank... have by way of circular resolution approved sale of 1,20,00,000 equity shares of NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Ltd (NEGIL) constituting 30 per cent stake held by the bank\", it said in a filing to stock exchanges.\nLast month, IDBI Bank's board also approved sale of 1.5 per cent stake in the leading bourse National Stock Exchange (NSE).\nThe bank had sold 9 lakh equity shares constituting 2 per cent of the paid-up capital of the NSE to LIC on March 30, 2016.", "NEW DELHI: India's health ministry has trimmed its cost estimates for extending its main public health program by 25 percent after criticism from a federal think-tank over inefficiency and slow progress, according to government documents seen by Reuters.\nThe new estimate of US$25 billion for a three-year extension of the flagship health program, down from an initial figure of about US$33 billion, comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushes a multi-pronged agenda to revamp health services.\nPlanned reforms include streamlining spending and bureaucracy, slashing prices of life-saving drugs and medical devices, and nudging companies such as PepsiCo to make more healthy products.\nTo extend the National Health Mission to 2020, a think-tank led by Modi and the finance ministry in March told health officials to rework the original proposal with \"realistic\" budget expectations and to incorporate lessons from neighbors such as Nepal and Bangladesh, the documents show.\nIn response, the health ministry has resubmitted a plan with lower cost estimates and a list of targets to be achieved by 2020, including strengthening health infrastructure and reducing tobacco use.\nThe finance ministry, which will review the plan for approval this month, did not respond to a request for comment. The federal think-tank, NITI Aayog, declined to comment.\nAdvertisement\nAdvertisement\nIndia's National Health Mission is one of the world's largest public health programs. It provides free drugs and treatment to millions of rural poor and helped to eradicate polio.\nBut the public health system is in a shambles and India ranks poorly on key indicators - more than a million children die every year before reaching the age of five.\nAfter focusing on maternal and child health for years, the program will broaden priorities to tackle a growing burden of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes, according to the documents.\nThe ministry has proposed increasing spending to treat such ailments from about US$150 million this year to US$1.5 billion in 2019-20, according to the new proposal which includes spending contributions from states.\nThe annual funding for strengthening the health system, including ramping up infrastructure and the work force, will more than double to about US$3 billion in 2019-20, the documents show.\nThe new funding estimates are in line with a goal of raising health spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2025, from 1.15 percent, a health ministry official said.\nCRITICISM, REVAMP\nThe NITI Aayog was at first against the continuation of the National Health Mission, according to a record of government meetings reviewed by Reuters.\nDuring a March meeting to discuss the proposal, the NITI Aayog's health adviser said the program needed a \"course correction\" and needed to improve standards.\nThe adviser, Alok Kumar, also pointed out that despite investment in the program, public facilities were not attracting enough patients, documents showed.\nBecause rural hospitals in India are often dilapidated and suffer from a shortage of doctors, it is not uncommon for people to shun them and travel long distances in search of quality healthcare.\nIn the reworked plan, the ministry has prioritized out-patient departments, and aims to reduce premature mortality from cancer or heart ailments by a tenth and cut tobacco use by 7 percent by 2020, the documents showed.\nKumar pointed out in the March meeting that Bangladesh and Nepal had performed \"better with even lower resources\". Kumar declined to comment.\nData from World Health Organization shows that Nepal, for example, had an under-five mortality ratio of 35.8 per 1,000 births, compared with India's ratio of 47.7.\nHealth officials acknowledged in the meeting that results had yet to achieve levels of neighboring countries.\n(Editing by Tom Lasseter and Robert Birsel)", "April 20 Cosco Shipping Development Co Ltd :\n* Issuance of 2.34 billion shares to raise gross proceeds of up to rmb8.6 billion\n* As part of revised proposed non-public issuance of a shares, on 20 april, co entered into subscription agreement with cosco shipping\n* Pursuant to revised issuance of a shares, co will issue maximum of 2.34 billion a shares to not more than 10 specific target subscribers Source text: [bit.ly/2pW2914] Further company coverage:", "SINGAPORE, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Crisis-wracked commodity trader Noble Group said on Friday said proposed agreements to sell four dry bulk carrier vessels have fallen through after the buyers failed to get approval from their boards for the deals by Thursday.\nNoble estimated it would have received net proceeds of about $30 million if the vessels had been sold, after repayment of mortgages associated with the ships and other costs.\n“Noble Group wishes to update that the vessels are, in the current market, profit generating and cash flow positive,” it said in a statement. The vessels were still available for sale and the company has started discussions with interested third parties, it added.\nThe proposed disposal of the vessels is a part of the company’s debt reduction plans. This week, Noble proposed a deal under which existing shareholders’ equity would be nearly wiped out, while the restructured company would have much lower debt. (Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan; editing by Richard Pullin)", "To access the newsletter, click on the link: here If you would like to receive this newsletter via email, please register at: here FACTORS TO WATCH 11:00 am: Budget session of Parliament continues in New Delhi. 11:30 am: MG Motor India MD Rajeev Chaba to brief on company’s plans for Indian market in New Delhi. 05:30 pm: Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Chairman and NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy to address annual general meeting of ICC India in New Delhi. GMF: LIVECHAT - FX WEEK AHEAD FX Buzz analyst Jeremy Boulton analyses G7 currencies at 4:30 PM IST. To join the conversation, click on the link: here INDIA TOP NEWS India's Edelweiss scraps deal to buy Religare's securities unit India's Edelweiss Financial Services' agreed acquisition of the securities business of Religare Enterprises has fallen through because Religare failed to get the necessary regulatory approvals, the suitor said on Friday. India's Oct-Dec current a/c deficit widens sharply on higher imports India's October-December current account deficit widened sharply from a year earlier, driven by higher imports, data from the Reserve Bank of India showed on Friday. DP World buys stakes in Peru's No. 2 container terminal, India logistics firm DP World , one of the world's largest port operators, said on Sunday it had bought a logistics firm in Peru for $315.7 million, giving it a 50 percent stake in the country's second largest container terminal. GLOBAL TOP NEWS Putin wins another six years at Russia's helm in landslide victory Russian President Vladimir Putin won a landslide re-election victory on Sunday, extending his rule over the world's largest country for another six years at a time when his ties with the West are on a hostile trajectory. U.S. tariffs, China trade tensions overshadow G20 finance meeting Worries about the potential for a U.S.-China trade war and frustration over U.S. President Donald Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs threatened to dominate a gathering of finance leaders this week amid strengthening growth. China president's confidante Liu He nominated as a vice premier, Yi Gang as PBOC chief Liu He, a key economic adviser to China's President Xi Jinping, was nominated to be a vice premier, while vice central bank governor Yi Gang was nominated to take over the helm at the People's Bank of China (PBOC). LOCAL MARKETS OUTLOOK (As reported by NewsRise) The SGX Nifty March Futures were trading at 10,206, down 0.3 pct from previous close. The Indian rupee is likely to fall against the dollar as regional currencies began the week on a defensive note ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting. Indian government bonds are likely to edge lower on profit booking amid concerns that the U.S. Federal Reserve may hike its policy rate later this week. The yield on the benchmark 7.17 pct bond maturing in 2028 is likely to trade in 7.55 pct-7.62 pct band today. GLOBAL MARKETS • The S&P 500 and the Dow Industrials rose on Friday, boosted by strong industrial output numbers, though all three of Wall Street's major indexes posted losses for the week. • Asian share markets slipped into the red as caution gripped investors in a week in which the Federal Reserve is likely to hike U.S. interest rates and perhaps signal that as many as three more lie in store for the rest of the year. • The dollar started the week little changed as traders set sights on new Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's first monetary policy meeting later in the week and as the increased threat of trade protectionism kept markets on edge. • Yields rose on Friday after data showed U.S. industrial production surged in February and in anticipation of next week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, at which the U.S. central bank is expected to raise interest rates for the first time this year. • Oil prices fell as rising drilling activity in the United States pointed to further increases in output, raising concerns about a return of oversupply. • Gold prices inched lower as the dollar remained supported, with investors expecting the U.S. Federal Reserve to raise interest rates at this week's policy meeting. CLOSE FII INVESTMENTS EQUITIES DEBT PNDF spot 64.90/64.93 March 16 -- $40.97 mln 10-yr bond yield 7.61 pct Month-to-date $1.25 bln -$1.26 bln Year-to-date $1.35 bln -$167.71 mln For additional data: India govt bond market volumes Stock market reports Non-deliverable forwards data Corporate debt stories [IN CORPD] Local market closing/intraday levels [IN SNAPSHOT] Monthly inflows [INFLOWS RTRS TABLE IN] (Compiled by Nachiket Tekawade in Bengaluru)", "* Steel policy aimed at boosting annual capacity to 300 mln T\n* Reuters reported govt plan on mandatory local steel use in March\n* India may soon announce long-term duties on some steel products (Adds cabinet's decision)\nBy Neha Dasgupta\nNEW DELHI, May 3 India's cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to make the use of local steel mandatory for government's infrastructure projects, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, aimed at boosting the sales of local companies.\nThe ministry's flagship National Steel Policy, which seeks to outline a roadmap to increase the country's annual steel production to 300 million tonnes by 2025, was also passed by the cabinet, Jaitley said.\nAn official with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters earlier that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet might clear the proposals.\nThe policy is broadly seen as a continuation of India's protectionist stance against countries such as China and Russia.\nIt also comes in the backdrop of a trade probe launched by U.S. President Donald Trump against cheap imports into the United States, in a move that could aggravate trade friction among global producers.\nIndia wants to nearly triple its production capacity by the next decade and acquire technology to produce higher value products including automotive steel.\nThe government policy will also provide a guiding light for Indian steel companies that are seeking to expand while saddled with huge debts.\nIn March, Reuters had reported the steel ministry was considering a move making it mandatory to use local steel - pitching it as a WTO-compliant move.\nIndia is also expected to soon announce long-term duties on some steel products imported from China, Japan and Russia, despite complaints from some of the targeted countries.\nBetween April and March, India's steel imports fell 37 percent year-on-year, data from a government body showed, primarily due to measures announced by the government.\nThe proposed National Steel Policy, which was floated in October by Niti Aayog, an influential government think-tank that replaced the Planning Commission, recommended measures to also reduce dependence on imported coking coal, lack of which recently crippled production after heavy rains in Australia created shortages. (Additional reporting by Mayank Bhardwaj and C. K. Nayak; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and David Evans)", "As of now, there are 49 ministers in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet. (PTI)\nThe Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath led Uttar Pradesh Government may soon merge over 90 departments and reduce them to just 37. Moving quickly, the Yogi Adityanath government is reportedly even ready with the proposal to downsize the number of departments. The state government is planning this step in order not only to improve administrative efficiency but also for better control over functioning, New Indian Express said. The move has come days after a Niti Aayog team led by vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar and CEO Amitabh Kant met state Chief Minister Adityanath on November 9. During the meeting, the team suggested the Uttar Pradesh government to restructure administrative departments so as to ensure better implementation of government schemes.\nOnce the merger process is complete, it would be interesting to see, how ministers in the state would be accommodated. As of now, there are 49 ministers in the Yogi Adityanath cabinet. With the state having provision of 60 ministers, the state government still has a scope to include 11 others. On November 9, the Niti Aayog had assured the Uttar Pradesh government that it would resolve all kind of roadblocks faced by the state. Praising the chief minister, the delegation also said that state has started to move on the path of the development. Speaking to reporters, Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar said that the progress made by the state in last seven months has been satisfactory and it was wonderful to see projects moving forward.\nHe added that the Niti Aayog will try to resolve any problems faced by the state government. Rajiv Kumar further said that every state as the identity of its own, so there is a need for specific agenda on development. The Niti Aayog, in future too, would hold workshops that will focus on different best practices in the country in different sectors and give exposure to officials of various departments in the state, he added. When asked to elaborate on some sectors where the state has started moving, Rajiv Kumar spoke of changes in the labour laws and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh.\nHowever, during his interaction with reporters, Niti Aayog vice-chairman also observed that more efforts is needed to be made in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in urban areas of the state.", "Auto component maker Sandhar Technologies' Rs 512 crore initial public offer was subscribed 5 per cent on the first day of the three-day bidding on Monday.\nThe received bids for 5,33,745 shares against the total issue size of 1,08,72,661 shares, as per data.\nThe portion set aside for non institutional investors was subscribed 1 per cent and retail investors 10 per cent.\nThe price band for the offer, which will close on March 21, has been fixed at Rs 327-332.\nThe comprises fresh issue of shares worth Rs 300 crore and an offer for sale of up to 64 lakh shares (including anchor portion of 46,30,842 shares).\non Friday raised Rs 154 crore from anchor investors.\nICICI Securities and Axis Capital are managing the issue.\nThe company plans to use a portion of the net proceeds towards repayment of certain loan facilities and for other general corporate purposes.\nThe shares are proposed to be listed on and\n(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)", "New Delhi: The Rs 4,230-crore initial public offer of state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics was subscribed 45 percent on the second day of bidding on Monday.\nThe offer is in a price band of Rs 1,215-1,240 and will close on March 20 (today). The defence behemoth is offering 3.41 crore equity shares of Rs 10 face value. Retail investors are offered Rs 25 discount per share.\nThe issue through which the company aims to raise Rs 4,230 crore received bids for 1,53,89,868 shares against the total issue size of 3,41,07,525 shares, as per data available with the NSE till 1700 hrs on Monday.\nThe Bengaluru-based firm's IPO is of up to 34,107,525 shares. SBI Capital Markets and Axis Capital are managing the IPO. The shares are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE.\nThe average cost of acquisition of equity shares by the aerospace firm is Rs 152 per share after the buyback in March 2016 and November 2017.", "NEW DELHI: While Niti Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar has recently appealed to Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) to consider a new definition of ‘Swadeshi Economics’, the Manch on Wednesday said the think tank is giving sermons without proper research.In a recent interview to ET, Kumar had urged the RSS affiliate Manch to look at the definition of ‘Swadeshi Economics’ in the light of two critical objectives — generating more jobs and high growth.“We don’t need sermons from others on Swadeshi policies and everybody should be open to other ideas, including Niti Aayog. We have been raising questions about this open-door approach to FDI and our reports show that outgo and royalty on FDI have gone up by four times. Has Niti Aayog questioned this? Is there any valid research it has to show that FDI is increasing employment especially in multi brand retail and this Walmart deal which it is trying to promote. In fact, Niti Aayog has been in the habit of giving sermons without any research on research,” SJM national co-convenor Ashwani Mahajan told ET.“We have proof that retailers get hurt within three kilometres of a Walmart store opening. Why is there so much interest in Walmart in Niti Aayog when the government is seized of the matter? We have said time and again that there is a need to look into FDI policy and we want the government to come out with a white paper on FDI in all fields, including in retail,” he said. Rajiv Kumar had said in the ET report that there was little case for government intervention in case of a ‘friendly merger’ like Flipkart-Walmart.Reacting to his views, Mahajan had tweeted saying: “@RajivKumar1 ji friendly @NITIAayog is not going to help this ‘friendly deal’. Already there are a few hundred cases against this company in question for violating laws. You please make necessary corrections in your notes”.SJM has sought government intervention to stall the deal which it has called ‘back door entry’ to FDI in retail. SJM has also said this is very detrimental to the future of small retailers in India Mahajan was reacting to another strong tweet by All India Online Vendors Association questioning Rajeev Kumar’s view in the ET report.“@RajivKumar1why are you silent on violations of FDI policy, anti competitive practices and absence of regulatory and nodal authorities for this sector? We dont expect to hear from you on above anytime,” tweeted All India Online Vendors Association.", "Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest software exporter, on Monday said its shareholders have approved a Rs 16,000 crore share buyback plan.\nThe board of directors passed the buyback programme through a special resolution saw 99.81 per cent of the total number of valid votes being cast in favour of the proposal, the company said in a regulatory filing.\nThe proposed shares under the buyback represent 2.85 per cent of the total paid up equity share capital at Rs 2,850 per equity share.\nIndia's IT companies are looking at returning cash to their investors amid uncertainity which is hindering their growth prospects.\nTraditional IT businesess are slowing down because of AI, automation and policy changes while clients are even looking at spending heavily on digital and cloud projects.\nALSO READ: Salary hike roadblocks: After Tech Mahindra, will other IT firms follow suit?\nIn February, the board of TCS had approved the proposal to buy back up to 5.61 crore equity shares for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 16,000 crore.\nThe buyback is proposed to be made from the shareholders of the company on a proportionate basis under the tender offer route using the stock exchange mechanism, TCS had said earlier.", "NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said several Indian states remain backward on human development indicators “because of legacy issues”. (IE)\nNITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said today India’s eastern states have done remarkably well on ease of doing business index, but he stressed that they need to repeat their progress on the human development index as well.\nHe, however, said several Indian states remain backward on human development indicators “because of legacy issues”.\n“The government’s Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP) aims to correct this by focusing on education, health and nutrition on a real-time basis. We are capturing incremental progress of 115 districts on 49 indicators,” Kant said in a statement.\nHis remarks came a day after he said the states in India’s southern and western region were growing rapidly, but those like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were keeping the country backward. He said while “we have have improved on ease of doing business, we have remained backward on human development index. We are still 131 out of 188 countries in HDI.”\nToday, he said: “The focus of the programme (ADP) is to improve India’s rank in the Human Development Index, raising the living standards of citizens and ensuring inclusive growth for all. The programme is being implemented in the spirit of cooperative federalism in full partnership with states.\n“These states have achieved impressive economic growth in recent years. This must be accompanied by all-round development as envisaged in the Aspirational Districts programme,” he said." ]

[ "Kleanaroo the Kangaroo is the mascot for the citywide campagin." ]

[ "The local businesses did not want to take part in the campaign.", "We get money for turning in our full recyclable bins.", "We have started recycling our paper at TI.", "We have recycled glass for a while now.", "We collect our recyclable materials in piles.", "We attempt to recycle used clothes.", "The Boy Scouts in our area help with recycling projects.", "At work, we recycle aluminum in special bins.", "We throw our recyclables into the trash can.", "\"We have just recently started recycling our computer paper.\"", "\"We have just recently stopped recycling our computer paper.\"", "Most of our recyclables are plastic bottles.", "We were aware of the recycling problem.", "We think that there should be more incentives for recycling.", "We can recycle a lot of things at the glass plant.", "We have a lot of recreational sports locations in our parks.", "We do not recycle.", "Is there recycling here?", "Most of our recyclables are newspapers and glass.", "We recycled our Christmas tree after Christmas.", "We shouldn't recycle those.", "Newspapers have to be recycled.", "we still don't recycle any of our solid waste", "Texas Instruments has began some campaigns on recycling.", "People are recycling", "None of them that we use have bag recycling.", "Our city doesn't have any infrastructure to facilitate recycling.", "He keeps up the painting and stuff, we maintain our home well.", "We put some effort into segregating our waste.", "They have started a newspaper recycling project, and they pick newspapers up weekly.", "You can recycle a lot of things.", "We have it set up on a flat surface." ]

[ "Two studio albums \"Let Go\" & \"Under My Skin\".\\nAlso she did have a bonus audio cd with her DVD \"My World\"." ]

[ "i think you're looking for the ending one. with the words \"miss you\" in it.. it's by Avril Lavigne,it's called \"Slipped Away\", it's on her \"Under My Skin\" Album.. hope that helps", "Any female pop singer, so she could sing me to sleep and calm my nerves when I am insane. (Laughs), I'm never insane. Avril Lavigne most likely.", "Avril Lavigne,Green Day, Seether,Korn,Metallica, Limp bizkit,Offspring,Blink 182,Simple plan , althought I don`t agree with all the lyrics cause I think they should always send a positive message but they hardly ever do. which sucks cause I love nirvana`s music and voices too.", "I've only just started listening to him but I'm loving it so far. Listened to Constipated (a cover of Avril Lavignes's Complicated) and it was hands down the funniest song I've ever heard.", "anything by relient k, superchick, hawk nelson, mat kearney, and the like... also ocean avenue by yellowcard, move along by all american rejects, every time we touch by cascada, fall to pieces by avril lavigne, and caroline by seventh day slumber. also life is good by stellar kart.", "The whole album Confessions On A Dance Floor has been out for a while now and is one of her best albums yet. Many reviews say that it is her best since Ray of Light but I think it is a lot better.", "Nirvana indefinitely, and I blame that on Kurt Cobain's widow, Courtney Love (equally overrated,) and all the attention she's been getting from the media. Also Nickelback (overplayed on the radio, plus, I've just been using them to promote my fanship for the less overrated Theory of a Deadman,) as well as Metallica (in the wake of the downloading hoopla) and Good (Gay) Charlotte (bigger poseur than even gulity pleasures Avril Lavigne!)", "If my memory is correct she came out with an album in the USA but it bombed. \\nIt seems she is only popular in Japan. It is too bad she can't enjoy the cross over success such as Puffy does.", "I have many favorite albums, but I will go with Siamese Dreams by Smashing Pumpkins, this came out when I was a young teenager and I remember how I felt the first time I heard it, it was like they were singing for me, and me only, it was beautiful, and still is. I can put that album on at anytime and anywhere and I feel that young girl inside of me coming back out, it is a great feeling.", "just enter a ton of talent shows. You never know who might come and watch i mean look at Avril Lavigne!! She got famous BY a talent show. Music producer. Also practice what you good at like singing or dancing or piano or flute.", "During the Grammy awards, Rolling Stone had an interview with Chester Bennington, he stated that the new album will be different from their previous albums, which fused hard rock and rap. \"It's dark and spooky, poppy and very melodic,\" says Bennington. \"Not a hard, heavy rock record. What it is, is fucking insane!\" Linkin Park have already come up with fifty new tracks and are in the recording phase of the album [3]. Shinoda reported on Australian radio that the album is scheduled to be released between July and September. Rob Bourdon recently said in an LPU chat that the band have narrowed down 70 ideas for songs down to 32, and Linkin Park should be playing with Metallica at this year's Summer Sonic Festival in Japan and they also hope to go to South Africa before the end of the year. Linkin Park expect to have a new album and new single out by the end of 2006.\\n\\nCurrently Mike Shinoda is doing his rap thing and has an album out called the rising tied but they will reform!", "was lindsay the one who smokes? so she's out! I think HIllary and Avril...but i like Avril more.", "Yes. His latest album was \"Poodle Hat\" released a couple of years ago. That's his 11th album (not counting 'best of' or themed albums) .. I have 10 of his other albums (guess that makes me a bit of a fan).\\n\\nAs of last month, he's in the studio making his 12th album.\\n\\nhttp://www.weirdal.com", "They've claimed to have sold over 20 million of the fantastic album, and other albums claiming to have sold even more would include Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, Led Zeppelin's IV, Michael Jackson's Thriller / Bad / Dangerous, AC&#92;DC's Back In Black and Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill", "They new album comes out April 4, 2006 and it is their 4th album and it is called Me and My Gang!!!", "Back to Basics is the third full-length original studio English language album from American pop singer Christina Aguilera. Although there is no confirmed release date for the album, Billboard states that it will be released in June 2006.\\n\\nAguilera has described her upcoming album as a soul record combining elements of 1920s, '30s and '40s blues and jazz with modern day influences[2]. The record finds her working with new faces like hip hop producers DJ Premier, Kwame and Mark Ronson. It will also find her working with Linda Perry, who worked with Aguilera on Stripped (2002). In February 2006, at MTV's TRL Awards, she previewed three unmastered tracks from the upcoming album including \"Candyman\" and \"Back to Basics\". The first single from the album is expected to be \"Ain't No Other Man\", which was also previewed on the show.\\n\\n\\nConfirmed Tracks\\nBack In The Day \\nUnderstanding \\nThank You (Dedication To Fans) \\nHere To Stay (Pepsi single) \\nSave Me From Myself \\nMercy On Me \\nNasty Naughty Boy \\nCandyman \\nThe Right Man \\nTrouble \\nBack To Basics \\nAin't No Other Man (supposed first single)", "He's been very very busy. He does mostly jazz stuff now. He's had 6 solo albums, played on a bunch of albums for other people and does drum clinics all over the world.", "Back at one- Brian McKnight. Bed of Roses - Bon Jovi\\nTake my breath away- Jessica Simpson \\nLife house- Love of a life time... there are so many but these are some of my favorites.", "Beyonce,Fergie,Gwen Steffani,Faith Hill,OMG there are alot!", "Queen Latifah (real name: Dana Elaine Owens, born March 18, 1970) is an American Grammy Award-winning rap artist and singer, and an Academy Award-nominated actress.", "Cool skater girl i'm a fan too...\\nMaybe, but we know that Avril is a boyish girl maybe she dosen't have a passion at it but still shes the coolest girl ever don't be affected with your friends everybody has likes and dislikes maybe Avril likes Figure Skating and maybe she dosen't ...", "You have to be selective of his songs. The album, \"Mellow Gold\" has too many curse words in it, for instance.\\n\\nAnd I might add how surprised I am of peoples ingnorance of the one and only BECK!", "Those closest I could get while being quick about it was August 20, 2000.\\nEnjoy!\\n\\nROCK DJ - Robbie Williams\\nI'M OUTTA LOVE - Anastacia\\nBREATHLESS - The Corrs\\nFREESTYLER - Bomfunk MCs\\nSPINNING AROUND - Kylie Minogue\\nNEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN - Mel C\\nLIFE IS A ROLLERCOASTER - Ronan Keating\\nCOULD I HAVE THIS KISS FOREVER - Whitney Houston/Enriqe Iglesias\\nHE WASN'T MAN ENOUGH - Toni Braxton\\n(ABSOLUTELY) STORY OF A GIRL - Nine Days\\nCALIFORNICATION - Red Hot Chili Peppers\\nIT'S GONNA BE ME - *NSYNC\\nSTEAL MY KISSES - Ben Harper\\nTHERE YOU GO - Pink\\nYOU SANG TO ME - Marc Anthony\\nIT FEELS SO GOOD - Sonique\\nTHE ONE - Backstreet Boys\\nONE DAY AHEAD - EYE TV\\nOOPS I DID IT AGAIN - Britney Spears\\nI THINK I'M IN LOVE WItH YOU - Jessica Simpson\\nDON'T STOP THE REVOLUTION - Breathe\\nGRADUATION (FRIENDS FOREVER) - Vitamin C\\nDAY & NIGHT - Billie Piper\\nTRY AGAIN - Aaliyah\\nWONDERFUL - Everclear\\nUNCLE JOHN FROM JAMAICA - Vengaboys\\nABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY - Vanessa Amorosi\\nSHACKLES (PRAISE YOU) - Mary Mary\\nI TURN TO YOU - Christina Aguilera\\nRENEGADE FIGHTER - Zed\\nBENT - Matchbox 20\\nJUMPIN JUMPIN - Destiny's Child\\nMUSIC - Madonna\\nREACH - S Club 7\\nKRYPTONITE - 3 Doors Down\\nEVERYTHING YOU WANT - Vertical Horizon\\nRISE - Gabrielle\\nROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY - Morcheeba\\nSUNDOWN - Elwood\\nI WILL LOVE AGAIN - Lara Fabian", "Okay, most of those songs are 20-30 years old.\\n\\nMore recently Michaels has been known for other things, like gay sex in public and drug overdoses on famous Paris roads.", "nope not in my language, but it's easy to work out, think it maybe Italian or German, it looks similar to french n German.\\nIt's not French, cos that's Janvier, Fevrier, Mars, Avril, Mais, June?, Juillet, Aout, Septembre, Octobre, Novembre, Decembre.", "Forget about 1/0 and think a/b. To ask \"what is a divided by b?\" is really asking (as Jethro would) \"how many times does b go into a?\" Ask the question that way: how many times does zero go into one? Or how many nothings are in something? Well, there are an infinite number of 'nothings' in anything, right? You can always remove nothing from something and still have as many nothings left to pull out, and not change the original something at all. So the answer to your question is 'infinity' which is not a number.", "To me, the Beatles are the Best Band of all time and always will be. At first these guys did put out new Albums and then go on tours but this did stop. After that, they did put out a new album every year and straight to the top of the Charts to #1 it would go. They sold all their records without doing any tours. People could not go to see them but they did love to wait every year to have a new Album come out and run to buy it and hear the Beatles again. Not many bands ever got away with this but the Beatles sure did and did not stop until they broke up and then each Beatle put out his own Album that would go straigt up the Chart. Only two Beatles did stop and they had not choice but their music is still loved world wide!! It always will be. To me they put out so many good songs, it is hard to really chose which one I like the best!", "she is great, but i havent heard of a new single, nless you're talking about the KH2 theme, i which case it is still awesome", "I listen to them. I already have thier album after only 2 days being into them. I listen to them everyday. On my iTunes, it said that I listened to this one song 16 times, \"Lying Is The Most A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off\". I even got 3 of my friends into Panic! At The Disco. I love Panic! At The Disco!", "Mine are alphabetized, then each band is put in chronological order for the studio albums. If two bands share a band member, or if a band splits up and one of them does a solo album, I will put them together. \\n\\nWith singles, I organize them between the studio albums, just after the studio album they were released off of. If I know the order in which they were released I will put them in chronological order. So it may be album, then 4 singles, 2nd album, 3 singles, 3rd album... and so on. Live music goes last in my organization.\\n\\nIt sounds like a lot of work but if you have a music encyclopedia to look up the band member associations, it can be a really cool project to accomplish. And you can learn a lot!", "LMAO\\nThere are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many records to list them. You need to be much more specific! No joke my ***!", "she has an album out called complex simplicity and her follow up entitled THE YOUNG LIONESS is due to drop this year.\\n\\nShe has written for mary j blige, 3lw, trina, nivea and teairra mari to name but a few, ne-yo used to be her backing singer.\\n\\ncheck out www.teedramoses.com which is her label site she posts messages on the forum from time to time.\\n\\nAlso check out www.teeedramoses.net for exclusive media\\n\\nwww.myspace.com/teedramoses is her myspace page." ]

[ "Driving distance from Chattanooga, TN to Huntsville, AL. The total driving distance from Chattanooga, TN to Huntsville, AL is 102 miles or 164 kilometers. Your trip begins in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It ends in Huntsville, Alabama. If you are planning a road trip, you might also want to calculate the total driving time from Chattanooga, TN to Huntsville, AL so you can see when you'll arrive at your destination." ]

[ "Distance to cities nearby Chattanooga, TN and Huntsville, AL. 1 Distance from Chattanooga, TN to Bryant, AL. 2 Distance from Chattanooga, TN to Higdon, AL. 3 Distance from Chattanooga, TN to Bridgeport, AL. 4 Distance from Chattanooga, TN to Flat Rock, AL. 5 Distance from Chattanooga, TN to Henagar, AL.", "You can also calculate the cost of driving from Huntsville, AL to Chattanooga, TN based on current local fuel prices and an estimate of your car's best gas mileage. If you're meeting a friend, you might be interested in finding the city that is halfway between Huntsville, AL and Chattanooga, TN.", "birmingham nashville and chattanooga are all options for getting to huntsville birmingham is about 1 1 2 hours away chattanooga about 2 hours and nashville about 2 1 4 hours the drive from b ham is the easiest with a short stint on i 20w then straight up i 65n to i 565e to huntsville", "The distance between Atlanta and Huntsville in a straight line is 146 miles or 234.91 Kilometers. Driving Directions & Drive Times from Atlanta to Huntsville can be found further down the page. Driving distances, maps and journey times are currently provided by Google mapping systems.", "Distance from Huntsville to Montgomery. Distance from Huntsville to Montgomery is 263 kilometers. This air travel distance is equal to 163 miles. The air travel (bird fly) shortest distance between Huntsville and Montgomery is 263 km= 163 miles. If you travel with an airplane (which has average speed of 560 miles) from Huntsville to Montgomery, It takes 0.29 hours to arrive.", "Distance: 268.07 mi (431.42 km) The shortest distance (air line) between Chattanooga and Memphis is 268.07 mi (431.42 km). Driving route: -- (- ) The shortest route between Chattanooga and Memphis is according to the route planner. The driving time is approx. . Half of the trip is reached in . Flight route: 270.07 mi (434.63 km) (1h 0min) The flight distance between the nearest airports Chattanooga and Memphis is 270.07 mi (434.63 km).", "Driving distance from Huntsville, AL to Columbus, OH. The total driving distance from Huntsville, AL to Columbus, OH is 489 miles or 787 kilometers. Your trip begins in Huntsville, Alabama. It ends in Columbus, Ohio.", "Driving distance from Huntsville, AL to Decatur, AL. The total driving distance from Huntsville, AL to Decatur, AL is 26 miles or 42 kilometers. Your trip begins in Huntsville, Alabama. It ends in Decatur, Alabama.", "average speed Chattanooga,TN-Huntsville,AL driving time Chattanooga,TN-Huntsville,AL recommended break Chattanooga,TN-Huntsville,AL fuel consumption Chattanooga,TN-Huntsville,AL fuel price Chattanooga,TN-Huntsville,AL. Adjustment of fuel consumption and fuel price for Chattanooga,TN-Huntsville,AL. You can modify the values ​​corresponding to the average consumption value of your vehicle, fuel prices could be as well modified with any desired value.", "Driving distance from Atlanta, GA to Huntsville, AL. The total driving distance from Atlanta, GA to Huntsville, AL is 180 miles or 290 kilometers. Your trip begins in Atlanta, Georgia. It ends in Huntsville, Alabama. If you are planning a road trip, you might also want to calculate the total driving time from Atlanta, GA to Huntsville, AL so you can see when you'll arrive at your destination.", "The driving distance between Tuscaloosa, AL and Huntsville, AL is approximately 155 miles. The driving time would be approximately 2 hours 30 minutes.", "Example: To find the distances between cities in US and other useful information such as average speed, driving time, the recommended breaks, fuel consumption, fuel price, type in the above fields the names of localities-FROM Chattanooga,TN TO Huntsville,AL and then press ENTER key or click on DISTANCE button.", "What is the driving Distance between Chattanooga TN and Jackson TN? Given is the calculated distance as well as the driving travel time, which does not take into account driving conditions, traffic, etc. The distance between Chattanooga, Tenne…ssee and Jackson, Tennessee is 265 miles. The resulting travel time is 4 hours and 25 minutes.", "Driving distance from Chattanooga, TN to Nashville, TN. The total driving distance from Chattanooga, TN to Nashville, TN is 135 miles or 217 kilometers. Your trip begins in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It ends in Nashville, Tennessee.", "Distance to cities nearby Huntsville, AL and Atlanta, GA. 1 Distance from Huntsville, AL to Big Cove, AL. 2 Distance from Huntsville, AL to Belle Mina, AL. 3 Distance from Huntsville, AL to Athens, AL. 4 Distance from Huntsville, AL to Ardmore, AL. 5 Distance from Huntsville, AL to Arab, AL.", "Driving distance from Montgomery, AL to Huntsville, AL The total driving distance from Montgomery, AL to Huntsville, AL is 191 miles or 307 kilometers. Your trip begins in Montgomery, Alabama. It ends in Huntsville, Alabama.", "Distance Between Cities. Route Map from Chattanooga, TN to Memphis, TN. Optimal route map between Chattanooga, TN and Memphis, TN. This route will be about 340 Miles. The driving route information(distance, estimated time, directions), flight route, traffic information and print the map features are placed on the top right corner of the map. Chattanooga, TN Weather", "the distance between huntsville and charlotte in a straight line is 328 miles or 527 75 kilometers driving directions drive times from huntsville to charlotte can be found further down the page driving distances maps and journey times are currently provided by google mapping systems", "Driving distance from ATL to Huntsville, AL. The total driving distance from ATL to Huntsville, AL is 189 miles or 304 kilometers. Your trip begins at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia. It ends in Huntsville, Alabama. If you are planning a road trip, you might also want to calculate the total driving time from ATL to Huntsville, AL so you can see when you'll arrive at your destination.", "Your Travel Starts at Huntsville, AL, USA. It Ends at Tuscumbia, AL 35674, USA. Can't get a feel of the tour distance on the small map? How far is Huntsville from Tuscumbia? Would you like to see a larger Map? You want to check the Map from Huntsville to Tuscumbia! Apart from the trip distance, do you need road driving directions? Refer the Directions from Huntsville to Tuscumbia! How much would be the distance if one could just fly from Huntsville to Tuscumbia like a bird in a staight line? Check the Flight distance between Huntsville and Tuscumbia. Travel time is an important point to know with the driving distance. Hence you might also want to know the Travel Time from Huntsville to Tuscumbia. This will help you estimate how much time you will spend travelling for the distance from Huntsville to Tuscumbia.", "The initial bearing on the course from Memphis to Chattanooga is 90.17° and the compass direction is E. Midpoint: 35.12064,-87.67782. The geographic midpoint between Memphis and Chattanooga is in 134.03 mi (215.71 km) distance between both points in a bearing of 90.17°. It is located in United States of America, Tennessee, Wayne County. Time difference: 1h. The time difference between Memphis (America/Chicago) and Chattanooga (America/New_York) is 1 hours.", "Distance, Gas Consumption and Emission Notes. Distance from Montgomery, AL to Huntsville, AL is 190Miles or 306 Km. You can get this distance about 2 hours 45 mins. If you want to planning travel with plane for 165 Miles or 265 Km, You can get this distance about 51 mins .", "What is the distance between Atlanta Georgia and Montgomery Alabama? The distance between Montgomery, AL, and Atlanta, GA, is 162 miles and will take about 2 Hours 32 Minutes to drive. What is the driving distance between Huntsville Alabama and Tuscaloosa Alabama? It is 156.16 miles according to MapQuest.", "Distance Between Indianapolis, IN and Chattanooga, TN. Distance, Gas Consumption and Emission Notes. Distance from Indianapolis, IN to Chattanooga, TN is 418Miles or 673 Km. You can get this distance about 6 hours 13 mins. If you want to planning travel with plane for 330 Miles or 531 Km, You can get this distance about 1 hours 12 mins .", "Your journey from Huntsville, AL to Montgomery, AL by car will take: Distance conversions between Huntsville, AL and Montgomery, AL. This table shows distance in kilometers, miles and nautical miles between Huntsville, AL and Montgomery, AL:", "51 mins. Distance from Montgomery, AL to Huntsville, AL is 190Miles or 306 Km. You can get this distance about 2 hours 45 mins. If you want to planning travel with plane for 165 Miles or 265 Km, You can get this distance about 51 mins . A car with an average MPG will needs 8.8 gallons of gas to get the route between these points. The estimated cost of gas to get between Montgomery, AL and Huntsville, AL is $19.98. During the route, an average car will release 172.41 pounds of CO 2 to the atmosphere. Your carbon footprint is 0.91 pounds of CO 2 per mile.", "Surrounded by Appalachian foothills and 1,200-foot to 1,400-foot mountains, Huntsville is about 7 miles north of the Tennessee River Valley. The climate is humid subtropical with a continental influence mainly in winter. Summers are warm, still, and humid with thunderstorms every 1 in 3 days.", "View a map with the driving distance between Montgomery, AL and Huntsville, AL to calculate your road trip mileage. driving distance flying time cost places The driving distance from Montgomery, Alabama to Huntsville, Alabama is:", "Driving distance from Huntsville, AL to New York, NY. The total driving distance from Huntsville, AL to New York, NY is 917 miles or 1 476 kilometers. Your trip begins in Huntsville, Alabama.", "Change the route for US. After generating the route Chattanooga,TN-Huntsville,AL could be changed by simply dragging the line with the mouse. The change can be applied to any intermediate points of that route as well as the points of departure and arrival.", "Distance conversions between Huntsville, AL and Montgomery, AL This table shows distance in kilometers, miles and nautical miles between Huntsville, AL and Montgomery, AL: Distance type", "Driving distance from Huntsville, TX to Dallas, TX. The total driving distance from Huntsville, TX to Dallas, TX is 171 miles or 275 kilometers. Your trip begins in Huntsville, Texas. It ends in Dallas, Texas." ]

[ "Jeopary Questions page 1053 - WHERE IN THE WORLD IS DIEGO ... \"YOU\" TUBE: A homeowner is lured away while a loved one redecorates the house as a ... BONE UP ON YOUR BONAPARTE: Perhaps after yet another bowl of Russian borscht, Napoleon once remarked, \"An army marches on\" this body part.", "Dish of the Day - Page 7 - Res Historica History Forum - Free forum Oak Apple Day is one of those dates the marking of which seems to have fallen by ... The name 'Bramley' is perhaps the least deserving of the various ..... accompanied Napoleon on the invasion of Russia and it seems that on the ..... was just one year after the bread riots that had in part prompted the civil...", "Palmatier Food - Scribd ARMY MARCHES ON ITS STOMACH An army marches on its stomach. ...... Jewish entertainers from New York City and other parts of the country made the rounds ... BORSCHT CIRCUIT BOSSY IN A BOWL BOSTON COOLER See Borscht Belt. ...... but Huck snagged one, removed the mercury, remarked that it was baker's...", "Dividing My Time: HRH Jul 4, 2011 ... You have to teach me to Tveeter, he remarked one evening. ... It's responsible for one in four break up of marriages in Russia. ..... a few times, then return it to the bowl and cover for another 2 hours. 9. ... After the Baptism of Russia in 988, the Russian Orthodox Church ...... An army marches on its stomach.", "Dividing My Time: Russian history Jun 15, 2011 ... Cover the dough to rise in a buttered bowl placed in a warm place until ... After the Baptism of Russia in 988, the Russian Orthodox Church ... a part of the rhythms of the Russian year as New Year's, Maslenitsa, ..... calendar as yet another saint's day, but historical events took over. ...... ~Napoleon Bonaparte." ]

[ "aaas119x50 | Chocolate Class | Page 2 Napoleon Bonaparte once said that an army marches on its stomach. The famous French Emperor was also said to have carried chocolate on his many military .... for long marches, and one Conquistador observed that chocolate was the...", "Napoleon march to Russia in 1812: Typhus spread by lice was more ... Dec 11, 2012 ... \"Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow\". Painting ... Napoleon had led 600,000 men into Russia with the intent of ... Napoleon's engineers built a pontoon bridge over the river and the army entered Russian-controlled Poland the next day. ... for lice to feed on his body and find a home in the seams of his clothing.", "jeopardy/2780_Qs.txt at master jedoublen/jeopardy GitHub PINS | Louis Henry & Bruce Ancona hold a patent on one of these that'll hold your ... emperor once observed that \"An army marches on its stomach\" | Napoleon.", "Napoleon march to Russia in 1812: Typhus spread by lice was more ... Dec 11, 2012 ... History has taught us that Napoleon, in his invasion of Russia in 1812, marched into Moscow with his army largely intact ... In Vilnius, Lithuania, during the winter of 2001, workers were digging ... Another worker later claimed that the things just kept coming out of the groundthere were thousands of them.", "The French connection Napoleon's influence on food is still being ... Nov 28, 2007 ... The French connection &#151; Napoleon's influence on food is still being felt ... napoleons were not named for Napoleon, the French emperor. ... He's credited with the saying, \"An army marches on its stomach\" and for ... There are a lot of different versions of Chicken Marengo, which is .... All rights reserved.", "Evolution and Influence of Tactical Warfare in the American Civil War Mar 26, 2005 ... After rebuilding the army of the Potomac he devised a turning ... in a pre-campaign order issued by French Emperor Napoleon III. .... Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach, civil war engineers took in the bigger picture. ... its negative effects on Southern resources and morale was observed.", "Heritage History | Homeschool History Curriculum | Story of ... \"We had long observed,\" it runs, \"on the part of the Emperor of the French, the .... shown of another of the Emperor's principles, that \"an army marches on its stomach.\" In the paragraph immediately following the one quoted above, Labaume...", "The Military Maxims of Napoleon - Military Info Publishing Napoleon Bonaparte's Military Maxims. ... Of all these obstacles to the march of an army, the most difficult to overcome is the desert; mountains come next, and...", "Napoleon march to Russia in 1812: Typhus spread by lice was more ... Dec 11, 2012 ... History has taught us that Napoleon, in his invasion of Russia in 1812, ... What incredible circumstances could have caused the defeat of one of the ... To compound the problem, the soldiers were sleeping in large ... 25, Napoleon had lost 105,000 of his main army of 265,000, leaving just 160,000 soldiers.", "Maxims of Napoleon Bonaparte : On war - The Napoleonic Guide An army marches on its stomach. You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war. There are only two ... Remember , gentlemen, what a Roman emperor said: The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet.", "Borscht - Wikipedia Borscht is a sour soup popular in several Eastern European cuisines, including Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Belarusian, Lithuanian, Romanian, and Ashkenazi...", "Borscht - Wikipedia Borscht is a sour soup popular in several Eastern European cuisines, including Ukrainian, ... It is often served with smetana or sour cream, hard-boiled eggs or potatoes, but ... The traditional technique of preparing the soup is to precook the vegetables ... Other unique Russian variants include a monastic Lenten borscht with...", "Napoleon enters Moscow - Sep 14, 1812 - HISTORY.com One week after winning a bloody victory over the Russian army at the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armee enters the city of Moscow, only to ... In 1812, French Emperor Napoleon I was still at the height of his fortunes. ... Napoleon retired to a house on the outskirts of the city for the night, but two hours...", "Real Ukrainian Borscht | Recipe | Beet Soup, Borscht and Classic Healthy beet soup that is served with a dollop of creamy sour cream and ... Ukrainian Beet Borscht, Russian Borscht Recipe, Russian Soup Recipes, ..... Borscht -- Beef stew with beets, potatoes, carrots, and garnished with sour cream and dill ...... Borscht (Russian-Style Beet Soup) A traditional soup that you have to try if you...", "War and Peace E-Text | Book X, Chapters 26-30 | GradeSaver The Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom and was finishing his toilet. ... Another valet, with his finger over the mouth of a bottle, was sprinkling Eau ... \"Yes, it has happened luckily for you,\" he said, raising the open snuffbox to his nose .... all who take part in the events, and that a Napoleon's influence on the course...", "Napoleonic Wars and United States Marine Corps Warfighting ... the failed Russian invasion of 1812, and the campaign of 100 Days which .... defeats through the modern day lens of the Marine Corps' ..... actuality, Napoleon was maneuvering his forces into attack ... Field Marshal Mikhail Barclay de Tolly's army in a series of ... penetrated deep into Russia without fighting a major battle,.", "Napoleon march to Russia in 1812: Typhus spread by lice was more ... Dec 11, 2012 ... History has taught us that Napoleon, in his invasion of Russia in 1812, marched into ... But no one recognized the truly great power in this war. ... (and, among other things, prohibited Russia from doing business with Britain). ... The typical French soldier was dirty and sweaty and lived in the same clothes for...", "Borscht (Russian-Style Beet Soup) - An Edible Mosaic Nov 6, 2013 ... I've always been a fan of beets, even as a kid, so Borscht was a natural fit for me. ... I think celeriac is a more traditional addition than celery, but I went with celery ... plus more for garnish if desired; Sour cream, for garnish (optional) ... To serve, ladle the soup into bowls; top with a dollop of sour cream and a...", "18th Century military quotes, what can you find?! [Archive] - The ... An army, like a serpent, travels on its belly. ... From Vicomte Turenne, who wrotes after the battle of Dunen to his king: ... affirm that an equal number of my countrymen would beat them, but I think that I may safely say that half the number would try. ..... Voltaire describing Prussia under Frederick II the Great...", "Battle of Friedland - Wikipedia The Battle of Friedland (June 14, 1807) was a major confrontation of the Napoleonic Wars between the armies of the French Empire commanded by Napoleon I and the armies of the Russian Empire led by Count von Bennigsen. Napoleon and the French obtained a decisive victory that routed much of the Russian army, ... Following the French victory at the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805,...", "Battle of Austerlitz - Wikipedia The Battle of Austerlitz also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. In what is widely regarded as the greatest victory achieved by Napoleon, the Grande Arme of France defeated a larger Russian and Austrian army ... After eliminating an Austrian army during the Ulm Campaign, French forces...", "Jeopary Questions page 1778 - FABULOUS BAKER BOYS ... BODY LANGUAGE: A fearsome foe is said to be \"armed to\" these body parts -- scary! 300 YEARS AGO: In 1698 this Russian czar founded Taganrog; 5 years...", "YEVTUSHENKO - A SOVIET POET TURNS TO MOVIE MAKING ... Feb 2, 1986 ... It is the principle, he says, on which he writes his poetry, his novels, and which he ... far only - film, is about his evacuation as a boy of 9 from wartime Moscow to Siberia. ... Yevtushenko describes his work as a kind of borscht, the Russian beet soup in .... What's important is the result, the taste of the borscht.", "The Road to Moscow - SSQQ Count Pahlen, one of the conspirators, used his position to destroy many ..... He broke the army up into smaller divisions of men commanded by field marshals. ... After the inevitable defeats, Barclay would try to figure out what had gone wrong. ... Watching Napoleon move deeper into Russian without opposition was equally...", "The Differential Theory of U.S. Armed Forces upon encountering a ... ... snake builds bonfire, pops smoke, lays out VS 17 to mark landing zone. ... Navy Submariner - meets snake in bar, buys snake cherry drink, gets ... British public dies in massive epidemic of snakebite. ... \"They are like their own beer: froth on top, dregs at the bottom, the ... --Voltaire: referring to the British.", "French invasion of Russia - Wikipedia Deaths: 400,000; Survivors: 120,000 men (excluding early deserters). Of these, 50,000 were ... Napoleon hoped the battle would mean an end of the march into Russia, but ... and continued to retreat into Russia, while leaving Smolensk to burn. ... 1812, not quite six months from its outset, with the last French troops leaving...", "The Immortal Beloved: Part 3 of the Online Learning Guide to ... Dec 4, 2014 ... Beethoven, after coming to terms with his failing hearing, entered an ... However, Beethoven's attitude towards Napoleon, shared by many of .... though perhaps not probable, candidates for the recipient of the letter. ... Another Immortal Beloved candidate is Therese von Brunsvik. ... Josephine von Brunsvik.", "French invasion of Russia - Wikipedia Deaths: 400,000; Survivors: 120,000 men (excluding early deserters). Of these, 50,000 were ... The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 (Russian: ... The Russian army retreated into Russia for almost three months. ..... On September 14, 1812, Napoleon moved into the empty city that was...", "US Military Afraid It Can't Fight Russia - Russia Insider Aug 17, 2015 ... Or reacting to a limited Russian attack to, say, finally put a stop to the .... Again I quote Field Marshal Montgomery, who had more experience of big war ..... today: Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: 'Do not march on Moscow'. .... those French farmers didn't really unload a ton of manure on city hall?", "Timeline of the Napoleonic era - Wikipedia Timeline of the Napoleonic era (17991815). The Napoleonic era began in 1799 with ... 1785. October 28: Napoleon Graduates from Ecole Militaire with the rank of ... he was widely credited for the victory) at an internal French battle at Toulon, ... March 2: Napoleon is given command of the French army in Italy; March 11:...", "The Food Timeline: history notes-meat Fables 267 He was accustomed to Bolt his Food,and let the Fried Sweets ... This does not mean that the blood must run from them as they are carved, but that ..... of a cornucopia, or horn of plenty; slogan of the 1900 William McKinley campaign. ... by that funny paper, Judge, stating 'Four Years More of the Full Dinner Pail,'.", "A Borscht for Borscht Lovers' Honest Cooking Nov 3, 2014 ... Discover the history of borscht soup and the secret to making the ... Ilf & Petrov duo are all Russian writers, all of them have Ukrainian roots, ... Making Borscht: adding hot stock ... I've had borscht made of beef, lamb, duck, goose, and chicken. ... Celery stalks are great if you can't get a hold of Chinese celery..." ]

[ "Mr Corbyn also told the BBC's Andrew Marr that \"flags don't build houses\".\nAnd he said he would not campaign against Scottish independence alongside David Cameron ahead of any future referendum.\nThe SNP said Mr Corbyn's comments were \"ill-informed\" and \"betray how little he knows about Scotland\".\nAnd it said Mr Corbyn's party remained \"firmly on the side of the Tories\" when it came to issues such as devolving powers to create jobs, protect trade union rights and to \"protect Scots from Tory welfare cuts\".\nSpeaking as the annual Labour conference got under way in Brighton, Mr Corbyn told the Marr Show that the SNP had a \"headline\" of being opposed to austerity.\nBut he claimed the party was also \"privatising CalMac, also were behind the privatisation of ScotRail, also cutting college places, also privatising services, also cutting local government funding\" - claims which have been strongly denied by the SNP.\nThe SNP has pointed out that the tendering processes for Scotland's rail and ferry services were in place long before it took power in the Scottish Parliament, which it says is powerless to change them.\nThe latest ferry contract has not yet been awarded, with the Scottish government-owned CalMac bidding against private firm Serco as part of the tendering process, which is required under EU law.\nScotRail was privatised as part of the UK government's privatisation of British Rail in the 1990s. The Scottish government awarded the latest contract to run the franchise to Abellio, which is owned by the Dutch government, last year.\nMr Corbyn added: \"Yes they (the SNP) have an austerity badge, but where is the economic strategy behind it which doesn't either continue the austerity that is happening now, or if they go for fiscal devolution is going to be even worse in Scotland because of the price of oil at the present time?\"\nMany within Scottish Labour believe it was a mistake for the party to agree to become part of the Better Together campaign alongside the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats ahead of last year's independence referendum.\nAnd Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale announced last week that she would not stop the party's MPs and MSPs campaigning for independence if there was another referendum.\nMr Corbyn said he \"will not be standing alongside David Cameron\" to oppose independence, but would instead be \"standing alongside Kezia Dugdale and the Scottish Labour Party.\"\nHe said Labour's membership numbers had \"gone up incredibly\" in Scotland both during and since the party's leadership contest.\nHe added: \"If you are poor in Glasgow or you are poor in Birmingham - you are poor. If you need a house in Glasgow or you need a house in London - you need a house, and so there is the class politics issue of it.\n\"That is the message I am taking when I am campaigning in Scotland just as much as I am campaigning anywhere else. Flags don't build houses\".\nMr Corbyn also admitted he faces a battle to persuade his shadow cabinet to back him on scrapping nuclear weapons.\nA motion calling for Labour delegates to discuss whether Trident should be scrapped failed to get the support it needed at the conference, meaning the issue will not now be debated.\nHe is expected to visit Scotland on Thursday for what will be the first time since he became Labour leader.\nThe SNP's Westminster leader Angus Robertson said the new Labour leadership had \"already eagerly signed up to George Osborne's fiscal charter\", which he said showed that \"they are still running scared of the Tories - and that only the SNP can be trusted to stand up to Tory cuts.\"\nMr Robertson added: \"Mr Corbyn also seems completely unaware that the tendering processes for both rail and ferry services were in place long before the SNP took power - and that the Scottish Parliament is powerless to change them.\n\"Mr Corbyn's comments show that Labour may have changed the messenger, but they clearly haven't changed their dismal, negative message.\"\nThe Conservative government's business secretary, Sajid Javid, said: \"The Labour leader confirmed that he would weaken our defences by scrapping our independent nuclear deterrent and that he would damage our economy by putting up taxes on jobs, earnings, investment and people's homes.\n\"This shows the Labour Party are a serious risk to our national security, our economic security and to the security of all working people.\"\nMeanwhile, Ms Dugdale claimed that the days of her party \"listening and not acting\" are over when she addressed the Labour conference on Sunday afternoon.\nShe also pledged to fight next year's Holyrood election with a vision that sets Labour apart from the SNP.\nMs Dugdale said: \"More and more people are starting to question the record of the SNP government, and are coming to the conclusion that our public services are not what they should be.\n\"Scotland needs a strong Labour Party and a strong opposition to the Scottish government, because for eight years the SNP government have had the chance to change our schools, change our hospitals, change our country for the better.\n\"But the truth is they haven't. The gap between the richest and the rest in our schools has grown, with children from the most deprived backgrounds less likely to succeed than their well off classmates.\n\"And if they do manage to get the grades they need to go to university, they face the lowest levels of student support anywhere in the United Kingdom.\"" ]

[ "Mr Corbyn met staff at Harris Tweed Hebrides and is to address a town hall rally in Stornoway to highlight his party's policies for rural areas.\nHe is to tour a series of marginal seats in Scotland over the next five days, attending speeches and rallies.\nThe Tories say his policies lack credibility, while the SNP were critical of his position on Brexit.\nLabour gained six seats north of the border in June's snap election, having lost 40 in the previous poll in 2015.\nHowever, they were less than 100 votes behind the SNP in two Glasgow seats, and less than 1,000 votes behind in six Scottish seats in total.\nWith the election result stripping Theresa May's Conservatives of their majority in government, Mr Corbyn has pledged to remain on an election footing. His party has identified up to 18 Scottish seats as potential targets.\nThe Labour leader is using his visit to the Western Isles to highlight Labour plans to \"rural-proof\" policies in government, so that all laws are assessed on their impact on rural communities.\nMr Corbyn said: \"Rural communities have been taken for granted for too long. There has been chronic underinvestment in transport, broadband and public services, with rural infrastructure and industry neglected.\n\"Labour will invest in transport, broadband, public services, housing and environmental and coastal protections - vital for the economy and the rural way of life.\"\nHe pledged to visit Scotland \"roughly once a month\" to campaign, and called on the Scottish government to use \"every power they've got\" to combat austerity from the Westminster administration.\nThe SNP has a lead of just over 1,000 votes in the local constituency of Na'h-Eileanan an Iar, where Angus MacNeil held his seat in June's election by a majority of 6.8%, over a Labour challenger.\nA spokesman for the party said Mr Corbyn's \"backing for the Tories' extreme Brexit, outside the single market and customs union, is set to hit our rural communities hardest\".\nHe added: \"Rural areas benefit massively from our membership of the EU, having access to funding, tariff-free trade and a highly-skilled labour market.\n\"Sadly, rather than wanting to protect these benefits for rural communities, Labour are pledging to deliver an extreme Brexit. Jeremy Corbyn and Labour simply cannot be trusted to deliver for rural Scotland.\"\nThe Scottish Conservatives, meanwhile, said it wasn't long ago that Scottish Labour \"dreaded the thought of Jeremy Corbyn coming north\".\nMSP Miles Briggs added: \"Had he won the general election, Corbyn would have sold Scotland out in a heartbeat, and that ambivalence to Scotland's place in the UK hasn't changed.\"", "Mr Corbyn will spend five days in Scotland, and aims to speak to thousands of voters in marginal seats.\nThe Labour leader remains hopeful the Tory government will collapse, sparking another election.\nLabour believes 18 of the 64 seats it would need to win in order to secure a majority are in Scotland.\nBut an SNP spokesman said: \"On Mr Corbyn's trip north, perhaps he can discuss all the policy differences with the head of his Scottish branch office - such as Trident renewal. That is, if they are on speaking terms.\"\nSNP MSP James Dornan added: \"Labour have learned nothing because rather than holding the Tories to account, they are still campaigning in Scotland against the SNP, which is odd given the majority of Corbyn's policies are already being delivered by a progressive SNP Scottish government.\n\"And no one in Scotland should be in any doubt - whether under Kezia Duglade or Corbyn - Labour are a party that backs an extreme Tory Brexit and policies like Trident renewal, against Scotland's national interests.\"\nThe SNP seats Labour is targeting include Glasgow South West; Glasgow East; Airdrie and Shotts; Lanark and Hamilton East; Motherwell and Wishaw; Inverclyde; and Dunfermline and West Fife, where swings of less than 1% are required for Labour to win.\nA further 10 central belt constituencies would require swings of between 1.4% and 3.6%, while the Western Isles would take a swing of 3.4% to change hands.\nThe party already holds seven seats north of the border, after it surpassed expectations in last month's snap general election.\nIt held onto Ian Murray's Edinburgh South constituency, and won a further six seats held by the SNP.\nMr Corbyn said: \"Labour remains on an election footing as a government-in-waiting, ready to end failed austerity and ensure that Scotland has the resources it needs to provide the public services its people deserve.\n\"Unlike the SNP and the Tories, Labour will transform our economy through investment, insisting that the true wealth creators - that means all of us - benefit from it.\n\"The only way to remove the Conservatives from Downing Street, and have a government that works for the many, not the few, is to back Labour in Scotland.\"\nMeanwhile, the Campaign for Socialism - a left-leaning group within Scottish Labour - has called for the party to embrace Mr Corbyn's message north of the border.\nIt claims that Kezia Dugdale's leadership of Scottish Labour held back the UK-wide Labour effort in last month's election, stifling the so-called \"Corbyn effect\" in Scotland.\nDuring the campaign, Ms Dugdale insisted she had faith in Mr Corbyn, despite backing Owen Smith during last year's leadership challenge.\nA Campaign for Socialism spokesman said: \"In Scotland we looked more like Jim Murphy's Labour Party than Jeremy Corbyn's - and that isn't a good look.\n\"We need to change - but that's more about changing emphasis than leadership.\n\"Jeremy has put Labour on the path to government across the UK because 'for the many, not the few' is a message that resonates. It's one that Scottish Labour needs to send.\"\nMs Dugdale has been running her own summer campaign in Scotland under the banner \"for the many\" - a slogan aligned with UK Labour's own key election message.\nShe said: \"The Labour Party is growing, with more members signing up every day. We continue to offer hope with our radical policies to transform Scotland as part of our pro-UK, anti-austerity message.\n\"I look forward to joining Jeremy in August as we take our message to the people of Scotland.\"", "Kezia Dugdale also said the manifesto offered a vision where the \"rich and powerful pay their fair share\".\nBut the Conservatives said Labour's \"nonsensical manifesto doesn't add up\".\nAnd the SNP said it had already introduced many of the policies Labour was proposing.\nThe Labour manifesto, which was unveiled by Jeremy Corbyn in Bradford, commits the party to opposing a second referendum on Scottish independence, which it describes as \"unwanted and unnecessary\".\nIt also says a Labour government would establish a People's Constitutional Convention that will consider the option of a more federal UK.\nAmong the other measures contained in the manifesto are:\nThe manifesto - a draft of which was leaked last week - also outlines Labour plans for public ownership of utilities and the Royal Mail, and to introduce a £10 an hour minimum wage.\nAnd the party said it would also lower the threshold for the 45p rate of income tax from £150,000 to £80,000 and introduce a new 50p rate on earnings over £123,000.\nHowever, income tax is devolved to Holyrood - so the changes would only apply in Scotland if the Scottish government chose to introduce them.\nMr Corbyn said the manifesto was a \"programme of hope\", which he contrasted with a Conservative campaign which he claimed was \"built on one word - fear\".\nAnd he insisted that Labour's plans were fully costed, telling activists: \"We can embark on this ambitious programme without jeopardising our national finances.\"\nThe manifesto launch was attended by Ms Dugdale, who said the party was was offering a \"radical vision for a country that works for the many, not just a privileged few\".\nAnd she said a Labour government would redistribute wealth and power across the UK - arguing that the Tories had made working families worse off while offering tax breaks to the wealthiest.\nMs Dugdale added: \"The SNP has done nothing to stop this austerity - it has simply passed it on with £1.5bn worth of cuts to local services since 2011.\n\"A Labour vision for our country is one where the rich and the powerful pay their fair share.\n\"Labour's manifesto gives voters a real choice: a fairer Scotland for the many, not the few; or a Scotland caught between the two extremes of Tory and SNP nationalism.\"\nBy BBC Scotland political editor Brian Taylor\nOne journalist, from a paper generally seen as supporting Labour, opened by suggesting that the party's policies, as leaked a week back, had proved relatively popular with the focus groups, before whom all politicians bow.\nOn stage, Jeremy Corbyn beamed, beatifically. This, you could see him thinking, was the stuff to give them. That'll teach my critics.\nHowever, his interlocutor wasn't quite finished. The snag, he said, was that those same members of the public didn't seem to favour Mr Corbyn as leader and PM in waiting.\nDuring an election, politicians are programmed to smile. But it has to be said that, with this addendum, Mr Corbyn's grin faded a mite; only fractionally but perceptibly.\nRead more from Brian\nResponding to the manifesto launch, SNP deputy leader Angus Robertson said Labour was \"pledging today what the SNP are already delivering for the people of Scotland\".\nHe added: \"Scrapping hospital parking charges, free tuition, publicly-owned water, ending the Bedroom Tax, increasing renewable energy and expanding free childcare will all seem familiar to voters in Scotland - because they are already happening under an SNP government.\n\"And on Scotland, Labour can only mimic the Tories' anti-independence obsession. In Scotland we don't need a poor copy of the SNP, we need strong SNP voices standing up to the Tories at Westminster.\"\nMr Robertson also said Labour \"are not going to form the next government\", and that it was the SNP that had led the opposition to the Conservatives at Westminster.\nMeanwhile, the Conservatives said that the economic sums in the Labour manifesto \"simply don't add up\", and claimed working families would \"pay for Corbyn's chaos with higher taxes\".\nThe party's treasury minister, David Gauke, said: \"It's clear that proposal after proposal in this manifesto will mean more borrowing and debt: from promises on benefits, to promises on prison guards, to promises on nationalising the water network.\n\"It is simply not worth taking the risk of this shambles being in charge of our economy and our Brexit negotiations in three weeks' time.\n\"For strong, stable leadership through Brexit and beyond there is only one choice at this election: Theresa May and her Conservative team.\"\nScottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said Labour would not provide the \"competent opposition\" the country needs.\nHe added: \"On the biggest issue of our generation, Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, has nothing to say.\n\"The Conservatives can't have it all their own way and Labour are incapable of even providing a competent opposition.\n\"Liberal Democrats are standing up for the mainstream. We will oppose a hard Brexit and offer a competent, fairer voice for the country.\"\nDo you have any questions about Labour's manifesto? Send us your questions and a BBC journalist will investigate the most popular.\nUse this form to ask your question:\nIf you are reading this page on the BBC News app, you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question on this topic.", "The MPs' vote approves the manufacture of four replacement submarines at a current estimated cost of £31bn.\nDefence Secretary Michael Fallon told MPs nuclear threats were growing around the world and Trident \"puts doubts in the minds of our adversaries\".\nLabour was split over the issue with 140 of its 230 MPs going against leader Jeremy Corbyn and backing the motion.\nA total of 47 Labour members voted against renewal, while others abstained.\nAlthough Labour MPs were given a free vote, many used the occasion to attack Mr Corbyn, who is a longstanding opponent of nuclear weapons.\nA succession of the party's MPs accused Mr Corbyn of opposing official party policy by arguing against it at this stage with one, Jamie Reed, calling his stance \"juvenile and narcissistic\".\nBy Laura Kuenssberg, political editor\nTwo striking things.\nTheresa May without hesitation said that she would be willing to press the nuclear button - without flinching in the face of that question, there was not a moment's doubt.\nSecondly, how much agony there was on the Labour benches. The party's difficulties around Trident crystallising the divisions and doubts inside the party.\nPossibly on Tuesday, but possibly not until Wednesday, Labour will know which of its MPs will take on Jeremy Corbyn in a leadership contest over the summer.\nRead more: Trident crystallises Labour doubts and divisions\nOne Conservative MP, Crispin Blunt, voted against renewal while 322 supported the motion.\nThe UK has four submarines that each carry up to eight Trident missiles. The missiles can be fitted with a number of warheads, which can be directed at different targets.\nThe Trident fleet is based at HMNB Clyde, in Faslane, but all MPs for Scottish constituencies taking part in the vote, except for Scottish Secretary David Mundell, were against renewal.\nThe SNP opposed the move, saying nuclear weapons were \"immoral\" and the continued stationing of submarines on the Clyde could accelerate moves towards independence.\nAfter the vote, the SNP said the government \"must respect Scotland's clear decision against Trident renewal and remove these nuclear weapons of mass destruction from the Clyde\".\nDefence minister Harriett Baldwin said: \"People put politics aside and marched through the lobbies in support of our nation's security. This was a very important vote as defence is the first job of government\".\nLabour's John Woodcock voted in favour of the submarines which are built in his constituency, Barrow in Cumbria, and said: \"This shows that the House of Commons but also the Labour party can take long term decisions in the future of the nation but also protect thousands of jobs across the country.\"\nThe vote, by a majority of 355, came at the end of a five-hour debate, in which Theresa May spoke at the despatch box for the first time as prime minister.\nShe said it would be an \"act of gross irresponsibility\" for the UK to abandon the continuous-at-sea weapons system.\nAlthough preparatory work on renewal is already under way, Monday's vote gives the final green light to a new fleet of submarines which are due to come into service by the early 2030s.\nSumming up, Mr Fallon said Trident had helped protect the UK for more than 50 years and to disown it now would be to \"gamble the long-term security of our citizens\".\nThe UK faced growing threats from rogue nations, such as North Korea, as well as a more assertive Russia, he said.\n\"Nuclear weapons are here, they are not going to disappear,\" he said. \"It is the role of government to make sure we can defend ourselves against them.\"\nWhile acknowledging Trident was a \"serious investment\", Mr Fallon rejected claims it was a Cold War relic and could be increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks.\nThe UK, he insisted, was committed to multilateral nuclear disarmament and would reduce its stockpile of nuclear warheads to 180 by the mid-2020s.\nMeanwhile, Labour's policy is in flux amid continuing divisions at the top of the party. Labour endorsed Trident renewal at the last election and although Mr Corbyn and his allies oppose it, a policy review on the issue has yet to be completed.", "David Cameron promised \"an all-out assault on poverty\" in his leader's speech. The prime minister also launched an attack on Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of having a \"Britain-hating ideology\".\nGeorge Osborne said the Conservatives are \"the true party of labour\", and called on the party to \"extend our hand\" to people who feel \"completely abandoned\" by Labour's new leadership.\nHealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt told a fringe meeting the government was right to press ahead with cuts to tax credits because the UK must become as hard working as China. David Cameron said Mr Hunt's comments had been \"rather unfairly misinterpreted\"\nHere is a full round-up events in Manchester.\nJeremy Corbyn delivered his first conference speech as Labour leader, vowing to create a \"kinder politics, a more caring society\".\nShadow chancellor John McDonnell addressed Labour conference for the first time in his new role, saying the party can show \"another world is possible\" by rejecting austerity while also \"living within our means\".\nJeremy Corbyn faced criticism on the final day from senior Labour colleagues for saying he would not fire Britain's nuclear weapons if he were prime minister.\nHere is a full round-up of events in Brighton.\nVoters at next May's Holyrood election should judge the SNP on its record in government, party leader Nicola Sturgeon said in her leader's speech. She also reiterated that a second independence referendum would only come when the time was right.\nFormer first minister and party leader Alex Salmond warned the UK against staging a \"futile military intervention\" in Syria.\nThe party's biggest ever annual gathering was marked by an overwhelming feeling of unity, although there were a few dissenting voices.\nHere is a full round-up of events in Aberdeen.\nThe new Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron made his first keynote speech to his party's conference in Bournemouth. He said his mission was to get the Lib Dems back into power.\nEx-Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said it would take a decade for the party to recover from the last election - putting him at odds with Tim Farron who insisted the Lib Dems could hold power in just five years\nDavid Cameron's flagship policy to sell off housing association properties was compared to a Robert Mugabe-style land grab by former Lib Dem minister Ed Davey\nHere is a full round-up of events in Bournemouth.\nUKIP leader Nigel Farage insisted the campaign to leave the EU is a \"united force\" and heading for an \"historic\" victory, urging his supporters to put \"country before party\" and to \"strain every sinew\" to win the vote.\nThe party's MP Douglas Carswell urged UKIP to work with others irrespective of party amid an internal row over which anti-EU campaign the party should back.\nHere is an analysis of events in Doncaster.\nLeader Leanne Wood urged Labour voters to \"take another look at Plaid Cymru\" at the 2016 assembly election, saying her party was ready to \"lead on the issues that matter most\".\nHere is an analysis of events in Aberystwyth.\nGreen Party leader Natalie Bennett urged Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to back her party's call for electoral reform.\nHere is an analysis of events in Bournemouth.", "Scottish Labour voted overwhelmingly at its conference in Perth to support a motion not to renew the nuclear weapons.\nThe position has been backed by the party leader Jeremy Corbyn.\nBut shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle told the BBC the vote was no more than a contribution to the debate.\nShe said: \"This is an input from Scottish Labour into the policy-making process.\n\"This does not change our policy. Defence is not a devolved matter and Labour party policy has to be set at a UK level.\n\"I am conducting a review that will be a serious one, that will be based on evidence, it will have extensive consultation and will be taking views from across the Labour movement and Labour voters.\"\nIt is understood that Labour's review of defence policy is unlikely to be concluded before parliament votes on Trident renewal - possibly early next year.\nSources have said that any change of policy on Trident, which is based at the Faslane submarine base on the Clyde, would take up to two years to complete.\nThis means Labour's official position would still be to support Trident in the Commons vote, even though Mr Corbyn is opposed to such a move.\nScottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who supports multilateral disarmament, watched as a motion opposing the renewal of nuclear weapons won just over 70% of the vote at the conference.\nThe vote means that Mr Corbyn and Ms Dugdale have different views on the issue from each other and from their own parties.\nMr Corbyn's spokesman welcomed the Scottish vote as \"a clear sign that Labour's democracy has opened up.\"\nHe said the decision would \"feed into the wider UK Labour debate and review of defence policy.\"\nMeanwhile, a statement issued by the Babcock Marine Clyde industrial shop stewards committee at Faslane and the neighbouring Coulport facility cast doubt on claims that jobs at the bases could be saved through diversification if Trident is not renewed.\nThe statement said: \"Those that choose to perpetuate the myth of diversification would be as well telling us to apply for jobs in Brigadoon. This utopian land of employment that these people would have us believe exists is no more than a jobs mirage.\"\nIt also said that the committee was \"dismayed and angered\" by Unite Scotland`s position after the union's leadership backed the calls for Trident to be scrapped.\nThe committee said: \"It is not supportive of our membership, and members have expressed the feeling this morning that their union is treating them like mugs by taking their union subscriptions and failing to support their future livelihoods.\"\nIn the conference debate, Unite's senior Scottish official Pat Rafferty argued that the UK should take a lead on nuclear non-proliferation and use the money saved from scrapping Trident to make defence diversification work.\nThe GMB union accused Scottish Labour of \"Alice in Wonderland\" politics over its vote.\nThe union said Scottish Labour needed to \"get real\" over the 40,000 defence jobs that it said would be at risk, and said it would not \"play politics\" with defence workers jobs.\nThe Scottish Conservatives have staged a \"day of action\" in Helensburgh, near the Faslane base, which it said was aimed at \"backing Faslane's future and standing-up for strong UK defence\".\nThe party said there were currently 6,500 military and civilian jobs at Faslane, with the figure set to increase to more than 8,000 by 2022.\nThe Scottish government will hold a debate on Trident at Holyrood on Tuesday.\nThe SNP, which has pledged to remove nuclear weapons from Scottish waters, has described Labour as \"hopelessly divided\" on issues such as Trident.\nSNP MSP Bill Kidd said: \"We welcome Scottish Labour's conference vote opposing the renewal of Trident - but the truth is that unless they can convince their colleagues at Westminster to vote against renewal in the House of Commons, their decision will be utterly meaningless.\n\"The fact that their shadow defence secretary has now said that the renewal of Trident is nothing to do with the Scottish Labour party and that the Scottish conference vote therefore 'does not change' the party's policy simply reflects the reality that the Scottish party cannot dictate UK Labour policy.\"\nConservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron has always maintained the UK needs to keep its nuclear weapons, calling it as \"insurance policy\" against attacks. Replacing Trident was a Tory manifesto pledge in the general election.\nLabour has supported Trident renewal, saying it has been a \"cornerstone\" of peace and security for nearly 50 years - but that policy is now in doubt after the election of long-time opponent Jeremy Corbyn as party leader. He says the issue will form part of their defence review, but has also said that even if there were a replacement system, he would never use them as PM.\nThe SNP, which now has 56 MPs in the House of Commons, opposes Trident renewal. During the election campaign it described Trident as \"unusable and indefensible - and the plans to renew it are ludicrous on both defence and financial grounds\".\nThe Lib Dems, who insisted on no final decision being taken while they were in coalition, have always been sceptical about a like-for-like replacement and insisted on a value for money review. They back a \"step down the nuclear ladder\" with a smaller nuclear weapons system providing a \"minimal yet credible\" deterrent.\nRead more about Trident renewal here", "Mr Corbyn appeared alongside Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale in the city constituency she hopes to win.\nElsewhere in Saturday's campaigning, Ruth Davidson also gave a speech in Edinburgh, while Nicola Sturgeon was joined by Mhairi Black in Glasgow.\nWillie Rennie campaigned alongside Lib Dem activists in Cupar in Fife.\nMr Corbyn was making his first appearance of the campaign in Scotland. He did not attend the Scottish Labour conference in March.\nDuring the event in Portobello, Mr Corbyn said Scottish Labour had a \"bold plan\" which could end austerity.\nHe said: \"The real anti-austerity alternative in this election is Labour. Every vote for Labour, every Labour MSP elected, will make sure that the Scottish Parliament will use the powers to stop cuts and invest in the future.\"\nMs Dugdale used her speech to announce that she had published her tax returns, amid calls for Prime Minister David Cameron to do the same over the 'Panama papers' leaks.\nMs Dugdale - who the papers show pays tax for money earned from her Daily Record newspaper column even though she donates the full salary to charity - called on all political leaders to also publish their tax returns.\nScottish Conservative leader Ms Davidson did so the day, underlining that she also makes charitable donations without claiming relief on them.\nCampaigning in Glasgow, SNP leader Ms Sturgeon said Mr Corbyn should end his \"confused and hypocritical\" stance on tax.\nShe said: \"The idea that Jeremy Corbyn will use his daytrip to Scotland to lecture people on fairness - while supporting George Osborne's tax cut for the better off and Kezia Dugdale's plan to hike taxes on even the lowest paid workers - is incredible.\"\nMs Sturgeon also called on Mr Corbyn to \"show some proper leadership\" over the renewal of the Trident nuclear weapons system.\nMeanwhile, in Fife, Lib Dem leader Mr Rennie said his party had \"great liberal policies for a great liberal campaign\".\nHe said: \"We have run a positive, uplifting, optimistic campaign based on a bold package of progressive policies to make Scotland the best again. As a result, our party is back to its best again too.\"\nSeveral of the party leaders are also to speak at a National Union of Students hustings in Glasgow on Monday evening.\nMs Sturgeon, Ms Dugdale, Lib Dem Willie Rennie, Green co-convenor Patrick Harvie and Tory Adam Tomkins will take part in a debate chaired by Prof John Curtice.", "But Kezia Dugdale, who has been a critic of Jeremy Corbyn, insisted it included \"a lot of really good ideas\".\nThe document includes policies on renewing Trident nuclear weapons and opposing Scottish independence.\nThe SNP said the document showed the \"chaos inside Labour\", while the Conservatives said it was a \"shambles\".\nThe manifesto had been due to be finalised at a Labour meeting on Thursday, before being unveiled early next week.\nBut a draft version was obtained by media outlets, including the BBC, on Wednesday evening.\nLabour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has said he does not know who was behind the leak, which he called \"disappointing\".\nMs Dugdale told BBC Scotland that she had been \"working very closely with the UK-wide team\" on creating the manifesto, and said it was \"very far from ideal\" that it had been leaked.\nThe final contents of the manifesto were said to have been unanimously agreed at a meeting of the party's national executive committee (NEC) on Thursday afternoon.\nMs Dugdale did not take part in the meeting as it clashed with first minister's questions in the Scottish Parliament.\nSpeaking ahead of the NEC meeting, she added: \"There's a lot of really good, solid ideas in there that all deserve to have their own ideas discussed in the pubs and town centres and streets of the country. It is a shame it has all been leaked in that sense.\"\nAccording to the draft, Labour would:\nThe document also says Labour supports the renewal of Trident nuclear weapons, which are based on the Clyde, but that any leader should be \"extremely cautious\" about using the weapons - which are opposed by Mr Corbyn.\nIt commits Labour to opposing a second Scottish independence referendum, saying the party will \"campaign tirelessly to ensure that the desire to remain a part of the UK is respected\".\nAnd it pledges to establish a Scottish National Bank, \"under Scottish control\", and backed by the National Investment Bank with £20bn of lending power to deliver funds to local projects and Scotland's small businesses.\nMs Dugdale said the renationalisation of rail and energy companies would \"come with a price tag\".\nBut she insisted: \"The reality is that this is the message we have heard from the British people.\n\"They want to see these services work in their interests - they are fed up of private profits being the number one priority of the Tory government.\n\"That is why this represents a radical transformational plan for our country, and it is one that every labour candidate will be proud to stand behind.\"\nScottish Labour opposes Trident renewal - although Ms Dugdale has been in favour - but she said it had not been overruled by the UK-wide party.\nAnd she said Mr Corbyn had made his opposition to both independence and a second referendum \"very clear\" as it would bring \"turbo-charged austerity\" in the form of \"£15bn of additional cuts\".\nResponding to the manifesto leak, SNP candidate Tommy Sheppard said it demonstrated how \"divided and chaotic the Labour party are\".\nHe added: \"Most of their MPs do not even support these policies.\n\"By contrast, the SNP have a strong track record of delivering for the people of Scotland, who are already benefitting from policies such as no tuition fees, free school meals, and votes at 16 - often in the face of resistance from Labour in Scotland.\n\"In particular, Labour have broken every manifesto promise they have made on tuition fees, so no one will believe a word they say now.\"\nScottish Conservative candidate Miles Briggs said: \"Labour's leaked manifesto claims the party is opposed to a second referendum - yet we know Jeremy Corbyn has said he is \"absolutely fine\" with a referendum.\n\"Just as Labour can't seem to publish a manifesto properly, nor can we trust a word they say on the Union.\"\nTom Brake, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said: \"This manifesto became meaningless the day Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs to vote with the Conservatives and UKIP to give Theresa May a blank cheque on Brexit.\"", "During PMQs in the Commons, he told Theresa May that too many people had \"paid the price\" for austerity.\nThe Conservative leader replied that the best route out of poverty was for people to be in work.\nShe pointed to tax cuts and the national living wage as ways to give workers \"real help\".\nMr Blackford, the SNP's Westminster leader, challenged Mrs May on whether she was \"looking out for the just about managing\".\nHe said: \"The UK government has not announced any measures to address rising inflation and slowing wage growth which the IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) has described as dreadful.\n\"As workers face more than a decade of lost wage growth and endure the worst period for pay in 70 years, does the Prime Minister think she's looking out for the just about managing?\"\nMrs May insisted that what was important was ensuring that \"we have an economy which is increasing the number of jobs\".\nShe went on: \"Because the best route out of poverty is for people to be in work, that is what we are doing. We've seen nearly three million more jobs being created over recent years, that's important for people.\n\"We also help people for example by cutting taxes, it's exactly what we've done for people who are lower paid. Introducing that national living wage, these are measures that are giving people real help.\"\nMr Blackford raised concerns about in-work poverty, arguing that workers have \"paid the price\" for austerity.\nHowever, Mrs May maintained that the government's monetary policy had helped create jobs in the economy.\nFormer investment banker Mr Blackford said: \"Of course it's the forecast of a rise in in-work poverty that should concern us, in particular the likely increase of young people in poverty over the lifetime of this Parliament.\n\"Since the 2010 general election, the FTSE has risen by 39.6%, monetary policy, not least quantitative easing has helped drive up financial assets while workers have paid the price for austerity.\n\"Workers will earn no more by 2020/21 than they did in 2008. Will the Prime Minister give workers a pay rise?\"\nMrs May replied: \"I would have thought that particularly with his background he would have recognised the role that monetary policy, including the quantitative easing, has done in ensuring that we are able to see those jobs in the economy that are so important for people.\"\nEarlier at PMQs, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused the government of \"flip flopping and floundering\" over public sector pay.\nHe said that the government was \"recklessly exploiting the goodwill of public servants\" through the 1% pay cap and called for it to be scrapped.", "Dave Anderson said Labour should \"at least think about\" uniting with the SNP to \"prevent another Tory government\".\nHowever, Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said she would not support \"any deal with the SNP\".\nThe Conservatives had said Labour's policy was to \"pal up\" with the SNP.\nScottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said Mr Anderson's comments showed that only her party would stand up to the nationalists.\nMr Anderson, MP for Blaydon, took up the post of shadow Scottish Secretary after Ian Murray - Labour's only MP north of the border - resigned in protest at Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.\nUrging the party to unite behind Mr Corbyn during a visit to Aberdeen, Mr Anderson - who has not yet had a meeting with Ms Dugdale in his new role - said he was not prepared to rule out a deal with the SNP \"completely\".\nHe said: \"If that is the price that we have to pay to prevent another rabid right-wing Tory government, then, I tell you what it is, we have got to at least think about it and discuss it.\n\"Three and a half years before a possible general election it is a conversation we don't need to have. Obviously Scottish Labour would be the loudest voice in the room if and when we ever have to contemplate coalition.\"\nMs Davidson seized on this, posting on Twitter that Mr Anderson \"wants a pact with the SNP\".\nShe said: \"Labour's official policy - let's pal up with the SNP. Not oppose them, not challenge them, but do a deal with them.\"\nHowever, Mr Anderson's comments were roundly condemned by Labour MSPs.\nMs Dugdale hit back at Ms Davidson, posting that \"unlike the Tories in 2007-11, Scottish Labour doesn't support any deal with the SNP\".\nShe added: \"Quit the hyperbole, innuendo, poor gags, cheap shots and focus on dealing with the Brexit mess your party invited.\"\nShe later emailed all Scottish Labour members, telling them at \"this is not Scottish Labour policy and we would not support any kind of deal\".\nFellow Labour MSP Jackie Baillie said: \"No matter what you read, Scottish Labour does not support a UK gov deal with the SNP. The SNP want to break up the UK not make it better.\"\nAnd James Kelly added: \"Scottish Labour will have no truck with general election deals with the SNP. We won't give power to a party that wants to split the country.\"\nSupporters of Mr Corbyn also denied talk of such a deal, with Neil Findlay saying he agreed with Mr Kelly's position \"100%\".\nThe Scottish Conservatives said Labour were \"all over the place\" on the issue.\nChief whip John Lamont said: \"They have a ludicrous situation where the shadow secretary of state for Scotland wants a deal with the SNP, but the leader in Scotland says she doesn't.\n\"All the while, they will never even have the professionalism to meet and discuss it. It's the latest episode in an absolutely farcical Labour set-up.\"\nMs Dugdale has previously said she thinks Mr Corbyn should quit as leader, saying that if she had lost the support of the majority of her parliamentary colleagues she would not be able to continue in her job.\nIn terms of nominations, the leadership race between Mr Corbyn and challenger Owen Smith is tightest in Scotland's constituency Labour parties - although Mr Corbyn still leads by 16 nominations to 13, with many associations still to declare.", "Liz Kendall said the Tories would \"throw everything at us\" after the leader is named on 12 September.\nShe made her comments during a TV debate with the other candidates - Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Jeremy Corbyn - on Sky News.\nA Sky survey suggested Mr Corbyn had been the most popular with viewers.\nA majority of the 8,000 viewers surveyed felt Mr Corbyn had won the debate, with 80.6% supporting him, compared with 9.1% for Ms Kendall, 5.7% for Yvette Cooper and 4.6% for Andy Burnham.\nIn a nod to left-winger Mr Corbyn's popularity, Ms Kendall urged her party to \"get real\" about the threat to its future.\n\"They [the Conservatives] are going to bring it on, and we need a strong Labour leader who understands what they are going to do, and is going to fight back for Labour so we can win in 2020,\" she said.\nMs Cooper argued Mr Corbyn was \"offering people false hope\" with his plans for more quantitative easing to fund investment.\n\"Once the economy is growing, if you simply keep printing money, that pushes up inflation and that money still has to be paid back,\" she said.\nBut Mr Corbyn won applause as he called for Labour to reject the Conservatives' austerity programme and ensure that the poorest and most vulnerable were not made to pay for the mistakes of the bankers.\nMeanwhile, Mr Burnham said Labour had \"drifted away\" from people in England and Scotland, who saw it as too \"London-centric\" and had switched to UKIP or the SNP.\nHe said Labour had failed to offer a clear alternative to austerity at May's general election, because it was unwilling to propose tax rises, and had \"lost sight of its principles\" in opting to abstain in a vote on cuts earlier this year.\nThe candidates were also split over their views of the legacy of former Labour leader Tony Blair, with Mr Burnham branding it \"ridiculous \" for Labour supporters to direct their anger at a man who had delivered three general election victories.\nBut Mr Corbyn said that he \"fundamentally\" disagreed with the former prime minister over Iraq.\nThe Islington North MP was also taken to task over his views on military intervention after he said he would rule out support for any extension of British military action against so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria.\nHe warned of the danger of \"mission creep\" leading to the deployment of ground forces, and he insisted the answer to the civil war lay in a political agreement in the region.\nMs Kendall asked him: \"Are there any circumstances in which you would deploy Britain's military forces?\"\n\"Any? I'm sure there are some, but I can't think of them at the moment,\" Mr Corbyn replied.\nMr Corbyn's views on the armed forces, defence spending and nuclear policy were later described as \"completely irresponsible\" by former Labour Defence Secretary Lord Hutton.\nHe told BBC's Radio 4's Today they were evidence of \"the old far left reasserting itself\".\n\"You have to look at foreign policy, not from the standpoint of a fixed ideology,\" he said. \"You have to respond to security threats facing the UK.\n\"And if you are not prepared to deploy armed forces to protect the UK and the space of our friends and allies around the world, I don't think you should be the leader of a principled political party in the UK.\"", "The MP was addressing delegates four months after the general election which saw Labour lose 40 of its 41 Scottish seats.\nLeft-winger Mr McDonnell said he was \"devastated\" by the results north of the border.\nThe politician went on to say that his was the only anti-austerity party.\nMr McDonnell insisted that Labour's plans for economic growth would reach \"all regions and all nations of our country\".\nHe also criticised the Scottish National Party.\nMr McDonnell told the conference: \"Let's be clear the SNP has now voted against the living wage, against capping rent levels and just last week voted against fair taxes in Scotland to spend on schools.\n\"So, here is my message to the people of Scotland - Labour is now the only anti-austerity party.\n\"For those in Scotland who want to campaign against austerity, now is the time to come home - come home to Labour.\"\nElsewhere in his speech, Mr McDonnell announced that Labour would launch an \"aggressive\" drive to ensure that multinational corporations like Starbucks, Vodafone, Amazon and Google paid \"their fair share of taxes\".\nHe added that Labour's strategy would be based on growing the economy by strategically investing in key industries and sectors.\nScottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale has also been highlighting business and economics at the conference in Brighton.\nShe insisted that her party needed to develop a \"renewed relationship with those who generate the wealth Scotland needs to make our country a fairer place to live\".\nLabour came under attack from businesses during this year's general election campaign after pledging to freeze energy prices, break up high-street banks and place workers on executive remuneration boards.\nIn contrast to that, Ms Dugdale said she wanted entrepreneurs to see Scotland as a \"good place to do business\".\nShe made the comments ahead of an address at the Guardian fringe event.\nEarlier, Labour's Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray reiterated his stance against the renewal of Trident nuclear weapons.\nHe told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: He said: \"My position on Trident has not changed - I will not support the renewal of Trident.\n\"My party leadership has changed, my party is changing, the Scottish party is changing - my view on Trident has not changed. I will not vote to support it.\n\"I have had the view for a long time, Jeremy [Corbyn] holds that view.\n\"If we all supported the same position it would make democracy a much less important part of British life. We should welcome the debate.\"\nThe SNP said the shadow chancellor had offered Scotland nothing new from Labour as he continued to commit the party to voting for George Osborne's austerity plans.\nSNP depute leader Stewart Hosie MP said: \"Mr McDonnell's comments confirm that when it comes to Scotland Labour haven't changed.\n\"Rather than learning from their mistakes and setting out a positive vision for the country, they are repeating the same negative and ill-informed rhetoric that saw them all but wiped out in Scotland at the last election.\n\"They may have changed the messengers but it's the same tired old message.\n\"Labour's economic plans are all over the place. While the SNP went into May's election opposing austerity and campaigning for a real terms increase in public spending, Labour ran scared of the Tories and backed their draconian cuts and welfare reforms.\n\"While the SNP remain firmly opposed to George Osborne's pro-austerity fiscal charter, John McDonnell just last week mandated Labour MPs to troop through the lobbies with the Tories yet again to back the plans, just as they did when they voted for £30bn of cuts in the last parliament. Labour have now lost all credibility and no one will take these claims.\"", "Ms Kendall told the BBC Labour risked sending a \"resignation letter to the British people as a serious party of government\" by electing Mr Corbyn.\nSeparately, Ms Cooper warned there was a \"serious risk the party will split\" if the left-winger becomes its leader.\nIt comes as Labour begins sending out the first ballot papers to voters.\nThe result of the contest will be announced at a special conference on 12 September.\nMore than 600,000 people have signed up to vote in the four-way contest but Labour has said applications are still being verified.\n610,753\ntotal electorate, though this may fall as party removes those not entitled to vote\nOf which, full party members: 299,755\nAffiliated to a trade union: 189,703\nRegistered to vote by paying £3: 121,295\nMeanwhile voting in the election for the new Scottish Labour leader ended at midday.\nMr Corbyn is due to unveil a 10-point policy plan while in Glasgow later.\nThe popularity of the left-wing Islington North MP, who is promising \"a new kind of politics\", has sparked a row about the future direction of the Labour party.\nAnother leadership contender, Andy Burnham, told the BBC Mr Corbyn's policies \"lack credibility\".\n\"It's not possible to promise free university education, re-nationalising the utilities, without that coming at a great cost and if you can't explain how that is going to be paid for then I don't think we'll win back the trust of voters on the economy,\" he said.\nBBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins said there had been \"frustration\" in rival camps who accused Mr Burnham of being reluctant to take on Mr Corbyn. This appeared to be his most direct attack yet, he added.\nBut in an interview with Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2, Mr Burnham declined to follow Ms Kendall and Ms Cooper and advise his supporters not to back Mr Corbyn with their second and third preferences.\nHe added: \"People will say if they hear things like that, 'hang on, what do you believe?'\"\nIn an interview with The Independent, Ms Kendall called for voters to mark Ms Cooper or Mr Burnham as second and third preferences, and avoid giving votes to Mr Corbyn.\n\"I have set out very clearly where I differ with all the candidates but our differences with Jeremy's kind of politics are far greater,\" said Ms Kendall.\nSpeaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme she said she \"can't pretend to be agnostic\" about a victory for Mr Corbyn, saying of the voting process: \"It is an alternative vote system and I want to urge party members to use all of their different preferences.\n\"I will be using my second and third preferences and I would urge others to do the same because I don't want to see our party go back to the politics of the '80s, just being a party of protest.\"\nThe Leicester West MP also said she did not see the party splitting, as it did in the 1980s when Labour members formed the Social Democratic Party.\nHowever, Ms Cooper told BBC 2's Newsnight: \"I think there is a serious risk that the party will split, will polarise and I cannot bear to see that happen because there is too much at stake.\"\nAsked in an interview with grassroots Labour website Labourlist whether voters should use their votes to try to prevent Mr Corbyn winning, she said: \"I think people should use all of their preferences.\n\"And I think the focus has to be how do we make sure we can win that election, and that's the most important thing - and I don't think Jeremy can do that.\"\nMr Corbyn has warned against \"personal abuse\" in the campaign, saying he wants to focus on policy.\nHis policy programme includes a commitment to \"growth not austerity\", nationalising the railways and energy sector, and a plan for nuclear disarmament.\nIn an essay for the Fabian Society he also suggested Labour's new increased following should be more involved in the party and proposed a review of membership fees to make the party more \"inclusive\".\nFormer Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to join the debate over the leadership contest with a speech on Sunday, called \"power for a purpose - the future of the Labour Party\".\nLance Price, former director of communications for Labour, told the BBC the contest had been an \"unedifying mess\" and had \"done nothing to reengage the labour party with those millions of people who deserted it\".\nThe Guardian newspaper has endorsed Ms Cooper for the leadership while the Daily Mirror has given its backing to Mr Burnham, although the paper urged him to \"find a role\" in his team for Mr Corbyn, who it says has \"lit up the election campaign\".", "A motion at the party's conference in Perth calling for the system not to be renewed was supported by an overwhelming majority.\nBoth party members and unions voted 70% in favour of the motion.\nIt means Labour now holds different positions on the issue north and south of the border.\nHowever, UK leader Jeremy Corbyn supports not renewing the system.\nThe Scottish Labour party now has a policy of opposition to Trident. The extent of the vote makes that verdict incontestable. It will permit Labour members to counter the SNP - who have a long-standing anti-Trident position.\nBut in practice, what next? Scottish Labour routinely opposed nuclear deterrence in conference votes throughout the 1980s and 1990s, with zero effect.\nMight that change now? Not in the short term. The replacement of Trident is a Westminster decision and the Conservatives have a Westminster majority.\nBeyond that? Might Labour throughout the UK now adopt an anti-nuclear stance? Certainly it has a leader in Jeremy Corbyn who favours such an approach.\nStill, as one seasoned party observer noted in Perth, Scottish Labour now has a supporter of multilateral disarmament leading a party which has endorsed unilateralism. It is conceivable, said the observer, that the UK party ends up offering the mirror image.\nRead more from Brian Taylor\nAfter the vote, a spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: \"Scottish Labour Party members have spoken. That will now feed into the wider UK Labour debate and review of defence policy.\"\nMr Corbyn's backing for unilateral disarmament puts him at odds with Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who instead supports the removal of nuclear weapons on a multilateral basis.\nBut Labour's only surviving Scottish MP insisted the party could have different policies on renewing Trident north and south of the border.\nShadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray said moves to make the party in Scotland more autonomous meant it could \"have a different position on anything it wants\".\nScottish activists made Trident a priority issue for a policy vote at the conference after it received the most votes of the 17 issues proposed for debate.\nThe conference debate was opened by Stephen Low, of Unison and Glasgow Southside Constituency Labour Party, who said renewing Trident \"is something that we do not need and cannot afford\".\nMr Low said: \"Its purpose is to detonate a nuclear warhead above a city, killing everyone in its radius.\n\"There are other facts about Trident, but that's the central one, and one we should never forget.\"\nHe added: \"When it comes to the real threats to this country, things like terrorism, things like cyber attacks, things like climate change, Trident is utterly, utterly useless.\"\n\"We shouldn't want Trident renewal even if it were free, but of course it is not free, it comes at an utterly bewildering cost.\"\nTrade union Unison is committed to getting rid of Trident.\nDuring the debate, Davina Rankin from the union told delegates there was no military argument for it and no moral case.\nPat Rafferty, from Unite, which represents Faslane workers, said Britain should take lead in nuclear non-proliferation.\nMr Rafferty said the argument for non-renewal must go \"hand in hand\" with a jobs diversification plan and the billions saved from Trident could help workers and be used against a \"crisis\" in industry and the public sector.\nHowever, BBC Scotland has learned that the vote has exposed a rift in the union, with workers at Trident's home base frustrated with the national position taken by Unite's national leader Len McCluskey.\nGMB Scotland, which also represents shipyard and defence workers, made clear its support for renewal of Trident.\nThe union's Gary Smith told the conference the \"glaring omission\" from the debate was what alternative jobs would be for those working at the base.\nMr Smith said: \"This debate is a nonsense and frankly an utter indulgence.\"\nHe said the GMB was standing against \"Alice in Wonderland politics\".\nMSP Jackie Baillie, whose Dumbarton constituency includes the naval base, said: \"Faslane is the biggest single-site employer in Scotland. More than a quarter of West Dunbartonshire's full-time workforce are employed there in good quality, well-paid jobs.\"\nShe hit out at the SNP, who want to move the Trident submarines from the Clyde, describing this stance as \"nimbyism on a national scale and the worst kind of gesture politics\".\nSouth of Scotland region MSP Claudia Beamish told delegates there was a firm commitment to protect defence workers' jobs regardless of Trident renewal.\nScottish Labour suffered a devastating defeat in May's general election, with the party losing 40 of its 41 seats to the SNP, which has pledged to remove nuclear weapons from Scottish waters.\nDelegates seemed to thoroughly enjoy a lengthy debate, which featured impassioned arguments from both sides.\nBut the vocal reception made it clear that the bulk of those in the hall in Perth were behind the motion to oppose Trident.\nThe result was almost a formality, with delegates cheering as the margin of victory was read out.\nIn a way this may not be hugely surprising; prior to devolution, Labour conferences north of the border regularly voted against nuclear weapons.\nBut this was a significant moment for the autonomy of Scottish Labour, as a distinct party from the UK-wide movement.\nNot only is it taking a stance on matters reserved to Westminster, there is now clear policy water between the two parties - although leader Jeremy Corbyn will actually be happier than most about this.\nAs an avowed opponent of Trident, he may well use today's vote to put pressure on party members south of the border to follow suit.\nThe reaction of Kezia Dugdale, who all but sat on her hands throughout the debate, will be something else entirely.\nShe used the weekend to set out her stall as the leader of a separate, distinct Scottish Labour party - but as this vote shows, it is a party which is not going to let her have everything her own way.\nConservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron has always maintained the UK needs to keep its nuclear weapons, calling it as \"insurance policy\" against attacks. Replacing Trident was a Tory manifesto pledge in the general election.\nLabour has supported Trident renewal, saying it has been a \"cornerstone\" of peace and security for nearly 50 years - but that policy is now in doubt after the election of long-time opponent Jeremy Corbyn as party leader. He says the issue will form part of their defence review, but has also said that even if there were a replacement system, he would never use them as PM.\nThe SNP, which now has 56 MPs in the House of Commons, opposes Trident renewal. During the election campaign it described Trident as \"unusable and indefensible - and the plans to renew it are ludicrous on both defence and financial grounds\".\nThe Lib Dems, who insisted on no final decision being taken while they were in coalition, have always been sceptical about a like-for-like replacement and insisted on a value for money review. They back a \"step down the nuclear ladder\" with a smaller nuclear weapons system providing a \"minimal yet credible\" deterrent.\nRead more about Trident renewal here", "Andrew Harrop, the Fabian Society's general secretary, said there had been a \"huge meltdown\" of support in Scotland.\nHis study also cited party leader Jeremy Corbyn's unpopularity and a \"muffled\" approach to Brexit.\nBut Mr Corbyn's spokesman said he was an alternative to \"failed\" UK politics.\nAnd shadow housing minister John Healey said teaming up with a \"rag-bag of other parties\" was \"not the answer to Labour's challenge\".\nThe Fabian Society, which has close links to the party, warned it was on course to win fewer than 200 seats for the first time since 1935. It currently has 231.\nBased on current opinion polls, the total could fall as low as 140 because Labour traditionally does worse than its mid-term polling suggests, the report added.\nMr Harrop told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme this was a \"pretty terrifying thought\" for most Labour supporters.\n\"The 2015 election led to a huge meltdown in Scottish support and the rise of the SNP and that's stopping Labour making progress,\" he said.\nThe Fabians said Labour could gain 30 seats by aligning with centre-left parties at the next election.\n\"The Corbynite Left has won the big internal battles but it seems to have no roadmap for winning back lost voters,\" the report said.\nThe Fabians said Labour also faced a \"Brexit dilemma\" because it had failed to gain the support of Leave voters, and it would not win \"if it doesn't reach out to the many people who voted to leave the European Union\".\nAnalysis - by Iain Watson, BBC political correspondent\nThe Fabians have rather stated the obvious - based on current polls, Labour is in deep electoral difficulty.\nAnd it has the tricky task of trying to appeal to both Remain and Leave voters - while its message remains \"muffled\".\nSome of the Fabians' potential solutions to Labour's problems, though, might simply compound their difficulties.\nThey say that, as the party can't possibly hope to win the next election on its own, its MPs will have to work with other \"progressive\" forces, such as the SNP and Greens.\nCast your mind back to 2015 and remember the difficulties Ed Miliband had trying to persuade voters in English marginal seats that the SNP tail wouldn't wag the Labour dog. The Fabians' approach would at least make a virtue of necessity and end any ambiguity.\nBut Leave voters in what are currently Labour seats might not warm to the message that Jeremy Corbyn would work closely with a party that will vote against triggering Article 50.\nThe Labour leader prefers to think he will win back lost support by catching the anti-establishment zeitgeist. Many of his supporters don't believe the polls.\nWell, Mr Corbyn's strategy will be tested in front of real voters early this year at the Copeland by-election - a seat Labour has held since its creation in 1983.\nCurrent MP Jamie Reed is standing down at the end of the month and the party's elections chief Jon Trickett is predicting a \"difficult\" contest.\nIf Labour fares badly, that is likely to underline the strength of the Fabians' diagnosis - but the cure for the party's problems may continue to be elusive.\nThe report said the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats could afford to attract \"one side only\" but that Labour needed support from both camps.\n\"On Brexit, the greatest political question for two generations, the party's position is muffled and inconsistent,\" it said.\nIn marginal seats, it warned that Labour supporters could \"scatter in all directions\".\nIt urged the party to represent the \"cultural middle\", saying Britain was \"not a polarised nation of cosmopolitans and reactionaries\". But it said the threat Labour faces from UKIP was \"exaggerated\".\nMr Corbyn's spokesman said it would be a \"challenge\" to rebuild Labour support after the 2015 election, when it lost 25 parliamentary seats and was reduced to just one MP in Scotland.\nHe added: \"Labour under Jeremy Corbyn will be taking its case to every part of Britain in the coming months with a radical policy platform.\"\nMr Corbyn was the \"only genuine alternative to a failed parliament political establishment and the fake anti-elitists of the hard right\", the spokesman said.\nAnd Mr Healey told Today: \"These are big challenges for Labour but I do not see the answer to Labour's challenge as being to team up with the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and a rag-bag of other parties.\"\nOn Sunday, one of Mr Corbyn's allies, Unite boss Len McCluskey, suggested the Labour leader could step down if the party's poll ratings fail to improve.\nBut he later tweeted his \"full support\", describing Mr Corbyn as a \"genuine, decent man fighting for a fairer Britain\".", "The union boss said some Labour MPs did not accept Mr Corbyn's mandate although their alternative vision for the country was \"stale and uninspiring\".\nIn a speech in Oxford, he urged malcontents to \"stop the sniping\" and to \"take the fight\" to the Tories.\nMr Corbyn has faced criticism of his leadership and stance on issues such as defence and counter-terrorism.\nHis handling of a shadow cabinet reshuffle last month, in which one prominent critic was sacked and opponents of the leader's position on Trident were sidelined, was widely criticised.\nEarlier on Tuesday, a senior figure in the shadow cabinet said it might be impossible for the party to reach an agreed position on whether to renew the UK's nuclear weapons system.\nBut Mr McCluskey said it was time for those who have questioned the direction in which Mr Corbyn is taking the party to pipe down, saying the Labour leader deserved their loyalty.\n\"Their analysis of Labour's defeat in 2015 was unconvincing, their proposals stale, minimalist and uninspiring - and for the most part, they have still not shaped up after Corbyn's victory,\" he said. \"Until they can do that, they are a plot without a programme; a cabal without a critique.\"\nThe \"continual war of attrition\" between different camps in the party was \"achieving nothing beyond taking the pressure off the government\", he said.\n\"So my clear message to the plotters is - stop the sniping, stop the scheming, get behind Jeremy Corbyn and start taking the fight to the Tories.\"\nIn his opposition to austerity and to foreign military interventions, Mr Corbyn was in tune with public opinion, Mr McCluskey said.\nThe Labour leader, he said, offered a \"radical challenge to the status quo and business-as-usual politics\", likening the insurgency which propelled him to victory in September's leadership contest to US Democratic politician Bernie Sanders' current bid for the White House.\n\"What Jeremy Corbyn offers - like Bernie Sanders in the US - is a calling out of corporate corruption, a rejection of the austerity that has made the UK the most unequal economy in the G8 and the promise that politics and politicians can and will put things right for ordinary working people.\"\nAnd he criticised those who, he claimed, were suggesting May's elections in Scotland, Wales, and across England were a referendum on the Labour leadership.\n\"I am not a supporter of... changes designed to intimidate or undermine Labour MPs. But I also believe that we need to issue a clear warning to those who are advocating the parliamentary Labour Party being used as a lever to force Jeremy Corbyn out.\"", "Labour won 56 fewer seats than the Tories but defied expectations and deprived Theresa May of her majority.\nCaerphilly MP Wayne David said: \"If there's another election I say bring it on and let's get behind Jeremy Corbyn\".\nAberavon MP Stephen Kinnock said he would be \"honoured\" to take a front bench job if it was offered to him.\nMr Kinnock resigned as an aide to the then shadow business minister Angela Eagle last year, accusing Mr Corbyn of having a \"half-hearted and lacklustre role\" in the EU referendum campaign.\nBut, speaking to BBC Radio Wales on Sunday, he said Labour had made a \"huge step in the right direction\" last Thursday.\nHe told the Sunday Supplement programme: \"The electorate has told us very clearly that they want a Labour Party in Parliament holding this government to account - we got our marching orders.\n\"I'm chomping at the bit to do that, and if Jeremy thinks that I could do it from the front bench then, absolutely, I'd be honoured to do so.\"\nMr Kinnock said Labour needed to focus on \"continuing to broaden our appeal\".\n\"For me that means a shadow cabinet and a front bench of all the talents,\" he said.\n\"There's so much more that we can do, so much more that we need to say about the future of the country and we can only do that if we've got our best possible people rallying around our leader and speaking out for those who've elected to change the country.\n\"I think what we fundamentally saw in this election was we've taken on the mantle of change.\"\nMr David also joined a wave of Labour front bench resignations last June, saying Mr Corbyn was not \"up to the job\", but returned as a shadow defence minister in October.\nLater on Sunday, Mr David told BBC Wales' Sunday Politics programme it was \"quite remarkable\" how Mr Corbyn had managed to enthuse people to get behind the party and said, as a result, he had commanded enormous respect from MPs and the electorate.\nHe said \"our job will be to point out the incredible weaknesses that now exist in the government and if there's another election I say bring it on and let's get behind Jeremy Corbyn and let's win that election\".\nAsked if criticism of the Labour leader within the party would now stop, he said: \"I think we saw a different Jeremy Corbyn, to be perfectly honest with you.\n\"It was quite remarkable how he managed to enthuse people and galvanise the support of the country, particularly the support of young people.\n\"And I think because of that he's commanded enormous respect from Labour MPs and the people of this country.\"\nOn Friday, Owen Smith, who failed in his attempt to oust Mr Corbyn in September, said: \"I was wrong about Jeremy Corbyn\".\nOn Sunday, Mr Corbyn said he would invite MPs to back his policies instead of the ones set out by Mrs May, using an amendment to the Queen's Speech, focusing on austerity and a \"jobs-first Brexit\".\nPlaid Cymru Westminster leader Hywel Williams was asked later on Sunday Politics Wales if his party would help Labour keep the Conservatives out of government.\nHe said: \"We'd be very happy to listen to any progressive party.\n\"We are not interested in a coalition of any sort. I don't think that they are either.\"\nDespite Labour making a net gain of 30 seats at the general election, the party remained the second largest in the House of Commons at 262, around 60 seats short of a majority.", "Kevan Jones - who has suffered with depression - said the comments were \"gravely offensive\".\nMr Livingstone initially refused to apologise despite being urged to do so by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who had just given him a new policy role.\nBut he has now tweeted that the comments should not have been made.\nMr Corbyn's decision to appoint the former London mayor as joint chair of Labour's defence review sparked an angry backlash from pro-Trident Labour MPs, with shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle reported to be \"furious\".\nMs Eagle, who was leading the review, said she was not consulted before Mr Livingstone was made her co-chair - the pair hold opposing views on Britain's nuclear weapons.\nJunior defence minister Kevan Jones questioned whether Mr Livingstone knew anything about defence, prompting the former mayor to tell the Daily Mirror Mr Jones was \"obviously very depressed and disturbed\" and \"should see a GP\".\nMr Livingstone tweeted his apology after refusing to say sorry during interviews.\n\"I unreservedly apologise to Kevan Jones for my comments. They should not have been made at all, let alone in this context,\" he said.\n\"I also make this apology because Jeremy [Corbyn] is right to insist on a more civil politics and as a party we should take this seriously\".\nLivingstone: Timeline of an apology\nEarlier he told the BBC he \"had no idea\" about Mr Jones's mental health condition.\nAsked whether this was an excuse for his language, he told BBC News: \"I grew up in South London where if someone's rude to you, you are rude back.\"\nHe said Mr Jones should first withdraw his criticism, \"and then I'll go for a drink with him\", adding that Mr Jones had \"undermined the leadership\" with his remarks.\nIn 2012, Mr Jones was praised after speaking in Parliament about his mental health battles and the \"difficult\" decision to go public.\nMr Corbyn's spokesman reacted to Mr Livingstore's comments by saying the Labour leader was \"incredibly concerned that people with mental health problems shouldn't be stigmatised\".\nHe added: \"He has worked with Kevan in the past on this issue and is impressed by his bravery in speaking out on his own mental health issues. Ken should apologise to him straight away.\"\nFormer shadow chancellor Chris Leslie called on Mr Livingstone to resign, and shadow mental health minister Luciana Berger said \"any reasonable person should be appalled\" at what he had said.\nShadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn said the comments were \"very unfortunate\" and it was right he had apologised.\nConservative MP Charles Walker, who went public with his own mental health difficulties at the same time as Mr Jones, said he was \"absolutely seething\" about Mr Livingstone's \"vile\" remarks.\nThe clash came after Mr Livingstone's appointment highlighted divisions within the party over the future of the UK's nuclear weapons system.\nMs Eagle believes Trident should be renewed, while Mr Livingstone - who declared London a \"nuclear free\" zone in the 1980s when he was in charge of the GLC - is a longstanding critic and would like it to be scrapped.\nBBC political correspondent Carole Walker said Ms Eagle was not considering resigning but was \"fuming\" that as the first female shadow defence secretary a man had now been appointed to \"look after\" her.\nIn a BBC interview, Ms Eagle said she was \"sanguine\" about working alongside Mr Livingstone and had found out about his appointment on social media.\nEarlier Mr Jones, who has held the defence brief for seven years, told PoliticsHome the appointment would damage Labour's \"credibility\" on defence.\nHe said: \"I'm not sure Ken knows anything about defence.\n\"It will only damage our credibility amongst those that do and who care about defence.\"\nLabour said Mr Livingstone was now a \"co-convener\" on its policy commission.\nA party source said Ms Eagle and Mr Livingstone - the former Labour MP for Brent East - would oversee the policy review, but stressed Labour policy would be decided by its National Policy Forum.\nA £20bn like-for-like replacement of Trident was agreed by the last Labour government and its renewal has been supported by the party since.\nBut Mr Corbyn, who was elected Labour leader on anti-Trident platform, said the party's official position on its renewal will form part of the defence review.\nThe government is due to decide whether to renew Trident in 2016.\nMs Eagle - who criticised Mr Corbyn for saying he would not fire Britain's nuclear weapons if he were prime minister - has previously said she will attempt to persuade the leader to take her stance in favour of renewal.\nThe SNP - which wants to scrap Trident - is understood to be planning to stage a debate on Tuesday.\nBBC assistant political editor Norman Smith said Labour MPs were being instructed to abstain on the vote - but some were planning to defy Mr Corbyn and vote against the SNP motion.\nTheir argument will be that as existing Labour Party policy is to support the renewal of Trident, they should therefore be able to vote against the SNP's motion to scrap it.", "Speaking in Aberdeenshire, the SNP leader also said only her party could stop Theresa May having a \"free hand\".\nMeanwhile, former Better Together head Alistair Darling urged voters to reject calls for a second referendum.\nAnd the Conservatives repeated their calls for Ms Sturgeon to \"focus on the day job\".\nDuring a visit to Dreams Daycare nursery in Insch on Monday, the first minister said: \"The issue at the heart of this election is, whether you support independence or oppose independence, surely that decision should be taken by people in Scotland, by the Scottish people and the Scottish Parliament, and not by a Tory government at Westminster\".\nMs Sturgeon, who was campaigning alongside Alex Salmond, highlighted the \"stark contrast\" between her party's investment in childcare and the prime minister's cuts to child tax credits.\nThe Scottish government currently provides 16 hours a week of free childcare for three and four-year-olds and vulnerable two-years-olds, and has pledged increase this to 30 hours by 2020.\nMs Sturgeon said: \"We've got to make sure that there's a check on the Tories, that there's strong opposition and strong voices for Scotland standing up for progressive policies like this one, and that in Scotland can only come from the SNP.\"\nThe nursery visit came after Prime Minister Theresa May visited the north-east of Scotland at the weekend, when she issued an appeal to Scottish voters who oppose independence.\nMrs May said: \"We want to ensure that we build a more secure and united nation. That means taking action against the extremists who would divide us and standing up against the separatists who want to break up our country.\"\nMs Sturgeon warned the Conservatives to \"watch their language\" and accused Labour of focusing on independence due to a lack of positive policies, after Lord Darling called on the SNP to rule out a second referendum.\nLord Darling, who served as chancellor in Gordon Brown's Labour government, was campaigning in the Edinburgh South seat which was won by Labour's only Scottish MP, Ian Murray, at the last general election in 2015.\nThe visit came on the 20th anniversary of Labour winning the 1997 election under Tony Blair - and ahead of the forthcoming general election on 8 June.\nLord Darling highlighted Labour's achievements in government, including lifting 120,000 children out of poverty in Scotland, introducing the national minimum wage and introducing tax credits for those on low pay.\nHe said: \"Labour's proud record shows what can be achieved when a government focuses on the day job.\n\"The priority of a Labour government is always to grow the economy, create jobs, lift people out of poverty and give everybody a fair chance in life, not seeking to divide the country.\"\nBut he conceded that the best result Labour can realistically achieve in the general election is to be a \"sizeable opposition\" to the Conservatives.\nAsked if he endorsed Jeremy Corbyn, Lord Darling said: \"Well, he is the leader. He's the leader for the next, you know, right up until the general election.\n\"You know where I stand on that. My view is we need to get on. We're fighting in a general election campaign. You know, leaders come and go.\"\nLord Darling also called on voters to back Labour on 8 June in order to \"send Nicola Sturgeon a message that Scotland doesn't want or need another divisive referendum\".\nHe added: \"The choice in British politics now isn't the old left-right, it is now dividing along nationalistic lines, whether it is Brexit nationalists and Scottish nationalists, against the majority who I believe want to see a sensible outcome.\"\nThe Scottish Conservative candidate for Edinburgh South West, Miles Briggs, said that Labour was hoping to \"sell pro-UK Scots down the river\" by doing a deal with the SNP after the election.\nMr Briggs said: \"Labour may think wheeling out Alistair Darling will convince voters they are strong on Scotland's place in the union.\n\"But they know Jeremy Corbyn is itching to do a deal with the SNP that would sell pro-UK Scots down the river.\n\"Labour would return the UK to chaos, and turn their back on the two million Scots who voted No in 2014.\"\nScottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson was at St Abbs lifeboat station in the south east of Scotland, where she repeated her calls for the SNP to forget about an independence referendum and instead focus on the \"day job\" of running schools and hospitals.\nMs Davidson said: \"This week marks 10 years since the SNP came to power in Scotland. Yesterday, we had Alex Salmond unable to explain why one in five children leave primary school functionally illiterate, and we had senior doctors in the NHS saying the SNP had failed to plan for the future,\n\"So today we are saying to the SNP - give up this divisive independence referendum idea and get back to your day job.\"\nElsewhere, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie joined some of the party's council election candidates and activists in Perthshire and Bridge of Allan.\nDuring the visit, Mr Rennie highlighted the \"great work\" that Liberal Democrat councillors do to help their local communities.\nMr Rennie said: \"Alistair Darling knows that Jeremy Corbyn is incapable of providing a strong opposition to this Hard Brexit Conservative government.\n\"It is only the Liberal Democrats who stood up when it counted, Labour cowered in the corner.\"\nHe also said education, the health service and Brexix were all merely \"convenient vehicles\" in Ms Sturgeon's quest for independence.", "But Jo Stevens, Labour's Cardiff Central MP, came out with one of the more memorable when she said: \"It's been a bit like a pressure cooker, it has built up and built up.\n\"The lid has come off and all of a sudden everyone has come out and there are what are perceived to be splits and differences all over the place.\n\"The job of the new leader is to make sure all of that goes back in the pressure cooker and we put the lid on it and we do not open it again, and we present a unified opposition.\"\nWe don't have long to wait until the question of who that new leader will be is answered, on September 12.\nAround 50,000 people in Wales are due to vote in the contest between Jeremy Corbyn, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall.\nIt's difficult to get specific Welsh figures, but there has been a big increase in the party's membership, largely thanks to the involvement of Jeremy Corbyn, who has gone from the outsider to becoming the favourite.\nIn Cardiff Central, for example, the numbers have gone from 350 to 1,110 during the summer.\nJo Stevens, despite supporting Andy Burnham, described Corbyn's campaign as phenomenal in the way it has galvanised people.\nShe told me she had a member or registered supporter on every street in one particular ward, which would suggest there'll be no shortage of foot soldiers for the party in future.\nAnd she says there is huge support for a number of Jeremy Corbyn's policies, such as the nationalisation of the railways and a more redistributive tax system, which would push the party firmly to the left.\nThere have been concerns that this will make prospects more difficult for Labour in marginal seats like the Vale of Glamorgan and the Vale of Clwyd where it firmly lost out to the Conservatives in the general election.\nBut one of the new members in Wales, Dan Xuereb, insists a Corbyn victory will increase the appeal of the party.\nHe said: \"None of the major parties are challenging austerity. They are just weighing in with Tory policies and saying they'll be a bit nicer about it.\n\"It reaches a point where it doesn't matter who is in power. He is principled and honest and the type of politics he goes with is positive.\"\nHis friend Ben James is yet to make up his mind about who to support, although he is veering towards Yvette Cooper.\nHe said: \"She is the type of politician who has enough conviction to take on the Conservatives and lead an effective opposition.\n\"Burnham has flip-flopped too much in the campaign and while I have not discounted Corbyn, I do not think he will lead an effective opposition.\"\nThere is a sense of urgency about the leadership race in Wales as Labour will be defending its record in power in the assembly election next year.\nThe Labour peer Eluned Morgan, who is hoping to be elected on the regional list, is supporting Yvette Cooper.\nShe said a Corbyn victory would increase the need to develop a specific Welsh Labour brand.\nShe said: \"You can hold all of the values you want but if you do not hold power you can't implement any of them.\n\"The real danger here is a continuing Tory government and the threat of a Tory government in Wales in the assembly.\n\"So our job is to make sure that we protect the vulnerable, to make sure we have a pro-business agenda within the Labour party so we can grow the economy.\n\"The only way for us to do that is to perhaps assert our independence a little more in relation to the party nationally.\"\nIt has been a bruising summer for Labour and whoever they are supporting, its members all agree that now is a critical time for the party as it tries to regroup after the general election.", "Scores of Labour MPs are expected to defy an instruction to abstain on the bill, which includes plans to limit child tax credit to two children.\nOne MP, John McDonnell, said he would \"swim through vomit\" to oppose it.\nWork Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said Labour was beset by \"private arguments and internal fear and loathing\".\nA series of votes on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill in the next half hour is expected to expose Labour divisions over how to respond to benefit changes announced by the government in the Budget.\nThe Labour leadership originally said it would not oppose restrictions to in-work benefits, including curbs on child and working tax credits, part of £12bn worth of cuts sought by ministers by 2020.\nBut many in the Labour Party objected, with leadership candidates Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Jeremy Corbyn among those to criticise the plan. Only the fourth candidate, Liz Kendall, supported the move.\nMs Harman tried to quell the revolt by tabling an amendment to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill setting out measures Labour backs and those it would change.\nIt offers support for the cutting household welfare cap to £20,000 a year (£23,000 in London), and moving mortgage support from grants to loans.\nBut it opposes the abolition of child poverty targets and changes to Employment and Support Allowance, paid to people who cannot work because of illness or disability. It makes no mention of the child tax credit change.\nMs Harman said if the amendment was rejected, Labour MPs would be expected to abstain in a subsequent vote on the general principles of the bill, leaving the way clear for it to be passed at Second Reading.\nLeadership contenders Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall are expected to follow Ms Harman's lead but her approach has infuriated a large number of Labour MPs.\nMore than 60 signed a rival amendment tabled by MP Helen Goodman opposing all the changes but that amendment was not called for a vote by Commons Speaker John Bercow.\nShadow employment minister Stephen Timms said the party would fight \"tooth and nail\" to oppose those parts of the bill it disagreed with but added that there were things it could support and urged colleagues to remain \"united\" in Monday's votes.\nSpeaking as Monday's debate got under way, Mr Duncan Smith said Labour were on the wrong side of public opinion on the issue.\n\"The bill will ensure the right support and incentives are in place so people are always better off in work rather than trapped on welfare,\" he said.\n\"Yes, there are difficult decisions here, but what would be wrong would be to turn a blind eye, as the opposition did for so many years, and not face up to these difficulties.\n\"The bill puts work first and puts welfare spending on a more sustainable footing for the future while, at the same time, protecting the vulnerable and those most in need.\"\nWriting in the Guardian earlier, Chancellor George Osborne said the benefit changes were in line with the views of most Labour voters and were a continuation of policies pursued by former Labour ministers.\nThe SNP, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party have all said they will oppose the bill.\nIn his first Commons speech since becoming Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron said 500,000 people would see their Employment and Support Allowance cut by a third, a move which he said \"demonised people with disabilities and mental health conditions\".\n\"It will trap people on welfare, it will not liberate them,\" he said. \"Labelling this bill progressive does not make it progressive\".\nSNP spokeswoman Hannah Bardell said the party had a mandate from the Scottish people to oppose \"cruel\" austerity measures.\n\"SNP MPs wish to work with a progressive alliance across the UK against the Tories' plans to make millions of families poorer,\" she said. \"It is not enough for Labour simply to abstain on the welfare reform bill - they must join us in voting against it.\"\nHowever, with the government having a majority of 12 in the Commons, the bill is still expected to pass its first parliamentary hurdle.", "A decision on whether to press ahead with building four new submarines for the seaborne deterrent, expected to cost £31bn, will be taken next year.\nThe SNP, who have secured a Commons debate, said Trident was a \"political ego trip\" which would never be used.\nBut Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said Trident was part of an \"array of weapons\" that the UK needed to have.\nHe told MPs it was worrying that the long-established cross-party consensus about the necessity of having a continuous-at-sea nuclear weapons capability was \"weakening\", saying the existing posture \"worked\".\nLabour leader Jeremy Corbyn opposes Trident renewal but many of his MPs disagree with him and Labour has dismissed Tuesday's debate as a stunt.\nThe \"maingate\" decision on whether to order four new Vanguard submarines, to replace the existing fleet, will be taken in 2016.\nThe government revealed on Monday that the total cost of renewing Trident has risen by £6bn to £31bn and the start date for the replacement submarines had been put back until \"the early 2030s\".\nThe SNP want the submarines, which are currently based at Faslane naval base on the Clyde, removed from Scottish soil. They have criticised the \"ballooning\" cost of Trident, saying it could consume up to 50% of the UK's total military procurement budget.\n\"Trident is not a military weapon, Trident is a political weapon,\" Brendan O'Hara, the party's defence spokesman told MPs. \"And it is a political weapon that can never and will never be used.\"\n\"Money that should be doing good, whether on peacekeeping, reacting to emergencies or alleviating the humanitarian crisis currently unfolding in front of us in the Middle East is being sacrificed on a combined military and political ego trip.\"\nBut Mr Fallon defend the cost, saying spread out over 35 years - the lifetime of the successor submarines - it amounted to 0.2% of total government spending per year and would provide an \"insurance policy\" for the UK's defences up to 2060.\n\"Our allies and adversaries will be paying attention (to the debate),\" he said. \"It is not a time to gamble with our security.\"\nOfficial Labour policy remains to renew Trident, but party leader Jeremy Corbyn is firmly opposed and a review is taking place to consider the party's stance. Labour MPs are being asked to abstain in the vote - but as many as 20 are thought to be prepared to rebel and vote for Trident to be renewed.\nShadow defence secretary Maria Eagle is not among the few Labour MPs present in the chamber for the debate while many of the 15 or so that are, including John Woodcock, who represents Barrow-in-Furness, where the submarines are built, Jamie Reid and Angela Smith, have made the case for renewal.\nSpeaking officially for the opposition, shadow defence minister Toby Perkins accused the SNP of trying to score \"cheap political points\" by highlighting \"perceived\" Labour splits on the issue, rather than engaging is serious debate.\n£31bn\nIn case costs overrun, the government will also set aside £10bn\nPrevious estimates put the cost at up to £25bn\nInsisting that Labour's review - to be co-chaired by Ms Eagle and former London Mayor Ken Livingstone - would come up with an agreed position that the party could unite behind, he insisted: \"We will not play political games with an issue as important as this.\"\nAhead of Tuesday's debate, former Labour Defence Secretary Lord Browne warned Trident could be rendered obsolete by cyber attacks.\nLord Browne, who held the job between 2006 and 2008, told BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg that ministers had an \"obligation\" to assure MPs all parts of the nuclear deterrent had been assessed against the risk of a cyber attack and that protections were in place.\nHe said: \"If they are unable to do that then there is no guarantee that we will have a reliable deterrent or the prime minister will be able to use this system when he needs to reach for it.\"\nThe strategic defence review published on Monday committed the government to a debate on the future of Trident but not a vote on the main renewal decision. However, Mr Cameron said he was \"keen\" to hold a non-binding vote \"at the appropriate moment\".\nThe government has said the revised cost - including a £10bn contingency - and timescale of the project reflected the \"greater understanding we now have about the detailed design of the submarines and their manufacture\".", "Many journalists and commentators have been filling newspapers, magazines and web pages with their assessment of just what this means for the party.\nSo here is a round-up of some of the media's reaction to the former backbencher's propulsion into the limelight.\nJanet Daley, writing in the Telegraph, says Mr Corbyn's election victory was \"not a good result for the Left\".\n\"The best possible outcome for the Corbynistas would have been for their man to have been defeated by a small margin. Then he could have become the Great Lost Leader, the martyred saint who might have led his people to their true destination had he not been cheated by a cabal of…Well, you get the picture.\n\"As it is, one of two things will happen. Either the Parliamentary Labour Party will go momentarily quiescent while it regroups, refusing co-operation and advice to the leadership clique.\n\"Or else the Corbyn crew will be brought down within months by a Labour assassination squad. This will result in a decade of division within the party - but the hard Left will be particularly scarred by the viciousness of its fight to the death.\"\nThe Observer says there is \"much evidence to suggest voters will resoundingly reject Corbynism in its current form if he makes it to the next election\".\n\"History and common sense suggest that Labour only wins when voters feel they can trust the party to run the economy and to be a guardian of public spending.\n\"New polling published by Lord Ashcroft last week reinforces what poll after poll has suggested since the May election: voters deserted Labour for the Conservatives in 2015 because they had serious doubts about Ed Miliband and they feared a Labour government would spend and borrow too much.\n\"Labour has a message for the poorest, and the richest, but nothing to say to the rest of the country.\"\nThe Independent says Jeremy Corbyn's win \"shows there is an appetite for change in British politics\".\n\"He has interesting ideas for changing the way Parliament does its business. He has suggested that other members of the shadow cabinet should take turns asking questions of the prime minister in the House of Commons.\n\"He is not the first to promise a \"new politics\" or to want to end the Punch and Judy of Prime Minister's Questions, but perhaps he will be the first to succeed.\n\"It is not as if our political system is so perfect that it could not do with shaking up.\"\nJames Forsyth, writing in the Spectator, says Mr Corbyn's victory will change the dynamics of the next Tory leadership election - which he claims can be expected in about three years.\n\"Until recently, Boris Johnson's supporters argued that the Tories needed something extra for the party to win outright. Boris, who had won twice in a Labour city and had the appeal of a celebrity as well as a politician, appeared to be that something.\n\"But with Corbyn as Labour leader it appears that anyone sensible can beat Labour. It is no coincidence that in the past few weeks, the odds on George Osborne's leadership chances have been shortening almost as fast as Corbyn's.\n\"The chancellor is now, for the first time, the bookmakers' favourite.\"\nThe New York Times says Mr Corbyn's success \"underlines the extent to which European political structures have been destabilized by the aftershocks of the financial crisis in 2008, with voters increasingly attracted away from the political center ground, either to the socialist left or the nationalist right\".\nThere's plenty of doom and gloom from the Sydney Morning Herald, which says: \"British Labour has now selected the wrong leader twice. First, they chose Ed Miliband over his brother David in 2010. By choosing Ed the party lurched to the left and lost the 2015 election, which the more centrist David could well have won. Now they have responded to this awful result by electing Corbyn. Expect the result in the 2020 general election to be the same as last time, if not worse.\"\nThe Hindu says that while Mr Corbyn did not detail any foreign policy during his campaign, \"the newly elected leader of the Labour Party has, in his long career in politics, been associated with international movements for peace, against war and nuclear militarisation, and for human rights\".\nAnd Andrew Hammond, writing in the Gulf News, says Mr Corbyn's win \"represents a political earthquake in the Westminster establishment. The aftershocks will continue for weeks to come as he seeks to move the centre of gravity of UK politics in a leftward direction\".\nMeanwhile, Andrew McFadyen delves into sporting history in his piece for Al Jazeera. \"Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labour leadership is like Aberdeen beating Real Madrid in a European final. It really happened, but you have to pinch yourself to believe it is true,\" he says.\nIn the New Statesman, Laurie Penny says the argument that Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable is being made by \"three candidates who can't even win an election against Jeremy Corbyn.\n\"Their arguments are backed by two former prime ministers: Gordon Brown, whose main claim to fame is losing an election to the Tories in 2010, and Tony Blair, the Ghost of Bad Decisions Past.\n\"Corbyn, however, has been re-elected by the people of Islington North consistently since 1983 and, like Bernie Sanders in the US, seems as surprised as anyone to suddenly be reaping the rewards of a lifetime of sticking to his principles - principles that once put Corbyn on the moderate left of Labour and now make him look, at least in the estimation of much of the press, like the nightmare offspring of Che Guevara and Emma Goldman dressed up in a Stalin costume.\n\"And all for proposing a modest increase in the top rate of income tax.\"\nJeremy Corbyn's \"triumph\", says the Morning Star, is cause for celebration \"for everyone who fights for a better world\".\n\"Corbyn's mandate to lead the Labour Party is unshakeable.\n\"And the enthusiasm he inspires wherever he goes — packing out halls at rallies in every corner of Britain over the past few months — shows that he is far and away the most popular politician in Britain today.\n\"His win is a tremendous step forward for the party and the movement. In itself, it changes Britain for the better.\n\"It means the government will not be able to pursue its attacks on our public services, rights at work and living standards without encountering principled opposition on every front.\"\nGordon Brown's former aide Damian McBride writes in the Mail on Sunday that Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, may be the \"best thing since Clement Attlee\".\n\"The last Labour leader to represent an inner London seat, indeed the last leader of any major party to do so, was in his 60s by the time he became Prime Minister. He was unfashionable, disdainful of the media and he stood on a platform that promoted peace and investment in public services and housing, even with the country facing massive debts.\n\"Clement Attlee went on to be Labour's greatest Prime Minister. And while few may believe that Jeremy Corbyn can follow in his footsteps as he slips into the leader's shoes today, one thing is for sure: He comes from the right place.\"\nLabour grandee Peter Mandelson writes in the Sunday Times that there may not be an \"immediate, dramatic collapse\" of support following Mr Corbyn's appointment.\n\"Many voters may even be attracted initially by Corbyn's populism and anti-Establishment pitch. But that is not the same as deciding he should be Britain's next prime minister.\n\"The danger is that Labour simply decides to muddle through, resigning ourselves to our fate rather than doing anything big enough to alter it. Miliband's failed '35% strategy' would seem ambitious in comparison and we would quietly slide into history.\"\nProfessor Charles Lees, who is professor of politics at the University of Bath, writes in the Huffington Post that the most intriguing aspect of the Labour leadership outcome is how the new deputy Tom Watson play his role.\n\"Watson is a party insider insider and - many would argue - a bit of a political thug. He has the power to either make Corbyn's task harder than it needs to be or to bring the party machine behind him in the name of unity.\n\"And if, in a few years time, it is clear that Corbyn is leading Labour to disaster, I wonder what role Watson will play as Corbyn's opponents try to remember where they buried the political hatchets?\"\nThe Sun on Sunday's leader comment says Mr Corbyn's appointment is \"hard to believe\".\n\"Yet his blunt Marxism appeals to Leftie voters sick of appealing to the 'centre'. His cartoonish policies seem new to the young and naive only because they weren't born the last time anyone was foolish enough to spout them.\n\"His policies would be catastrophic: leaving Nato, printing money and causing rampant inflation, downgrading our forces to a home guard, re-opening mines and so on.\n\"He began yesterday as he means to go on, with deranged attacks on the media, whom the Left always blame for their election defeats.\"\nKevin Maguire has an enthusiastic piece in the Mirror, saying Mr Corbyn's win was \"sensational, stunning, seismic, stupendous - pick any superlative you like\".\n\"Jez he Did. Easily. With a thumping majority on the first round. The result wasn't even close. Corbyn walked it. Wow!\n\"Corbyn's message of hope and optimism energised and excited Labour, reviving the party by dragging it from its knees after a crushing election defeat.\n\"Now its most Left-wing leader in recent times deserves his chance to succeed.\"", "At the Unite Scotland union's conference in Clydebank, Ms Dugdale accused the Scottish government of making cuts to schools and social care.\nAlso speaking, UK Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn pledged that a future Labour government would repeal the Trade Union Bill.\nFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon will be making a speech to delegates on Sunday.\nMs Dugdale told the conference Scotland could not be a \"fairer, more prosperous country\" while councils were being \"starved of the resources they need\".\nShe said: \"We cannot build a better life for those children when their parents are amongst the thousands of local government workers who have lost their jobs or the 15,000 more who Cosla say could go as a result of John Swinney's £500m cut to our councils.\n\"We should be cutting the gap between the richest and the rest, not the budget for our schools and the workers from our services.\n\"I am calling on all trade unionists to join Scottish Labour and speak with one voice to say these SNP cuts to local councils responsible for our schools and social care just aren't acceptable.\"\nMr Corbyn, who was delayed arriving in Scotland because of bad weather, said Labour was setting up a commission on workplace rights to be led by the Shadow Minister for Trade Unions, and former president of the National Union of Mineworkers, Ian Lavery MP.\nThe Labour leader said: \"Not only will we repeal the Trade Union Bill when we get back in 2020 we will extend people's rights in the workplace - and give employees a real voice in the organisations they work for.\n\"That means new trade union freedoms and collective bargaining rights of course because it is only through collective representation that workers have the voice and the strength to reverse the race to the bottom in pay and conditions.\"\nMr Corbyn said he was proud to be a member of a trade union and the unions would be \"central to everything we do\".\nAn SNP spokeswoman said: \"Kezia Dugdale should ask Jeremy Corbyn to support the SNP's calls for trade union laws to be devolved as Labour voted to leave these powers in David Cameron's hands, instead of allowing the Scottish Parliament to take a new and better approach, giving him carte blanche to undermine unions in Scotland.\"\nAmong other issues being debated at the conference are debt, the oil industry, fracking and devolution.\nMeanwhile, Unite's general Secretary Len McCluskey is set to urge Labour to apologise for \"betraying\" Scotland to stem the drift towards the SNP which already claims two thirds of Unite's Scottish membership.\nMr McCluskey will remind Scottish members that Unite is a Labour affiliated union and urge them to come back to Labour, in a speech on Sunday.\nHe said: \"The ideology of New Labour effectively alienated large swathes of the Scottish working class, which manifested itself quite dramatically last May.\n\"Kezia has to effectively say: 'Labour is under new management, we apologise for betraying you, and we will start from scratch to try and build that trust up'.\"", "Home Secretary Amber Rudd went head-to-head with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, UKIP's Paul Nuttall, SNP deputy leader Angus Robertson, Green co-leader Caroline Lucas and Plaid Cymru's Leanne Wood.\nDefending her absence, Mrs May said she preferred \"taking questions and meeting people\" on the campaign trail rather than \"squabbling\" with other politicians.\nHere are five key themes from the showdown.\n\"WhereisTheresa\" was trending before the debate began, and the party leaders didn't let the PM's absence be forgotten.\nLeanne Wood went on the attack first, saying Mrs May was not there because \"her campaign of soundbites is falling apart\".\nMr Farron was hot on her heels, quipping: \"Where do you think Theresa May is tonight? Take a look out your window. She might be out there sizing up your house to pay for your social care.\"\nFor the SNP deputy leader, the PM's no-show was evidence she lacked \"guts\".\nMeanwhile, Mr Corbyn asked \"where is Theresa May, what happened to her?\" as he defended his own leadership abilities. Ms Lucas said the \"first rule of leadership is to show up\".\nHowever, it was the Lib Dem leader who persistently went after Mrs May, telling voters they should \"make a brew\" and watch Bake Off instead because the PM \"couldn't be bothered\" to turn up.\nTwitter users also embraced the theme with memes searching for the PM.\nMs Rudd repeatedly accused Mr Corbyn of having a \"magic money tree\" - most notably after he attacked a Tory U-turn on disability benefits and accused the party of planning more cuts.\n\"Jeremy, I know there is no extra payment you don't want to add to, no tax you don't want to rise... we have to stop thinking - as you do - that there is a magic money tree,\" she said.\nMr Corbyn counter-attacked on poverty, asking Ms Rudd whether she had ever been to a food bank or seen people sleeping around stations.\nBut the \"magic money tree\" kept reappearing.\n\"May's strong and stable replaced by Rudd's 'magic money tree',\" was the Guardian deputy editor Paul Johnson's verdict.\nIt was inevitable that a question about Brexit would turn into a debate about immigration.\nTim Farron cited a doctor receiving racial abuse as a consequence of what happens when you \"demonise\" migrants.\nThe UKIP leader - who Ms Lucas accused of \"hate-filled rhetoric\" on immigration - denied claims he was demonising immigrants, but insisted: \"We have to get the population under control.\"\nMs Rudd said it was important to have an immigration policy the UK can control, while Mr Corbyn said he wanted it to be \"fair\".\nArguably the most powerful moment came when Mr Robertson said the debate about immigration \"shames and demeans us all\".\nIt's been a while since the Tory party had to talk about a coalition, but Ms Rudd kept mentioning the \"coalition of chaos\".\nShe said a vote for anyone other than Theresa May would be a \"vote for Jeremy Corbyn and that coalition\" - and all the \"squabbling\" made her realise how chaotic a coalition would be.\nMs Wood wasn't too happy about the suggestion, hitting back that it was the Conservative Party and UKIP that were in coalition.\nThe debate was difficult to follow at times, with politicians interrupting and shouting over each other. \"Let him speak\" and \"can I finish?\" were common mantras.\nTim Farron's one-liners, which weren't reserved for Mrs May's no-show, went down a storm on social media.\nBuzzfeed's Jim Waterson joked that the Lib Dem leader added 500,000 viewers to the viewing figures for Bake Off.\nBut it was the Plaid Cymru leader's personal attack on UKIP leader Paul Nuttall that arguably attracted the most attention.\nCriticising the party's approach to Brexit, she suggested the UKIP leader was someone who would try to divorce his wife without paying, adding: \"We all know about blokes like you.\"\nWhat are the top issues for each political party at the 2017 general election?\nGet news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning", "Len McCluskey, head of the Unite union, described the party's standing in the opinion polls as \"awful\".\nHe said Mr Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell were not \"desperate to cling onto power for power's sake\".\nHis Unite leadership rival accused him of issuing a \"public ultimatum\" and trying to be \"Labour's puppet master\".\nGerard Coyne, who is challenging Mr McCluskey for the job of Unite general secretary, said Mr McCluskey was focusing on party politics over the union's membership.\nSpeaking to the Daily Mirror, Mr McCluskey suggested Unite's leadership contest was being used by Mr Corbyn's critics as a \"proxy war\" against the party leader.\nAs Unite leader, he said, he offered \"critical support\" to Mr Corbyn.\nHe added: \"Let's suppose we are not having a snap election.\n\"It buys into this question of what happens if we get to 2019 and opinion polls are still awful.\n\"The truth is everybody would examine that situation, including Jeremy Corbyn.\"\nOn Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell, he added: \"These two are not egomaniacs, they are not desperate to cling onto power for power's sake.\"\nBy Chris Mason, BBC political correspondent\nLen McCluskey is a huge figure in the Labour movement and was an early, vocal and influential advocate of Jeremy Corbyn becoming - and then remaining - the party's leader.\nSo why is he saying this now?\nThese remarks have to be seen through the prism of yet another election: Mr McCluskey attempting to remain Unite's leader, and facing an opponent who says he spends too much time talking about Westminster politics.\nAs well as the comments about Jeremy Corbyn's possible sell-by date, there is another telling line from Len McCluskey today.\n\"It's my job to promote Unite's policies, not Labour's,\" he says.\nMr McCluskey has votes to win for himself right now, not votes to win for Jeremy Corbyn.\nMr Coyne, Unite's West Midlands secretary, said: \"I am astonished and deeply concerned that, at a time like this, Len McCluskey should deliver what amounts to a public ultimatum to the leader of the Labour Party.\n\"My criticism of his handling of the role of general secretary of Unite is not whether he has backed the right leader or the wrong leader of the Labour Party, but that he appears to think it is his job to be Labour's puppet master.\"\nIn his Mirror interview, Mr McCluskey also said Labour had to show \"ordinary people\" it was \"listening to their concerns\" on immigration, saying it had to \"get its narrative right on free movement\".\nMr Corbyn has defended the principle of free movement and declined to offer \"false promises\" on migration numbers.\nBut others in his party have said the system must change in light of the Brexit vote.\nMr Coyne focused on Brexit in a speech in Birmingham, warning that new immigration controls had to be \"non-negotiable\" when talks between the UK and the EU get under way.\nUnite members who voted for Brexit expected a promise of an end to uncontrolled immigration from the EU to be kept, \"and will feel betrayed if it is not\", he said.", "The rebellion was smaller than many expected - but is it a sign of things to come for Mr Corbyn?\nThe vast majority of Labour MPs did not vote for him as leader and some have not held back in their criticism of him and shadow chancellor John McDonnell.\nThe worry for the Labour leadership is that more will join future rebellions, undermining Mr Corbyn's authority and wrecking his chances of running an effective opposition.\nShadow Chancellor John McDonnell described Wednesday night's vote as political stunt and a trap - designed by Chancellor George Osborne to expose Labour's differences on the economy.\n\"Moderate\" Labour MPs were surprised, and delighted, when Mr McDonnell said last month that he would back Mr Osborne's Charter for Budget Responsibility, which commits future governments to running a surplus in \"normal\" economic times.\nBut after studying the small print and \"receiving advice\" Mr McDonnell changed his mind and ordered Labour MPs to vote against it, saying the move would \"underline our position as an anti-austerity party\". Mr Osborne's \"fiscal charter\" would prevent a future Labour government from borrowing to protect public services from cuts.\nMr McDonnell sought to defuse tensions by admitting that he was \"embarrassed\" by his own U-turn on the issue. telling MPs: \"When the circumstances and judgments change it is best to admit to it and change as well.\"\nThe overwhelming majority of Labour MPs did as they were told and voted against the charter, as did the SNP, but it will become law anyway, thanks to the government's majority.\nThere were few surprises in the list of rebels - most are from the right of the party and have previously spoken out against Mr Corbyn's leadership.\nSome of his more prominent critics, such as Chuka Umunna and failed leadership contender Yvette Cooper voted with the leadership. This either suggests there is no organised resistance to Mr Corbyn or they are keeping their powder dry for a more substantial issue. Former leader Ed Miliband also supported Mr Corbyn in the vote.\nAccording to The Telegraph, Mr Corbyn threatened to sack shadow ministers who were planning to vote against him - but softened his stance when he realised the scale of the likely rebellion and allowed them to miss the vote.\nIn total, 37 Labour MPs failed to vote, including 16 whose absence was \"authorised\".\nFrank Field helped Mr Corbyn get on to the leadership ballot to \"broaden the debate\" despite the fact that he does not agree with his Labour-left brand of politics.\nHe says Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell are as \"safe as houses\" because there is no \"alternative leadership\" waiting in the wings of the Parliamentary Labour Party to take over. It is going to be a \"bumpy ride\" for the pair because they have never held such positions and are doing their learning \"in public\", he adds.\nExplaining his decision to rebel against Mr Corbyn on Wednesday night, Mr Field said: \"Labour lost heavily in 2015 because it appeared fiscally irresponsible. Signing up to the Charter matters little one way or the other.\n\"But it does signify a change in heart by Labour to move towards a balanced budget. That was John McDonnell's original position and he was right. He has, however, given into pressure from the Scottish Labour Party that unless Labour in Westminster made a token stand against the charter, Labour's hopes in Scotland would be further dashed.\"\nOther backbench rebels appear more concerned about what they have called the \"chaos\" at the top of the party.\nOutspoken Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk accused Mr McDonnell of \"flipping and flopping\" over the fiscal charter.\nHe told BBC News: \"John McDonnell has looked quite shambolic in terms of changing his mind. We need strong leadership. We won't win on a far left prospective, we have to win from the centre ground.\"\nTristram Hunt is a leading light in Labour for the Common Good, a new group, known at Westminster as \"the resistance\".\nThe group was formed when Mr Corbyn's victory began to look inevitable and aims to give a voice to moderate Labour MPs who feel alienated by the party's new direction.\nUnlike his fellow Common Good founder Chuka Umunna, Mr Hunt defied the whip last night, as did former shadow chancellor Chris Leslie and Liz Kendall, who was trounced by Mr Corbyn in this summer's leadership contest.\nThe Common Good group and their supporters insist they are not forming a breakaway party like the SDP in the 1980s and there appears to be little appetite for such a move in the Labour ranks. Mr Corbyn would be wise to keep an eye on these names, however.\nThe scale of Jeremy Corbyn's victory and the breadth of his support among party members and the thousands who signed up for £3 to vote for him make him appear bombproof for now.\nThe Labour leader's supporters in Parliament, such as shadow international development secretary Diane Abbott, have repeatedly told his critics to \"shut up\" and respect his mandate.\nHe can and will appeal to the party members over the heads of his MPs - something that will not always go down well on the Labour benches. At other times he may disagree with his frontbench colleagues, and we will be encouraged to see it as part of a new, more open style of leadership, rather than a \"split\" or a \"rebellion\".\nBut Labour must still set clear policies on which it can fight an election - and Mr Corbyn will need to assert his authority over his party in important Parliamentary votes.", "The contest is open to members of the 14 unions which back Labour, if they pay a political levy to the party and had registered as affiliated supporters before 12 January.\nSo which unions back challenger Owen Smith and which support the incumbent Jeremy Corbyn - which have not declared a preference?\nTrain drivers' union Aslef has given its backing to Jeremy Corbyn, having backed him in the 2015 leadership contest as well. The union's executive committee endorsed Mr Corbyn in a meeting in July.\nGeneral secretary Mick Whelan said: \"We are backing Jeremy again because he believes in the core values and the key aspirations of the Labour Party and proposes to run on a platform, at the next general election, which will excite voters put off by the failed focus group-obsessed machinations of the New Labour years.\"\nThe union for media workers has not taken a position in the leadership race.\n\"In keeping with past practice Bectu neither made a nomination for a Labour leadership candidate, nor recommended either of those who entered the contest,\" union officer Tony Lennon wrote in a message to members.\nAt a conference in June, the bakers' union voted that \"if there was any challenge to Mr Corbyn's leadership, our union would continue to support the current, democratically elected incumbent and the progressive policies he has put forward\".\nNational president Ian Hodgson wrote that under Jeremy Corbyn \"the Labour Party now represented and supported the aspirations of our members\".\nSteelworkers' union Community has declared backing for Owen Smith.\nThe union tweeted that Mr Smith \"has shown he is able to unite and lead the Labour Party and more importantly, he can be trusted to lead our country\".\nThe Communication Workers Union confirmed its backing for Jeremy Corbyn at the beginning of August.\n\"Jeremy is a leader for the millions, not the millionaires,\" said general secretary Dave Ward.\nThe FBU re-affiliated to Labour after Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader in 2015, over a decade after splitting with the party in protest at the policies of then-leader Tony Blair.\nIn July this year the union said Mr Corbyn was \"by far the best candidate for firefighters, for the fire and rescue service and for working people in general\".\nThe GMB. one of the biggest unions affiliated to Labour, backed Owen Smith to become leader after balloting its membership for their views.\nGeneral secretary Tim Roache called on Labour to \"unite when all this is over\", adding: \"GMB members cannot afford for Labour to be talking to itself in a bubble for the next five years while the Tories run riot through our rights at work, our public services and our communities.\"\nThe union's executive has made an \"advisory recommendation\" that members vote for Owen Smith as Labour leader.\nJohn Smith, the union's general secretary, praised his namesake for \"offering a second referendum based on approval of the terms of Brexit, which is undoubtedly an attractive option for many musicians concerned about what Brexit might mean\".\nThe National Union of Mineworkers has not yet declared which candidate it supports.\nThe Transport Salaried Staffs' Association, which backed Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, reaffirmed its support for him in July.\n\"With a new leader at the head of the Conservative Party and the Tories looking set to remain in a prolonged period of bitter rivalry and infighting, it is for Labour to unite and be the source of national unity and stability for the country,\" the union said in a press release.\nThe construction union has nominated Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader.\n\"This is an unnecessary and divisive election but now it has been triggered it is essential that Jeremy receives an even larger mandate than he did in 2015 and that the Labour Party then properly unites behind him,\" said acting general secretary Brian Rye.\nThe second largest union, Unison, has backed Jeremy Corbyn over Owen Smith.\n\"Jeremy Corbyn retains the backing of a majority of UNISON's Labour supporting members,\" said general secretary Dave Prentis. \"However, a significant minority backed Owen Smith. Their views will always be respected in our union - that's our proud tradition.\"\nThe UK's largest trade union has not changed its position of supporting Mr Corbyn since the last Labour leadership election in 2015, and leader Len McCluskey is one of Mr Corbyn's more outspoken champions.\nIn a statement in July, the union said a leadership election was \"an unhelpful process to be embarking upon at this time\".\nUsdaw, whose members include retail and distribution workers, has backed Owen Smith, arguing that he stands a greater chance of leading Labour to power.\n\"Our members cannot afford years of principled opposition, with a Labour Party divided and unable to secure the confidence of voters,\" said general secretary John Hannett.\nThe National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) has given its backing to Jeremy Corbyn, but the union is not affiliated to Labour.\n\"Jeremy has renewed the faith that many rank and file trade unionists have in the Labour Party,\" said general secretary Mick Cash.", "The result is a boost for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has sent the union chief a message of congratulations.\nMr McCluskey's chief rival Gerard Coyne - seen as the anti-Corbyn candidate - was beaten by nearly 6,000 votes.\nHe said Unite, which is Labour's biggest donor, had to change and claimed he faced attempts by officials to \"bully and intimidate\" him.\nMr Coyne was suspended from his job as a Unite official on Thursday pending an investigation.\nHe faces accusations of bringing the union into disrepute over claims made during the contest, which saw barbs flying from both sides.\nThe move did not affect the election as counting was already under way, although it could have put the result in doubt if he had won it.\nSpeaking after the result had been declared, Mr Coyne said: \"It has been a very close count and the ballot sends some very serious messages to Unite.\n\"I am proud to have run a campaign that faced up to the issues that concerned members.\n\"Unite needs to change, and it needs to put its focus back where it belongs: on looking after the real interests of the members of the union.\n\"It's been a hard and robust campaign. The union machine consistently attempted to bully and intimidate me, something that has continued even after the close of polls.\n\"Nevertheless tens of thousands of members backed my fight to change our union for the better.\"\nMr McCluskey won 59,067 votes, Mr Coyne 53,544 and Ian Allinson 17,143, in a turnout of just over 12%, Unite said.\nAsked for his reaction to the result, Mr Corbyn said: \"Congratulations Len McCluskey, well done.\n\"The democratic process has taken place in the union. I look forward to working with him and indeed I've already sent him a message of well done.\"\nUnite acting general secretary Gail Cartmail said: \"I congratulate Len McCluskey on his victory and would urge the entire union to pull together in the interests of our members, and not least to work for a Labour victory in the general election.\n\"The turnout in this important election can give no cause for satisfaction and, while the tone of the campaign will not have helped, the underlying reason remains the archaic and expensive balloting system imposed on trade unions by law.\n\"The sooner we can move to secure and secret workplace and online voting, the better for union democracy.\"\nHome Secretary Amber Rudd said Mr McCluskey was \"now in the driving seat for Labour's campaign\".\nShe referred to the Unite's leader's past suggestion that Labour could form a government with the help of the Scottish National Party and Lib Dems, saying it would amount to a \"coalition of chaos\".\nSpeaking on Wednesday, however, Mr Corbyn ruled out any post-election coalition with the SNP.\nThis result matters because Jeremy Corbyn's man won.\nThe Labour leader still has an ally in the figurehead at the top of the country's biggest union.\nUnite's deep pockets have helped bankroll the party.\nLen McCluskey's passionate support helped buoy up Mr Corbyn when most of his MPs decided he was useless.\nMr McCluskey's principal opponent, Gerard Coyne, had argued Unite should stop \"playing Westminster politics\" and \"failed to collect a penny back\" from its donations to Jeremy Corbyn's leadership contests.\nBut Gerard Coyne lost.\nAnd so Mr Corbyn's man is still standing.\nThe big question now is, if Labour lose the election, whether Len McCluskey will change his mind and call on him to go.", "The MPs want to broker a compromise that would preserve some of the Labour leader's key policies if he quit.\nNewsnight political editor Nick Watt said MPs had been creating a timetable to let Mr Corbyn \"retire with dignity\".\nBut James Schneider, of grassroots Labour movement Momentum, said the plan would not work as Mr Corbyn had \"an enormous amount of support\".\nMr Corbyn's leadership is under threat after numerous frontbench resignations and a no-confidence vote by his MPs.\nBut he has said he would not \"betray\" the party members who elected him last year by standing down.\nThe BBC has learned that a delegation of shadow cabinet members tried to meet Mr Corbyn on Thursday to put forward their plan, but were unsuccessful.\nUnder the plan, potential leadership contenders would agree to pursue some of Mr Corbyn's key policies on issues including tackling inequality and making the party more democratic.\nMomentum spokesman Mr Schneider told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Mr Corbyn had shown \"incredible steel\" in remaining leader, and he accused the other MPs of trying to \"subvert democracy in the party\".\n\"If they are unhappy with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership or the policies which he is standing for, they need to get 51 signatures, they need to find a candidate, they need to find a platform and they need to go for it,\" he said.\n\"But they don't have a candidate who can beat Jeremy Corbyn.\"\nHe said there was a \"reasonable amount of evidence\" to suggest that people who had joined the Labour Party in a recent surge had joined to support Mr Corbyn, as 60% of the first 13,000 members had put this on their joining form.\nBut former Labour leader Neil Kinnock told BBC Radio 5 Live that Mr Corbyn should \"do his duty and resign\".\nLord Kinnock said: \"I totally understand and I completely support the members of Parliament who voted in the no-confidence motion.\n\"They were doing the clear, honest thing when they are so fundamentally alarmed by the prospects for the party.\"\nMeanwhile, former Welsh Secretary Lord Hain told the BBC's Sunday Politics Wales programme he had never been as concerned as he was now about the party's prospects.\nHe said it was \"much more serious\" than the \"early 1980s strife\".\nCriticism of Mr Corbyn's EU referendum campaign input prompted a series of walkouts by shadow cabinet members and mounting calls for the leader to resign.\nPrime Minister David Cameron, who criticised Mr Corbyn's efforts during the EU referendum in the House of Commons last week, told him: \"For heaven's sake man, go.\"\nMr Corbyn's predecessor, Ed Miliband, also joined calls for him to quit, telling BBC Radio 4's The World at One his position was \"untenable\".\nBut senior allies of Mr Corbyn, who has strong support among the party's members, are determined to keep him in place.\nShadow Chancellor John McDonnell has previously indicated he is confident Mr Corbyn would see off any challenge to his leadership.\nEx-London mayor Ken Livingstone has said Mr Corbyn would win any leadership contest and that people would be \"appalled\" at MPs trying to force out a leader elected by 60% of members and supporters.\nBut some supporters believe easing him out may be the only way to avoid a split.\nOn Thursday, potential leadership challenger Angela Eagle said Mr Corbyn \"still has time to do the right thing\".\nMr Corbyn rejected an attempt by deputy leader Tom Watson to persuade him to stand down.", "Angus Robertson challenged Theresa May to give a \"clear and unambiguous commitment\" to the triple lock system.\nThe prime minister responded by saying pensioner incomes would \"continue to increase\" under the Conservatives.\nBut she did not specify by how much she planned to increase them.\nThe triple lock, which was introduced by the coalition government in 2010, was a guarantee to increase the state pension every year by the higher of inflation, average earnings or a minimum of 2.5%.\nLabour leader Jeremy Corbyn had earlier told MPs that his party would \"guarantee the triple lock\" if it wins the election.\nMr Robertson said Mrs May had failed to give a straight answer to his question on whether she would give a clear commitment to the policy.\nHe said: \"I asked the prime minister a pretty simple question. It is a yes or a no, and the prime minister failed to answer.\"\nMr Robertson said pensioners across the country would therefore be \"right to conclude that this Tory prime minister plans to ditch the triple lock on the state pension\".\nThe SNP MP added: \"Too many women already face pensions inequality, and the Tories now won't even guarantee the pensions triple lock.\n\"The only reason that they won't guarantee it is because they want to cut pensions\".\nThe government has previously said it was committed to the triple lock until at least 2020 - but there has been speculation that the policy could be ditched in the Conservative manifesto ahead of the 8 June general election.\nThe triple lock system was criticised last year by MPs on the work and pensions committee, who said it was \"unsustainable\" and \"unfair\" on younger families and should be scrapped.\nResponding to Mr Robertson, the prime minister said pensioners had benefited to the tune of £1,250 a year as a result of what the Conservatives had done to the basic state pension.\nShe added: \"If you want to know the party in government that has improved the lot of pensioners across this country, it is the Conservative Party.\n\"Under a Conservative government those pensioner incomes would continue to increase.\n\"And it is the change in the structure of the state pension introduced by this government that is going to improve the lot of female pensioners in the future and that is going to be much better for them.\"\nMrs May also launched a stinging personal attack on Mr Corbyn, accusing the Labour leader of \"not being up to the job\" of prime minister, and said the Conservatives would offer \"strong and stable leadership\" for the country.\nMr Corbyn said the economy had failed under the Conservatives, with \"millions of people struggling to make ends meet\".\nHe added: \"They are strong against the weak, and weak against the strong. Far from building a strong economy, schools and our NHS are being cut, people can't afford homes and millions can't make ends meet.\n\"That doesn't add up to a stronger economy for anyone.\"\nHe had earlier said that Labour will guarantee the triple lock, and will \"treat pensioners with respect\", adding: \"We will not move the goalposts (for) people looking forward to retirement.\"\nMeanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron criticised Mrs May's record as prime minister on a range of social and welfare issues.\nHe said: \"She has closed the door on desperate child refugees. She has ignored the plight of those suffering under the crisis in health and social care and she is responsible for the shameful rape clause.\n\"Twenty years ago she berated the Conservative party for being a nasty party - but her party has never been nastier.\"", "Addressing the party's UK conference, Ms Dugdale restated her support for the tax policy her party ran on in May.\nShe wants a 50p tax on those earning over £150,000, and a penny increase in income tax to pay for public services.\nThe conference will vote on Tuesday on plans to give the Scottish and Welsh leaders more power over their parties.\nThe proposals would allow Kezia Dugdale and Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones the power to appoint a representative to the party's UK national executive committee (NEC).\nThe plans would also give the Scottish and Welsh parties more autonomy.\nSources have said there was an attempt to \"unpick\" the plans by removing the extra seats from the package. This was defeated, but it is possible there could be a second attempt prior to Tuesday's vote.\nSpeaking at the weekend, Len McCluskey, head of the UK's biggest trade union Unite, said Ms Dugdale should not have the power to appoint Scotland's representative on the NEC.\nHe said that while there was wide support for the autonomy proposals, coupling them with the NEC seat plans had created a \"difficult position\".\nMs Dugdale has said she is confident the full package will be passed.\nIt appears Kezia Dugdale and Jeremy Corbyn are involved in their first dispute since his re-election.\nA series of reforms to the way the Labour Party works are due to be passed on Tuesday.\nThe package includes autonomy plans praised by Ms Dugdale last week. This part is uncontroversial and supported by everyone I've spoken to.\nBut there is a row over another part. The reforms would also allow Ms Dugdale - and her Welsh counterpart Carwyn Jones - to appoint someone to represent them on the party's UK executive.\nMr Corbyn's supporters think the extra NEC seats could be used to try and undermine him as the battle for the party's future plays out. They want to postpone the plan.\nFor now, it appears Ms Dugdale will get her way. But it's possible there will be another attempt to scupper the NEC plan tomorrow.\nIn her address to the conference in Liverpool on Monday afternoon, the Scottish Labour leadersaid her party will not support \"another austerity budget\" in Scotland.\nThe speech is Ms Dugdale's first to conference since the Holyrood elections earlier this year, when Labour fell to third place in terms of the seats it holds in the Scottish parliament, behind the Conservatives.\nMSPs at Holyrood will be responsible for setting income tax in Scotland from April 2017, but First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has already rejected increasing the basic rate for the five year lifetime of the parliament, as well as ruling out upping the top rate in the first year.\nMs Dugdale said her party would \"place amendments to introduce a 50p tax on those earning over £150,000 and to add a penny to income tax to pay for public services\" when the Scottish government brings forward its budget for 2017-18.\nShe said: \"With the full range of powers the Scottish Parliament now has, the SNP government faces a clear choice.\n\"Accept a Tory budget from Westminster, or go our own way with proposals to grow the Scottish economy and protect our schools and hospitals.\n\"If the SNP minority government do not accept these proposals, and try to force another austerity budget through Holyrood, we will vote against it.\n\"If they want support, they'll need to look to the Tories for that. Labour will not help the SNP pass an austerity budget.\"\nMs Dugdale also attacked Ms Sturgeon over her stance on independence, saying Scottish Labour would not support a second referendum during the current Holyrood term.\nShe said: \"We do not need the risk and uncertainty of another independence referendum.\n\"As we face negotiations on our membership of the EU and real threats to the future of our public services, we cannot afford our government to take their eye off the ball.\n\"With so many challenges facing Scotland in the future, we should not return to the divisions of the past.\n\"My message to Nicola Sturgeon is this: first minister, our country is already divided enough. Do not divide us again.\"" ]

[ "The reason you're failing to start Tor Browser is that you do not have bash installed.\n\nAs per their documentation, you need to install bash, however you don't need to \"edit the /etc/passwd file with your favorite text editor and change your shell\" (Ew!) it just needs to be installed and somewhere within one of the directories in $PATH so that it can be found by env.\n\nUpdate:\n\nYou're also missing some other tools that the script uses, getconf and file which are standard system utilities normally available under GNUs coreutils.\n\nI anticipate further problems once you've solved those. Likely with missing libraries like dbus-glib or others required by firefox itself.\n\nAlso if you're using a i386 userspace then you should be using 32bit tor browser, even if the kernel is amd64 otherwise you're probably going to end up with multilib hell." ]

[ "I would be skeptical of the article you read. The TOR Browser Bundle (TBB) is safe in most instances. The admonishment to not use Windows if possible is a good one, but unless you are doing some really bad stuff, it is probably \"safe enough\" (Linux is always preferable though).\n\nIn years past, the TOR browser bundle lacked certain security patches in Firefox that could have been exploited to uncover the identities of people using it. However, it was likely only three-letter-agencies (e.g. the NSA) who were doing that on any meaningful scale and current versions of the software purposefully try to keep up with security patches to minimize the amount of time a certain browser version might be vulnerable. That said, I've never read anything to make me believe the Freedom Hosting takedown was due to the TBB. That was almost certainly other things.\n\nRegarding a \"standalone\" version of TOR, they were likely referring to the Windows Expert Bundle. (As an update, since the article says they don't like Windows, they apparently mean \"Use some version of TOR, just not the prepackaged TBB which includes Firefox.\") \n\nIt is possible to setup TOR manually to work with a browser of your choice but it is a decidedly technical pursuit for many average users. And unless you genuinely know what you are doing, it is likely easier to misconfigure the \"standalone\" version which may leak details about you and your session. What the TOR Browser Bundle does is package a version of TOR with a preconfigured version of Firefox, both of which install easily for most users and are generally secure.\n\nBut...\n\nThe only genuine caveat concerning the TOR Browser Bundle is that current versions have some features left on by default which should really be turned off for anonymity. The reason these features are left on is because certain \"regular\" websites will \"break\" (not work correctly) without them. \n\nHowever, it is entirely possible to \"switch off\" these features (which generally aren't needed for sites on the TOR network, which exclude the need for these features purposefully to help anonymity). But unless you are looking for them, it is possible to leave them on and expose yourself.\n\nUpdated July 2019 For Tor Browser Bundle v8.5.4 (Firefox 60.8.0 ESR)\n\nTo start, right-click the uppermost portion of the browser window and enable the Menu Bar. Then under Tools -> Options -> Privacy &amp; Security (about:preferences#privacy), make certain the following items are set correctly:\n\n\nUnder History, ensure Use custom settings for history is selected. Always use private browsing mode should also be enabled.\nUnder Cookies and Site Data, mark the Block cookies and site data option.\nAs a matter of course, under the Address Bar section, I would uncheck all three options (Browsing history, Bookmarks and Open tabs). You likely don't want to keep a history of what you type in the address bar if you really care about privacy.\nSet Tracking Protection to Always. (Recommended)\nUnder Permissions, check Prevent accessibility services from accessing your browser. (Recommended) [You will be prompted to restart the Tor browser if you check this option.]\nUnder Security, mark the Safer or Safest option (the higher the better). You can click the Shield Icon on the toolbar (in the upper right corner of the browser) then click Advanced Security Settings... to quickly access these options in the future.\nThe NoScript add-on bundled with TBB previously had a separate toolbar icon, but that seems to have been removed in current versions of the TBB. Instead, choosing the Safer or Safest options (above) will disallow scripts, etc. (either on non-HTTPS sites [Safer] or entirely [Safest]). NoScript also has a number of options you may wish to investigate under Tools → Add-ons → NoScript Options.\n\n\nAfter adjusting these settings, I would suggest restarting the Tor browser and checking out JonDoNym's IP Check and the EFF's Panopticlick. Also, remember to recheck these settings periodically, especially after upgrading the TBB.\n\nIf you are really privacy minded, you should consider The Amnesiac Incognito Live System (TAILS), which is a Linux Live CD which offers excellent security for TOR browsing. I would not recommend it in a virtual machine, however. (The best use of the Live CD is on a PC without a hard disc at all, at least in my opinion.)\n\nReference Article Originally Cited:\nhttp://www.hongkiat.com/blog/do-donts-tor-network/", "Your running Tor will cache the descriptors of other relays in a file called \"cached-descriptors\". The descriptors include the exit policies for the relays.\n\nThis file will be located in the Tor data directory. The data directory may be specified in your torrc using the DataDirectory keyword. The location is by default within the TBB itself for Tor Browser Bundles.\n\nOn a Mac OS X system running the Tor Browser Bundle, for example, it will be in TorBrowser[Bundle]_en-US.app:Contents:Resources:Data:Tor:cached-descriptors[.new]", "It's very site-dependent, but there are two ways, generally:\n\n\nIf you're using Tor Browser Bundle - use a HTML5 player on the site, it's ubiquitous now.\nIf you have just Tor(tor Expert bundle) - use it as a router or a proxy for VM's where you do launch a flash-supporting browser to prevent data leaks. It's also the only way if you have just flash player on the website", "Download TOR Browser Bundle and install it on your machine.\nOpen the TOR Browser and select &quot;Configure&quot;. Here you can configure TOR to authenticate on your proxy server.", "Alright, he's a hacky way I cobbled together (currently if I want a hardened environment, I use Subgraph OS which does all of this in a pretty transparent manner through Oz, it's still in beta testing but it's likely better tested than my own version, which will need some tweaking) when I run under Arch Linux, first of all it's also done from a grsec/pax kernel to frustrate exploitation and attacks against the kernel.\nUpdate: Adding recommendations beyond Firejail because, frankly, Firejail is janky and unworthy of trust (it fails open, as an example of it's betrayal...).\nUpdate 2: My mistrust in Firejail seems to be vindicated by various vulnerabilties that result in privilege escalation. Luckily, Yawning's sandbox code is now in alpha testing, what it provides can be read here and the code is here. As such I'm removing all firejail documentation.\nOne of the Tor Developers is working on creating a sandbox for Tor Browser based around a lot of these principles and technologies, except it's going to be better and less hacky than my script below but probably not as extensive as Subgraph or Qubes.\nThere is Q&amp;A about Yawning's Bubblewrap Tor Browser sandboxing efforts available here and the code for the sandboxing tool is here.\nYawning's code is now released, it creates two sandbox environments. One for Tor Browser and another for the Tor daemon. It handles downloading and verifying the Tor Browser, as well as updating it.\nNote that this doesn't address the issues of lateral movement within an X session (any X application can access any other application within the same X session), so you may wish to take extra steps like using Xephyr or xpra to run a nested X instance to launch the browser inside.\nGoogle also recently gave a talk at a Linux conference about a similar tool they produced to lock down service daemons on Chrome OS, called minijail which also utilises many of the same features of modern Linux kernels.\nArch Linux has a tool called playpen available from the community repos, which works with similar ideas but from inside a chroot, maintained by one of the Copperhead developers.\nOther things to consider\n\nUsing a Control Port filter to block the majority of functionality of the control port from Tor Browser.\nUsing a nested X instance.\nUsing a hardened kernel.\nUsing a paravirtualized virtual machine to reduce hardware fingerprinting.", "There is an 'about:config' option for this (extensions.torlauncher.prompt_at_startup), but it should usually already be set to false, and the browser changes this to true automatically as needed.\n\nInstead, you should use the TOR_FORCE_NET_CONFIG environment variable when you start the browser. If you disable it, Tor will connect to the Tor network automatically without prompting. On Linux you can use:\n\nTOR_FORCE_NET_CONFIG=0 tor-browser/Browser/start-tor-browser --detach\n\n\nI believe it should be similar on Windows on the command line using:\n\nset TOR_FORCE_NET_CONFIG=0\nstart tor-browser.exe", "Same Tor underneath, TBB just has the browser bundled on top of the Tor connection whereas expert is just the connection with no browser. They both path through the network exactly the same way (so that you can't tell them apart, which is the whole point of Tor, to make us all look the same). \n\nI would imagine any difference between the two is either coincidence or only perceived.", "The best courses of actions you could do right now are:\nTo use another modern computer that is able runs the latest Tor Browser for security. Preferably Linux OSes since most of them don't phone home and are probably more secure.\nAlternatively install Debian, Lubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu (PowerPC FAQ on Ubuntu's website) or any other Linux Distros that supports the latest Tor Browser on your old system. I wonder if your old computer has any hardware vulnerabilities, you might want to take in account of them depending on your threat model.\nLess ideal options:\nUsing Virtual Machine(VM) to run an Linux OS and then run Tor Browser is a less ideal option. The reason is that your compatible VM may probably be outdated which may result in no support of newer security updates. According to this list, the last usable but unsupported VirtualBox is 4.3.14 (&lt;-- Please use this link for that version, it is always more secure to download from the official website.)\nI do not encourage you to use old and currently unsupported operating system to run the Tor Browser as you will miss out on crucial security updates for it and your OS. But just for completionistic sake, here is an less ideal solution: This link contains the list of older versions of Tor Browser if you don't mind of the vulnerabilities. This Reddit user seems to found a version that is somewhat working.\nUnfortunately, Tails OS doesn't support PowerPC so I can't suggest it.", "Which programming languages are used to write onion webpages\n\nAny programming language that you would use for normal websites (HTML/JavaScript/CSS for frontend/static content, NodeJS/PHP/Ruby/Python/Java/etc for the backend server).\n\nand is it possible to use tor browser on Linux distributions with obtaining full anonymity?\n\nYou can use Tor Browser on Linux, but there is no such thing as full anonymity.\n\nwhere can I study the onion networking properly is there any source?\n\nThe original Tor paper still gives a good introduction to how the network works. One part of the network design that you may want to search online for is &quot;onion routing&quot;.", "Bits of identifying information\n\nThe quality of a fingerprint is measured by the number of \"bits\" of identifying information. The more bits of information your fingerprint contains, the more reliably your device can be distinguished from other devices.\n\nThese bits of information are obtained by testing how your browser behaves in different situations. For example, whether or not cookies are enabled provides one bit of information (either they are enabled, or they are not enabled).\n\nIf we assume that the testable behaviors are evenly distributed, then any configuration with n bits of information occurs with probability 1/2^n.\n\nHowever, the actual math surrounding this becomes somewhat more complicated due to certain settings being more popular. For example, most users have cookies enabled because that is the default in their browser; therefore, having cookies enabled does little to distinguish you from other users. But, if you are the rare person with cookies disabled, you will be more identifiable.\n\nDoes the Tor Browser allow fingerprinting?\n\nIt is impossible to not provide any fingerprinting information because the information is collected as a boolean value: either your browser supports a feature or it does not. However, it is possible to reduce the uniqueness of that information by trying to match other users.\n\nIf you look at the user agent information in Panopticlick while using the Tor Browser, you will notice that it is pretending to be installed on the Windows operating system even when it is running on a Linux. This is because Windows is currently the most prevalent operating system worldwide. Thus, it provides the least amount of \"uniqueness\" to your fingerprint.\n\nFurthermore, it is more important for Tor users to all appear identical than it is to attempt to match another fingerprint. This is because it is possible to identify that someone is using Tor by the IP address that is connecting to a website. Thus, the fact that they are a Tor user is impossible to obscure. However, if all Tor users have the same fingerprint, it remains impossible to tell which Tor user connected to your website.\n\nDoes installing add-ons help?\n\nIt depends on whether you are installing add-ons into a normal browser or the Tor Browser:\n\n\nThe Tor Browser: Probably not. If an add-on you install disables one feature in the Tor browser and nobody else installs this add-on, you will be the only user on the Tor network with this fingerprint. However, if the add-on is included in the Tor Browser for every user, then it might be possible to change your fingerprint characteristics for the better.\nA Normal Browser: Yes, privacy add-ons can provide an enhancement over the browser's default configuration. However, the Tor Browser is better overall because it contains many modifications that are too difficult to perform via add-ons alone. Additionally, the Tor Browser has protection against more than just device fingerprinting.", "It means that you never signed the key that was used to sign the Tor Browser Bundle. You should only sign keys of people that you have verified the identity of (usually by looking at the person's government issued ID when meeting the person in \"real life\", though people have their own criteria for identification).\n\nThe message is warning you that you should make sure the key actually belongs to the person you think it does (in this case, the Tor Browser Developers).\n\nIf you got the message about the signature being good and if the key fingerprint matches the key fingerprint you expected, that is good. You still have to consider how you obtained the expected fingerprint. Ideally you would meet the person who owns the key in person and verify that the fingerprint is actually their's. It isn't always possible to travel to meet people in person. There is something called the web of trust. The idea is that if you meet me and verify my key and if I meet the Tor Browser Developers and verify their key, then if you trust me, you can trust that the Tor Browser Developers' key is actually their key, based on my having signed their key. This concept can be extended so that there are more people between you and the Tor Browser Developers. The more people you trust that have all verified the key of the Tor Browser Developers, the better.\n\nHaving said all that, it may be enough for you to just verify the keys off of the Tor Project website. I don't know exactly what you are doing and what kinds of threats you want to protect against.\n\nIf you haven't checked it out already, there is a page on the Tor Project website about this.", "I have found that this works pretty well:\n(For this, I'm assuming that you have installed tor using \"apt-get install tor\" and not using the Tor browser bundle.)\n\n\nAdd this line to the \"/etc/tor/torrc\" file to tunnel vpn traffic:\n\nSocksPort 9150 PreferSOCKSNoAuth\nThen you will need to tell OpenVPN to use a proxy.\nAdd this to your VPN config file:\n\nsocks-proxy localhost 9150\n socks-proxy-retry\nRestart tor:\nsudo service tor restart\n*you may need to reload the config for tor with: \"sudo service tor reload\"\nNow you should be able to run openvpn AFTER tor has established a connection to the tor network.\nsudo openvpn --config path/to/vpn/config/file\n\n\nHope this helps a bit :)", "This is a feature of the Tor Browser to prevent accidentally leaking TBB information to an exteral program that isn't configured to use Tor. \n\nFrom https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/5556 titled \"magnet uri support\"\n\n\n This is supported in Firefox, this does not work in Tor.\n Simply put, this is not a Mozilla issue, nor is it a Firefox issue, this is a Tor Browser issue.\n As per the original description: When clicking magnet:// prefixed links, \"The browser does ask for permission to open the associated application. The associated application never recieves the message from the TBB. This works in normal Firefox.", "You can find your EntryGuards in your data directory. If you are using the Tor Browser Bundle, you have the list in Data/Tor/state. In other cases there will be a .tor directory in your home directory or similar.\n\nCurrently Tor selects 3 EntryGuards per default. This setting may however be changed using NumEntryGuards. There is another option that is called GuardLifetime. According to the manual it is based of what the network consensus is.", "Not incredible, but possible case - I've helped a person who had a fake tor.exe in Tor Browser Bundle, and he stated that he had downloaded it from a Tor website. Re-download it again from a different network connection", "Use recently launched Tor Exit Node\n\nThe workaround is to hand pick a Tor Exit Node that is very new on the Internet (launched hours ago). We only need this for the signup step. It is critical to revert to default Tor settings afterwards.\n\n\nSearch for exit nodes first seen 0 days ago:\nhttps://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/flag:exit%20flag:running%20first_seen_days:0-0%20running:true\nClick on any node on the list and copy its fingerprint (not to be confused with IPv6 address).\nOpen your torrc config file for editing. If you use Whonix (and you should!) then edit the one on the gateway VM (not the workstation).\n\nLocation on plain Linux: /etc/tor/torrc.\n\nLocation on the Whonix gateway: /usr/local/etc/torrc.d/50_user.conf.\nAdd the following line:\n\nExitNodes heregoesthefingerprintofthetorexitnode\n\n\nThis will force Tor to route all connections through this node.\nRestart Tor daemon:\n\nOn plain Linux: sudo systemctl restart tor.service.\n\nOn Whonix Gateway: sudo systemctl restart tor@default.service.\nRestart your Tor browser\nVerify your public IP address matches the Tor exit node you picked:\n\nhttps://check.torproject.org/\nSign up on GitHub. The CAPTCHA should now render properly.\n\nIf still no luck please try with another exit node (remember to restart the Tor daemon and Browser). In our case it worked the second time.\nCritical cleanup: remove the added line from the torrc file.\nCritical cleanup: restart the Tor daemon.\n\n\nImportant: this is only necessary for the signup. You GitHub account will work well over Tor.", "In tor browser, try going to https://www.ip-tracker.org/. This will verify weather tor is hiding your location or not. If the site does show your real location in tor browser than yes your tor is not working correctly. However if it shows an unknown location the tor is working correctly.\n\nThe issue you are describing does not sound tor related; what's most likely happening is this website is ONLY accepting ip addresses from their approved country list, or they are resolving the ip address and dter", "I have same problem too. Tried every possible solution. Finally, installed tor browser bundle and now I can watch videos. I think it is not flash or other problem. May be restriction of your localation.", "Ok. So in order to have a file one needs to run as well:\n\ngit clone https://github.com/EOSIO/eosjs.git\ncd eosjs\nnpm install\nnpm run build_browser\n\n\n// builds: ./dist/eos.js\n\nThe fact is that it does not work on Windows. If you try better run on Linux", "Try JonDoFox with Tor. JonDo does nothing to make your PC less identifiable, but the JonDoFox extension works hard to erase the differences between firefox instances so your browser is less identifiable (They even fixed the WebRTC STUN leak in the latest JonDoFox). Tor Browser also erases browser uniqueness, but maybe it leaks more than JonDoFox.", "I found a file at ~/.local/share/torbrowser/tbb/x86_64/tor-browser_en-US/start-tor-browser.desktop (~ is an abbreviation for /home/your-username). To toggle show/hide hidden files and folders press the keyboard combination Ctrl+H or click the three horizontal lines ≡ icon in the upper right corner of Files application and put a checkmark next to the Show Hidden Files option. When I right-clicked this file and selected Open, Tor Browser opened immediately. \n\n\n\nThen I used the information in Properties -> Basic tab -> Command: of the start-tor-browser.desktop file to update my Tor Browser launcher so that I could quickly open Tor Browser as usual by clicking on its icon in the Dash.\n\nIf this happens again I'm going to check the start-tor-browser.desktop file again to see if it works, because apparently Tor Browser updates only the start-tor-browser.desktop file, but it does not update the Tor Browser icon that you can find in the Dash. This Tor Browser launcher must be updated manually.\n\nThe desktop launcher for Tor Browser is located at /usr/share/applications/torbrowser.desktop. To change the properties of the Tor Browser desktop launcher requires sudo. Open the terminal and type:\n\nsudo nano '/usr/share/applications/torbrowser.desktop'\n\n\nIf your Ubuntu username is user change the line in torbrowser.desktop that starts with Exec= to:\n\nExec=sh -c '\"/home/user/.local/share/torbrowser/tbb/x86_64/tor-browser_en-US/Browser/start-tor-browser\" --detach || ([ ! -x \"/home/user/.local/share/torbrowser/tbb/x86_64/tor-browser_en-US/Browser/start-tor-browser\" ] && \"$(dirname \"$*\")\"/Browser/start-tor-browser --detach)' dummy %k\n\nBecause nano text editor does not support line wrapping you will need to use the arrow keys to move the mouse cursor to the end of the line to make sure that you copied the entire line correctly before you save the changes that you made to torbrowser.desktop.\n\nThe instructions for using nano editor are always found at the bottom of every page. The only two nano keyboard shortcuts that you need to know are for WriteOut and Exit. Press the keyboard combination Ctrl+O and after that press Enter to save the file being edited. Press the keyboard combination Ctrl+X to exit nano.", "You can do this with Tor browser\nFollow the link to download for your environment - Windows, OSX, Linux or Android as required..", "If everything is working as intended, then NO, the .onion website owner Cannot see a visitor IP address. Most leaks, such as from insecure plugins would be unable to reveal your IP to a .onion site either, as they would involve sending traffic over clearnet which is unable to reach a .onion site. There are some situations where bittorrent traffic, which shouldn't be used over tor anyway, can send out your regular clearnet IP over tor so there is always some extremely small chance a bad enough combination of plug-ins and/or exploits could somehow leak your IP to a .onion site but it's extremely unlikely and probably not a concern if you're just worried about being banned. You could always just resolve the security issue if you do get banned, therefore circumventing the ban.\n\nIf you're very concerned about IP leaks, Whonix attempts to prevent many ways your IP can leak with other Tor implementations. You run a customized Torbrowser bundle in a Linux Virtual Machine on an isolated network that can only connect to a second Linux VM whose sole job is to ensure all traffic goes over Tor. It's fairly easy to setup as you can just drop pre-built appliances into VirtualBox or KVM. \nhttps://www.whonix.org/wiki/Main_Page\nhttps://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/whonix", "Port 9150 is a Tor SOCKS port by default, so something was using your local SOCKS[port 9150] and your local ControlPort to control Tor via telnet protocol, default port is 9151. The Tor itself seems to behave fine, no rooting/jailbreaking so far. Please post your torrc config if you need to take a deeper look, but your log looks OK and very common for TorButton or something similar like Tor Browser Bundle.", "If you are using Tor and it says abuse is originating from \"your\" network, it means the network of the exit node. Not your real network.\n\nTo fix this, select the Tor browser button and select New identity or New Tor circuit for this site. If it still does not work, close Tor browser and open it again.\n\nRepeat until the message is gone. I find that it is easier to make a dedicated Tor Stackexchange account and log in before posting a question.\n\nThis sort of denial of service is caused by spammers who posts their spam on this site proxying through Tor.", "However whenever I run Network Time Syncing in Gateway, It will sit at about 10% in the status bar and wont move, even after leaving it for almost an hour.\n\n\nWhat does whonixcheck say?\n\nWhat does sdwdate's log say?\n\nTo find that out, run.\n\ntail -f /var/log/sdwdate.log\n\n\nAdd this information using the comment function and I will update this answer.\n\n\n I have my System clock set to exactly the same as the Whonix internal clock (UTC time)\n\n\nThis is wrong. And you shouldn't try such things without being told so in documentation or without knowing what you are doing. Leave your host's (the host is the system you were using without knowing about Whonix) system clock to what it is usually set, i.e. your usual time zone and your current time.\n\nI think it's likely, that Tor isn't able to connect in the first place. Running whonixcheck on Whonix-Gateway will tell. Are you living in a censored area (rhetoric question)? Have you followed the recommendation to learn how to use the Tor Browser Bundle on your host first? Does that work for you?", "I assume you're talking about Tor Browser here. Tor Browser itself doesn't keep a history of the pages you visited. If it comes to any pages you visit using other browsers, Tor Browser does not try to stop them from storing any history.\n\nIf you used another browser for browsing or to download Tor Browser, that history is not removed.", "It depends on your operating system, but on Linux go to tor-browser/Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Tor and open the file named state. Here you'll see the sampled guards. Also note the confirmed_idx field, which states the position of the guard in the confirmed list. Right now Tor uses one guard for circuits, and three directory guards (the other guards will not have confirmed_idx fields).\n\nEdit: I don't think this answer is completely accurate. This is where Tor stores its guards, but I'm not sure I'm interpreting the state file correctly.", "You need a Socks5 library for c#, that you then can use to communicate over tor.\n\nOne example of such library is :\nhttps://github.com/ThrDev/Socks5\n\nThere is also a example here: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/5954/C-class-for-connecting-via-a-SOCKS-Proxy-Server\n\nTypically what you need to do is to use a library and connect to the proxy.\n\n'Hostname' will need to be '127.0.0.1' or 'localhost'.\n\nThe 'Port' will need to be set to '9150'. (if using tor browser bundle it might be a different port).\n\nThe 'Type' will be set to 'Socks5'.", "You don't say which operating system, so here is the answer for Linux. Hopefully it will be somewhat similar to what you are using\n\ntor-browser_en-US/Browser/TorBrowser/Data/Browser/profile.default/bookmarks.html\n\nYou can import it via the bookmarks menu ctrl-shift-o.", "Even after jailbreaking an iOS device, I'm unaware of any way to run Tor Browser on it.\n\nHowever, you can approximate Tor Browser on Apple's iOS with the open source Onion Browser, by Mike Tigas. Onion Browser will use the Tor network for transport.\n\nOnion Browser is not a Tor Project app. That said, it does appear to be developed and distributed with attention to the details of anonymity. See http://onionbrowser.com/ for more.\n\nFurther, Onion Browser is a minimal browser, and not a fairly full featured Firefox version like Tor Browser is. This might present you with a fingerprinting issue, depending on your threat model.\n\nIf you use it, do heed the additional warnings Onion Browser gives you about what it cannot anonymize due to the nature of iOS.\n\nSource code: https://github.com/mtigas/iOS-OnionBrowser", "The bookmarks are stored in an sqlite database inside the application bundle. If you right-click on the Tor Browser application and then select \"Show Package Contents\" from the context menu, you can see the folder structure inside the package. \n\nThe database is located at TorBrowser.app/TorBrowser/Data/Browser/profile.default/places.sqlite \n\nYou can query (for example) the titles and URLs like this:\n\nsqlite3 /the/path/to/your/TorBrowser.app/TorBrowser/Data/Browser/profile.default/places.sqlite \"select moz_bookmarks.title, moz_places.url from moz_bookmarks, moz_places where moz_bookmarks.fk = moz_places.id;\"" ]

[ "Regis Philbin" ]

[ "Did Not Finish", "How children played slaughtering together", "How Did We Get So Dark?", "Did It for the Party", "The Girl Who Played with Fire", "JP Did This 1", "How Come, How Long", "I Did It for Love", "Playing with Fire", "Play No Games", "Playing in the Shadows", "Google Play", "playing cards", "Playing with the Boys", "playing the bagpipes", "revenge play" ]

[ "Dropped out at 16, got my GED the same year, got my HS diploma at 18, went to college at 37 and got a degree in accounting, now I sell crap online and don’t work" ]

[ "A guy who in high-school literally got expelled for attempted rape. The school covered it up with he dropped out. But he had a screw loose and wasn't missed by anyone.", "Anxiety and depression kept me from achieving my goals. Now I’m just sad, disappointed in myself and regret dropping out of school.", "The students will label people, but it really depends on the high school. I went to a really goody two shoes school and no one cared what group you hung out with. We really didn't label people, it was more about doing well in school. Down the street from us was a high school where labels mattered and where you sat at lunch mattered. It depends on the people that go into the school.", "Someone who failed out. Failing a test doesn't mean you don't have the knowledge, unlike the one who didn't go to medical school.", "I dropped out of college and regret it. I was working Full Time at night and going to school during the day and I got burnt out. Dropped out to work. This was 1996.\n\nI'm doing ok now, decent career, but things would have come a lot easier for me with a degree.", "People who go to high school are not 23-year-old actors", "Traditional high school isn't for everyone. Knowing where I am now I life, I wished I had dropped out, got my GED and started my life sooner. \n\nIs your friend willing to talk to the school district about other alternatives to traditional high school model that the district offers?", "Large high school parties where most of the school shows up.", "The Kid Who Failed Art School: Coming Soon.", "Wait until you get out of high school", "Walking out of high school in front of the principal at lunch because I have college classes at a different campus", "You have failed no nut November..... *takes out camera* Alright, Who wants to get pegged?", "Most people that peaked in high school don't know that they peaked in high school", "High School.", "TIL: People who where dropped on their heads as babies lick their feet every night before bed..........", "Day by day. \nRealizing who are real friends and who are users so dropping people from my circle.\n\nGrocery shopping for friends that are high risk.", "I'm a counselor in a charter school and have about a thousand students who were failed by traditional public schools... so I support school choice.", "Ban for people who drop out in the first thirty seconds because they didn't get to be impostor.", "High school ends. You never have to see any of theses terrible people again if you so choose.", "Work experience could be impossible to get if the criteria for employment is being a graduate. \n\nWe have quite a polarised view of success due to fame and social media. There are a number success stories of people dropping out of high school (Casey Neistat) or college (Bill Gates). But remember, the people like Casey Neistat are exceptionally hard working and lucky. The people like Bill Gates, they dropped out of Harvard.", "Maybe stop sleeping with people where you have to jump out the window lmao", "Cheated on a maths test in high school, still only got 32/100 and failed lol", "Well, considering high school was decades ago and several continents away, I'd have to go with \"who are you and what the hell are you doing in my house???\"", "Not as a child but young teen, due to watching those high school films about nerds who can't get the girl and being that myself I assumed sex was out of reach for most people and only the best of the best manage to have it. Turns out people who don't have it are the vast minority. I suck.", "*high school*", "There was a guy in high school who was always a dick to me. Then one year I joined the Track &amp; Field team. He said \"oh you do sports now, I guess you're all right.\" Then we became friends.\n\nHigh school was weird.", "Dropping knife on the floor where you stand, where your feet are.", "Didn't care at the time but now I'm older kinda feels like I've missed out on part of the high school experience.", "No, some people did shit in high school due to home life but turned out fine in college.", "That you need to be cool to be accepted in high school.", "finishing school:’(", "I shit you not a guy who transferred to my high school was named Holden A. Woodcock. Swearsies." ]

[ "Carlsbad Weather and When to Go. Carlsbad weather essentials. The climate in Carlsbad is very pleasant. The winters are mild with an average temperature that hovers around 60 degrees (Fahrenheit) and the summers are also nice with an average daily temperature in the low 70s (Fahrenheit)." ]

[ "Carlsbad weather averages and climate Carlsbad, California. The monthly temperature, precipitation and hours of sunshine. A climate graph showing the rainfall data, temperatures and normals. Average weather Carlsbad, CA.", "Weather.com brings you the most accurate monthly weather forecast for Carlsbad, CA (92008) with average/record and high/low temperatures, precipitation and more. Weather.com brings you the most accurate monthly weather forecast for Carlsbad, CA (92008) with average/record and high/low temperatures, precipitation and more. Connection restored! Show me the weather in... city, zip, or place", "Carlsbad (92009), California - Monthly weather averages including average high and low Temperature, Precipitation, Pressure, Wind Charts to assist you in planning your travel, holiday or an outdoor activity at 92009, Carlsbad, California", "Average Weather in October in Carlsbad California, United States. In Carlsbad, the month of October is characterized by gradually falling daily high temperatures, with daily highs decreasing by 3°F, from 74°F to 71°F over the course of the month, and rarely exceeding 83°F or dropping below 65°F.", "Realtime weather, 14 day weather forecast, historical weather at Carlsbad (92009) Monthly Climate Averages", "Past Weather in Carlsbad, California, USA — Yesterday and Last 2 Weeks.", "Climate Carlsbad - New Mexico. °C | °F. Climate data for carlsbad, Longitude: -104.222, Latitude: 32.3479. Average weather Carlsbad, NM - 88220 - 1981-2010 normals. Jan: January, Feb: February, Mar: March, Apr: April, May: May, Jun: June, Jul: July, Aug: August, Sep: September, Oct: October, Nov: November, Dec: December.", "Find the most current and reliable 14 day weather forecasts, storm alerts, reports and information for Carlsbad, CA, US with The Weather Network.", "Water temperature Carlsbad today. 1 This data the coastal surface water temperature in Carlsbad. Besides water temperature, you can also get information about the weather for today, tomorrow and the upcoming days, as well as the data on sunrise/sunset and moonrise/moonset at a given point on any given day. The swimming season in Carlsbad lasts from July to September.", "(Today) Apr 2017. Current weather. The measurements for the sea temperature in Carlsbad, California are provided by the daily satellite readings provided by the NOAA. The temperatures given are the surface temperature (SST) which is most relevant to recreational users.", "Climate data for carlsbad palomar ap, Longitude: -117.279, Latitude: 33.1281 Average weather Carlsbad, CA - 92008 - 1981-2010 normals Jan: January, Feb: February, Mar: March, Apr: April, May: May, Jun: June, Jul: July, Aug: August, Sep: September, Oct: October, Nov: November, Dec: December", "1 The most monthly precipitation in Carlsbad occurs in February with 3 inches. 2 The air quality index in Carlsbad is 22% worse than the national average. The pollution index in Carlsbad is 798% worse than the national average.", "* Reported Mar 20 8:53 pm — Apr 4 8:53 pm, Carlsbad, Weather by CustomWeather, © 2017. Note: Actual official high and low records may vary slightly from our data, if they occured in-between our weather recording intervals... More about our weather records.", "Source: The Carlsbad, CA weather data displayed above is derived from the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric). Air quality and pollution data is derived from the EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency).", "On average, there are 263 sunny days per year in Carlsbad, California. The July high is around 75 degrees. The January low is 44. Sperling's comfort index for Carlsbad is a 80 out of 100, where a higher score indicates a more comfortable year-around climate. The US average for the comfort index is 54.", "This will help you estimate how much time you will spend travelling for the distance from Las Vegas to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Want to better plan this Las Vegas Carlsbad Caverns National Park distance? Get to know how to Travel from Las Vegas to Carlsbad Caverns National Park Carlsbad Cavern Highway. Do you find travelling by road tiring?", "Sunshine tax also applies to our gas prices. One of the attributes of the weather here is Carlsbad is the marine layer (and of California in general), which can occur with other large bodies of water and is not just a west coast phenomenon. We call it May Gray and June Gloom when it occurs then, sometimes for days.", "Refer the Directions from Las Vegas to Carlsbad Caverns National Park Carlsbad Cavern Highway! How much would be the distance if one could just fly from Las Vegas to Carlsbad Caverns National Park like a bird in a staight line? Check the Flight distance between Las Vegas and Carlsbad Caverns National Park Carlsbad Cavern Highway.", "Carlsbad, New Mexico. 1 Carlsbad: Sunset south of Carlsbad. 2 Carlsbad: Entrance gate to Carlsbad Caverns. 3 Carlsbad: Carlsbad - beautiful desert. Carlsbad: Carlsbad from C- 1 hill. Carlsbad: View of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Carlsbad: Bowing Yucca at Sitting Bull Falls near Carlsbad, 1 NM. Carlsbad: Red flower, Carlsbad, NM.", "Today's Carlsbad City Beach sea temperature is 15.6 °C. Statistics for 16 Apr (1981–2005) – mean: 15.4 °C, range: 13.7 °C to 17.5 °C. The water temperature (15 °C) at Carlsbad City Beach is quite cool. If the sun shines as we have forecast, it should feel warm enough to surf in a good spring wetsuit.", "South Carlsbad State Beach is a beautiful beach, a boundary between land and sea shaped and molded to perfection by wind, weather, swell, tidal influences, longshore drift, and the living things that visit or call this intertidal zone their home.", "Carlsbad experiences some seasonal variation in monthly rainfall. The rainy period of the year lasts for 199 days, from April 25 to November 10, with a sliding 31-day rainfall of at least 0.5 inches. The most rain falls during the 31 days centered around September 11, with an average total accumulation of 1.8 inches.", "CLIMATE OVERVIEW. Carlsbad, California, gets 12 inches of rain per year. The US average is 39. Snowfall is 0 inches. The average US city gets 26 inches of snow per year. The number of days with any measurable precipitation is 25.", "Park Review. Our Visit We visited Guadalupe Mountains during March as part of an 8-Park tour of the Southwest. We split the day with Carlsbad Caverns, 30 miles to the North. Our Weather The weather was great--blue skies and 80s.", "Location: Carlsbad, California (map) Phone: (760) 434-2553. More info: Website. Carlsbad Village, or downtown Carlsbad, covers several blocks along Carlsbad Blvd, Carlsbad Village Drive, Grand Ave, State Street, Roosevelt Street, and various other cross streets in Carlsbad, CA.", "Carlsbad, NM. Carlsbad is a city in and the county seat of Eddy County, New Mexico. Carlsbad is located in the Chihuahuan Desert on the beautiful Pecos River at an elevation of 3,295 feet. The city, with its tree-lined streets, numerous public parks and recreation areas, including the municipal beach and greenway along Lake Carlsbad; originated as an oasis - The Pearl on the Pecos..", "Best Answer: I've lived in Encinitas (which is right next to Carlsbad) for about 10 years and think that Carlsbad is great. The two negatives are high housing prices (but not as bad as coastal areas further south) and traffic on Hwy 5, which is always bad. But Carlsbad's positives outweigh the negatives.", "Carlsbad, CA Livability Score. Put the Livability Score on your website. See the full demographics report or view the Carlsbad city guide with attractions and photos of Carlsbad. Search the best places to live in Carlsbad and Carlsbad apartments for rent.", "Disclaimer. Carlsbad is an area in Carlsbad, San Diego County, California with a population of 108,591. There are 53,211 male residents living in Carlsbad and 55,380 female residents. The total number of households is 42,267 with 2.55 people per household on average.", "Carlsbad Hotel - Carlsbad Inn Beach Resort & Hotel - Paradise on the San Diego Coast. This Carlsbad Hotel is steps from the Pacific Ocean with miles of pristine beach, the Carlsbad Inn Beach Resort & Hotel is a peaceful destination resort within the charming coastal Village of Carlsbad, California.", "Outdoors, Carlsbad Caverns National Park's average annual high temperature is 74°F and the average annual low temperature is 50°F with a mean annual temperature of 63°F. (In the summer,average highs are in the 90°s F, in the winter the average highs are in the 50°s and 60°s F.)", "Carlsbad, CA. Sponsored Topics. Carlsbad is a coastal resort city lying along the Pacific Ocean in San Diego's North County region of Southern California. Carlsbad is located 87 miles (140 km) south of Los Angeles and 35 miles (56 km) north of downtown San Diego." ]

[ "You are the sweetest child in the world, they obviously feel you deserve it. A parent looks forward to this moment from the day you are born. That is actually not an unreasonable amount I have seen them reach $5,000 plus. But Like I said this is as special to them as it gets. Don't look at it as them spending the money on you, look at it as them enjoying the fruits of their labor. You graduating (and especially going on to college) means they have achieved their dreams in life, and you will understand it better if you choose to have children. But If you feel that it is still to much, than when you finish college and get that nice paying job get them some cruise tickets, just to say \"I love you\"" ]

[ "get hooked to crack...just kidding..10 lbs in 2 weeks is too much...i can't advise that...but to lose 1 lb a week all you have to do is eat 500 calories less a day...3500 Kcal for the week...or increase energy output (exercise) by burning off an extra 500 calories a day...", "It's 1:00 a.m. and it's still just way too early for me to sleep. And the night is quiet...the best hours for me.", "Pool D: Orlando, Florida \\nDate Local time EST Matchup Stadium \\n\\nTues. March 7 1:00 pm 1:00 pm Dominican Republic vs Venezuela - Disney's Wide World of Sports \\nTues. March 7 8:00 pm 8:00 pm Australia vs Italy - Disney's Wide World of Sports \\nWed. March 8 7:00 pm 7:00 pm Italy vs Venezuela - Disney's Wide World of Sports \\nThurs. March 9 1:00 pm 1:00 pm Italy vs Dominican Republic - Disney's Wide World of Sports \\nThurs. March 9 8:00 pm 8:00 pm Venezuela vs Australia - Disney's Wide World of Sports \\nFri. March 10 7:00 pm 7:00 pm Australia vs Dominican Republic - Disney's Wide World of Sports", "LOTS of fruits & vegetables... But,try to hold back from too much meat. And no eating after 19:00... This \"Eating for two\" - it's crap; it's bad for u and for your baby.", "BMI FCU \\n 570 W Schrock Rd \\n Westerville, OH 43081 \\n 614-508-1040 - Phone \\n 614-508-1044 - Fax \\n \\nMon: 9:00 - 5:00 \\nTue: 9:00 - 5:00 \\nWed: 9:00 - 1:00 \\nThu: 9:00 - 5:00 \\nFri: 9:00 - 6:00 \\nSat: 9:00 - 1:00", "They spend too much time online.", "You can do it at home whenever you want, but 2:00 am is the arbitrarily chosen time for the official time change. There has to be a standard. So, in April, a 1:30-2:00 TV program will be followed by a 3:00 program. In October, a 1:30-2:00 program will be followed by a 1:00 program.", "Generally, 33% of americans have graduated college, 15% of those graduates have gotten a graduate degree, and 1% of those with a graduate degree go on to a PhD. Keep in mind, that is 15% of the original 33%, then 1% of the 15% of the 33%. The citizens of the United States are still very much uneducated, and easily manipulated by the government and the church because of this.", "No. kids spend too much time in front of the thing as it is.", "That means that after:\\n\\n* x = 0 days there are 500*2(0) = 500 * 0 = 0 cats\\n* x = 2 days there are 500*2(2) = 500 * 4 = 2,000 cats\\n* x = 5 days there are 500*2(5) = 500 * 10 = 5,000 cats\\n\\nThat's a lot of cats. One thing: saying \"after 0 days\" doesn't make much common sense. It really means \"before you started measuring time.\" So, 0 days after you start measuring time is, basically, when you started measuring time, and this whole cat/barn party began. :)", "Ohio is eastern time.. Montana is mountain time.. so 1:00 in Ohio is 3:00 in Montana.. \\nfor future reference.. \\n1:00 in the eastern time zone [New York]\\n2:00 in the central time zone [Chicago]\\n3:00 in the mountain time zone[Colorado]\\n4:00 in the pacific time zone [California]\\n6:00 in Hawaii", "Military time is on a 24 hr clock Starting at 12:00 Midnight as 00:00 00:01 00:02 till you reach 01:00 2:00 till you reach noon then is when the clock is differentat 01::00 it is 13:00 14:00 15:00 till midnight then it starts all over again. Good Luck. Midnight is 12:00 00:01 01:00 till noon isjust like a regular clock till you pass noon it is then 1:00-13:00 2:00-14:00 3:00-15:00 4:00-1600 5:00-1700 6:00-1800 7:00-1900 8:00-2000 9:00-2100 10:00-2200 11:00-2300 12:00-0001 or 2400.", "Next 10 games:\\n\\nWed, March 1, at Washington, 7:00 pm, TV:FxMW,CSNB\\nFri, March 3, at Boston, 7:30 pm \\nSun, March 5, at Philadelphia, 1:00 pm, TV:ABC \\nTue, Mar 7, New York, 7:00 pm, TV:MSG, FxMW\\nWed, Mar 8, at Houston, 8:30 pm, TV:WTTV, KNWS\\nFri, March 10, at NOK, 8:00 pm, TV:FxMW, COX\\nSun, March 12, at Toronto, 1:00 pm, TV:WTTV, SCORE\\nMon, March 13, Orlando, 7:00 pm, TV:WRBW, FxMW\\nWed, March 15, Denver, 7:00 pm, TV:ALT, FxMW\\nFri, March 17, Sacramento, 7:00 pm, TV:CSNS, FxMW", "Well both of course! It's good to save it and invest it into something that will generate more like a savings bond or mutual fund! But spending money can be important too, just don't spend too much and keep it balanced.", "It's quirky, but you can do it...\\n\\nAll times in Excel are DateTimes, so you have to provide a day. Also, remember that the formatting is important.\\n\\nIn one cell, put \"1/1/2006 9:00 am\", in another put 1/1/2006 5:00 pm\"\\n\\nIn a third cell, subtract the second cell from the first.\\n\\nNow it works, but it doesn't look right because its showing you a date as well as a time. Highlight all three cells, and go to \"Format | Cells\" and set the format to \"hh:mm\" Now the cells look like:\\n\\n9:00 am\\n5:00 pm\\n8:00\\n\\nVoila!", "Maybe we spend too much time at the computer :)", "I believe London is 8 hours *ahead* of Washington state - if it's 1:00 p.m. in Washington, then it's 9:00 p.m. in London.", "maybe you spend too much time on Yahoo answers...", "spending too much time on the computer answering yahoo questions", "Try not to party too much.\\nYes, it is possible. I know because I don't remember much of my Freshman year of College...", "1:00 pm.Toooooooo late,isn't it?!!", "Get out of the house and experience life; it is more healthy. We all spend too too much time on the computer, including me.", "My best time in the 200 yard free is a 2:13...i think im not for sure but around there but i have only swam it twice and my 500 free time is somewhere round a 5:00", "Live Telephone Assistance: 1-800-829-104\\n\\nLive Telephone Assistance for Businesses: 1-800-829-4933\\n\\nLive Telephone Assistance for people with hearing impairments: 1-800-829-4059 (TDD)\\n\\nHours of Operation 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Monday - Friday", "During graduate school I felt exactly as you do. Every week I would have to read at least five 300-500 pg. books. One of my professors gave me good advice: Don't spend any more than one hour per book. Read the introduction and the conclusion closely, then skim the rest. Also, look up book reviews on search engines such as JSTOR. (two or three per book) These reviews will give you a synopsis of the book.", "any thing can get boring if you spend too much time doin it", "<The 24-hour clock is a convention of time-keeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours, numbered from 0 to 23 (and 24 in the day-ending midnight). This system is the most commonly used time notation in the world of today. The United States is the only industrialized country left in which a substantial fraction of the population is not yet accustomed to it. The 24-hour notation is in the US and Canada also referred to as military time, and (now only rarely) in the United Kingdom as continental time. It is also the international standard notation of time (ISO 8601).\\n\\n<Description\\nA time in the 24-hour notation is written in the form hours:minutes (for example, 01:23), or hours:minutes:seconds (01:23:45). A leading zero is added for numbers under 10. This zero is optional for the hours, but very commonly used, especially in computer applications, where many specifications require it (for example, ISO 8601). Where subsecond resolution is required, the seconds can be a decimal fraction, that is the fractional part follows a decimal dot or comma, as in 01:23:45.678. In the 24-hour time notation, the day begins at midnight, 00:00, and the last minute of the day is that beginning at 23:59 and ending at 24:00. The time 24:00 of the current day is identical to 00:00 of the following day. Digital clocks run from 00:00 to 23:59, that is they never show 24:00 on their display. This way, the roll-over from 23:59:59.999 to 00:00:00.000 coincides with the start of a new day and date. However, the notation 24:00 is useful for referring to the exact end of a day in a time interval.\\n\\n24-hour clock 12-hour clock \\n00:00 12:00 midnight \\n01:00 1:00 am \\n02:00 2:00 am \\n03:00 3:00 am \\n04:00 4:00 am \\n05:00 5:00 am \\n06:00 6:00 am \\n07:00 7:00 am \\n08:00 8:00 am \\n09:00 9:00 am \\n10:00 10:00 am \\n11:00 11:00 am \\n12:00 12:00 noon \\n13:00 1:00 pm \\n14:00 2:00 pm \\n15:00 3:00 pm \\n16:00 4:00 pm \\n17:00 5:00 pm \\n18:00 6:00 pm \\n19:00 7:00 pm \\n20:00 8:00 pm \\n21:00 9:00 pm \\n22:00 10:00 pm \\n23:00 11:00 pm \\n24:00 12:00 midnight", "I spend way too much time looking at this webpage when I should be doing homework", "party and spend her daddy's money!", "You can look it up at http://start.localnet.com/help.php \\nor call Sales/Customer Service\\nToll-Free: 1-888-488-7265\\nOperating Hours (EST):\\nMon - Fri: 8:00 am - 1:00 am\\nSat - Sun: 8:30 am - 10:00 pm\\nTechnical Support\\nToll-Free: 1-888-488-7266\\nOperating Hours:\\n24 hours a day, 7 days a week!", "could be sending the wrong signals dont flirt too much and spend a little less alone time with them", "my dear frined.. if u are spend a lot for education. Pls go for an abord university master degreein commerece. Or do some accounting post graduation degrees. U know in india there is a glamourous career in Civil service. you can try your luck on that too.. good luck." ]

[ "So one time in 5th grade I had to show what an atom looked like. A lot of kids just drew circles on a piece of paper and labeled them. I was trying to be clever. I got a hamster ball, pipe cleaners, and beads. Hamster ball was nucleus, filled it with specific colored beads, used the pipe cleaners to connect everything, and prop up the whole thing. I got my grade on it back and it’s an A-. Not too bad but I worked my ass off on it and kids with a piece of paper got a higher score than me. I asked the teacher why’d she take points off and she said \n\n“Because it wasn’t to scale”" ]

[ "Most of what D.A.R.E. taught to elementary students.", "That's some high-grade incel bullshit, right there.", "Getting good grades and getting my assignments in on time.", "Just joined reddit today. What the fuck have I gotten into?", "It's gotten a lot harder to sleep with the teacher for good grades", "What do you think is the most asked question on Reddit?", "Redditors of reddit who are currently on reddit what is the most reddit thing you have seen redditted on reddit so far on reddit", "I'm going to post a bunch of bullshit on reddit.", "Perfect 4th grade Reddit answer.", "Nothing, because that's what I 've been believing for the last 20 years.", "My pet peeve is when they won't tell you what they pay--which is most job listings these days. That's bullshit.", "What is this bullshit?", "\"So what's up with this bullshit?\"", "A Redditor asking other Redditors in r/AskReddit on Reddit what the most Reddit thing they've see on Reddit is", "Hang on, if you ask reddit, then everyone has been asked, so how can you answer an ask reddit post without being asked? Are you a philosophy student?", "Follow-up question:\nStudents who stay up to see their grades at 2 am, are you okay??", "Teacher here and I've gotten into heated arguments with colleagues when they say that bullshit. What an absolutely god-awful way to start off with such an asinine and demotivating statement.", "\"I'm sorry you feel that way\"\n\n\nWhat backwards ass bullshit.", "Those commas confused me for a solid minute lol. I think you meant to say “Teachers if Reddit, what do students think you don’t know?”", "This is reddit. What did you expect?", "What bullshit are we inventing now?", "what if you are the reddit kid", "Therapy, not Reddit, is probably what you need.", "That is the weirdest assumption I\\`ve ever heard.", "“Reddit, what did you read?”", "I think you misunderstood the assignment.", "I’m a student and I have better grades because I don’t have to waste my time waiting for other students to catch up.", "It’s all society’s bullshit. Most of it is to sell you things you don’t need. The more the lines get blurred the better.", "“You can’t sleep you have 4 assignments overdue”", "I work in IT. Nobody gives a shit about grades or degrees. Are you good at what you do? Perfect.\n\nIf you apply a D-Student work ethic and skills to your job and life then you’re going to have a bad time.", "We assigned meaning to characters in a certain order and that is what we came up with.", "What question would you ask reddit?" ]

[ "Ibiza - Cruiseable Ibiza Travel guide to Ibiza & the Balearic Islands, Spain August 4, 2016 The vibe Where sandy beaches lead to the picturesque landscape, the Balearic Islands of Spain are majestic jewels that sparkle in the Mediterranean Sea. The archipelago consists of five major islands: Mallorca , Ibiza, Menorca, Formentera and Cabrera. Although the economy of the Balearic Islands thrives from the agriculture and fishing industries, the unique characteristics of each island attract a magnitude of tourists who enjoy the beautiful atmosphere, pleasant weather and fascinating sites. Whether you choose to relax on the pristine beaches, shop-till-you-drop, go sightseeing or party the night away, there are assortments of exotic treasures that are lurking throughout the immaculate islands. Cruise ships that call on Ibiza SeaDream Yacht Club : SeaDream I, SeaDream II Costa Cruises: Costa Fascinosa, Costa Favolosa, Costa Fortuna, Costa neoRomantica Top reasons to go With a wildly mixed population of trendy artists, aging hippies, laid-back ex-pats, and dedicated club goers, Ibiza has a well-earned reputation for its summer club scene and nightlife. Not only is Ibiza surrounded by miles of golden beaches, but it has an amazing salt field (Las Salinas Salt Flats). The island of Cabrera is ideal for swimming among the bright-colored fish, octopi and sea slugs that populate the sea. manuelafotografa.com / Courtesy of Tourist Office of SpainLocals and visitors indulge in Mediterranean fare served at a taverna on the island of Ibiza, in the Mediterranean off the coast of Valencia in eastern Spain at Sun Sea Bar. Ibiza Known as a vibrant island, Ibiza attracts many adventure seekers and party goers from all over the world with its intense nightlife and party scene. Not only is this island surrounded by miles of golden beaches, but it has an amazing salt field (Las Salinas Salt Flats). During the summer, deposits of crystal-like salt can be seen glistening in the sun. For visitors seeking outdoor fun, the picturesque sea is a gateway to exciting thrills like coral yachting and sailing. Ibiza is also outlined with numerous trails that lead bikers and hikers to the natural beauty that adorn the island. Acres of picturesque olive trees, almond groves and manicured grasslands fill the undisturbed spaces, while exquisite monuments and white villages provide insight into Ibiza’s ancient civilization. The Archeological Museum houses collections of historical artifacts and findings dating back to the prehistory and Islamic Middles Ages periods. Mallorca The largest of the Balearic Islands, Mallorca is known as an easy-to-reach mecca for friends of sunny beaches, amazing landscapes, wonderful mountains and affordable Mediterranean food. The island has beautiful white sand and crystal water beaches, which serve as a major attraction during high season. The historic tram in Sóller also offers an old-fashioned ride to various locations within the city. Menorca With a population of about 95,000 residents, Menorca is a relaxing destination. Encircled with more beaches than its neighboring Balearic Islands, it is the perfect location to get your much needed rest. Along with the beautiful beaches, Menorca offers a plethora of attractions foretelling the island’s past. The Military Museum features interesting displays of military instruments such as canons and guns that tell historic tales about the significance of war. Through the cobblestone streets of the city of Ciutadela, you will see elaborate Italian style architecture and panoramic views of Majorca’s mountains. Formentera Known as the small island, Formentera offers a peaceful atmosphere where sites of the tranquil water can be seen from almost every corner. Hikers and cyclers can enjoy the pleasant weather by trekking the numerous trails within the gorgeous landscape. The island’s heritage can be seen on the infrastructure that is dotted with interesting buildings and monuments. The ancient design of the church of San Francisco Javier is an administrative center and preserves an o" ]

[ "Es Cavallet - Ses Salines - Santjosep.net Es Cavallet - Ses Salines Santjosep.net > Sports Activities > Walks in Sant Josep – Ibiza > Es Cavallet – Ses Salines The natural park of Ses Salines is one of the most spectacular sceneries in Ibiza, with its ponds, its salt mountains and its beautiful beaches. That’s why it’s worth taking a walk to appreciate its beauty. The whole walk is about an hour long both ways and we recommend to wear sunglasses, a hat, and to use sunscreen to avoid possible skin burn. Route map Recomendations: Sport shoes and clothes and water. A walk around the natural park of Ses Salines The route is meant to start from Es Cavallet , one of the beaches in the park, known for being a nudist beach. On the way there, from the car you can already appreciate the unique beauty of this protected area, extremely rich in fauna and flora, and where you can often see flamingos in the salt ponds. Once you get to Es Cavallet you can leave your car near the Chapel, Capilla de Sa Revista. It’s a small chapel built in the 18th Century for the workers of the salt ponds, and around it there’s a small village core. Es Cavallet beach From there we’ll go to Es Cavallet beach. There are two options for going over the first stretch. One is by the beach, where you can enjoy a pleasant walk along the shore and the beach sand. And, the other option is by the salt ponds, following a trail that starts right by the parking lot of Es Cavallet. If you choose the second option, which ends up leading you to the beach, you can enjoy and observe very closely the birdlife and the salt ponds. If you opt for the beach route, you can see the sand dunes, the sea and the native vegetation. Es Cavallet is a long sandy beach and a deep blue colored sea. During the walk you can observe some of the islets between this part of the island and the island of Formentera. This strait is called Es Freus and it has some little islands in the middle, such as s’Espalmador, one of the famous ones for being almost stuck to Formentera as well as for always having luxury yachts anchored in its idyllic beach. But there’s other ones such as Es Penjats and Es Daus, where the cargo ship Don Pedro crashed into a few years ago and sank off the coast of Ibiza. Today this shipwreck underwater site has become one of the most visited spots by scuba divers. Es Cavallet beach On the walk along the beach we’ll find many beach bars and restaurants, some of them gay, where you can stop to rest and regain energy, taste some Mediterranean and local cuisine dishes and enjoy the scenery, both of nature and people. At the end of the beach we’ll get to the Ses Portes defense tower . Many coastal defense towers were built during the 18th Century to protect the islands. Yet, in this case, the tower dates from the 16th Century and was used as sentinel to defend against pirate attacks. Right next to the tower there’s a fishermen huts area, where you can enjoy a very nice view to Formentera. Ses Portes watchtower Ses Portes watchtower Continuing to the right, by a green path and full of juniper trees we’ll get to the beach of Ses Salines . First you’ll see a series of small idyllic coves followed by an extensive sandy area. The clear blue waters of this area are famous worldwide. In Ses Salines you can always find a great cosmopolitan atmosphere, as it’s always very busy until sunset. Each beach bar and kiosk has its own style, since it’s a beach that combines family atmosphere with the most glamorous ambiance, usually focused on the terraces and in the sunbeds area. Ses Salines beach Both in the beaches of Es Cavallet and Ses Salines you can take a swim in one of the most pristine waters of the island, which owe their crystal clear look to the Posidonia seagrass meadows in the seabed of this area, declared as a World Heritage Site . Walks in Sant Josep – Ibiza", "Costa Smeralda - Emerald Coast in Sardinia - Costa Smeralda Beaches Wine Share The Costa Smeralda, (or Emerald Coast), is a 35-mile stretch of some of the most breathtaking beaches and luxury destinations in the Mediterranean. The development of the Emerald Coast in Sardinia began in the early 1960s when a conglomerate of companies backed by a wealthy Middle Eastern prince introduced an elaborate plan for urban development including villages, beaches, and resorts . Nearly a half-century later Costa Smeralda is one of the most enviable destinations for affluent travelers around the world. The luxury accommodations, dining , shopping, pristine beaches, and nightlife make the Emerald Coast in Sardinia the “playground of the rich.” Other destinations in the Mediterranean, Ibiza for instance, have become increasingly popular in the last few decades largely because of the fact that much of the island is geared toward catering to travelers who are seeking out luxury accommodations, boutiques, spas, and more. This is true for many of the posh destinations around the world, but it is doubtful that any have been developed with the same level of exacting detail with which Costa Smeralda was constructed. The Costa Smeralda beaches provide the perfect natural venue for some of the most expensive and elaborate resorts in the Mediterranean. It is known as the Emerald Coast in Sardinia largely because of the awe-inspiring water that, throughout the course of one day on the island, displays brilliant shades of blue that reflect the sun like an ever-changing gem stone. Visitors to the Costa Smeralda beaches enjoy fine white sand and a stunning natural landscape of bays and inlets that are accentuated by unique foliage and vegetation, as well as rocky promontories and high-reaching coast lines. There is full-time security on the beaches and access to plenty of water sports and other activities. The luxury hotels and resorts on the Emerald Coast in Sardinia provide you with access to lush and exclusive areas of the long stretch of beach where you can enjoy your vacation in relative privacy. It's also a good idea to check into vacation packages that include one of the resorts in Costa Smeralda. Sardinia Map Staying in one of the hotels in Costa Smeralda is expensive, especially during peak season. You can expect to pay between $2000 and $3000 for one night at a luxury accommodation on the exclusive Emerald Coast. The Cala di Volpe, Cervo Hotel, Hotel Romazzino, Hotel Pitrizza comprise the main luxury resorts on this coastal area of the island of Sardinia. Each of these hotels is fantastically well appointed, offering guests nearly every imaginable amenity to ensure an ideal stay on the island. Many of the affluent guests charter boats from the marina in Porto Cervo or enjoy a round of golf at the Pervero Golf Club. There is also private jet access in nearby Olbia as well as helicopter transport. The Costa Smeralda beaches are already majestic on their own. When you add the benefits of luxury resorts and world-class dining, shopping, and entertainment, you have an Emerald Coast experience. It is the most exclusive part of Sardinia and an area that grows in popularity every year. Even though its tradition is one of extreme affluence and exclusivity, the resort destination is even growing in popularity among savvy travelers who have figured out how to travel there cheaply, take in all of the impressive sights, but stay in a nearby and more reasonably priced accommodation. Hotels", "DJ Mag Names the Top 100 Clubs in the World | Hollywood Reporter 9:00pm PT by Portia Medina DJ Mag Names the Top 100 Clubs in the World Getty Images EDM Las Vegas makes its presence known on the global dance scene alongside hotspots in London, Brazil, Thailand and, of course, Ibiza. DJ Mag has become the premiere polling station of dance-music enthusiasts, releasing an oft-cited annual list of the world's top DJs, as well as this week's list of the Top 100 Clubs. Taking the No. 1 spot: Space Ibiza on the Spanish island, which sets the bar high even in that European clubbing metropolis. The club features a powerful Funktion One soundsystem, exuberant displays of slinky dancers on stilts and in barely-there outfits, nitrogen lunar blasts, hi-res LED screens and streams of lasers across a series of rooms. Previous resident DJs have included Carl Cox, Roger Sanchez, Nick Curly and James Zabiela. \"Space represents who I am and what I'm about,” Cox tells the magazine. “To be there now, giving something back, is really special to me.\" The family philosophy of the club, led by Pepe Rosello and his handpicked team, permeates Space throughout. PHOTOS: EDM Titans: Dance Music's 10 Highest Paid DJs Elsewhere in the top five, Brazil's Green Valley moved up one spot to No. 2. Another Ibiza favorite dating back to 1973, Pacha, came in at No. 3, making a two-place jump from last year. The warehouse-styled London club Fabrik fell two places to No. 4, and Singapore’s Zouk leapt four places, making it into the top five (the first time an Asian club has charted so high, according to fans). The biggest climber of the Top 100 Clubs was Marquee Nightclub & Dayclub in Las Vegas' Cosmopolitan Hotel, which catapulted 69 spots to No. 11. Not far behind: Vegas' Surrender/Encore Beach Club at No. 33, up 58 spots from 2012. The Vegas club scene is indeed booming, thanks to residencies by such world-renowned DJs as Kaskade, Afrojack and Calvin Harris and cameos by Avicii, Dirty South and Arty. STORY: Electric Daisy Carnival Is 'Our Generation's Woodstock,' Says DJ Kaskade Several California clubs made the cut as well, among them Hollywood's Avalon (No. 58) and San Francisco’s Ruby Skye (No. 90). Miami made its presence known with the 300-capacity speakeasy Electric Pickle, at no. 64. Other highlights of the list include Bed Supperclub (No. 46), the undisputed king of the Thai clubbing circuit according to fans and DJ-producer Diplo, who says it's \"one of the coolest clubs in the world, let alone Asia.\" Featuring a chic white interior, EV soundsystem crafted by Orbit Design Studio and 3D dynamics, it looks like something straight out of TRON Legacy. The full list of 2013's Top 100 Clubs can be found at DJmag.com . Did your favorite make the cut?", "Capri - Travel Guide and Visitor Information Updated January 08, 2016. Capri Overview: Travel to Capri is a highlight of a Naples or Amalfi Coast vacation. Capri is an enchanting and picturesque island made of limestone rock. A favorite with Roman emperors, the rich and famous, artists, and writers, it's still one of the Mediterranean's must-see places. The island's top attraction is the famous Blue Grotto, Grotta Azzurra. Tourists arrive by boat at Marina Grande, the island's main harbor. Beaches are scattered around the island. There are only two towns - Capri, just above Marina Grande, and Anacapri, the higher town. Lemon trees, flowers, and birds are abundant. The Mediterranean island is in the Bay of Naples, south of the city and near the tip of the Amalfi Peninsula, in Southern Italy - see Amalfi Coast Map for location. Getting to Capri: The island can be reached by frequent ferries and hydrofoils from the city of Naples and from Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast (see Amalfi Coast Day Trip to Capri ). There are also less frequent ferries from Positano on the Amalfi Coast and the island of Ischia . continue reading below our video Beware! The 5 Most Common Travel Scams If you're staying in Positano or Sorrento, you can book one of these small group tours with boat transportation through Select Italy: Capri Small Group Tour , departing from Sorrento port Where to Stay on Capri: Anacapri and Capri have a range of hotels. Anacapri may be more peaceful at night while Capri is the main center and has more nightlife. One of Capri's most chic hotels is the Grand Hotel Quisisana , an exclusive hotel since 1845 with a spa and baths. In Anacapri the luxurious Capri Palace Hotel and Spa is a member of the Leading Small Hotels of the World. Near Marina Grande is JK Place, read JK Place review . For more choices, check these Top Rated Capri Hotels or find Capri hotels on Hipmunk . Visiting the Blue Grotto: The Blue Grotto, Grotta Azzurra, is the most fascinating of the island's many caves. Refraction of sunlight into the cave makes an iridescent blue light in the water. To enter the cave one takes a small rowboat from near the cave entrance. Once inside you're met with the spectacular sight of the blue water. See more about transportation to the Blue Grotto and visiting the Blue Grotto . What to See on the Island of Capri: Faraglioni, rock formations , are one of the island's natural wonders. The faraglioni make up the classic view one associates with Capri. On the shore, the Faraglioni beach is one of the island's most beautiful beaches. There are several other unusual rock formations in the sea around the island, including a natural arch. Anacapri, the highest town on the island, has splendid views of the harbor below. Near the central square there's a chair lift to Mount Solaro and a street lined with shops, several of which offer limoncello tasting. Olive trees, grapevines, and flowers give it a Mediterranean charm. Villa San Michele, in Anacapri, was built by the Swedish writer Axel Munthe in the late 19th century on the site of a Tiberian villa. Bits of the Roman villa are incorporated into the atrium and garden. Inside are traditional local and Swedish furnishings and hundreds of art pieces from antiquity to the 20th century. Not to be missed are the garden with breathtaking views of the cliffs, harbor, and sea. See more about visiting Villa San Michele . Capri is the main town of the island. Piazza Umberto I, often called La Piazzetta, is the central square that houses cafes and the cathedral of Santo Stefano. The piazza is filled with people both day and night. There's an archaeological museum in the town. Certosa of San Giacomo is a 14th century monastery near the town of Capri. It houses a museum and library and holds concerts. Nearby are the beautiful Giardini Augusto, gardens of Augustus. There's an overlook with great sea views from where the picturesque road, Via Krupp , winds down to the sea. Marina Piccola , the south harbor, has restaurants and a rocky beach with swimming. I had an excellent lunch on the terrace of", "Kingdoms of Italy - Corsi (Corsica) Corsica Corsica has usually been accounted as part of Italy , although today it forms part of France . The island, in the western Mediterranean, has been occupied since the Palaeolithic period, but like its southern neighbour, Sardinia , its early inhabitants were strongly influenced by various ancient invaders and colonists. The island is mountainous, with only about a third of its surface providing relatively accessible land for farming and habitation. The oldest-known site of habitation on the island is the Coscia Grotto, where stone tools were found. The Mesolithic (9000-6000 BC) seems to have witnessed an expansion, with several sites having been discovered across the island which bear similarities to contemporary Sardinian culture. Occupation of the island in the Neolithic (6000-3000 BC) seems to have been impermanent at first, but a new wave of arrivals between 5000-4000 BC introduced cattle and farming, along with permanent settlement. The Torrean culture of the Bronze Age (3000-700 BC) built 'torri', towers and constructed rough figures armed with Mycenaean -style weapons. Some of the figures bear marked similarities to the Shardana of the thirteenth century BC, and these people were probably the direct ancestors (at least in part) of the later Iron Age Corsi natives. Corsi (Italics) The so-called West Indo-European tribes arrived at the eastern edge of Central Europe around 2500 BC. Their northern group became the proto- Celts of the Urnfield culture while the southern group seemingly migrated westwards and southwards, reaching Illyria and northern Italy . Already divided further into semi-isolated tribes, they became more civilised in habits and technologies due to contact with southern Greeks and Etruscans . In the eleventh to eighth centuries BC, some of those groups in Illyria crossed by sea into the Italian peninsula and settled along the south-eastern coast. Those in the north Italian piedmont gradually migrated southwards to occupy much of the rest of eastern and central Italy. These tribes all formed part of a general group called Italics. The Corsi were a group of Italics who settled on the island of Corsica, which is usually accounted as part of ancient Italy. Their Iron Age home on the western edge of the Tyrrhenian Sea was neighboured by the Sardi to the south. The early people of Sardinia probably migrated onto the island from Italy via Corsica, so it would seem likely that some of those Italian migrants remained on Corsica, forming a society that was very similar to that on Sardinia. The Ligurians are often held to be the ancestors of many of the western Mediterranean's early populations in much the same way as the Pelasgians were held by the ancient Greeks to be the original inhabitants of Greece. While one recent DNA survey has supported a Corsican-Sardinian link, the other has formed quite the opposite view, suggesting that the Corsicans and Sardinians were of different origins. It proposed that the people of Tuscany bear the closest affiliation to Corsicans, judged to be a Neolithic connection which introduced the first permanent settlements. More work in this field is needed to produce a definitive result. During the first millennium BC, the island very quickly came to be dominated by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians , at least along the coastline. On Sardinia, the natives responded from about 1500 BC by building their settlements around nuraghi, round tower fortresses which sat inside additional fortifications. Around the margins of the settlements, on vantage points, minor nuraghi were built to act as forward posts. It is these fortress-building people, both on Sardinia and Corsica, who are often identified as the Shardana of the thirteenth century. (Additional information by Edward Dawson, and from The Roman His", "Puffinus, a genus of seabirds in the order Procellariiformes Shearwaters Puffinus is a genus of seabirds in the order Procellariiformes. It comprises about 20 small to medium-sized shearwaters . There are two other shearwater genera Calonectris , which comprises three large shearwaters, and Procellaria with another four large species. The latter are usually named as petrels, although they are thought to be more closely related to the shearwaters than to the other petrels . Despite the resemblance in the name, the puffins are auks , and completely unrelated to the shearwaters in the genus Puffinus; the genus name Puffinus is actually a New Latin loanword based on the English \"puffin\". The original Latin term for shearwaters was usually the catchall name for sea-birds, mergus (Thompson 1918). The taxonomy of this group is the cause of much debate, and the number of recognised species depends on the source. The species in this group are long-winged birds, dark brown or black above, and white to dark brown below. They are pelagic outside the breeding season. They are most common in temperate and cold waters. These tubenose birds fly with stiff wings, and use a shearing flight technique to move across wave fronts with the minimum of active flight. Some small species, like Manx Shearwater are cruciform in flight, with their long wing held directly out from their bodies. Many are long-distance migrants, perhaps most spectacularly the Sooty and Short-tailed Shearwaters which perform migrations of 14,000 km or more each year. Puffinus shearwaters come to islands and coastal cliffs only to breed. They are nocturnal at the colonial breeding sites, preferring moonless nights. This is to minimise predation. They nest in burrows and often give eerie contact calls on their nighttime visits. They lay a single white egg. They feed on fish, squid and similar oceanic food. Some will follow fishing boats to take scraps, notably Sooty Shearwater ; these species also commonly follow whales to feed on fish disturbed by them. Taxonomy Traditionally, Puffinus has been grouped with the Procellaria and Calonectris shearwaters. However, more recent results (Austin 1996, Heidrich et al. 1998, Austin et al. 2004) have determined that the genus is apparently paraphyletic and while in part very close to Calonectris , forms a clade with the genera Pseudobulweria and Lugensa which were formerly presumed to be gadfly petrels , and can be divided in what has been called the \"Puffinus\" and the \"Neonectris\" group after notable species; the latter would if separated as a distinct genus be named Ardenna (Penhallurick and Wink 2004). The former is taxonomically confusing, with species having been split and re-merged in the last years (Heidrich et al. 1998, Austin et al. 2004). Genus Puffinus Buller's Shearwater , Puffinus bulleri Fossil record Several fossil species which became extinct long ago are also known. It appears that the proportion of larger (\"Neonectris\") species was larger before the Pliocene, i.e. before marine mammals diversified: \"Puffinus\" group Puffinus tedfordi (Pleistocene of W North America) Puffinus nestori (Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene of Ibiza) \"Neonectris\" group Puffinus conradi (Early Miocene of Calvert County, USA) Puffinus cf. tenuirostris (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Lee Creek Mine, USA) Puffinus sp. 1 (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Lee Creek Mine, USA) Puffinus sp. 2 (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Lee Creek Mine, USA) Puffinus pacificoides (Pleistocene of Saint Helena, Atlantic) Unassigned ?Puffinus raemdonckii (Early Oligocene of Belgium) - formerly in Larus-- JSystPaleontol5:1. --> Puffinus micraulax (Early Miocene of C Florida, USA) - probably \"Puffinus\" groupPuffinus sp. (Early Miocene of Calvert County, USA) - see Wetmore, 1926 Puffinus sp. (Early Pliocene of South Africa) - see Olson, 1985 Puffinus felthami (Pleistocene of W North America) Puffinus kanakoffi (Pleistocene of W North America) \"Puffinus\" arvernensis (Early Miocene of France) is now considered a primitive albatross of the fossil genus Plotornis. Copyright:", "Olbia, cruises to Italy | MSC Cruises dec Crystal-clear waters and wild nature Wedged into the coastline, Olbia is the largest town you’ll see on an MSC Mediterranean cruise around north-eastern Sardinia, its recent phenomenal growth due to the huge influx of tourists and cruisers bound for one of the Mediterranean’s loveliest stretches of coast, the Emerald Coast. Olbia has a first-class museum, plus numerous bars and restaurants, usually abuzz with tourists. Long a magnet for Italy’s glitziest celebrities, in the 1960s the five-star development of the Costa Smeralda helped to transform the economy of the entire island. With its typical rustic-red architecture, Porto Cervo, the main resort on the Costa Smeralda, embodies the dream of an idyllic Mediterranean village without any of the irritations of real life. Graffiti- and litter-free, Porto Cervo exults in its exclusivity, with a glittering yachting marina as its centrepiece. You can enjoy many cruise excursions from Olbia: La Maddalena island invites aimless wandering and offers a variety of sandy and rocky beaches in mostly undeveloped coves. The beaches on the northern and western coasts are most attractive, particularly those around the tiny port of Madonetta, 5 km west of La Maddalena, and at Cala Lunga, 5 km north of town. Attached to the main island by a causeway is neighbouring Caprera, the island on which Garibaldi spent his last years. Santa Teresa di Gallura is Sardinia’s northernmost port. The town gets extremely lively in summer, with a buzzing nightlife, but the main draw is the beaches, many enjoying superb views over to Corsica, just 11 km away. There’s one stretch of sand right at the edge of town, but some of the finest beaches on the whole island are a short bus ride away, with Punta Falcone and La Marmorata to the east, and, 3 km west of Santa Teresa, Capo Testa, with its wind-sculpted granite rock formations. Must see places in Olbia A short cruise to Maddalena Island Excursion code: OLB04 After leaving the port of Olbia by coach, the first stop on this enjoyable tour will be in San Pantaleo, a lovely little village located in the hills of the amazing Costa Smeralda, the Emerald Coast. Look forward to a short stop in the village to stroll around, browse in the small shops and visit the craft workshops. The excursion then continues up through the northernmost part of the island to Santa Teresa di Gallura, a coastal resort that faces the Strait of Bonifacio and Corsica. A guided tour of this small, but pretty town will follow, after which you will also have some free time to stroll around on your own. Return to the port. Please note: guests using a wheelchair are advised that they must be accompanied by a paying helper to provide assistance with getting on and off the coach and that wheelchairs must be collapsible/foldable since the coach has neither a ramp nor a lift. Guests using a wheelchair who would like to participate in this tour are requested to contact the Shore Excursions Desk promptly once they are on board so that arrangements can be made. May involve a limited quantity of steps, uneven surfaces and/or periods of standing Difficulty Level", "Battle of Waterloo - British History - HISTORY.com Battle of Waterloo A+E Networks Introduction The Battle of Waterloo, which took place in Belgium on June 18, 1815, marked the final defeat of French military leader and emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), who conquered much of continental Europe in the early 19th century. Napoleon rose through the ranks of the French army during the French Revolution (1789-1799), seized control of the French government in 1799 and became emperor in 1804. Through a series of wars, he expanded his empire across western and central Europe. However, a disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, coupled with other defeats, led to his abdication and exile in 1814. He returned to France in 1815 and briefly resumed power. The Battle of Waterloo, in which Napoleon’s forces were defeated by the British and Prussians, signaled the end of his reign and the end of France’s domination in Europe. After Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated and later died in exile. Google Napoleon’s Rise to Power Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. The year before his birth, France acquired Corsica from the city-state of Genoa, Italy. Although Napoleon’s parents were members of the minor Corsican nobility, his family was not wealthy. Did You Know? Today, the expression that someone has “met his Waterloo” means the person has suffered a decisive or final defeat or setback. After graduating from a French military academy in 1785, Napoleon joined an artillery regiment of the French army. The French Revolution began in 1789, and within three years revolutionaries had overthrown the monarchy and proclaimed a French republic. During the decade-long revolution, Napoleon rose rapidly through the ranks of the military and proved himself a talented and daring leader. After seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d’état, he was given the title of first consul and became France’s leading political figure. In 1804, he crowned himself the emperor of France in a lavish ceremony. Under Napoleon, France engaged in a successful series of battles against various coalitions of European nations, and the French empire expanded across much of western and central continental Europe. Napoleon’s Abdication and Return In 1812, Napoleon led a disastrous invasion of Russia in which his army was forced to retreat and suffered massive casualties. At the same time, the Spanish and Portuguese, with assistance from the British, drove Napoleon’s forces from the Iberian Peninsula in the Peninsular War (1808-1814). In the 1813 Battle of Leipzig , also known as the Battle of Nations, Napoleon’s army was defeated by a coalition that included Austrian, Prussian, Russian and Swedish troops. Afterward, Napoleon retreated to France, where in March 1814 coalition forces captured Paris. On April 6, 1814, Napoleon, then in his mid-40s, was forced to abdicate the throne. With the Treaty of Fontainebleau, he was exiled to Elba, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy. Less than a year later, on February 26, 1815, Napoleon escaped Elba and sailed to the French mainland with a group of more than 1,000 supporters. On March 20, he returned to Paris, where he was welcomed by cheering crowds. The new king, Louis XVIII (1755-1824), fled, and Napoleon embarked on what came to be known as his Hundred Days campaign. Napoleon Marches on Belgium Upon Napoleon’s return to France, a coalition of allies–the Austrians, British, Prussians and Russians–who considered the French emperor an enemy began to prepare for war. Napoleon raised a new army and planned to strike preemptively, defeating the allied forces one by one before they could launch a united attack against him. In June 1815, Napoleon’s forces marched into Belgium, where separate armies of British and Prussian troops were camped. At the Battle of Ligny, on June 16, Napoleon defeated the Prussians under the command of Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher (1742-1819). However, the French were unable to totally destroy the Prussian army. The Battle of Waterloo Two d", "UEFA EURO 2016 - Hosts - Marseille city guide - UEFA.com Marseille city guide Population: 860,363 City ambassadors: Basile Boli (former French international), Florent Manaudou (2012 Olympic-winning swimmer) Marseille – the second best destination on the planet according to The New York Times, and the world’s fifth most beautiful coastal city in the opinion of the prestigious National Geographic – is visited by more than five million people every year. Dubbed ‘2016’s coolest destination’ by the press, France’s oldest city has established a reputation as a dynamic and outward-looking metropolis. The old port©Thinkstock A city of passion and football, Marseille was a European Capital of Culture in 2013 and organises thousands of cultural and sporting events throughout the summer. No visit to Marseille would be complete without seeing the beaches and the spectacular rocky inlets (calanques in French) that punctuate the city’s 57km of coastline. Come and experience UEFA EURO 2016 in one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. Back to menu HISTORY The city’s history is inextricably linked with that of the Mediterranean Sea, which was crossed by the Greek explorers from the city of Phocaea who founded Marseille in 600 BC. The largest port in the Mediterranean, Marseille is an outward-looking city that combines heritage and modernity. In the midst of an urban regeneration process, the city is now focused on tourism and has established itself as a prime destination for Mediterranean cruise ships. Five million people visited Marseille in 2013, when it was a European Capital of Culture, and many more are expected to follow this year – and in 2017, when it will be the European Capital of Sport. The city’s 57km of coastline (of which 20km is in the Calanques National Park), its 300 days of sunshine a year, its green spaces and areas of natural beauty, its warm and welcoming people and its accessibility are all major assets in terms of the city’s image. Recently classified as an ‘area of excellence’ on account of the quality of its higher education, scientific research and technological innovation, Marseille is seeking to boost its competitiveness on the international stage and be regarded as a ‘hot spot’ of the knowledge economy. The large numbers of local ‘French tech’ start-ups in the digital, transmedia and audiovisual sectors (notably around the Belle de Mai hub) have put the city in the vanguard of developments in these industries. Back to menu FAMOUS RESIDENTS • Edmond Rostand, dramatist and member of the French Academy (1868–1918) – author of Cyrano de Bergerac • Marcel Pagnol, writer and filmmaker (1895–1974) – perhaps the most famous of all Provencal authors, both for his books and for his films • Jean-Claude Izzo, journalist and writer (1945–2000) – Izzo rejuvenated the French noir genre with his crime novels set in Marseille • IAM, rap group (formed in 1989) – these pioneers of French rap created a Marseille scene that is still vibrant today • César Baldaccini, sculptor (1921–1998) – a world-renowned artist behind many sculptures in Marseille, perhaps the most famous a giant thumb Back to menu THINGS TO SEE • The Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde church stands high above Marseille and offers panoramic views of the city and its harbour. The church was constructed between 1853 and 1899 on the site of a former military camp, and the golden statue of the Virgin with child that sits atop it is known as 'La Bonne Mère' and has become the symbolic protector of Marseille. Notre-Dame de la Garde basilica©AFP • The Château d'If was built in 1527 on one of the Frioul islands in the Bay of Marseille on the orders of King Francis I. Initially used as a fort, Château d'If soon became a royal prison. The famous iron mask and Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo, were both housed here (although Alexandre Dumas's Count is a purely fictional character). • Le Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (MuCEM – Museum of the Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean), designed by architect Rudy Ricciotti and located at the entrance to", "Trapped on a Pacific Island: Scientists Research the Real Robinson Crusoe - SPIEGEL ONLINE Trapped on a Pacific Island: Scientists Research the Real Robinson Crusoe Trapped on a Pacific Island Scientists Research the Real Robinson Crusoe Generations of children have been spellbound by Robinson Crusoe's exploits, but few are aware of the real-life figure who inspired the classic. Now, 300 years after he left his island prison, scientists have pieced together how the real Crusoe managed to survive. By Marco Evers Feedback What was it he had seen? A fire burning on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific? The next day, the captain of the Duke, an English buccaneer ship, sent an armed party to the island to investigate. When the men returned to the ship, they brought along two surprises: large numbers of spiny lobsters and a shaggy creature. The figure that climbed on board the Duke on Feb. 2, 1709 was apparently human, but wild as an animal, barefoot and covered in goatskin. The creature, extremely agitated, was only able to stammer a few barely comprehensible words at first, but they were enough to become immortal. In his novel, first published in 1719, Daniel Defoe named the islander \"Robinson Crusoe.\" But the real Robinson was a man named Alexander Selkirk. He was a Scotsman, the seventh son of a shoemaker from the village of Lower Largo, near Edinburgh. He had spent four years and four months on Más a Tierra, a windswept island in the Juan Fernandez archipelago, 650 kilometers (404 miles) off the coast of Chile. He was as alone as a human being can be. For Selkirk, there was no \"Man Friday,\" a character Defoe created for his novel. Unlike his literary equivalent, Selkirk was also not shipwrecked. Instead his captain had simply left him stranded after a longstanding quarrel. He must have looked on in disbelief as his ship sailed away over the horizon. Among the few items he had been left were some articles of clothing, a knife, an axe, a gun, navigation devices, a cooking pot, tobacco and a bible. On the 300th anniversary of his return to human society, scientists can now paint a clear picture of Selkirk's island existence. They believe that they now know how and where he lived, partly through some of his personal effects that have now been discovered. His life after being rescued can also be reconstructed, providing a portrait of the real Robinson that is not always flattering -- and yet typical of the type of rogue who took to the seas in those days. Selkirk the sailor was a pirate, a drinker and a short-tempered ruffian. Born into a troubled family, he fled to sea when he was barely 17. Working on privateer ships in the Mediterranean and Caribbean, he robbed Spaniards and Frenchmen. Although he was not unintelligent, even working his way up to the position of navigator, his temperament was precarious. Selkirk had apparently always had trouble getting along with other people, which was perhaps precisely why he endured his solitary confinement on the island so successfully. From the Magazine Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL article in your publication. David Caldwell, 57, is an archeologist at the Scottish National Museum in Edinburgh. Ordinarily, his field is Scottish history, which he usually studies from the comfort of his office. But when Daisuke Takahashi, a Japanese Robinson Crusoe fanatic, asked Caldwell to travel with him to the castaway's island, it was an offer he couldn't resist. Enthusiast Takahashi had obtained funding for his expedition from the National Geographic Society, but he needed a real academic as his partner. Caldwell was certainly qualified. Two of the better Selkirk relics are in his museum's collection: a drinking vessel that the pirate may have carved himself, and a sea chest of northern Italian origin, which Caldwell believes Selkirk captured in the Mediterranean. The men spent more than a month on the island, which was officially renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. It is still a quiet place, home to about 600 people today, most of them spiny lobster fishermen. It has two", "Africa & Europe - History with Rubinstein at Springer Elementary School - StudyBlue Which sea is directly north of Africa? The MediterraneanSea What large island is east of Mozambique? Madagascar Which strait lies between Morocco and Spain? The Strait of Gibraltar What cape is on the southwestern tip of Africa? The Cape of Good Hope What African country border the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea? Egypt What is the capital of Africa's large island country to the east? Antananarivo What is Africa's southernmost country? South Africa What African country is closest to Italy? Tunisia What large African lake does the Equator cross? Lake Victoria What country shares borderss with Egypt and Ethiopia? Sudan What channel is west of Madagascar? Mozambique What lake in Ghana does the Prime Meridian cross? Lake Volta What is Africa's westernmost capital? Dakar What is the national capital of Egypt? Cairo What is the national capital of Congo? Kinshasa What is the national capital of Nigeria? Abuja What is the national capital of Algeria? Algiers What is the national capital of Somalia? Mogadishu What is the national capital of Ethiopia Addis Ababa What mountain is shown in the elephant picture? Mt. Killmanjaro What river is in the picture of Victoria Falls? Zambize River Do African rivers begin in the coast or end at the coast? African rivers end at the coast. True or False The hottest temperature on record, 136.4 F was taken in Death Valley False The Sahara is larger than 48 contiguous United States True The Sahara is in southern Africa False Sahara means \"desert\" in Arabic True The Sahara is made up of entirely of sand. False The Sahara is the largest desert in the world. True What year did African countries begin winning theri independene? 1941 Today, what is the only territory in Africa? Western Sahara In many places in Africa, what is the only common thing from the colonial power? Language Which country has about seven times the number of people per car as Senegal? South Africa What sea separates Europe from Africa? MediterraneanSea There are three peninsulas in southern Europe. The Balkan Peninsula is west of the Black Sea. The country of Italy is a peninsula. What is the name of the third peninsula, which is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of Biscay? Ibererian Peninsula What are the two mountain ranges that separates Europe from Asia? Caucus and Urals Mountain Ranges Which mountain range is south central Europe and lies just north of the Italian peninsula? Apenines Which is the correct land cover for the regions for the Black Sea Lowland, Ukraine: cropland In Italy the ___River flows from the Alps into the Adriatic Sea. PO River West of the Alps, the _____ River flows into the Gulf of Lion Rhone (River) In Great Briian, the ____ River flows through London. Thames (River) What country borders Spain to the west? Portugual What is the island west of the United Kingdom? Ireland What country is south of Macedonia? Greece What country shares borders with both Poland and France? Germany What island country shares borders with both Belarus and Romania? Ukrane What country lies between Crotia and Serbia? Monterago What country borders Latvia to the north? Estonia What country borders Bulgaria and is also partly in Aisa? Turkey Which three countries share a vast northern peninsula with Russia? Norway, Sweden, Finland Which three countries are in both Europe and Asia? Russia", "Southwestern Asia: Along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and Syria | Ecoregions | WWF x Mediterranean Forests, woodlands and scrubs Southwestern Asia: Along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and Syria This ecoregion lies in the heart of the Middle East along the Mediterranean coasts of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine and in the neighboring coastal plains and lowlands. Major avian migratory routes pass through here, contributing to its status as an area of high bird diversity. The ecoregion is also home to a number of globally threatened wildlife species, including the critically endangered bald ibis and Mediterranean monk seal, the endangered loggerhead marine turtle and Euphrates softshell turtle, and the vulnerable imperial eagle. It’s territory overlaps with that of the Fertile Crescent, an area which supported some of the earliest known civilizations and offers an important record of the interactions between man and nature from early times to the present. Scientific Code Description Location and General Description This ecoregion is situated in the eastern and southeastern area of the Mediterranean. It starts in the western part of Turkey’s Mediterranean coastal region, extends east along the coast through southeastern Anatolia and then forks into two branches. The first branch continues largely eastward, encompassing most of the Turkish-Syrian border, and the second branch turns south along the Mediterranean coast into Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, and Jordan. This ecoregion has three main components: 1.The southern Mediterranean coast of Anatolia starting from Kemer in the west and extending through Iskenderun Bay in the east: From north to south, this ecoregion extends from the southern skirts of the Taurus Mountains through the coastal belt. Because these mountains affect temperature and precipitation regimes, they delineate the inland boundaries of the ecoregion. The Aksu, Goksu, Seyhan and Ceyhan rivers and their associated plains constitute both the main river systems of the area and the lowlands that represent the ecoregion’s inland-most extensions. 2.South Eastern Anatolia and the Northern Syrian Basin: This is an inland region in the general area of the Turkish-Syrian border. Here, the northern boundary is delineated by the Anti-Taurus Mountains and the southern boundary is determined by the Syrian Desert. The Euphrates River and part of the Tigris River form the main valleys of the region, which is heavily influenced by the desert. Since this is the driest part of the ecoregion, these rivers are the main points of interest. 3.Syrian, Lebanese, Israeli and Jordanian plains excluding the Levantine Mountains: From southern Anatolia to southern Africa, this area represents one of the most diverse segments of rift valley habitat. The Palestinian coastal plains, the lowlands of Syria and Lebanon, and the northern parts of the Rift Valley are the main formations of the region. The Jordan River green belt is also noteworthy. The climate is characterized by warm, rainy winters and dry, hot summers. Precipitation amounts decrease from west to east, ranging from 1,000-1,250 mm around Antalya, 600-800 mm in Mersin, Adana, and Iskenderun Bay, 400 mm around Mesopotamia, and lower amounts in the Syrian basin. In the coastal plains of the southern part of the ecoregion, precipitation reaches 600-850 mm around Beirut, Akko and Zefad, and decreases to about 400 mm in southern Israel and Palestine. The relatively harsh climatic conditions and the long history of human settlement constitute two major factors affecting the flora and fauna in this ecoregion. Macrobotanical evidences indicates that deleterious effects of human activities became evident in the region as early as 3000 BC (Miller 1998). Since that time, high temperatures, low humidity, and poor soil conditions have impeded the vegetation from recovering after human disturbances. The vegetation of this ecoregion can be organized into three main groups: broadleaf sclerophyllus vegetation (maquis); c", "Napoleon Bonaparte - Facts & Summary - HISTORY.com Google Napoleon’s Education and Early Military Career Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. He was the second of eight surviving children born to Carlo Buonaparte (1746-1785), a lawyer, and Letizia Romalino Buonaparte (1750-1836). Although his parents were members of the minor Corsican nobility, the family was not wealthy. The year before Napoleon’s birth, France acquired Corsica from the city-state of Genoa, Italy. Napoleon later adopted a French spelling of his last name. Did You Know? In 1799, during Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt, a French soldier named Pierre Francois Bouchard (1772-1832) discovered the Rosetta Stone. This artifact provided the key to cracking the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics, a written language that had been dead for almost 2,000 years. As a boy, Napoleon attended school in mainland France, where he learned the French language, and went on to graduate from a French military academy in 1785. He then became a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment of the French army. The French Revolution began in 1789, and within three years revolutionaries had overthrown the monarchy and proclaimed a French republic. During the early years of the revolution, Napoleon was largely on leave from the military and home in Corsica, where he became affiliated with the Jacobins, a pro-democracy political group. In 1793, following a clash with the nationalist Corsican governor, Pasquale Paoli (1725-1807), the Bonaparte family fled their native island for mainland France, where Napoleon returned to military duty. In France, Napoleon became associated with Augustin Robespierre (1763-1794), the brother of revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794), a Jacobin who was a key force behind the Reign of Terror (1793-1794), a period of violence against enemies of the revolution. During this time, Napoleon was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the army. However, after Robespierre fell from power and was guillotined (along with Augustin) in July 1794, Napoleon was briefly put under house arrest for his ties to the brothers. In 1795, Napoleon helped suppress a royalist insurrection against the revolutionary government in Paris and was promoted to major general. Napoleon’s Rise to Power Since 1792, France’s revolutionary government had been engaged in military conflicts with various European nations. In 1796, Napoleon commanded a French army that defeated the larger armies of Austria, one of his country’s primary rivals, in a series of battles in Italy. In 1797, France and Austria signed the Treaty of Campo Formio, resulting in territorial gains for the French. The following year, the Directory, the five-person group that had governed France since 1795, offered to let Napoleon lead an invasion of England. Napoleon determined that France’s naval forces were not yet ready to go up against the superior British Royal Navy. Instead, he proposed an invasion of Egypt in an effort to wipe out British trade routes with India. Napoleon’s troops scored a victory against Egypt’s military rulers, the Mamluks, at the Battle of the Pyramids in July 1798; soon, however, his forces were stranded after his naval fleet was nearly decimated by the British at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798. In early 1799, Napoleon’s army launched an invasion of Ottoman-ruled Syria, which ended with the failed siege of Acre, located in modern-day Israel. That summer, with the political situation in France marked by uncertainty, the ever-ambitious and cunning Napoleon opted to abandon his army in Egypt and return to France. The Coup of 18 Brumaire In November 1799, in an event known as the coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon was part of a group that successfully overthrew the French Directory. The Directory was replaced with a three-member Consulate, and Napoleon became first consul, making him France’s leading political figure. In June 1800, at the Battle of Marengo, Napoleon’s forces defeated one of France’s perennial enemies,", "Cyprus: The ancient island of Aphrodite - CNN.com When the Ottoman Empire launched a successful full-scale attack in 1570, the scene was set for the divisions between Turkish and Greek Cypriots that exist on the Mediterranean island until today. Cyprus in the 20th century By the time Cyprus came under British administration in 1878, Greek Cypriots were already agitating for union with Greece. A referendum in 1950 that was boycotted by Turkish Cypriots came out heavily in favor of union with Greece. Inter-communal violence fractured the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities after the country gained independence in 1960 and Turkey threatened to invade in a series of events that became a Cold War flashpoint in 1963 and 1964. Only the involvement of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson halted a Turkish invasion when he stated that the U.S. would not stand beside the NATO member in the event of a Soviet invasion of Turkish territory. In July 1974, the Greek military junta backed a coup d'etat in Cyprus. In response Turkey launched military intervention and by August it had landed thousands of troops and successfully partitioned the island along what is known as the \"Green Line.\" Around 180,000 Greek Cypriots were forced south and some 50,000 Turkish Cypriots moved into vacant properties in the northern Turkish occupied zone. Cyprus has existed as a de-facto divided country ever since and the events of the bloody summer of 1974 still dominate, not just the politics of the island, but Greco-Turkish relations in general. Locals playing backgammon outside a cafe in Nicosia. In 1983, the administration in northern Cyprus declared the \"Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC)\"; an entity that is not recognized internationally by any country other than Turkey. Efforts to resolve the conflict have ended in failure. Attempts at reconciliation In 2004, the Annan Plan, named after then U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, led to a referendum on reunification which was supported by Turkish Cypriots but rejected by the Greek side as being too heavily weighted in favor of the Turkish side. Despite this setback, Cypriots have been chipping away at partition. In 2008, Greek Cypriots demolished a key section of the barrier dividing the island's capital city Nicosia. Ledra Street -- a pedestrianized shopping area -- became the sixth crossing point on the divided island. At the time, the move was welcomed by then leader of the Turkish north Ferdi Sabit Soyer who was reported as calling it \"a positive development.\" In 2004, Cyprus gained accession to the European Union which recognized its entry as a whole but suspended its legislation in the Turkish north, saying that \"these areas are outside of the customs and fiscal territory of the EU. But the EU notes that this does not affect the personal rights of Turkish Cypriots as EU citizens.\" Economic ups and downs Erratic growth in the 1990s -- largely due to fluctuations in tourist arrivals that reflected the island's political instability -- gave way to stronger growth. The Republic of Cyprus was first listed as an advanced economy by the International Monetary Fund in 2001. According to the IMF, Cypriots are among the most prosperous people in in the Mediterranean region with GDP per capita surpassing $26,000 in 2012. Economists say the turnaround was made all the more spectacular when partition is taken into account. After 1974, Cypriots in the south lost 65% of their hotel and tourist accommodation, 46% of its industrial sector and 56% of its mining and quarrying production. The Republic of Cyprus experienced rapid economic growth as it rebuilt its tourism industry after losing much of its infrastructure in the north after the invasion of 1974. In the north, however, the economy struggles. According to the CIA World Factbook, its GDP remains one quarter the size of the south and, with Turkey its primary public and private investor, its per capita GDP is around half that of the south. Demonstrators against the EU bailout pamphlet during a student parade in March in Nicosia, Meanwhile, Cyprus has s", "70th anniversary | UNESCO UNESCO: Building peace in the minds of men and women Just 50 years ago, in April 1965, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System came into being under the auspices of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). To mark this anniversary, and celebrate the system’s numerous accomplishments, an international symposium was held in Honolulu, Hawaii (USA) on 20 and 21 April. 7.11 pm, 22 May, 1960. An earthquake measuring 9.5 on the Richter scale – the most powerful on record – occurred south of Chile, generating a tsunami that battered the South American coastline for over 4,000 kilometres. Waves up to 25 metres high crashed onto the shores of Chile, between Concepcion and the Chiloe Islands, closest to the epicenter. Fifteen hours later the tsunami, which by then had travelled 10,000 kilometres, struck Hawaii, then Japan and the Philippines. The final death toll was over 2000. Damages were estimated at around 24 million dollars (almost 200 million dollars at today’s values). © ITIC - One of the early posters prepared by the International Tsunami Information Centre (ITIC). The scale of the disaster highlighted the need for an alert system for the Pacific, where 75% of the world’s deadliest tsunamis occur. In 1965, the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Pacific Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System* came into being under leadership of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, the system’s operational nerve centre, was also established. Based in Hawaii, it is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, U.S.A) and cooperates with the North-West Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Japan. It evaluates threats when earthquakes occur and warns countries that lay in the path of any resulting tsunami. Organised by NOAA, the IOC and the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) the international conference in Honolulu will trace the history of this exemplary scientific programme. Fifty years after its creation, the Intergovernmental Coordination Group counts 46 member states * and the system has evolved beyond issuing warnings to include work on loss prevention, preparing populations to respond to tsunami threats, and technology transfer. © DIPECHO-ACSUR - Tsunami Education and awareness activities, Nicaragua. The Pacific tsunami Warning System has direct access to more than 150 seismic stations around the world which provide information on all earthquakes of 5.5 magnitudes or more. It also receives data from tide gauges and tsunami-metres throughout the Pacific that verify whether a tsunami has been generated and estimate its size. These tsunami-metres allow for greater precision in calculating tsunami risks, and mean that warnings can be issued within five or ten minutes of an earthquake occurring. The Pacific model has been used as a model for three other systems, launched after the deadly tsunami of December 2004, to protect most exposed regions, including the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, the North-East Atlantic and Mediterranean. While undeniably successful, the system still has gaps. “Going the last mile” remains a challenge, because even if the system can alert national authorities quickly, the message must then be relayed to vulnerable coastal populations that risk could be hit minutes after an earthquake happens. Financing is also an issue. Maintaining the warning system has a cost – estimated between 50 and 80 million dollars a year. But to save lives and limit the damage wreaked by tsunamis, it’s a price that must be paid. ____________________ *Originally known as the International Coordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System in the Pacific. **Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Canada, Chili, China, Colombia, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, France, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Japan, Kiribati, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Palau, Panama, Papua new Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russian Federation, Solom", "Phoenicians Online Extra @ National Geographic Magazine In the Wake of the Phoenicians: DNA study reveals a Phoenician-Maltese link Photograph by Robert Clark Looking for links between the Phoenicians and the people who live around the Mediterranean today, geneticist Pierre Zalloua of the American University of Beirut prepares to extract a tooth from a human jaw—perhaps 4,000 years old—found in a mountain cave at Raskifa, Lebanon. By Cassandra Franklin-Barbajosa The idea is fascinating. Who among us hasn't considered our heritage and wondered if we might be descended from ancient royalty or some prominent historical figure? Led by a long-standing interest in the impact of ancient empires on the modern gene pool, geneticist and National Geographic emerging explorer Spencer Wells, with colleague Pierre Zalloua of the American University of Beirut, expanded on that question two years ago as they embarked on a genetic study of the Phoenicians, a first millennium B.C. sea empire that—over several hundred years—spread across the Mediterranean from the Levant, a coastal region in what is now Lebanon. The Romans conquered the Phoenicians during the Punic Wars, destroying much of their culture. \"In many ways, they've been quite enigmatic,\" says Wells. \"We know they existed, but we know very little about them. Why did they suddenly arise and start to spread around 1200 B.C.? And what impact did they have on other peoples in the Mediterranean? We've tried to use DNA, the genetic material we all carry in our bodies, to answer those questions.\" Supported by a grant from National Geographic's Committee for Research and Exploration, the scientists collected blood samples from men living in the Middle East, North Africa, southern Spain, and Malta, places the Phoenicians are known to have settled and traded. Starting with between 500 and 1,000 well-typed samples, they began looking at the Y chromosome, the piece of DNA that traces a purely male line of descent. The goal was to answer two questions: What was the impact of a group the ancient Egyptians referred to as the Sea Peoples, who apparently arrived in the Levant region about 1200 B.C. just before the Phoenician culture began to flower and expand? And can we use genetics to trace the expansion of the Phoenician empire? What the study has revealed so far, detailed in \"Who Were the Phoenicians?\" in the October issue of National Geographic, is compelling. \"We're not seeing a significant genetic influence from elsewhere on the coastal population in what was the Levant region,\" says Wells. \"The people are very similar to the groups we see inland in Syria and Jordan, for example, suggesting that there wasn't a huge influx of Sea Peoples or others from outside the area. A cultural shift occurred but not a genetic one. Today's Lebanese, the Phoenicians, and the Canaanites before them are all the same people.\" Wells and Zalloua are finding similar results among samples taken in Tunisia, site of ancient Carthage and the largest of the Phoenician colonies. \"Less than 20 percent of the genetic lineages found could have come out of the Middle East,\" Wells continues. \"They're showing the markers of aboriginal North Africans. That means the Phoenicians moved into this area and, like the Sea Peoples, had more of a cultural impact than a genetic one.\" As DNA samples continue to be analyzed, more revelations are surfacing. \"We've just received data that more than half of the Y chromosome lineages that we see in today's Maltese population could have come in with the Phoenicians,\" Wells says. \"That's a significant genetic impact. But why?\" At this point he can only speculate. \"Perhaps the population on Malta wasn't as dense. Perhaps when the Phoenicians settled, they killed off the existing population, and their own descendants became today's Maltese. Maybe the islands never had that many people, and shiploads of Phoenicians literally moved in and swamped the local population. We don't know for sure, but the results are consistent with a settlement of people from the Levant within the past 2,000 years,", "See Assorted Sweet Chile Peppers Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) are native to the Spice Islands of the East Indies and belong to the same family as allspice, the Myrtaceae. In fact, they belong to the same genus as the Australian brush cherry (S. paniculatum), a commonly cultivated small tree or shrub in southern California. Also in this genus is the rose apple (S. jambos), a popular West Indian fruit that is native to southeast Asia. Unlike cinnamon and nutmeg, the clove spice comes from dried, unopened flower buds. Clove oil is extracted from the buds, stems and leaves, and is used in the perfume and soap industries and as a naturopathic, temporary remedy for tooth aches. Up to 80-95 percent of clove oil contains eugenol, a phenolic essential oil. Useful essential oils from the myrtle family may be phenolic or terpene derivatives, depending on the species. Cloves are the sun-dried, flower buds of (Syzygium aromaticum), a tree native to the Molucca Islands between Celebes and New Guinea (also known as the Spice Islands). Clove oil has antibacterial and painkilling (anesthetic) properties. When applied directly to the gums, it will numb the pain of toothache. A mouthwash containing clove oil has been shown to be effective in treating gingivitis. See Blossom And Fruits Of Rose Apple Bay Rum (Pimenta racemosa) Bay rum is obtained from the distillation of the leaves of Pimenta racemosa, a tree native to the West Indies. The bay rum tree belongs to the same genus as allspice, both members of the myrtle family (Myrtaceae). It contains a phenolic essential oil used in lotions and colognes. The fragrant oil superficially resembles clove oil, another tree in the myrtle family. The name bay \"rum\" comes from the former practice of distilling bay in rum and water. It is NOT consumed internally as in the highly intoxicating sugar cane beverage known as rum. Left: Shiny green leaves and trunk of the ray rum tree (Pimenta racemosa) on the island of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Right: Bottle of fragrant bay rum cologne (not to be confused with sugar cane rum). Caper Family (Capparaceae) Capers (Capparis spinosa) Like cloves, the tasty \"spice\" called capers (Capparis spinosa) also comes from unopened flower buds. The caper plant is a low, trailing shrub in the caper family (Capparaceae) native to the Mediterranean region. Also known as Capparidaceae, the caper family is a small plant family closely related to the mustard family (Brassicaceae). It includes an interesting native southern California shrub called bladderpod (Isomeris arborea). Capers are used mainly for flavoring pickles, relishes and sauces. Their salty flavor truly enhances fish and pasta dishes. Capers are the pea-sized, unopened flower buds of Capparis spinosa (Capparidaceae), a trailing shrub of the Mediterranean region. They are used to flavor pickles, relishes and sauces, and are absolutely delicious on swordfish steaks and in spaghetti dishes. Caper (Capparis spinosa), a trailing shrub of the Mediterranean region. The image shows a long-stalked fruit (berry) and the typical flat, oval leaves. The showy white flowers have numerous stamens. Capers of commerce come from the pea-sized, unopened flower buds of this species. Laurel Family (Lauraceae) True cinnamon comes from the bark of the cinnamon tree (Cinnamomum zeylanicum), a member of the Laurel Family (Lauraceae). Another species of Cinnamomum (C. camphora) is the source of camphor oil, a monoterpene essential oil distilled from the twigs, leaves and wood. Camphor oil is used in antiseptics and in pain-relieving creams, gels and lotions. Along with menthol, it is the active ingredient in aromatic analgesic ointments for nasal decongestion and muscular aches and pains. Camphor (Cinnamomum camphora) Camphor tree (Cinnamomum camphora): The source of camphor oil, a monoterpene essential oil used in topical antiseptics and aromatic analgesics. Ceylon Cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum = C. verum) The cinnamon tree (Cinnamomum zeylanicum), a member of the laurel family", "Europe’s Continental Boundaries | Counter-Currents Publishing Europe’s Continental Boundaries Europe by night 4,475 words Of the Earth’s seven continents, Europe is the second smallest in total area—only Australia is smaller. In terms of population density it is the second largest after Asia. Geographically, Europe is a peninsula of Eurasia. It has been described as a peninsula of peninsulas and islands. The surprising difficulty of defining Europe as a continent can be seen not only in differing definitions of its boundaries, or the bewildering number of candidates for its most extreme points north, south, east, and west, but even in disagreements over which locale constitutes the geographical center of Europe. The answers to all of these questions seem completely undeterminable in any precise kind of way. Fortunately, the broad outlines are clear. The “boundaries of Europe” discussed here concern only Europe as a continent ending (or beginning) at the Ural Mountains. This creates a formalistic and artificially truncated political and racial horizon. Europe: One of the most commonly used continental boundaries Notably, it ignores the Russian Federation as a unitary racial/political/social entity—a nation, including Russia-in-Asia, extending across much of northern Eurasia and constituting the world’s largest country in total area. Its 6.6 million square miles include one-eighth of the Earth’s inhabited land area—1.7 x the land area of Canada or 2 x the size of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent. Moreover, some countries still possess overseas territories outside Europe that are integral parts of the homeland. With the exception of Greenland and a few small islands close to Europe, such territories will not be discussed here. Due to Europe’s peninsular structure, the most difficult boundary to define is the eastern one, dividing continental Europe from continental Asia. Whether various countries or portions of countries are grouped geographically with Europe or Asia varies according to the sources consulted. Because the major maritime boundaries that separate the continent of Europe from the Earth’s other continents—the Mediterranean Sea on the south, the Atlantic Ocean on the west, and the Arctic Ocean on the north—have well-defined coastlines, the close analysis of such boundaries primarily involves the allocation of various islands to Europe or some other continent. The Boundary of Europe and Asia The Southeastern boundary between Europe and Asia Evidently the first man to define the eastern continental boundary between Europe and Asia pretty much as it exists today is Philip Johan von Strahlenberg (1676–1747), a Swedish army officer, explorer, and scholar of German descent. As defined in his book Das nord- und ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia (The north and east part of Europe and Asia) (Stockholm, 1730), which was translated into English, French, and Spanish, Strahlenberg’s border followed the chain of the Ural Mountains north-to-south, then the Emba River to the north coast of the Caspian Sea before passing through the Kuma-Manych Depression to the Black Sea. This Depression, named after two rivers, lies just north of the Caucasus Mountains which are today regarded as the true boundary. The continent’s eastern boundary cuts Russia in two—European Russia and Asian Russia. There is a strikingly uneven distribution of human and natural resources between the Asian and European regions. Asian Russia, about the size of China and India combined, occupies roughly three-quarters of Russian Federation territory. But the quarter of the country west of the Urals—a major portion of continental Europe—is home to more than 75% of Russia’s population and most of its industry and agriculture. It was in European Russia that the Russian nation took shape. Despite governmental efforts to resettle Russians in sparsely populated Asian areas with abundant natural resources, the imbalance persists. The Urals boundary The watershed divide of the Ural Mountains forms the natural land boundary between the continents of Europe and Asi", "Kalypso - The Queenly Nymph Kalypso Previous Page Kalypso is the daughter of Atlas who is most noted because she helped Odysseus when he came to her island as a destitute wanderer. After the Trojan War ended [circa 1240 BCE], Odysseus set off for home as did all the other Achaean Greeks after they had defeated the Trojans and looted Troy. Odysseus was not the only returning warrior to have difficulties but rather than meeting a cruel death on his way home, he incurred the wrath of Poseidon [lord of the Sea] by wounding the god's son. Zeus would not allow his brother Poseidon to kill Odysseus so Poseidon inflicted ordeal after ordeal on poor Odysseus until all his comrades were dead and he finally washed ashore on the island of Ogygia ... Kalypso's home. Ogygia was the Navel of the Sea which might be interpreted to mean a variety of things but I feel comfortable in assuming that Kalypso's island was simply in the middle of Ocean ... that would mean that Ogygia was eastward past the Caucasus Mountains in the now dried up sea which has been called the Asiatic Mediterranean, i.e. an ancient body of water of which all that remains east of the Black Sea are the Caspian and the Aral Seas. Placing Ogygia in the east instead of somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea actually makes Kalypso's home closer to where her father Atlas was stationed to hold up the heavens ... likewise Atlas's brother Prometheus was chained to one of the peaks of the Caucasus Mountains. Another substantial indication as to the eastern location of the island of Ogygia is the fact that when Odysseus sailed from the island, Kalypso told him to keep the constellation of Ursa Major [the Bear] on his right ... that would mean that the constellation would have been in the north as Odysseus sailed westward towards Greece. Odysseus was utterly without hope when Kalypso found him but his rugged good looks and noble character soon affected the lonely goddess and she fell in love. Odysseus stayed with Kalypso for seven years but they were long, sad years for Odysseus. He resigned himself to the fact that there was no escape from the island but he still constantly longed for his wife and son. Kalypso offered Odysseus immortality and eternal youth but he refused to accept her offers. During their time together, Kalypso and Odysseus had two sons: Nausithoos and Nausinoos. Perhaps they had a third son named Telegonos but he might have been the son of the Dread-Goddess Kirke [Circe] and not Kalypso. Just as Poseidon was determined to punish Odysseus, the goddess Athene was always looking for ways to help Odysseus. When she reminded Zeus that Odysseus had been on Ogygia for seven years, Zeus sent Hermes with a message for Kalypso ... she was to allow Odysseus to leave ... furthermore, she was to give him the assistance he needed to build a seaworthy craft. Hermes arrived on Kalypso's island and was given a warm welcome ... he and Kalypso drank nectar and ate ambrosia. Finally, he told her of his mission and gave her Zeus's command. At first Kalypso was indignant ... she reminded Hermes of the many gods and goddesses who had taken mortal lovers and wondered why she could not keep Odysseus. Hermes told her that Zeus was adamant ... she must help Odysseus leave Ogygia and she was not permitted to use her charms to detain him. Kalypso accepted her fate and agreed to let Odysseus leave unhindered. By that time, Odysseus was a cautious man. He had endured much trickery at the hands of the Immortals and did not believe Kalypso would actually help him. To insure her sincerity, Odysseus made Kalypso swear a great oath on the waters of Styx that she meant what she said and that she was not trying to deceive him. Kalypso swore the oath and gave Odysseus the tools he needed to build a seaworthy raft. When it came time for him to leave, Kalypso in her loving nature, gave Odysseus provisions and sent him on his way with a fair wind to speed him home. Text References Kalypso in the Odyssey The line numbers listed here correspond fairly well with the Lattimore and Murray/Dimock translations o", "PBS Online - Lost Liners - Britannic The Britannic. Credit bed full, the Britannic could transport 3,309 patients. Only the Aquitania could carry more: almost 4,200 wounded. But until the Britannic reached the port of Mudros on the Aegean island of Lemnos, the gathering point for casualties from all the Mediterranean theaters, she would be relatively empty, her nurses, doctors and orderlies with nothing to do except to make sure the hospital was ready to receive its patients. Nurse Macbeth spent much of the first leg of the trip making beds, but still found time each day for a morning gymnastics class given by one of the sergeants and an afternoon swim in the first-class swimming pool, followed by tea and then perhaps a game of cricket out on deck. It was a pleasant enough interlude before what would be the very serious business of tending victims of a conflict that had long since lost any aura of romance and adventure. By November 1916, the war that was to be \"over by Christmas\" of 1914 looked as if it might last forever. On the Eastern and Western Fronts, the opposing troops were locked in bloody stalemate. The recent Battle of Jutland, the greatest naval engagement ever, had failed to break the British naval blockade of Europe, increasing pressure on the Germans to resort to unrestricted submarine warfare, despite the risk it might draw the United States into the war. And while the Allies had finally abandoned Gallipoli the previous January, hundreds of thousands of troops were now tied up in Greek Macedonia, Palestine and Mesopotamia, making hospital ships in the Mediterranean as vital as ever. On the Britannic's most recent trip she had returned with almost every bed full, and it had taken 15 hospital trains to transport the casualties from Southampton. In theory, the Britannic had nothing to fear from enemy submarines. As a hospital ship she was protected from attack under the Geneva Convention, but this was never a guarantee. The Germans suspected hospital ships of secretly transporting troops -- a charge that would be laid against the Britannic after she sank. (No evidence to support this charge has ever appeared.) And while the majority of German submarines were occupied in trying to break Britain's Atlantic blockade, a number were active in the Mediterranean, laying mines along routes heavily traveled by troopships and torpedoing enemy targets when the opportunity arose. Mines, of course, did not distinguish between warships and noncombatants. The many narrow sea passages along the main Mediterranean shipping routes were natural areas for mine laying. And at least one mine-laying submarine had recently been active along the course the Britannic would soon be following. This was U-73, under command of Kapit�nleutnant Gustav Siess. Late in October, he had been scouting out the Kea Channel between the Greek mainland and the island of Kea just east of Athens. Noting that most ships passed close to the island, he laid two barriers of six mines each at right angles to the shipping lane. Despite these dangers, those traveling aboard the Britannic had reason to feel confident. At a service speed of 21 knots -- faster if necessary -- she could outrun any U-boat. And her builders had designed her to withstand the sort of disaster that had sunk the Titanic. A watertight inner skin, running for almost two-thirds of the ship's length and making her 18 inches wider than her two predecessors, protected her engines and boiler rooms. Five of her 17 watertight bulkheads extended as high as B deck, also known as the bridge deck, fully 40 feet above the waterline. The rest rose as high as E deck. All the bulkheads had the latest in electrically operated watertight doors, and the pumping system allowed any watertight compartment to be drained by means of a valve placed well above the waterline. The higher bulkheads were meant to keep her afloat with any six of her compartments flooded. In theory, it would take more than one torpedo to sink her. And in the unlikely event that she sank, there would be a lifeboat seat for everyone.", "August 9, 1979: Britain’s first nudist beach gets the go-ahead in Brighton despite objections - BT August 9, 1979: Britain’s first nudist beach gets the go-ahead in Brighton despite objections Britain's naturists could barely contain themselves when a small stretch of pebbled coastline was declared the country's first nudist beach on this day in 1979. Print this story Despite fierce opposition, a small pebbled coastal stretch in Brighton was designated Britain's first public naturist beach on August 9, 1979. Black Rock beach – which lies approximately one mile to the east of Brighton Pier – had already been an unofficial favourite of nudists. But in 1979, it officially became a public naturist beach, the first of its kind in Britain. The Central Council for British Naturism had been petitioning 140 local councils to allocate sections of their beaches to nudists – and it was councillor Ellen Jakes, a 47-year-old seafront landlady, who fought the cause in Brighton. She even showed her fellow councillors photographs of herself sunbathing topless on a beach in Ibiza in an effort to persuade them. Jakes faced strong opposition from the ‘No’ campaign, however. “What distresses me is that people naively believe what is good for the Continent is good for Britain,” said Tory councillor John Blackman. “I personally have no objection to people showing their breasts and bosoms and general genitalia to each other. Jolly good luck to them. But for heaven's sake, go somewhere a little more private.” The 59-strong Tory council finally voted ‘Yes’. “It is a bold move,” said Brighton's deputy Mayor Alfred Feld, “but we feel we are just moving with the times. It is a fairly secluded stretch of beach and I don't think it will be offensive to anyone.” Locals and visiting naturists then had to wait eight months, however, as the council made sure that there were enough signs in place to warn more sensitive members of the public. The naturist beach finally opened to the public on April 1, 1980 – and despite a threat by Conservative councillors to close it in 1983, calling it “a disgrace to the town”, it remains open to this day. Have you used Brighton’s nudist beach? Would you? Should it be closed down? Let us know in the Comments section below. British naturists - Did you know? • The earliest known naturist club was established in British India in 1891 by Charles Edward Gordon Crawford, a judge for the Bombay Civil Service. • There are four million self-described naturists in the UK. • The first British naturist club was formed in Wickford, Essex, in 1924 and called itself the ‘Moonella Group’. It even got a mention in series five of Downton Abbey. • Public nudity on a beach is not illegal in Spain or Denmark (except for two beaches). Nudity is also not illegal in Germany – although it can be regulated by local authorities for health and safety, not morality, issues. • The abbreviation ‘FKK’ is widely used throughout Europe as meaning naturist – it stands for the German word Freikörperkultur, which means 'free body culture’. • British Naturism is the official naturist organisation in the UK. They describe naturism is “a lifestyle in harmony with nature, expressed through social nudity, and characterised by self-respect of people with different opinions and of the environment.”" ]

[ "CAIRO, March 29 Egypt's 2017/18 budget targets 4.6 percent growth, Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy said at a news conference on Wednesday after the cabinet approved the budget.\nGarhy also said interest on debt would reach 380 billion pounds ($20.88 billion), up from 304 billion pounds in the current year. ($1 = 18.1950 Egyptian pounds) (Writing by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Alison Williams)" ]

[ "(Adds budget details)\nCAIRO, March 29 Egypt's cabinet approved the 2017/18 budget on Wednesday, targeting a 9.1 percent deficit for the year, Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy said.\nThe government expects the deficit for the current year, ending June 30, to be between 10.5 percent and 10.7 percent, against 12.2 percent last fiscal year.\nThe 2017/18 budget targets 4.6 percent growth for the year and revenues are expected to reach 818 billion Egyptian pounds ($45.17 billion), Garhy told a news conference after the cabinet meeting. Revenues from taxes are expected to reach 604 billion pounds, while other revenues will amount to 214 billion pounds.\nA statement from the Finance Ministry later stated that overall revenues will amount to 830 billion pounds.\nGarhy also said interest on debt would reach 380 billion pounds, up from 304 billion pounds in the current year.\nEgypt is struggling to revive its economy since a 2011 uprising drove away tourists and foreign investors - two major sources of foreign currency.\nIn November the central bank abandoned its currency peg of 8.8 per dollar in a move aimed to unlock foreign inflows and secure a $12 billion three-year International Monetary Fund program to support the government's effort to reduce its budget deficit and balance Egypt's currency market.\nEgypt successfully sold $4 billion in Eurobonds in January, raising twice as much as it initially targeted and at lower yields than expected.\nGarhy said on Wednesday the country's financing plan for the coming year will include a return to international markets by the end of 2017 or early 2018.\nHe said the budget would assume an oil price of $55 per barrel, and an exchange rate of 16 pounds per dollar.\nPlanning Minister Hala al-Saeed said the budget will be sent to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and then to parliament by Friday, according to the constitution.\nParliament can either approve it or send it back to the government. If parliament approves the budget it will be signed into law by the president.\n($1 = 18.1100 Egyptian pounds) (writing by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Dominic Evans)", "CAIRO, March 29 Egypt's Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy said on Wednesday the country's financing plan for the coming year will include a return to international markets by the end of 2017 or early 2018.\nEgypt's cabinet approved on Wednesday the 2017/18 government budget with a targeted deficit of 9.1 percent. (Writing by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Dominic Evans)", "CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt’s government approved its 2018/19 fiscal year budget on Sunday, targeting a budget deficit of 8.4 percent of GDP, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail said.\nPeople shop at Al Ataba, a popular market in central Cairo, Egypt March 13, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany\nA statement from the cabinet said the budget would target GDP growth of 5.8 percent.\nEgypt’s fiscal year begins in July.\n(This version of the story was corrected to change GDP growth from 5.2 to 5.8 percent)", "CAIRO, March 29 Egypt's cabinet approved the 2017/18 budget on Wednesday, its first since accepting a three-year $12 billion IMF loan contingent on ambitious economic reforms and cuts to subsidy spending.\nThe 2017-18 fiscal year begins in July.\nBelow are key targets of the proposed budget, which must now be approved by parliament:\n* GDP growth of 4.6 percent versus 3.8-4 percent expected for 2016-17.\n* Budget deficit of 9.1 percent versus 10.5-10.7 percent expected for 2016-17.\n* Overall revenues of 818.621 billion Egyptian pounds ($44.98 billion)versus 644.292 billion expected for 2016-17.\n* Total tax revenues of 603.917 billion Egyptian pounds versus 460.498 billion for 2016-17.\n* Total revenue collected on value-added tax of 291.055 billion pounds, according to document seen by Reuters, versus 206.938 billion expected for 2016-17.\n* Spending of 1.188 trillion Egyptian pounds versus 994.906 billion expected for 2016-17.\n* Dollar exchange rate of 16 pounds per dollar\n* Oil price of $55 per barrel versus $50 per barrel in 2016-17 budget.\n* Total grants and social spending of 331.527 billion pounds versus 278.464 billion expected for 2016-17.\n* Spending for petroleum subsidies of 110.148 billion pounds, according to document seen by Reuters, versus 101.272 billion for 2016-17.\n* Electricity subsidies of 30 billion pounds, according to document seen by Reuters, versus 35.071 billion expected for 2016-17.\n* Food subsidy spending of 62.585 billion versus 49.544 billion expected for 2016-17.\n* Interest on debt of 380.986 billion versus 303.881 billion expected for 2016-17. ($1 = 18.2000 Egyptian pounds) (Reporting by Ehab Farouk; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Andrew Roche)", "CAIRO, March 19 (Reuters) - Egypt expects gross domestic product growth between 5.3 and 5.4 percent in the third quarter of the 2017-2018 fiscal year, Finance Minister Amr El Garhy told Reuters on Monday.\nThe economy grew by around 5.3 percent in the second quarter, Planning Minister Hala al-Saeed said in February.\nEgypt’s fiscal year begins in July and ends in June. (Reporting by Ehab Farouk; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Sam Holmes)", "CAIRO, March 30 Egypt expects to see inflation fall to an average of 15.2 percent during the 2017-18 financial year beginning in July, deputy finance minister Ahmed Kouchouk said on Thursday.\nEgypt's inflation rate has soared since it floated its currency last November, with annual urban consumer price inflation hitting 30.2 percent in February, its highest level in more than three decades. (Reporting by Nadine Awadalla; Writing by Eric Knecht)", "At least 950.3 million soms were spent in 2017 on subsidizing the agricultural sector and financing will increase this year. The Finance Minister Adylbek Kasymaliev told at a press conference.\n«Recently, we have paid special attention to the processing industry, issuing soft loans at 6 percent per annum for up to three years. The remaining agricultural producers — at 10 percent. In 2018, the Ministry of Finance budgeted more than 1 billion soms for these purposes,» he said.\nIn 2017, a program was launched to subsidize subjects involved in export operations. In 2017, they were financed for 64 million soms, this year 100 million soms were budgeted for it.", "Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday chaired ​his 5th pre-Budget consultation meeting with the stakeholders groups from ​IT sector in connection with the forthcoming Union Budget 2018-19 in New Delhi. He said India has recorded an average growth of 7.5 percent from 2014-15 to 2016-17, significantly higher as compared to the growth in the previous two years. The Finance Minister was making the opening remarks during his 5th pre-budget consultation meeting with the leading economists here in New Delhi.\nFM @arunjaitley today held prebudget discussions with group of Economists pic.twitter.com/E7kDSrUAfw — Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) December 11, 2017\nThe Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Shri @arunjaitley chairing the ​6th Pre-Budget Consultations Meeting with the stakeholders groups from ​IT Sector in connection with the forthcoming Union Budget 2018-19 in New Delhi today. pic.twitter.com/SOuL7L86pF — Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) December 11, 2017\nThe Finance Minister said despite subdued global economic growth, India’s growth remains impressive and one of the best in the world during the last 3 years. \"The Finance Minister further said: \"we are following the roadmap of fiscal consolidation under which the fiscal deficit as a ratio of GDP stood at 3.9 percent in 2015-16 and 3.5 percent in 2016-17 and is budgeted to be 3.2 percent for the current financial year 2017-18.\nThe Finance Minister Shri @arunjaitley holds his 5th Pre-Budget Consultation Meeting with the leading Economists;FM states that despite subdued global economic growth,India’s growth remains impressive & one of the best in the world during the last 3 years;https://t.co/0qlVwkKYBz — Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) December 11, 2017\n\"Growth of second quarter of the current financial year 2017-18 marks the reversal of the declining trend of growth witnessed in the last few quarters. We are following the roadmap of fiscal consolidation,\" Arun Jaitley said.\nAccording to Jaitley, country was able to achieve these fiscal targets due to focus on expenditure rationalisation, plugging of loopholes in public expenditure through Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme (DBT) and Public Financial Management System (PFMS), and by making innovative revenue raising efforts among others.\nThe Finance Minister Shri @arunjaitley :We are following the roadmap of fiscal consolidation under which the fiscal deficit as a ratio of GDP stood at 3.9% in 2015-16 and 3.5% in 2016-17 and is budgeted to be 3.2% for the Current Financial Year 2017-18. — Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) December 11, 2017\nThe pre-Budget consultative meeting was attended by Dr Rajiv Kumar, vice-chairman, NITI Ayog, Bibek Debroy, member, Niti Ayog and chairman, economic advisory council to the prime minister (EAC-PM), Dr Hasmukh Adhia, finance secretary, AN Jha, secretary, expenditure, Subhash Chandra Garg, secretary (economic affairs), Dr Arvind Subramanian, chief economic adviser (CEA), Sushil Kumar Chandra, chairman, CBDT and other senior officers of the ministry of finance.\nThe Finance Minister Shri @arunjaitley :The growth of Second Quarter of the Current Financial Year 2017-18 marks the reversal of the declining trend of growth witnessed in the last few quarters. — Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) December 11, 2017\nA number of suggestions were given by the participating economists and other economic experts. Some of the major suggestions included that in the forthcoming Budget, the government should continue to follow the path of fiscal consolidation and in case, there is any shortfall due to any reasons in achieving the fiscal targets, the same thereof may be clarified, according to a PIB release.\nSimilarly, in the forthcoming Budget, the road map for tax reforms may also be announced. It was also suggested that without compromising on macro-economic stability, more incentives be given on infrastructure investment as well as to SME and Construction Sectors to make them economically viable, give farmers more remunerative prices for their produce keeping in view the target of maintain inflation between 4-6 percent, the PIB release further said.\nThe Finance Minister Shri @arunjaitley :The growth of Second Quarter of the Current Financial Year 2017-18 marks the reversal of the declining trend of growth witnessed in the last few quarters. — Ministry of Finance (@FinMinIndia) December 11, 2017\nAnother suggestion was to give more thrust on disinvestment of Public Sector Units (PSUs) as it will provide extra revenue for bridging the fiscal gap and meeting the expenditure needs. Participants also suggested raising old age pension from existing Rs 200 to Rs 500 and Widow Pension from Rs 300 to minimum Rs 500. Maternity Entitlement Benefits be fully implemented and be extended up to two children. Besides, the payment system for these Social Security Schemes also need to be streamlined.\nEconomists also backed lowering of the Corporate Tax up to 20 percent by removing all exemptions in order to make it competitive at international level. It was also suggested to tax Long Term Capital Gains to bring equity and raise revenue, reduce MAT (Minimum Alternate Tax), and announce the road map for GST including convergence of rates, extending time for transactions’ matching etc. It was also suggested to give incentives to labour intensive industries including SMEs and informal and unorganised sectors, according to the PIB release.", "KIGALI, April 28 Rwanda plans to increase government spending by 7 percent in the 2017/18 (July-June) fiscal year to 2.09 trillion francs ($2.53 billion), the finance minister said on Friday.\nClaver Gatete told parliament while presenting the draft budget that 17 percent of the budget will be funded by donors with the rest coming from revenue and debt.\nThe government expected to collect 1,316.8 billion francs in revenue during the year, the minister said.\n\"Our export revenues are expected to increase by 21.6 percent mainly due to 40 percent increase of tea revenues and 23 percent increase from mineral earnings,\" he said.\nThe government planned to set aside 757.2 billion francs to spend on development, up from 741.9 billion francs this fiscal year, he said. The cash will be used to buy strategic stocks for food security and construction of dams.\nGatete said the budget would also include funding for a national election scheduled for August, in which President Paul Kagame will be seeking a third term.\nRwanda's economy is expected to grow 6.2 percent in 2017 and 6.8 percent in 2018 while inflation is expected to be at 7 percent by the end of 2017 and edge down to 5 percent in 2018, Gatete said. ($1 = 824.8100 Rwandan francs) (Reporting by Clement Uwiringiyimana; Editing by Angus MacSwan)", "By MAILESI BANDA\nGOVERNMENT has paid about K6 billion in arrears from the 2017 budget with K1.1 billion going towards paying pensions and K1.4 billion to the agriculture sector, Minister of Finance Felix Mutati has said.\nAnd the minister has announced that consultants have been engaged to evaluate State Owned Enterprises with the view of recapitalising those with a good business case.\nMr. Mutati said the dismantling of arrears was in an effort to stabilise the economy which has been the mandate of the government in 2017.\nMr. Mutati was speaking at the Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZARI), 2018 national budget analysis breakfast meeting held in Lusaka yesterday.\nHe explained that because of the measures put in place by the government in 2017 this year with the introduction of E voucher, the allocation to the Farmer Input Support Programme had gone down to K1.8 billion in the 2018 budget from K2.9 billion last year.\nHe stated that in order to maintain the stability in the economy parliament was expected to pass four bills before the end of this year.\n“Parliament will before the end of this year pass the public finance act and the budget and planning bill, the Zambia procurement act and the loans and guarantee act and all this is aimed at enhancing stability in the economy,” Mr. Mutati said.\nHe also said the acts would help in the acceleration of fiscal fitness as they would be acting with the protection of the law.\nMeanwhile, ZIPAR executive director, Pamela Kabaso said the recent economic growth rates of 3 to 4 percent was not adequate to leave behind.\nDr.Kabaso said the 2018 budget had observed inclusive growth, adding that this was possible with steadfast and collective implementation of bold policy decision and reforms.\n“We applaud Government for linking the 2018 budget to the Seventh National Development Plan and for continuing the implementation of the economic stabilisation and growth program in order to create a supportive environment for effective implementation of the 7NDP.", "New Delhi [India], Dec 11 (ANI): Leading economists of the country suggested a range of measures including those for fiscal consolidation, tax reforms, disinvestment of Public Sector Units (PSUs), lowering of corporate tax at the Pre Budget consultation meeting with the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.\n\"Suggestion was made to lower the Corporate Tax up to 20 percent by removing all exemptions in order to make it competitive at international level. It was also suggested to tax Long Term Capital Gains to bring equity and raise revenue and reduce MAT (Minimum Alternate Tax),\" the Finance Ministry said in an official release.\nThe economists recommended that in the forthcoming budget, the Government should continue to follow the path of fiscal consolidation and also said that more incentives should be given on infrastructure investment as well as to SME and construction sectors without compromising on macro-economic stability.\n\"It was suggested to issue long term New India Bonds to finance pension and infrastructure and to set-up National Level Investment Promotion Body to promote private investment through policy reforms and incentives,\" the release stated highlighting that the economists recommended to boost private and public investment in Defence Sector.\nThe Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his opening remarks at the meeting said that despite subdued global economic growth, India's growth remains impressive and one of the best in the world during the last three years.\n\"Growth of Second Quarter of the Current Financial Year 2017-18 marks the reversal of the declining trend of growth witnessed in the last few quarters and we are following the roadmap of fiscal consolidation,\" Jaitley said adding that the fiscal deficit as a ratio of GDP stood at 3.9 percent in 2015-16 and 3.5 percent in 2016-17 and is budgeted to be 3.2 percent for the Current Financial Year 2017-18.\nThe Finance Minister further said that these fiscal targets have been achieved due to focus on expenditure rationalisation, plugging of loopholes in public expenditure through Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme (DBT) and the Public Financial Management System (PFMS), and by making innovative revenue raising efforts among others.(ANI)", "The Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Shri Arun Jaitley said that despite subdued global economic growth, India’s growth remains impressive and one of the best in the world during the last three years. He said that India has recorded an average growth of 7.5% from 2014-15 to 2016-17, significantly higher as compared to the growth in the previous two years.\nThe Finance Minister Shri Jaitley was making the Opening Remarks during his 5th Pre-Budget Consultation Meeting with the leading Economists here in New Delhi today. The Finance Minister Shri Jaitley further said that the growth of Second Quarter of the Current Financial Year 2017-18 marks the reversal of the declining trend of growth witnessed in the last few quarters. The Finance Minister further said that we are following the roadmap of fiscal consolidation under which the fiscal deficit as a ratio of GDP stood at 3.9% in 2015-16 and 3.5% in 2016-17 and is budgeted to be 3.2% for the Current Financial Year 2017-18. The Finance Minister Shri Jaitley further said that we have been able to achieve these fiscal targets due to focus on expenditure rationalisation, plugging of loopholes in public expenditure through Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme (DBT) & the Public Financial Management System (PFMS), and by making innovative revenue raising efforts among others.\nAlong with the Union Finance Minister Shri Jaitley, the Pre-Budget Consultative Meeting with the leading Economists was also attended among others by Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Ayog, Shri Bibek Debroy, Member, Niti Ayog and Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, Finance Secretary, Shri A.N. Jha, Secretary, Expenditure, Shri Subhash Chandra Garg, Secretary (Economic Affairs), Dr. Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser (CEA), Shri Sushil Kumar Chandra, Chairman, CBDT and other senior officers of the Ministry of Finance.\nThe Economists present during the aforesaid Meeting included Dr. Rathin Roy, Director, NIFP, Shri Sajid Chinoy, Chief India Economist, JP Morgan, Mr. Jean Dreze, Delhi School of Economics, Mr. Josh Felman, Economist, Shri T.N. Ninan, Chairman, Business Standard, Shri Surjit S. Bhalla MD, OXUS Investment, Shri Ajit Ranade, Chief Economist, Aditya Birla Group, Shri Majoj Pant, Director, IIFT, Dr. Arvind Virmani, President, Forum for Strategic Initiative (FSI), Shri Himanshu, Associate Professor, CESP, JNU, Shri Shekhar Shah, Director General, NCAER, Ms. Pranjul Bhandari, Chief India Economist, HSBC, Shri Sunil Jain, Managing Editor, The Financial Express, Ms Rinku Murgal, Lead Economist, World Bank, Mr. Partha Mukhopadhyay, Center for Policy Research and Mr. Rajat Kathuria, Director and Chief Executive, ICRIER among others.\nA number of suggestions were given by the participating Economists and other economic experts. Some of the major suggestions included that in the forthcoming Budget, the Government should continue to follow the path of fiscal consolidation and in case, there is any shortfall due to any reasons in achieving the fiscal targets, the same thereof may be clarified. Similarly, in the forthcoming Budget, the road map for Tax Reforms may also be announced. It was also suggested that without compromising on macro-economic stability, more incentives be given on infrastructure investment as well as to SME and Construction Sectors to make them economically viable, give farmers more remunerative prices for their produce keeping in view the target of maintain inflation between 4-6 per cent.\nAnother suggestion was to give more thrust on disinvestment of Public Sector Units (PSUs) as it will provide extra revenue for bridging the fiscal gap and meeting the expenditure needs. Another suggestion was made to raise old age pension from existing Rs.200 to Rs.500 and Widow Pension from Rs.300 to minimum Rs.500. It was also suggested that Maternity Entitlement Benefits be fully implemented and be extended up to two children. Besides, the payment system for these Social Security Schemes also need to be streamlined.\nAnother suggestion was made to lower the Corporate Tax up to 20% by removing all exemptions in order to make it competitive at international level. It was also suggested to tax Long Term Capital Gains to bring equity and raise revenue, reduce MAT (Minimum Alternate Tax), and announce the road map for GST including convergence of rates, extending time for transactions’ matching etc. It was also suggested to give incentives to labour intensive industries including SMEs and informal and unorganised sectors. It was also suggested that the Tax Administration need to be made more tax payers friendly. It was suggested that Crop Insurance Scheme be relooked and be made more effective. It should cover not only the crop failure but also the price failure.\nIt was suggested to issue long term New India Bonds to finance pension and infrastructure. It was also suggested to set-up National Level Investment Promotion Body to promote private investment through policy reforms and incentives. It was also suggested to incentivize non-farming activities in the rural areas in order to achieve the goal of doubling of farmers’ income by 2022. This will also help in providing fruitful employment in rural areas besides raising the income of the farmers.\nIt was also suggested to boost private and public investment in Defence Sector as there is lot of potential in this regard. Another suggestion was to increase wages under NREGA and take it to the level of minimum wages or even at market rates. It was suggested to set-up a Committee to formulate Comprehensive Strategy to suggest the Government what should be its strategy to take the economy forward. It was also suggested to set-up a Commission to anticipate skill requirements in 21st century and suggest appropriate action for skill upgradation to meet the requirements of the industry and to achieve the best possible demographic dividend.\nAnother suggestion was made to give more thrust to core Research and Development(R&D), more outlay for Bank Recapitalisation, announcement of Additional Recapitalisation Bonds for Public Sector Banks, implementation of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and thereby allowing banks to take over the assets from weaker promoters and hand-over the same to the strong promoters.\nIt was also suggested to bring more and more subsidies under Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme to avoid pilferage, implement labour reforms and Government to fund the promotion of digital payments. Another suggestion was to follow the principal of maximising the revenue collections and not that of tax morality. It was also suggested that we need real policy rates to revive economy.\nIt was also suggested that tax compliance can be increased by rationalisation of taxes and cost of tax compliance may also be reduced. In order to create more job opportunities, it was suggested to increase manufacturing to GDP ratio to 25% and incentives to SMEs among others. It was also suggested to focus on social protection architecture in the coming Budget especially in case of insurance and pension. Another suggestion was to incentivise non-farm services in rural areas for increasing the farmers’ income.", "HANOI, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Vietnam should aim for credit growth of at least 21 percent this year as it tries to hit its annual economic growth target, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc was quoted as saying by state media on Monday.\nPhuc stated the goal at a meeting over the weekend of ministers and top officials, Vietnam News Agency said. Vietnam's central bank gave a target for credit growth of 18 percent for the year in February.\n\"Vietnam should stimulate domestic consumption, create market confidence, boost investment in manufacturing and business, strive for credit growth above 21 percent and reduce the input costs for manufacturing and business,\" he was quoted as saying.\n\"Along with that, we should strongly promote the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, especially equitisation and divestment in the last months of 2017,\" he said. (Reporting by Mi Nguyen; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)", "CAIRO, March 19 (Reuters) - Egypt will offer shares in four to six state companies this year seeking to raise between 12 billion and 15 billion Egyptian pounds ($680 million -$850 million), Finance Minister Amr El Garhy told Reuters on Monday.\nThe country plans to float shares in state oil company Engineering for Petroleum and Process Industries (ENPPI) in September, Garhy said.\nThe government owns vast swathes of Egypt’s economy, including three of its largest banks - National Bank of Egypt, Banque Du Caire, the United Bank of Egypt - along with much of its oil industry and real estate sector. ($1 = 17.6000 Egyptian pounds) (Reporting by Ehab Farouk; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)", "* Some 70 million Egyptians receive subsidised food\n* Subsidies may be increased to ease impact of reforms\n* Minister sees inflation easing by Dec after big leap (Recasts, adds AfDB loan)\nBy Ehab Farouk\nCAIRO, March 30 Egypt's government is considering raising food subsidies provided to millions of people every month by 29 percent to help ease the impact of rising prices on poorer families, two sources at the finance ministry said on Thursday.\nAround 70 million of the country's 92 million population are beneficiaries of a subsidy card programme that entitles them to 21 pounds ($1.16) worth of goods every month, in addition to five loaves of bread per person per day.\n\"We are considering increasing the level of support through the subsidy card in the 2017/18 budget to 27 pounds to alleviate the impact of the economic reform programme on low-income people,\" a senior ministry official who declined to be named told Reuters.\nAnother source said the ministry was also considering an exceptional 10 percent increase in salaries for government employees to partly offset recent price rises.\nA surge in inflation to a 30-year high since Egypt dropped the pound's peg to the dollar in November has driven up living costs in the import-dependent country, with food and drinks prices rising over 40 percent in the year to February.\nDetails released on Wednesday after the draft budget was approved by the cabinet showed food subsidy spending was set at 62.585 billion pounds in the coming financial year, up from 49.544 billion expected for 2016-17.\nSupply Minister Ali Moselhy had earlier this week put proposed food subsidy spending for next year even higher, at 86 billion pounds.\nBut he said on Thursday the budget did not include any increase in the monthly card subsidies. \"Until now, there is no increase in the level of support via the cards,\" he said.\nFinance Minister Amr El-Garhy declined to comment on the issue: \"All things are being considered ... I don't want to go into them now,\" he said.\nBUDGET CHALLENGES\nGarhy told a conference in Cairo the government was trying to stick to an economic reform plan which has unlocked billions of dollars in loans from the International Monetary Fund and other lenders, while at the same time protecting people from the worst impact of the price rises.\n\"The budget has presented great difficulties and challenges, between implementing the economic reforms on one hand and retaining the social protection plan on the other,\" Garhy said.\nThe African Development Bank (AfDB) said it disbursed $500 million to Egypt on Thursday, the second of three expected tranches aimed at helping to revive the economy. The loan will support projects including social housing, youth employment and sanitation work.\nThe government's proposed 2017-18 budget will increase expenditure in local currency terms by nearly 20 percent to 1.188 trillion Egyptian pounds ($65.35 billion).\nIt targets GDP growth of 4.6 percent, with an expected deficit of 9.1 percent, compared to 10.5-10.7 percent in the current year.\nGarhy said he predicted inflation, which rose to its highest level in more than three decades last month, would start easing by November or December.\nDeputy Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk told the same conference that he expected to see inflation fall to an average of 15.2 percent during the 2017-18 financial year. Annual urban consumer price inflation hit 30.2 percent last month. ($1 = 18.1800 Egyptian pounds) (Additional reporting by Nadine Awadalla; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Gareth Jones)", "Khartoum — The Council of Ministers, in a meeting , which was chaired by the Fisrt Vice-President of the Republic and National Prime Minister, Gen. Bakri Hassan Saleh, approved directives of the state 2018 budget presented by Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Mohamed Osman Al-Rekabi.\nCabinet's Official Spokesman, Dr Omer Mohamed Saleh said in press statements , that the budget directives based on the President's electoral program, the Five-year economic planning , the Third Planning(2017-2020), state reform program and the national dialogue outcome.\nHe stated that budget directives include slashing of inflation rates, stability of exchange rate , increase of production and productivity, amelioration of veterinary services to protect the national cattle, increase of oil and gas production , ;providing appropriate climate for investments in areas of mining ,and keeping on implementation of water harvesting projects.\nHe added the directives also include localization of engineering industries, promotion of media institutions , reduction of budget deficit to the safest level , maintaining security and peace , reduction of trade balance deficit, slashing poverty and handling its causes , expansion of health insurance coverage , development of high education and scientific research infrastructures , boosting culture of self-employment and using IT to enhancement of services provided by the Government to citizens.\nDr Saleh said the Cabinet appreciated efforts of Ministry and the economic development ministerial sector on preparing the directives of the year 2018 budget.\nHe added that Minister of Finance also recommended amendment of the 1986 Personal Income Tax to exempt allowances of Eid Al-Fitr and Eid Al-Adha from the tax , besides raising the minimum size of income eligible for personal tax to SDG14400 in a year.\nHe further added the Cabinet has passed the recommendation presented by Minister of Finance.\nThe Federal Cabinet Spokesman said the Council of Ministers also approved a recommendation exempting banking and financial services operated through mobile phones from VAT , a matter which , he explained, would alleviate people's burdens.", "Ministers resolved Wednesday to discuss a contentious 2017 draft budget that could burden people with additional taxes.\nFinance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil's budget proposal calls for a series of new taxes to finance a higher salary scale for civil servants, a demand spearheaded by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and backed by teachers' unions.\nHowever, the minister denied ahead of the session that he was seeking to impose additional taxes on the middle class.\nAmong the proposals are a 1-percentage-point increase to the value added tax from its current 10 percent rate, a 2-percentage point increase on interest rate taxes for customer bank deposits from 5 percent, a 2-percentage point increase in taxes on corporate profits from the current 15 percent, and the an additional tax imposed on real estate transactions.\n...", "(Adds Finance Ministry's comments, background details)\nMEXICO CITY, March 31 Mexico's finance ministry on Friday cut its 2017 growth outlook for Latin America's no. 2 economy, flagging uncertainty over U.S. policy, and said it saw inflation ending the year nearly a full percentage point above the central bank's target range.\nIt expects the economy to grow between 1.3 and 2.3 percent in 2017 and then rebound to expand 2.0-3.0 percent in 2018. The ministry had previously projected gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 2.0-3.0 percent in 2017 and 2.5-3.5 percent for 2018.\n\"Although weakness in global growth has started to dissipate, uncertainty about the new U.S. government's policy direction poses downside risks for the Mexican economy,\" the ministry said.\nThe finance ministry also said it saw annual inflation ending 2017 at 4.9 percent, above the central bank's target range, before subsiding to 3.0 percent by year-end 2018.\nMexico's central bank raised its benchmark interest rate for the fifth time in a row on Thursday, taking borrowing costs to an eight-year high to anchor inflation expectations. But policymakers slowed the pace of hikes on the back of a rally in the peso.\nThe finance ministry projected the peso would end 2017 at 19 per dollar and 19.1 per dollar in 2018.\nIt sees a fiscal deficit of 2.4 of projected gross domestic product this year and a deficit of 2.0 percent for 2018.\nAfter running primary budget deficits since 2009, the government said it would post a primary surplus of 0.5 percent of GDP next year.\nTotal public sector borrowing requirements will amount to 2.5 percent of GDP in 2018, the finance ministry estimated, 0.4 percentage points lower than its 2017 level.\nMexico's central bank said on Wednesday it had transferred 321.7 billion pesos ($17 billion) of its 2016 surplus to the federal government, which will help the country pay down debt this year. (Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Veronica Gomez; Editing by Alistair Bell)", "MEXICO CITY, March 31 Mexico's finance ministry on Friday said it expects the economy to grow between 1.3-2.3 percent in 2017 and then rebound to an expansion of 2.0-3.0 percent in 2018.\nThe finance ministry said it saw annual inflation ending 2017 at 4.9 percent, above the central bank's target range, before subsiding to 3.0 percent by year-end 2018.\nIt projected a fiscal deficit of 2.4 of projected gross domestic product this year and a deficit of 2.0 percent for 2018. (Reporting by Anthony Esposito)", "Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. (Express file photo) Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. (Express file photo)\nMore social security measures such as hike in old age pension, widow pension and full implementation of maternity entitlement benefits were sought by leading economists in their pre-Budget meeting with finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday. Economists suggested that finance ministry officials continue following the fiscal consolidation path and clarify reasons if there is any shortfall.\nEconomists also suggested a cut in corporate tax rate to 20 per cent by removing all exemptions, levying long-term capital gains tax on equity, reduction in minimum alternate tax, and detailing the roadmap for GST including convergence of rates and extension of time for invoice matching, a finance ministry release said.\nJaitley said that despite subdued global economic growth, India’s growth remains impressive. Second quarter growth marks the reversal of the declining trend witnessed in the last few quarters, Jaitley was quoted by the release. Jaitley further said that Centre is targetting a fiscal deficit of 3.2 per cent for 2017-18.\nHe added that the government has been able to achieve these fiscal targets due to expenditure rationalisation, plugging of loopholes in public expenditure through Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme and the Public Financial Management System, and by making innovative revenue raising efforts, among others.\nNoted economist Jean Dreze said that Centre needs to raise the social security pension. “The amount (for social security pension) has been Rs 200 per month. This is totally unacceptable. There is no reason to keep it so low. So, make it at least Rs 500, I would say even Rs 1,000, if possible and increase the coverage,” he said.\nFormer Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Virmani said the government should carry out customs and exim duty reform as the sector has not seen reforms for 10 years. According to Rathin Roy, member Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, the government is expected to stick to fiscal deficit target. “I am sure they will. I said that we understand that there is a genuine commitment to maintain the fiscal deficit and revenue deficit targets. Operational constraints may vary but political commitment is there,” Roy said.\nEconomists also suggested sops for labour-intensive industries in the meeting, which was attended by top finance ministry officials, including finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, Expenditure Secretary A N Jha and Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar.\nEconomists also suggested more remunerative prices for farmers for their produce keeping in view the target to maintain inflation between 4-6 per cent. “Another suggestion was made to raise old age pension from existing Rs 200 to Rs 500 and widow pension from Rs 300 to minimum Rs 500. It was also suggested that Maternity Entitlement Benefits be fully implemented and be extended up to two children. Besides, the payment system for these Social Security Schemes also needs to be streamlined,” the release said.\nIn a separate meeting with the finance minister later in the day, representatives from the information technology sector asked for the government’s help at policy level to ensure combative visa restrictions issues so to ensure the sector’s economic interests considering some recent protectionist and discriminatory policies followed by other countries, another finance ministry release said.\nThe IT sector’s representatives also sought steps similar to last year’s Budget to promote indigenous manufacturing of electronic goods. More steps for rationalisation of the tariff structure with extension of differential excise duty dispensation to mobile handsets/ tablet computers and other specified electronic equipment, should be taken in the forthcoming budget for promoting broadband; access for easier fund for telecom; tax free bond for telecom sector; lowering of GST on telecom services to 12 per cent instead of 18 per cent; depreciation benefits for Make in India; excluding electronics sector from RCEP and increase in import duty on mobile handsets was also suggested by the IT sector’s representatives in the meeting, it said.\nFor all the latest Business News, download Indian Express App", "CAIRO, March 30 Egypt expects inflation to start easing by the end of the year, Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy said on Thursday.\n\"We expect the inflation rate to ease starting in November or December,\" he told a conference in Cairo. Inflation hit a 30-year high in February, including an over 40 percent increase year-on-year to prices of food and beverages. (Reporting by Ehab Farouk; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Lin Noueihed)", "ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar chaired a meeting here today to review the economic performance in the six months ended 31st December 2016.\nThe Finance Minister noted that GDP growth appears to be on upward trajectory and inflation was steady below 4 percent in December 2016 while average inflation during July-December 2016 was recorded at 3.88 percent, reflecting continued price stability.\nThe Finance Minister noted FBR’s performance at around 7 percent for the six month period ended in December 2016, reflecting catching up of the shortfall experienced in the initial months, largely on account of giving relief to consumers on petroleum prices together with sales tax refunds of Rs. 45 billions. On the expenditure side, the performance was on track as expenditure was allowed in a prudent manner in accordance with budget, and keeping in view the revenue growth.\nThe Finance Minister, while expressing satisfaction on recent economic performance, noted that economic activities are picking up, investments are taking place, particularly in CPEC-related projects which would further accelerate after the recent understanding with Chinese authorities.\nHe said that the scope of CPEC would further be expanded by including water security, Karachi Circular Railway, mass transit program for Baluchistan, projects for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and rehabilitation of Railways related project. He further remarked that going forward, Pakistan would experience rising growth and creation of more job opportunities.\nThe meeting was attended by the Finance Secretary and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance.", "(Adds core inflation)\nCAIRO, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Egypt’s inflation in November fell to a 2017 low a year after the country floated its pound currency as part of a $12 billion International Monetary Fund deal to boost the economy.\nInflation has shot up since the pound’s flotation last November, reaching a record high in July on the back of energy subsidy cuts, but has gradually eased since.\nAnnual urban consumer price inflation eased to 26 percent in November from 30.8 percent the previous month, official data showed on Sunday.\nCore inflation, which strips out volatile items such as food, fell to 25.53 percent from 30.53 percent.\nThe central bank has raised key interest rates by 700 basis points since the pound float, but economists see it cutting them in its monetary policy meeting later this month amid a continuing easing of post-float inflationary pressure.\nEgypt’s finance minister said on Sunday that he expected inflation to reach 20 percent by January and 13-14 percent by August. (Reporting by Arwa Gaballa; editing by Jason Neely)", "CAIRO, March 29 Egypt plans to raise exports to $34 billion from $19 billion by 2020, the Trade and Industry Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.\n\"The ministry has almost completed its strategy to double its exports and increase it from $19 billion to $34 billion by 2020 through implementing specific export plans and policies and targeting new export markets,\" the statement said. (Reporting by Asma Alsharif; Editing by Dominic Evans)", "(Adds quote, context)\nACCRA, April 13 Ghana's economy growth is due to pick up in 2017 and inflation is coming down, but the government's revenue projections for the year are \"optimistic\", International Monetary Fund mission chief Annalisa Fedelino said on Thursday.\nGhana is following a three-year IMF programme worth around $918 million that aims to stabilise government finances and restore rapid economic growth, which could enable the country to regain its position as one of Africa's most dynamic economies.\nFinance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta, whose party took office in January, announced in March that the government would step up revenue collection by 33 percent as part of a plan to reduce the budget deficit to 6.5 percent of GDP in 2017.\n\"In the mission's view revenue projections are optimistic,\" Fedelino said, adding that other economists had also expressed this view and that it was a preliminary assessment.\nOfori-Atta said that Ghana is committed to ending its programme with the IMF as scheduled in April 2018, rebuffing reports that the government would ask for an extension of the programme.\nOfori-Atta is charged with restoring macro-economic stability to enable the government to create jobs through the private sector and promote development in a country whose main exports are oil, gold and cocoa. (Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Nellie Peyton/Jeremy Gaunt)", "The Minister for Finance and Planning in the Government of Zanzibar, Dr Khalid Salum Mohammed, said the budget he tabled on Monday was of reforms and improving social services. The minister made the statement yesterday when he was winding up tabling the main budget of the Government of Zanzibar for the year 2017-2018.\nStart the conversation, or Read more at AllAfrica.com.", "Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley, MoS for Finance and Shipping P. Radhakrishnan, MoS for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla, along with the senior officials presented the General Budget to the President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on Thursday. | PTI\nNEW DELHI: Amending the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, as proposed in the Finance Bill 2018, will enable the government to incur higher-than-mandated borrowing and spending till the 2024 Lok Sabha election cycle.\nThe Finance Bill states the central government shall “take appropriate measures to limit the fiscal deficit to three per cent of gross domestic product by March 31, 2021”; “the general government debt does not exceed 60 per cent”; and, “the central government debt does not exceed 40 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of 2024-2025”. The changes also exempt the government from reporting revenue deficit. The Finance Bill proposes that the entire sentence related to revenue receipts and revenue expenditures be deleted.\nAccording to the FRBM Act, the Medium Term Fiscal Policy Statement released along with the Budget will include an assessment of sustainability related to the balance between revenue receipts and revenue expenditure and the use of capital receipts including market borrowings for generating productive assets.\nThe Act also states that the Macro-Economic Framework Statement, which is part of Budget documents, shall contain an assessment relating to the growth in GDP and the Union government’s fiscal balance. The\nFinance Bill also proposes that the word ‘fiscal balance’, which essentially means fiscal deficit, be omitted.\nThe Bill provides for “exceeding annual fiscal deficit target due to ground or grounds of national security, act of war, national calamity, collapse of agriculture severely affecting farm output and incomes, structural reforms in the economy with unanticipated fiscal implications, decline in real output growth of a quarter by at least three per cent”. Earlier, the FRBM Act had allowed such breach “due to ground or grounds of national security or national calamity or such other exceptional grounds as the central government may specify”. This will give enough time and spending room for the government, which according to experts will face a tough time, given the increased expenditure and low revenue.\nIn his Budget speech on Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had revised the fiscal deficit target for 2017-18 to 3.5 per cent of GDP from 3.2 per cent budgeted target. The government’s revenue deficit shot up to 2.6 per cent of GDP in 2017-18 from the Budget estimate of 1.9 per cent of GDP, showing signs of the deteriorating quality of fiscal consolidation.\nJaitley attributed the revenue collection slippage to two reasons — government receiving lower GST revenue for 11 months in 2017-18 (a shortfall of Rs 50,000 crore) and facing a shortfall in non-tax revenue due to lower receipts from spectrum auction. Rating agencies led by Crisil have raised concerns over the curtailed capital spending to cap fiscal deficit at 3.5 per cent for FY18, and warned that the higher target for the next fiscal will delay the fiscal consolidation process by three years. “It is the productive spending in the economy that has seen a compromise, making way for revenue spending,” Crisil said in a note.\nFor 2018-19, Jaitley set a target of 3.3 per cent adding that the Centre was adopting key recommendations of the report of a panel that had been tasked with revamping the FRBM Act.The FRBM panel, led by the 15th Finance Commission chairman N K Singh, had recommended a fiscal deficit target of 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product, revenue deficit of 0.8 per cent, a combined centre-state debt ceiling of 60 per cent, and a central debt ceiling of 40 per cent by 2022-23, the end point of its six-year medium term fiscal roadmap. The panel had also recommended a fiscal deficit of 3 per cent for 2018-19.", "DJIBOUTI, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Djibouti’s economy is expected to expand by 7 percent in 2018 up from an estimated 6.5 percent this year and government spending should also rise slightly in a budget focused on healthcare, a senior official said.\nLocated at the southern entrance to the Red Sea on the route to the Suez Canal, Djibouti has been seeking to expand its role as a transhipment hub and export route for its landlocked neighbour Ethiopia.\nIt is also has U.S. and French, Chinese and Japanese bases.\n“The outlook for growth expected in 2018 is 7 percent, driven by direct investment and the transport, telecommunications, retail services and buildings sectors,” said Moumin Ahmed Cheikh, Justice minister and government spokesman.\nHe was speaking after the Council of Ministers approved the budget for fiscal year 2018, which is up 5 percent to 126 billion francs ($712.55 million) compared with the 2017 budget.\n“The 2018 budget execution focuses on sustainable poverty reduction and social development, consolidation of the health system, improvement of the education system to best adapt it to the labour market and housing,” he said.\nThe budget also includes measures aimed at streamlining the tax systems and revision of import licences, Cheikh added.\nDjibouti is expanding its port facilities to handle more bulk commodities, containers and other goods. It is also building two new airports to handle more tourists and cargo.\nThis year it opened three out of four ports aimed at boosting its position as a trading hub.\n“The 2018 budget aims at continuing the infrastructure investment program, such as the exploitation of natural fishery resources, mineral resources, tourism and the development of renewable energy,” Cheikh said. ($1 = 176.8300 Djibouti francs) (Reporting by Abdourahim Arteh; Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)", "(Removes headline tag)\nBy Duncan Miriri\nNAIROBI, April 12 The World Bank cut Kenya's economic growth forecast for this year by half a percentage point on Wednesday to 5.5 percent, citing drought, sluggish private sector credit growth and rising prices of oil.\nThe country is estimated to have expanded by 5.9 percent last year, the highest annual expansion in half a decade.\nBut the outlook has been hit by months of dry weather, that left 2.7 million people in need of food aid, and a drop in annual private sector credit growth to 4 percent in February from 17 percent at the end of 2015.\nIn its latest report on the Kenyan economy, the World Bank said growth would pick up after this year, driven by the expected normalisation of rainfall, a firmer global economy, a rebound in tourism and the resolution of challenges curbing credit growth.\n\"GDP growth is expected to accelerate to 5.8 percent and 6.1 percent in 2018 and 2019 respectively,\" the Bank said.\nThe main risks facing the economy were the weather and any slowdown in economies of major trading partners, the bank said.\nIt urged the government to stick to its fiscal consolidation path and to review last year's changes to the banking law, which capped commercial lending rates at 4 percentage points above the central bank rate.\nHenry Rotich, the finance minister, set the deficit for the fiscal year starting in July at 6 percent of economic output and promised to reduce it further towards 4 percent in the 2019/20 fiscal year.\nThe budget deficits, which have driven up borrowing, have been used to fund a range of public investments in roads, railways and energy generation, the government says.\nThe cap on commercial lending rates, which was imposed last September, has been partly blamed for the slowdown in credit growth.\nThe World Bank said Kenya can quicken economic growth by boosting its construction sector, through offering innovative housing financing through the creation of mortgage refinance companies and the provision of housing finance guarantees.\nThere were less than 25,000 mortgages in Kenya and mortgage debt made up just 3.15 percent of the GDP in 2015, the bank said.\n\"Unlocking the residential housing market through the development of the housing finance market can provide a wide range of income opportunities,\" the bank said. (Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)", "(Adds comments by IMF official)\nBy Duncan Miriri and George Obulutsa\nNAIROBI, March 30 Kenya's Finance Minister Henry Rotich said on Thursday he expected steady economic growth for this year as he presented the country's last budget before a national election in August.\nGrowth is expected to be 5.9 percent in 2017, the same rate of expansion in the first three quarters of last year, he said.\n\"But growth could be lower if the ongoing drought persists and the slowdown in private sector credit is not reversed,\" Rotich warned.\nEast Africa has been suffering from severe drought and aid groups say 2.7 million Kenyans need food aid.\nRotich set the fiscal deficit at 524.6 billion shillings ($5.10 billion) or 6 percent of the gross domestic product, down from 9 percent in the current fiscal year. He pledged to lower it further to 4 percent of GDP in the 2019/20 fiscal year.\n\"The plans for fiscal consolidation are the most positive of this budget,\" said Armando Morales, the IMF's resident representative in Kenya.\nHe however cautioned that the minister's revenue projection could be a little too optimistic. The minister projected a 13 percent increase in revenue.\n\"It will be difficult to grow the revenue but we need to go through the details,\" Morales told Reuters.\nRotich has set aside billions of shillings for infrastructure including railways and new roads, and increased welfare payments for senior citizens.\n\"The net external financing will amount to 256 billion or 2.9 percent of GDP and will be mainly on concessional terms,\" Rotich told lawmakers.\nThe balance, 268.6 billion shillings or 3.1 percent of GDP, will be borrowed from the local market, he said.\nThe government is investigating the effects of a controversial cap on interest rates, which bankers say have frozen smaller lenders out of the market as banks invest in low-risk government bonds, the minister said.\nAfter the government tightened banking regulations and introduced the cap, the growth of private sector credit slowed down to 4.5 percent last December, from 17 percent a year earlier, stoking concerns about the potential impact on growth.\nThe government would freeze in-house recruitment except for a few sectors, part of a promise to tackle the country's ballooning wage bill, Rotich said in the budget.\nPresident Uhuru Kenyatta, who is up for re-election in August's parliamentary and presidential vote, has promised to slash politicians' pay packages, which are among the highest in the world.\nHe has also dismissed opposition criticism of government borrowing, saying the money is funding an ambitious development agenda. ($1 = 102.8500 Kenyan shillings) (Additional reporting by John Ndiso; Editing by Katharine Houreld and Vin Shahrestani)", "The 50-share NSE Nifty, which started on a buoyant note on Monday, reclaimed the 10,300 level in the opening tick but failed to build on the momentum, witnessing wild swings on either side.\nThe Nifty50, which opened at 10,310.50, rose to an intraday high of 10,329, which made a small upper shadow, but bears quickly took control and pushed the index towards 10,282, which made a long lower shadow on the daily charts.\nThe bulls took control and pulled the index back above 10,300 towards the closing trade. The Nifty50 finally ended 56 points higher at 10,322 on Monday.\nAlso Read - Trade setup for Tuesday: Top 10 things you should know before Opening Bell\nStay tuned to Moneycontrol to find out what happens in currency and equity markets today. We have collated a list of important headlines from across news agencies:\nUS markets close higher\nUS stocks closed higher on Monday as investors prepared for an expected Federal Reserve rate hike later in the week, while stocks rose around the world on continued solid global economic growth indicators.\nThe Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 56.87 points, or 0.23 percent, to 24,386.03, the S&P 500 gained 8.49 points, or 0.32 percent, to 2,659.99 and the Nasdaq Composite added 35.00 points, or 0.51 percent, to 6,875.08, Reuters reported.\nSGX Nifty\nThe Nifty50 futures on the Singapore Stock Exchange were trading 6 points lower at 10340 indicating a flat opening for the domestic market.\nAsian markets trade in green\nAsian shares were trying to string together a fourth session of gains on Tuesday as optimism about global growth looked set to outlast an almost certain hike in US borrowing costs this week, Reuters reported.\n'Amateur' bomber targets New York commuters: Reuters\nA Bangladeshi man set off a homemade pipe bomb strapped to his body in a crowded New York City commuter hub during the morning rush hour on Monday, officials said, immediately calling it an attempted terrorist attack.\nIndia November inflation likely exceeded RBI's 4 percent target\nIndia’s retail inflation likely breached the central bank’s 4.0 percent medium-term target in November after unseasonably heavy rains sent food prices soaring, a Reuters poll showed.\nWith Budget around the corner, FM meets top economists & PMEAC members\nFinance Minister Arun Jaitley has held a meeting with top economists and members of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC), who advised him to consider levying long-term capital gains tax on stocks, reports CNBC TV-18.\nCapital gain is the profit gained through the sale of an investment. It is considered long term if the asset is in possession for a year or more. If long-term capital gains tax (LTCG) is levied on stocks, then the shareowner will have to pay a part of his profit gained from the share-sale to the government.\nBitcoin futures suggest breakneck rise in price to slow\nNewly launched bitcoin futures on Monday suggested that traders expect the cryptocurrency’s blistering price gains to slow in the coming months, even as it blasted above $17,000 to a fresh record high in the spot market, Reuters reported.\nUnion Budget 2018: Economists urge Arun Jaitley to slash corporate tax\nEconomists on Monday urged finance minister Arun Jaitley to cut the corporate tax rate to make Indian industry globally competitive, and give incentives to infrastructure and small businesses without compromising on the government’s fiscal consolidation road map, Mint Reported.\nRupee revisits 1 week high, up 8 paise ahead of key macro data\nRising for the second straight session, the rupee on Monday strengthened by 8 paise to end at a fresh one-week high of 64.37 a dollar on sustained selling of the US currency ahead of key macroeconomic data, PTI reported.\nOil gains by about 2% on Forties Pipeline shutdown, New York blast\nOil prices rose on Monday, overcoming declines early in the session, after a North Sea pipeline shut for repairs and investors focused on commodities following an explosion in New York, Reuters reported.", "JOHANNESBURG, April 12 South Africa's new Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba said on Wednesday treasury is committed to fiscal consolidation plans outlined in the 2017 budget after S&P and Fitch downgraded the country to sub-investment grade.\nSpeaking to local investors at the Development Bank of South Africa, Gigaba said the Treasury aims to stabilise the government's net debt over the next three years at 50 percent of gross domestic production (GDP).\nLast week Fitch downgraded South Africa's foreign and local currency debt to speculative grade, while S&P Global Ratings cut the hard currency borrowing to \"junk\". Both cited likely changes in economic policy after a cabinet reshuffle. (Reporting by Mfuneko Toyana; Writing by Nqobile Dludla; Editing by James Macharia)" ]

[ "By Anisha Sheth and Shrutee Sarkar\nBENGALURU, May 31 (Reuters) - India's central bank will hike rates in August on concerns that already above-target inflation will climb further, according to economists in a Reuters poll, in contrast to a survey just a month ago which saw an increase only in the second half of 2019.\nThat dramatic shift in expectations was driven by India's annual consumer price inflation accelerating in April to 4.58 percent, above the Reserve Bank of India's target of 4 percent for the sixth month in a row, after easing in each of the three previous months.\nThe May 24-30 poll of nearly 60 economists showed the RBI will hike its repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25 percent in August.\nWhile the median suggests the central bank will keep rates on hold when it meets on June 6, about 40 percent of the economists polled expected a hike next week.\n\"As global market turmoil takes its toll, we are changing our RBI policy rate call from an extended pause to a 25 basis point hike at the August meeting,\" said Kunal Kundu, India economist at Societe Generale.\n\"The RBI may announce a change in policy stance during the June meeting and follow that up with a hike in August.\"\nKundu said that while RBI's inflation expectation has been \"erring on the side of hawkishness, with actual inflation mostly relatively underwhelming, the latest inflation data, though not too high, raise the prospect of a rate hike.\"\nThe inflation rate increased due to higher domestic food costs and crude oil prices, which hit $80.50 a barrel on May 17, their highest since November 2014.\nWith India importing 80 percent of its fuel needs and government spending increasing before national elections next year - which will likely add to price pressures - expectations have firmed for the RBI to move away from a neutral stance next week.\nOut of 42 economists who answered an extra question, 24 said they expect the central bank to change its monetary policy stance to a tightening bias in June. More than 35 percent anticipated that in August.\nJust last month, a majority said the RBI would turn hawkish by December.\nCurrently, the RBI estimates consumer inflation of 4.7-5.1 percent in April-September before dipping to 4.4 percent for the remainder of this fiscal year.\nA total of 19 out of 31 economists who answered another question said the RBI would revise inflation projections up. Eleven said it would be unchanged and one said it would be revised down.\n\"The RBI cut its inflation forecasts based on the weakness of observed inflation the first couple of months of the year, so it was not premature to cut the forecasts,\" said Shilan Shah, senior India economist at Capital Economics.\n\"It did note some upside risks to the inflation outlook, some of which have come to fruition. So it is likely that forecasts will now be revised up.\"\nThe first three months of 2018 likely saw the fastest economic expansion since July-September 2016. Data for the latest quarter will be announced later on Thursday.\nMore than 80 percent of the 30 economists who answered an extra question said the RBI would keep its growth projections for 2018/19 unchanged. Two predicted an upgrade and three said it would be revised lower. (Polling by Khushboo Mittal and Sarmista Sen; Editing by Richard Borsuk)" ]

[ "Analyst: Yellen and colleagues have a 'slightly more hawkish tone'\nContinue Reading Below\nU.S. stock futures on Thursday pointed to a drop at the open, after the Federal Reserve took a more hawkish tone than expected, as it sounded determined about normalizing monetary policy.\nS&P 500 futures fell by 13.05 points, or 0.5%, to 2,422.25, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures gave up 77 points, or 0.4%, to 21,250.00.\nFutures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 were under particular pressure, dropping by 69.75 points, or 1.2%, to 5,663.00. Technology stocks have seen heavy selling since last Friday, in the wake of big gains that have led to worries they've become too pricey.\nOn Wednesday afternoon, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and her colleagues raised a key U.S. interest rate (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/fed-raises-rates-and-sets-plan-to-shrink-balance-sheet-this-year-2017-06-14) and laid out a plan to shrink the central bank's massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet starting this year. The pair of moves reflect the Fed's view that a U.S. economic expansion now entering its ninth year no longer needs as much propping up.\nRead:Inflation is right around the corner, Yellen insists (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/inflation-is-right-around-the-corner-yellen-insists-2017-06-14)\nContinue Reading Below ADVERTISEMENT\nThe rate hike was fully expected, but \"what wasn't expected was the slightly more hawkish tone to the Fed statement,\" said Kathleen Brooks, research director at City Index, in a note on Thursday.\n\"The Fed didn't mention anything about the delay to Washington's expected fiscal stimulus, which suggests that the Fed seems happy to push ahead with monetary policy normalization regardless of what the Trump administration is doing.\"\nSee:Yellen says she's 'sympathetic' to Trump's deregulation plan (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/yellen-says-shes-sympathetic-to-trumps-deregulation-plan-2017-06-14)\nOn Wednesday in the wake of the Fed's moves, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both ended modestly lower, while the Dow finished with gains, scoring a fresh record close (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-futures-inch-higher-as-traders-wait-for-feds-signals-2017-06-14).\nOther markets:Oil futures (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-prices-hover-near-7-month-as-alarm-bells-go-off-over-us-supply-2017-06-15) remained under pressure following sharp declines in the prior session, weighed down by data showing that the market remains awash in surplus oil. European stocks lost ground, while Asian markets closed with losses (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/asia-pacific-markets-slide-after-fed-rate-hike-2017-06-14). A key dollar index traded higher, as gold futures slumped.\nIndividual movers: Shares in Kroger Co.(KR) are likely to see active trading, as the supermarket operator is among the companies due to post earnings before the open. See the Kroger earnings preview (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/kroger-earnings-walmart-aldi-and-lidl-arent-a-problem-but-same-store-sales-are-2017-06-14).\nEconomic news: Four notable economic releases are slated to hit at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. These cover weekly jobless claims, May import prices, New York's June manufacturing activity and the Philadelphia area's June business conditions. Economists polled by MarketWatch anticipate a headline number of 244,000 for the jobless claims report.\nCheck out:\nA May reading on industrial production is due at 9:15 a.m. Eastern, with 0.1% growth expected, followed at 10 a.m. by a June figure for a home builders' index.\n(END) Dow Jones Newswires\nJune 15, 2017 05:22 ET (09:22 GMT)", "NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The Reserve Bank of India is not in talks with the government to conduct open market purchases of government bonds, a source familiar with the central bank’s thinking said, denying a media report that the central bank might consider such steps to boost the debt market.\nFinancial news provider Newsrise cited a senior finance ministry official as saying that the RBI might buy bonds through open market operations and in secondary markets to support New Delhi’s borrowing programme.\nBut a source familiar with the RBI’s thinking said there were no current talks with the government about bond purchases.\nThe source also said no decision had been taken to increase the foreign investment limit in debt. NewsRise had separately reported the government and the RBI were in talks to raise the limit for foreign investment in sovereign debt, citing an interview with Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg.\nBonds fell, sending yields higher, after the Reuters report, in a day of whipsaw trading.\nThe benchmark 10-year bond yield had earlier risen as much as 8 basis points to 7.60 percent, before falling to as low as 7.49 percent after the NewsRise reports. The yield was last trading at 7.55 percent.\nA finance ministry official declined to comment.\nThe rupee also trimmed its gains to trade at 64.05/06 to the dollar after touching a high of 63.72 earlier in the day.\nBond investors are on edge ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s policy review on Feb. 6-7 amid worries about whether the central bank would become more hawkish on inflation after the 2018/19 budget presented on Thursday raised spending for agriculture and lifted minimum support prices for crops.\nIndia’s bond market has slumped in recent months, with bond yields having risen as much as 117 points since the end of June due to concerns about rising inflation, tightening liquidity and worries about the government’s fiscal deficit.\nInvestors now fear sentiment could weaken even further after India on Thursday widened its fiscal deficit target for the year starting in April to 3.3 percent of gross domestic product from its previously mentioned projection of 3.0 percent.\nThe falls and a budget that disappointed are leading to hopes the RBI or the government could take steps to support markets, especially as state-run lenders, the biggest bond investors, have significantly pared debt purchases because of likely hefty mark-to-market losses in their portfolios.\nAny move towards bond purchases would be especially welcome after recent comments from Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warning about the potential losses being suffered by state-run banks in government debt, which markets interpreted as signalling to state banks to pare bond holdings.\nA foreign bank trader said that if the central banks buys debt, it would be “great news” for markets.\n($1 = 63.75 rupees)", "U.S. stock futures on Thursday pointed to a drop at the open, after the Federal Reserve took a more hawkish tone than expected, as it sounded determined about normalizing monetary policy.\nS&P 500 futures ESU7, -0.61% fell by 15.80 points, or 0.7%, to 2,419.50, while Dow Jones Industrial Average futures YMU7, -0.38% gave up 89 points, or 0.4%, to 21,238.00.\nFutures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq-100 NQU7, -1.12% were under particular pressure, dropping by 64.75 points, or 1.1%, to 5,668.00. Technology stocks have seen heavy selling since last Friday, in the wake of big gains that have led to worries they’ve become too pricey.\nOn Wednesday afternoon, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and her colleagues raised a key U.S. interest rate and laid out a plan to shrink the central bank’s massive $4.5 trillion balance sheet starting this year. The pair of moves reflect the Fed’s view that a U.S. economic expansion now entering its ninth year no longer needs as much propping up.\nRead: Inflation is right around the corner, Yellen insists\nThe rate hike was fully expected, but “what wasn’t expected was the slightly more hawkish tone to the Fed statement,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at City Index, in a note on Thursday.\n“The Fed didn’t mention anything about the delay to Washington’s expected fiscal stimulus, which suggests that the Fed seems happy to push ahead with monetary policy normalization regardless of what the Trump administration is doing.”\nSee: Yellen says she’s ‘sympathetic’ to Trump’s deregulation plan\nOn Wednesday in the wake of the Fed’s moves, the S&P 500 SPX, -0.10% and Nasdaq Composite both ended modestly lower, while the Dow DJIA, +0.22% finished with gains, scoring a fresh record close.\nOther markets: Oil futures CLN7, -0.38% remained under pressure following sharp declines in the prior session, weighed down by data showing that the market remains awash in surplus oil. European stocks SXXP, -0.64% lost ground, while Asian markets closed with losses. A key dollar index DXY, +0.38% traded higher, as gold futures GCQ7, -1.25% slumped.\nIndividual movers: Shares in Kroger Co. KR, -0.13% are likely to see active trading, as the supermarket operator is among the companies due to post earnings before the open. See the Kroger earnings preview.\nEconomic news: Four notable economic releases are slated to hit at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. These cover weekly jobless claims, May import prices, New York’s June manufacturing activity and the Philadelphia area’s June business conditions. Economists polled by MarketWatch anticipate a headline number of 244,000 for the jobless claims report.\nCheck out: MarketWatch’s Economic Calendar\nA May reading on industrial production is due at 9:15 a.m. Eastern, with 0.1% growth expected, followed at 10 a.m. by a June figure for a home builders’ index.", "* NewsRise reported RBI might conduct debt purchases\n* Investors on edge as bonds slump; would welcome purchases (Updates to add source comments denying talks between RBI and govt)\nBy Suvashree Choudhury\nNEW DELHI, Feb 2 (Reuters) - The Reserve Bank of India is not in talks with the government to conduct open market purchases of government bonds, a source familiar with the central bank’s thinking said, denying a media report that the central bank might consider such steps to boost the debt market.\nFinancial news provider Newsrise cited a senior finance ministry official as saying that the RBI might buy bonds through open market operations and in secondary markets to support New Delhi’s borrowing programme.\nBut a source familiar with the RBI’s thinking said there were no current talks with the government about bond purchases.\nThe source also said no decision had been taken to increase the foreign investment limit in debt. NewsRise had separately reported the government and the RBI were in talks to raise the limit for foreign investment in sovereign debt, citing an interview with Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg.\nBonds fell, sending yields higher, after the Reuters report, in a day of whipsaw trading.\nThe benchmark 10-year bond yield had earlier risen as much as 8 basis points to 7.60 percent, before falling to as low as 7.49 percent after the NewsRise reports. The yield was last trading at 7.55 percent.\nA finance ministry official declined to comment.\nThe rupee also trimmed its gains to trade at 64.05/06 to the dollar after touching a high of 63.72 earlier in the day.\nBond investors are on edge ahead of the Reserve Bank of India’s policy review on Feb. 6-7 amid worries about whether the central bank would become more hawkish on inflation after the 2018/19 budget presented on Thursday raised spending for agriculture and lifted minimum support prices for crops.\nIndia’s bond market has slumped in recent months, with bond yields having risen as much as 117 points since the end of June due to concerns about rising inflation, tightening liquidity and worries about the government’s fiscal deficit.\nInvestors now fear sentiment could weaken even further after India on Thursday widened its fiscal deficit target for the year starting in April to 3.3 percent of gross domestic product from its previously mentioned projection of 3.0 percent.\nThe falls and a budget that disappointed are leading to hopes the RBI or the government could take steps to support markets, especially as state-run lenders, the biggest bond investors, have significantly pared debt purchases because of likely hefty mark-to-market losses in their portfolios.\nAny move towards bond purchases would be especially welcome after recent comments from Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warning about the potential losses being suffered by state-run banks in government debt, which markets interpreted as signalling to state banks to pare bond holdings.\nA foreign bank trader said that if the central banks buys debt, it would be “great news” for markets. ($1 = 63.75 rupees) (Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury; Editing by Nick Macfie)", "India's retail likely breached the central bank's 4.0 per cent medium-term target in November after unseasonably heavy sent soaring, a Reuters poll showed.\nIn the poll of more than 30 economists, annual consumer inflation, due to be released on Dec. 12 at 1200 GMT, was seen surging to a 13-month high of 4.20 per cent in November from October's 3.58 per cent.\nThe higher rate is unlikely to push the (RBI) to change its key rate anytime soon, economists in the poll said.\nNovember's heavy \"created lots of damage\" for perishable fruit and vegetable crops, said Rupa Rege Nitsure, group chief economist at \"We have seen that translated into price rises for onions, tomatoes and other perishable commodities\".\nIncreased house rent allowances for government employees and rising crude added to inflationary pressures alongside higher raw material costs due to the Goods and Services (GST) rollout, she said.\nWholesale prices are expected to have risen 3.78 per cent last month from a year earlier, compared to a 3.59 per cent rise in October.\nNeutral stance\nAt its December 6 policy meeting, the central bank raised its projection by 10 basis points to between 4.3 and 4.7 per cent for the six months ending in March. It kept steady and stressed a neutral policy stance.\nThe cut rates by 200 basis points from January 2015 until August this year while food and energy prices were down. It is likely to keep them unchanged through the end of 2018, according to a separate Reuters poll.\n\" will remain stable for some time before they (the RBI) start hiking them because industrial growth is still weak,\" Nitsure said. \"Recovery is happening in a few sectors but it has not spread to all sectors and private investment sentiment also remains low.\"\nIndustrial output growth eased to 3.0 per cent in October from September's 3.8 per cent, as demand continued to suffer from the disruption caused by the new national sales as well as last year's currency clampdown that wiped out over 85 per cent of the cash in circulation.\nBut halting a five-quarter slide, India's economic growth rebounded in the three months ending in September with businesses starting to overcome troubles from the implementation of the new\n\"We still have some output gap but it's not as bad as it used to be a couple of quarters back. It will not make any sense for the to just react to the (inflation) number. They also have to look at other factors,\" said Arun Singh, lead economist at Dun & Bradstreet India in Mumbai.\nThe poll also showed India's likely narrowed to $13.75 billion last month from October's near three-year high of $14.02 billion.", "AIADMK Legislature party leader Edappadi K.Palanisamy met Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao at Raj Bhavan today. (Source: ANI Photo) AIADMK Legislature party leader Edappadi K.Palanisamy met Tamil Nadu Governor C Vidyasagar Rao at Raj Bhavan today. (Source: ANI Photo)\nSasikala’s chosen one goes to Raj Bhavan, Tamil Nadu Governor gets trust vote advice\nTamil Nadu political crisis took another turn on Tuesday after AIADMK General Secretary V K Sasikala approved the choice of AIADMK MLAs to appoint PWD minister Edappadi K Palanisamy as leader of the legislature party. Palanisamy met Governor C Vidyasagar Rao with some senior leaders and ministers, presented a list of MLAs and staked his claim to form the government. Click here to read more.\nISRO attempts to launch 104 satellites: How important is this ton?\nThe PSLV-C37 will inject into orbit 104 satellites from 7 countries, nearly 3 times the highest number flown by a single mission currently. A ‘flock’ of 88 will get to work to map every inch of the planet in super high resolution, creating images of limitless potential. The rocket is carrying almost 3 times the record number of satellites launched in a single mission — Russia’s Dnepr rocket carried 37 payloads in June 2014. Click here to read more.\nISRO satellite launch LIVE updates: India aims to raise bar, put record 104 satellites into orbit\nUP elections 2017: Polling begins in 67 Uttar Pradesh constituencies\nVoting is currently underway in 67 constituencies of western Uttar Pradesh figuring in the second of the seven-phase assembly elections in the state on Wednesday. A total of 720 candidates are in the fray as voting will be held across 11 districts – Saharanpur, Bijnor, Moradabad, Sambhal, Rampur, Bareilly, Amroha, Pilibhit, Kheri, Shahjahanpur and Badaun. Click here to read more.\nUttarakhand elections 2017: Voting underway in 69 of 70 seats barring Karnaprayag\nOver 74 lakh voters will decide the fate of 628 candidates as 69 of a total of 70 assembly seats will go to polls in the single phase assembly elections in Uttarakhand on Wednesday. The polling to Karnaprayag constituency of the state was adjourned due to the death of BSP candidate Kuldeep Singh Kanwasi and it will now be held on March 9. Click here to read more.\nMajor among four Armymen killed in two encounters in Kashmir Valley\nFour Army personnel, including a Major, and four militants were killed in two separate encounters in the Hajin and Kralgund Handwara areas of North Kashmir on Tuesday, according to government and security officials. Officials identified the officer, who succumbed to injuries suffered in Kralgund, as Major S Dahiya. “Further details of the officer will be intimated later,” said an Army spokesman. Click here to read more.\n© The Indian Express Online Media Pvt Ltd", "April 12 Canada's main stock index was set for a slightly lower start on Wednesday as investors awaited the Bank of Canada's interest rate decision.\nThe central bank is widely expected to hold rates at 0.50 percent, where they have stayed since the bank cut twice in 2015.\nJune futures on the S&P TSX index were down 0.12 percent at 7:15 a.m. ET.\nThe interest rate decision, which is due at 10:00 a.m. ET, will be followed by Governor Stephen Poloz's press conference.\nLater in the day, Poloz and Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins will testify before a House of Commons committee on finance.\nThe Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index ended barely lower on Tuesday as financial stocks weighed, while a flight to safety helped gold miners and shares of Bombardier Inc jumped on reports it was discussing a merger of rail operations with Siemens.\nDow Jones Industrial Average e-mini futures were down 0.02 percent at 7:15 a.m. ET, while S&P 500 e-mini futures were down 0.07 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-mini futures were down 0.05 percent.\n(Morning News Call newsletter here ; The Day Ahead newsletter here)\nTOP STORIES\nShaw Communications reported a 13.3 percent rise in quarterly revenue, driven by the addition of more wireless customers.\nPrivate equity firm Waterous Energy Fund is seeking investment opportunities in the Canadian oil and gas sector as valuations turn attractive after a prolonged slump in the oil price, making a contrarian bet as global players pull back, its top executive said.\nANALYST RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS\nCapstone Mining Corp: TD Securities raises rating to \"buy\" from \"hold\"\nTFI International Inc: National Bank Financial cuts target price to C$37 from C$40\nCOMMODITIES AT 7:15 a.m. ET\nGold futures: $1272.6; +0.11 percent\nUS crude: $53.63; +0.43 percent\nBrent crude: $56.51; +0.5 percent\nLME 3-month copper: $5701; -1.14 percent\nU.S. ECONOMIC DATA DUE ON WEDNESDAY\n08:30 Import prices mm for Mar: Expected -0.2 pct; Prior 0.2 pct\n08:30 Export prices mm for Mar: Expected 0.1 pct; Prior 0.3 pct\n11:00 TR IPSOS PCSI for Apr: Prior 58.84\n14:00 Federal budget for Mar: Expected -$167.0 bln; Prior -$192.0 bln\nFOR CANADIAN MARKETS NEWS, CLICK ON CODES:\nTSX market report\nCanadian dollar and bonds report\nReuters global stocks poll for Canada\nCanadian markets directory ($1= C$1.33) (Reporting by Nikhil Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)", "April 6 Stock futures pointed to a higher opening for Canada's main stock index on Thursday as oil prices recovered from losses triggered by record high U.S. crude inventories.\nJune futures on the S&P TSX index were up 0.22 percent at 7:15 a.m. ET.\nStatistics Canada is scheduled to release building permits data for February at 8:30 a.m. ET.\nCanada's main stock index edged lower on Wednesday, retreating from a nearly six-week high as financial shares declined and the energy sector gave up an earlier advance, although overall losses were tempered by gains in consumer-related stocks.\nDow Jones Industrial Average e-mini futures were up 0.1 percent at 7:15 a.m. ET, while S&P 500 e-mini futures were up 0.09 percent and Nasdaq 100 e-mini futures were up 0.09 percent.\n(Morning News Call newsletter here ; The Day Ahead newsletter here)\nTOP STORIES\nRoyal Bank of Canada, JPMorgan and Bank of Montreal took the top three positions advising on Canadian equity issues in the first quarter, according to Thomson Reuters data released on Thursday.\nCanadian media company Corus Entertainment Inc reported an 86 percent rise in quarterly revenue, helped by higher income from its television business.\nChina's Shandong Gold Mining Co Ltd will pay $960 million for a 50 percent stake in Barrick Gold Corp's Veladero gold mine in Argentina, the Canadian miner said in a press release.\nANALYST RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS\nCascades Inc: National Bank Financial raises target price to C$16 from C$13.50\nHudson's Bay Co: CIBC raises price target to C$14 from C$12.50\nIntact Financial: KBW starts coverage with \"market perform\" rating; C$101 price target\nCOMMODITIES AT 7:15 a.m. ET\nGold futures: $1252.9; +0.6 percent\nUS crude: $51.5; +0.68 percent\nBrent crude: $54.81; +0.83 percent\nLME 3-month copper: $5911; +0.27 percent\nU.S. ECONOMIC DATA DUE ON THURSDAY\n08:30 Initial jobless claims: Expected 250,000; Prior 258,000\n08:30 Jobless claims 4-week average: Prior 254,250\n08:30 Continued jobless claims: Expected 2.040 mln; Prior 2.052 mln\nFOR CANADIAN MARKETS NEWS, CLICK ON CODES:\nTSX market report\nCanadian dollar and bonds report\nReuters global stocks poll for Canada\nCanadian markets directory ($1= C$1.34) (Reporting by Nikhil Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)", "While introduction of GST promised predictability and stability by replacing about a dozen federal and state levies to make India a single market, there’s room for improvement.\nIndia needs the GST revenue to keep its budget deficit in check as Modi prepares to ramp up spending on welfare programmes from health to farming before general elections next year\nOne year after India introduced a consumption tax, the results have been mixed.\nHailed as one of the biggest reforms by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the goods-and-services levy has helped increase tax collections in a country where compliance is historically low.\nWhile monthly receipts have picked up after a chaotic rollout, they are still not strong enough to meet the government’s annual tax target.\nGST brought in an average 975.4 billion rupees ($14.2 billion) a month in revenue, government data reported in the three months to June show, compared with a target of nearly 1.1 trillion rupees.\nIndia needs the revenue to keep its budget deficit in check as Modi prepares to ramp up spending on welfare programmes from health to farming before general elections next year. The government has already widened its deficit goal for the current fiscal year to 3.3 percent of gross domestic product from 3 percent, putting pressure on bond yields.\nThe budget gap may reach 3.5 percent of GDP this year as GST revenue trails, Suvodeep Rakshit and Upasna Bhardwaj, analysts at Mumbai-based Kotak Mahindra Bank, said in a note on Monday.\nBut there may be signs of improvement. Nomura Holdings Inc. analysts say the introduction of electronic bills for transporting goods between states has led to a rise in GST collections, giving them confidence that the budget targets will be met. Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said on Sunday tax collections are expected to pick up during the rest of the year and the government will likely raise 13 billion rupees from GST.\nTax-to-GDP ratio touched its highest level of 11.6 percent last fiscal year, according to a report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt., a Mumbai-based business information company. This is seen rising further to 12.1 percent this year.\n“Collections are definitely improving,” said Pratik Jain, partner and national leader for indirect tax at PwC India. “That said, it is still lower than the budget for 2018-19.”\nElection Goodies\nIntroduction of the tax last year -- with four different rates instead of the single rate adopted in countries including the U.K. and Singapore -- led to uncertainties because of an onerous reporting system and frequent policy changes, disrupting supply chains and in turn consumption, which acted as a drag on economic growth. Overcoming those teething problems may help lift tax collections.\n“There are often teething troubles seen when a reform of this magnitude is carried out, but these issues were not only identified but also addressed in real time,” Modi said in an interview to Swarajya magazine.\nBut the upcoming elections pose a different threat. The number of goods and services attracting the highest rate of GST were pruned before state elections last year, and with polls due in some more states this year and for parliament in early 2019, more such tweaks can’t be ruled out. That may hurt revenue.\nThe government could move certain items currently attracting 28 percent GST to the 18 percent group, MS Mani, a partner overseeing GST at Deloitte India said, referring to the different tax rates, also known as slabs. The government could also merge other categories in a couple of years.\nWhile introduction of GST promised predictability and stability by replacing about a dozen federal and state levies to make India a single market, there’s room for improvement.\n“India is little far away for moving to a single rate slab for GST compared to advanced economies such as Singapore and Australia,” Mani said. “Indian conditions are diverse and it is home to poorest of poor and richest of richest making it difficult for a single rate slab in the near future.”\nFor all the latest business news from the UAE and Gulf countries, follow us on Twitter and Linkedin , like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube page, which is updated daily.", "NEW YORK The Federal Reserve could begin shrinking its $4.5-trillion balance sheet as soon as this year, earlier than most economists expect, New York Fed President William Dudley said on Friday in the central bank's most definitive comments on the question that looms over financial markets.\nThe hawkish-sounding assertion temporarily pushed the dollar lower and raised yields on longer-dated bonds, and added Dudley's influential voice to at least three other officials at the Fed eyeing a prompt end to a crisis-era policy.\n\"It wouldn't surprise me if some time later this year or some time in 2018, should the economy perform in line with our expectations, that we will start to gradually let the securities mature rather than reinvesting them,\" Dudley, a close ally of Fed Chair Janet Yellen, said on Bloomberg TV.\nA couple hours later James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, repeated his preference for the central bank to begin shedding its mortgage- and Treasury-backed bonds immediately.\nEconomists polled by Reuters and by the Fed itself generally expect the process to start some time next year, a move anticipated to raise market yields as the world's largest holder of U.S. government debt edges back from the market.\nThe Fed amassed the record amount of assets in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis and recession in three rounds of \"quantitative easing\" meant to stimulate investment, hiring and economic growth. It is no longer buying additional bonds, but it is topping up the portfolio when assets mature.\nThe Fed's official plan is to begin letting the bonds naturally roll off - not necessarily sell them - once its interest-rate hikes are \"well underway\". That is intended to shrink the portfolio to an unspecified lower level, though probably not to the pre-crisis level of around $900 billion.\nCleveland Fed President Loretta Mester and John Williams of the San Francisco Fed have also backed shrinking the portfolio this year. But Dudley, a permanent voting member of the Fed's policy committee, often paves the way for broader policy decisions and his New York Fed manages the balance sheet for the central bank.\nDudley said the bond run-off would be \"passive\" and done \"in the background,\" though he added that it could influence the pace with which the Fed continues to raise rates.\n\"If we start to normalize the balance sheet, that's a substitute for short-term rate hikes because it would also work in the direction of tightening financial conditions,\" he said. \"If and when we decide to begin to normalize the balance sheet we might actually decide at the same time to take a little pause in terms of raising short-term interest rates.\"\nNeel Kashkari, head of the Minneapolis Fed and among the most dovish policymakers, acknowledged at a local banking conference that there is interest among his colleagues to shrink the portfolio \"in a gradual and predictable way.\"\nA Reuters poll found that economists at primary dealers were split over whether the Fed would announce its plans this year or next, with the actual shedding of bonds some time later. The New York Fed's most recent poll found Wall Street banks expect no change to the balance sheet until mid-2018.\nThe central bank hiked rates a notch in mid-March, its second tightening in three months, and it plans to move about twice more this year according to its forecasts.\nDudley, in the TV interview, said \"a couple more hikes this year would seem reasonable,\" and that the Fed could do a little more or less depending on the economic data.\nBullard, another dovish policymaker who was addressing a students' conference in New York, said he could back perhaps one more hike this year but added \"this is not an environment that data is screaming at the Fed that it has to move.\"\n(Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Additional reporting by Ann Saphir in Minneapolis; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)", "Moody’s Investors Service also said that the government’s PSB recapitalisation package is not sufficient, given the banks have not been able to raise capital as planned. Photo: Bloomberg\nNew Delhi: Higher crude price is a key risk to India’s growth, but subsidy reform in petrol and diesel has diminished the risk to sovereign credit profile, Moody’s Investors Service said Wednesday.\nAs per market polls of 175 investors conducted by Moody’s and its affiliate ICRA on 175 last month in Singapore and Mumbai, investors identified higher oil prices as a key risk to growth and said that there are risks to achieving 3.3% fiscal deficit.\nThe investors also said that the government’s PSB recapitalisation package is not sufficient, given the banks have not been able to raise capital as planned. In its report Moody’s said: “Similarly to the views of the poll respondents, we also consider higher oil prices to be a risk to growth, but risks to sovereign credit dynamics from oil has diminished in recent years following subsidy reforms to petroleum and diesel fuel; only liquefied petroleum gas and kerosene oil remain subsidised”.\nThe rating agency said it does not expect oil prices to remain elevated for an extended period, but this possibility “remains a downside risk”. The price of Indian basket of crude surged from $66 a barrel in April to around $75 a barrel at present. With regard to recapitalisation plan for public sector banks, Moody’s said although we expect the recapitalisation package to be sufficient to meet the minimum regulatory capital needs, it will be insufficient to support credit growth.\n“Banks have not been able to raise new capital from the equity markets as planned under the government’s recapitalisation measures,” it added. Poll participants favoured consolidating to five-to-10 public sector banks from 27 currently, in line with more recent government announcements.\nIn October last year, the government unveiled a Rs2.11 lakh crore PSU Bank recapitalisation plan. Of this, Rs1.35 lakh crore is to come from the sale of recapitalisation bonds. The remaining Rs76,000 crore will be through budgetary allocation and raising of funds by banks from the markets.\nHowever, contrary to investors’ view that achieving fiscal deficit target would be a concern, Moody’s said it expects the government to meet its target for the current fiscal, which will end in March 2019. “While we see risks to achieving both budgeted revenue and spending targets, in our view the government would likely cut back on planned capital spending, as in past years, to offset any potential slippage,” the agency said.\nInvestors had also identified top risk with regard to financing conditions and telecom sector competition. “While tighter funding conditions remain a concern, refinancing needs, especially for the portfolio of investment-grade non-financial companies that we rate, is manageable.\nWe agree with poll respondents that the telecom sector remains under stress as intensifying competition will continue to strain revenue and margins,” Moody’s noted.", "Indian stocks are expected to erase recent losses and rise a little this year, but an array of political developments at home and overseas along with just a steady economic growth outlook will likely restrain the market, a Reuters poll showed.\nWhile the Indian stock index gained nearly 7 percent in January and hit a lifetime high, it is down about 4 percent since then, tracking the rout in global equities as worries of a trade war between the U.S. and China intensified.\nThe consensus from the latest Reuters poll of over 50 strategists and brokers taken May 21-30 points to gains for the BSE Sensex.\nThe index, which is up 2.6 percent for the year, is now expected to gain 1.7 percent from Tuesday's close to 35,550 by end-2018. It is then forecast to hit a fresh record high of 36,300 by the middle of next year.\nBut over a third of respondents forecast the index to be lower then, including one strategist who expects it to dip to 27,500, a level not seen since January last year.\nThe consensus view is also the weakest six-month outlook since at least the financial crisis and is also a slight downgrade compared to three months ago.\nA majority of poll respondents attributed their views to national election results or political developments outside the country.\nMore than half the losses so far this year have come after an inconclusive Karnataka state election earlier this month.\nThat has also coincided with the turmoil in global financial markets amid the political chaos in Italy.\n\"Ahead of the next year's general election and ongoing global political uncertainties, the stock market will not show any large up or down move, remaining consolidated,\" said Vedant Manore, a consultant and trader at ‎Edelweiss Financial Services.\n\"But, if the (current) government wins the majority of seats in Parliament, stock prices would rally on hopes of quick policy decisions.\"\nIndeed, the more tempered view for a market used to double-digit gains in recent years was driven by the political situation in Karnataka which has clouded the outlook for general elections next year.\nThe surge in crude oil prices, India's biggest import item, has also weighed on stocks as it is inflationary and may push the Reserve Bank of India to raise rates much earlier than previously thought - possibly as soon as August.\nIndia's economy probably gained a little momentum in the first three months of 2018 which should ensure that it remains the world's fastest growing major economy, a separate Reuters poll showed.\nStill, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) sold $1.4 billion of Indian stocks this month, in line with a wide sell-off in emerging markets, driven by the recent rise in U.S. Treasury yields.\nAfter hitting a 10-year high of 25.69 in January, the BSE Sensex price-to-earnings ratio fell to 23.44 in May - above the long-term average of 18.74, suggesting stock prices are still expensive.\n[ Source- Reuters]", "LONDON (Reuters) - Euro zone business activity nudged up slightly faster than previously thought last month but firms were at their gloomiest since late 2016, offering little hope for a more robust rebound, a survey showed.\nFILE PHOTO: A picture illustration of U.S. dollar, Swiss Franc, British pound and Euro bank notes January 26, 2011. Picture taken January 26. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo\nNews of stronger growth, alongside rising price pressures, will reassure policymakers at the European Central Bank who last month said the ECB would shut its hallmark bond purchase scheme by the close of the year.\nBut in a balanced announcement reflecting uncertainties hanging over the economy, the ECB signalled on June 14 that any interest rate hike is still distant.\nIHS Markit’s Final Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index, seen as a good overall indicator of euro zone growth, rose to 54.9 in June from May’s 54.1, comfortably above the 50 mark separating growth from contraction.\nThat beat an earlier flash reading of 54.8, but the latest PMI is lagging much higher numbers from around the turn of the year. The future output index, which tracks business optimism, fell to 63.4 from 63.7 — its lowest since November 2016.\n“The upturn in the pace of economic growth and resurgent price pressures adds support to the ECB’s view that stimulus should be tapered later this year, but the details of the survey also justify the central bank’s cautious approach to policy,” said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.\n“In particular, a weakening in business optimism to the lowest for over 1-1/2 years reflects intensifying nervousness about the outlook for the economy, notably in manufacturing, as trade-war talk escalates.”\nThe June manufacturing PMI, released on Monday, showed euro zone factory growth slowed to an 18-month low, slipping for the sixth month in a row amid widespread concerns about trade barriers and their impact on economic activity.\nServices firms were less affected by fears of a trade war. Activity in the bloc’s dominant industry accelerated, with the PMI jumping to a four-month high of 55.2 from 53.8.\nThat increase came despite firms raising their charges much more sharply. The services output prices PMI bounced to a five-month high of 53.2 from 52.0.\n“Firms’ costs and average selling prices for goods and services are meanwhile rising at rates close to seven-year highs, which will likely feed through to higher consumer price inflation in coming months,” Williamson said.\nEuro zone inflation rose to 2.0 percent in June, its highest rate for more than a year and above the ECB’s target, preliminary data from Eurostat showed last week.\nWilliamson said the PMIs signalled second quarter economic growth of just over 0.5 percent, matching the median forecast in a Reuters poll last month.", "SEOUL South Korea's central bank raised its growth outlook for this year and kept interest rates unchanged at a record low for a 10th straight month on Thursday, while its governor shifted policy to a more hawkish stance.\nThe Bank of Korea's monetary policy committee held its base rate KROCRT=ECI steady at 1.25 percent, in line with forecasts from 21 analysts surveyed in a Reuters poll.\nA majority of analysts see the central bank on hold for the rest of the year and some see tightening beginning next year.\n\"Right now, I don't think the BOK is looking at a rate cut at all. In the second half of the year there may be talk of an extra budget, but to the BOK... rate cuts will not be on the table,\" said Oh Chang-sob, a fixed-income strategist at Korea Investment & Securities.\nIn its quarterly revision of economic forecasts, the BOK raised its GDP growth forecast for this year to 2.6 percent from 2.5 percent previously announced. Inflation this year is now seen at 1.9 percent, versus 1.8 percent announced in January.\nBOK Governor Lee Ju-yeol said the outlook was revised up on better-than-expected economic conditions from improving exports and a higher base thanks to fourth-quarter GDP growth that was revised up to 0.5 percent on-quarter from 0.4 percent.\n\"When considering the growth and inflation path going forward, it is true the need for rate cuts has diminished,\" said Lee. \"However we will keep an accommodative stance to support economic growth.\"\nLee noted South Korea's economy could face downside risks at any time from something unexpected, while the outlook for the jobs market was \"not all positive.\" [KRUNR=ECI]\nThe revised outlook would have been much higher, the BOK said later, had it not been for China taking retaliatory measures against the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile radar system in South Korea, which would slice 0.2 percentage points from GDP growth.\nChang Min, a director general at the BOK, told a media briefing the growth scenario could worsen or improve depending on the course of bilateral relations after South Korea's new president takes office following the May 9 election.\nMarket players boosted the won KRW= after the governor's remarks, taking the currency to 1,129.2 per dollar as of 0550 GMT, up more than 1 percent versus its previous close.\nLee remained wary of geopolitical risks around North Korea, saying it was too early to say what effect they will have on the economy.\nForeign journalists visiting Pyongyang were told early on Thursday to prepare for \"a big and important event\", with tensions high over the possibility North Korea would test weapons even as a U.S. carrier group steamed towards the Korean peninsula.\nPolicymakers had fretted over whether South Korea would be named as a currency manipulator in a U.S. Treasury report, although on balance they are confident it is unlikely.A local currency trader said concerns over the report had \"completely eased\" after U.S. President Trump said in a media interview that China would not be named a currency manipulator.\nConsumer price growth in South Korea picked up at the fastest pace in nearly five years in March as the prices of fresh food and services rose, signalling a rebound in domestic demand after months of weakening consumer sentiment amid a corruption scandal that led to the ouster of President Park Geun-hye.\nRising household debt remains an issue for the central bank, as previous interest rate cuts by the BOK have been identified as a key reason behind feverish borrowing. The BOK said on Thursday borrowing from non-bank institutions continued to grow rapidly.The central bank did not hold a rate-setting meeting in March as it has reduced the number of such meetings, starting this year, to eight from 12.\n(Additional reporting by Dahee Kim; Editing by Eric Meijer)", "After hitting a 10-year high of 25.69 in January, the BSE Sensex price-to-earnings ratio fell to 23.44 in May. Photo: Mint\nBengaluru: Indian stocks are expected to erase recent losses and rise a little this year, but an array of political developments at home and overseas along with just a steady economic growth outlook will likely restrain the market, a Reuters poll showed.\nWhile the Indian stock index gained nearly 7% in January and hit a lifetime high, it is down about 4% since then, tracking the rout in global equities as worries of a trade war between the US and China intensified.\nThe consensus from the latest Reuters poll of over 50 strategists and brokers taken 21-30 May points to gains for the BSE Sensex.\nThe index, which is up 2.6% for the year, is now expected to gain 1.7% from Tuesday’s close to 35,550 by end-2018. It is then forecast to hit a fresh record high of 36,300 by the middle of next year.\nBut over a third of respondents forecast the index to be lower then, including one strategist who expects it to dip to 27,500, a level not seen since January last year.\nThe consensus view is also the weakest six-month outlook since at least the financial crisis and is also a slight downgrade compared to three months ago.\nA majority of poll respondents attributed their views to national election results or political developments outside the country.\nMore than half the losses so far this year have come after an inconclusive Karnataka state election earlier this month. That has also coincided with the turmoil in global financial markets amid the political chaos in Italy.\n“Ahead of the next year’s general election and ongoing global political uncertainties, the stock market will not show any large up or down move, remaining consolidated,” said Vedant Manore, a consultant and trader at ‎Edelweiss Financial Services.\n“But, if the (current) government wins the majority of seats in Parliament, stock prices would rally on hopes of quick policy decisions.”\nIndeed, the more tempered view for a market used to double-digit gains in recent years was driven by the political situation in Karnataka which has clouded the outlook for general elections next year.\nThe surge in crude oil prices, India’s biggest import item, has also weighed on stocks as it is inflationary and may push the Reserve Bank of India to raise rates much earlier than previously thought - possibly as soon as August.\nIndia’s economy probably gained a little momentum in the first three months of 2018 which should ensure that it remains the world’s fastest growing major economy, a separate Reuters poll showed.\nStill, foreign investors sold $1.4 billion of Indian stocks this month, in line with a wide sell-off in emerging markets, driven by the recent rise in US Treasury yields.\nAfter hitting a 10-year high of 25.69 in January, the BSE Sensex price-to-earnings ratio fell to 23.44 in May - above the long-term average of 18.74, suggesting stock prices are still expensive.", "As Indian equities are set to close out 2017 near all-time highs -- and volatility hovers near historic lows -- analysts say investors must keep an eye on politics for signs of a turn in the current bullish sentiment.Polls will grab market attention next year as eight states, covering a fourth of the nation’s population will hold elections over the next 12 months, brokerages including Credit Suisse noted. A setback for the Bharatiya Janata Party would surprise investors betting on Prime Minister Narendra Modi winning a second term in 2019, according to Nomura Financial Advisory & Securities (India) Pvt.Already, the current poll in Gujarat has turned into a closer than expected fight for Modi as the landmark consumption tax and last November’s cash ban stoke economic discontent in his home state. Most observers expect him to win when votes are counted Dec. 18, though his lead shrunk as the election neared.“Market assumptions so far have been of a comfortable BJP victory in Gujarat, and that the momentum continues till 2019,\" Credit Suisse said in a Dec. 5 report. While general elections have a “limited direct economic impact,” changes in market sentiment could drive volatility, the firm said.At risk is a 26 percent rally that’s made the $2.3-trillion market Asia’s second-best performer in 2017 and a nascent recovery in corporate earnings . Nomura analysts say the economy “is at the cusp of a business upcycle” with the recent government policies expected to aid the revival.Here are some highlights from the 2018 outlook reports:(Saion Mukherjee, Neelotpal Sahu and Sanjay Kadam)Government policy reforms for long-term sustainable growth to help sustain valuation multiples Financial sector to lead earnings recovery as asset-quality concerns recede, credit growth improves Key risks to positive view are failure of economic growth to revive, spike in oil prices and possibility of the BJP government not returning to power in 2019; results of state elections to help gauge prospects of ruling party getting re-elected Overweight: Financials, autos , oil & gas, infrastructure/construction, healthcare; Underweight: IT, consumer staples, utilities and cement Top picks: HDFC Bank , State Bank, Shriram Transport Finance Mahindra & Mahindra, PNC Infratech, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries NSE Nifty 50 target of 11,800 by December 2018; it closed at 10,322.25 on Monday(Neelkanth Mishra and Prateek Singh)State elections will get more attention; it is possible that 2019 general elections are brought forward to be held simultaneously with polls in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh next December Growth may be slightly better than in 2017 but unlikely to improve meaningfully amid weak farm income, slow investment pick-up and continued weakness in real estate Overweight: energy, metals, PSU banks and IT; Underweight: Non-bank Finance companies, cement, discretionary and staples Top Outperformer: State Bank of India ONGC , Tata Steel; Top underperformer: Bajaj Finance Ultratech Cement and Dr Reddy’s Laboratories.(Sanjay Mookim and Nafeesa Gupta)India joined at the hip to global tide; largest risk to equity prices into 2018 is external Streak of weak headline earnings may have ended; higher oil prices, favorable base mean 3Q/4Q numbers likely to be comfortably in double digits Government likely to consider increased social expenditure ahead of 2019 elections Unclear whether spending rise will happen in 2018 as BJP may chose to stay “fiscally conservative” if they feel confident of victory without higher spend Expenditure increase to spur demand for discretionary goods like vehicles, appliances; beneficiaries likely to be largely rural Availability of stressed assets at discount can potentially create significant value for buyers, can be big stock price drivers Cut overweight on financials, raising it for consumer discretionary, industrials, utilities and materials Increase underweight on IT, telecom and going underweight on healthcare Sensex fair value at 32,000 for December 2018", "Reuters Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is monitored from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year.\nFed Chairman Jerome Powell may use his first press conference to counterbalance an obvious hawkish tilt among this year’s voting members of the central bank’s policy panel.\nThe Fed’s interest-rate committee is “a hell of a lot more hawkish” this year, said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust.\nSo it's easy to expect a hawkish tilt to the Fed’s policy statement and its dot-plot, which projects the course of interest rates and economic forecasts, when the central bank wraps up its latest two-day meeting on Wednesday.\nRead: 5 things to watch from the Fed decision\nPowell, therefore, will use his 60 minutes with reporters post-meeting to turn down the temperature and stress that rate hikes will be remain gradual.\n“At the end of the day, the Fed will be more hawkish and he’ll temper that,” said Kevin Cummings, senior U.S. economist at NatWest Markets.\nIn essence, economists expect Powell will replay his two-day testimony to Congress from last month. On the first day, Powell sounded hawkish, pointing to the risks of the economy overheating, but on the second day he stressed any overheating was nowhere in sight.\nSee: Even as Powell softens tone, 4 rate hikes still on the table for 2018\nCummings said Powell has no reason to upset the apple cart now that the market DJIA, -1.58% has priced in the Fed's forecast of three hikes.\nFor years, the market doubted Fed forecasts, but now they are on roughly the same page.\n“Why would [Powell] feel compelled to change perceptions now,” Cummings said.\nEconomists expect Powell to be extremely cautious when he talks about Republican economic and trade policy.\n“Powell is a savvy guy. He’s going to really be apolitical as possible,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton.\nThe Fed could become the target of the President Trump’s ire if the rate hikes TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.26% start to take a bite out of the economic expansion.\nSwonk said that former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn “ran a lot of interference for the Fed” and stressed the need of an independent central bank.\nWith Cohn’s departure, there is now the risk “of a much more combative” White House, she said.", "Asian stocks rebounded in morning trade. Markets outside Japan opened higher. Overnight US stocks also closed higher. Photo: Reuters\nAsian stocks rebound in morning trade\nAsian stocks rebounded in morning trade. Markets outside Japan opened higher. Overnight US stocks also closed higher. S&P 500 was up 1.27% at 2,724.\nIndia’s growth likely topped 7% in March quarter\nThe government will release the gross domestic product (GDP) data for March quarter today. A Reuters poll peg the growth in the range of 6.9% to 7.7%. The median in Reuters poll stood at 7.3%.\nICICI Bank to probe charges against CEO\nICICI Bank Ltd said it will institute a fresh enquiry into an alleged nexus between the husband of chief executive Chanda Kochhar and Videocon Group chairman Venugopal Dhoot over a loan extended by the bank to the conglomerate.\nRCom settles Ericsson dues, asset sale gets nod\nThe National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) stayed the insolvency resolution process initiated against Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom). The order came after Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd accepted RCom’s offer to pay Rs550 crore by 30 September.\nMeanwhile, Brookfield will buy Reliance Communications’ real estate assets in New Delhi and Chennai for around Rs800 crore, reports The Economic Times.\nMcLeod Russel looking to sell assets to cut debt\nMcLeod Russel India Ltd announced that it had formed a committee to explore the sale of multiple tea estates to cut down its debt, reports Mint. The company is looking to raise Rs400-500 crore from the sale of estates, the report adds.\nIOB widens on higher provisions for bad loans\nLosses at Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) widened to Rs3,606.73 crore in the March quarter on higher provisioning for mounting bad loans, reports PTI.\nSebi seeks Jet Airways’ response to complaint\nMarkets regulator Sebi has sought information from Jet Airways following a complaint of alleged fraudulent practices, reports PTI. According to the report, the regulator sought views of the statutory auditors and the audit committee on certain allegations.\nSea food exporters hit by higher cost, low realization\nThe plunge in the average exports realisations for shrimps is hitting the bottom-line of the stakeholders across the supply chain associated with the Indian seafood export market, reports Business Standard.\nMSCI may put India on notice for limiting access\nLastly, MSCI Inc. on Wednesday said it is considering placing some emerging markets including India on notice for limiting investor access, reports Mint.", "EUR/USD continued to fall on Tuesday, extending the downturn that has been in place since the beginning of the month, amid a slew of less-than-encouraging economic data emerging from the Eurozone and the beginning of US Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s two-day testimony before the US Congress.\nTuesday morning saw the release of several economic data points that disappointed expectations, most notably with respect to GDP. Euro area GDP for the last quarter of 2016 grew by 0.4% against prior consensus expectations of 0.5%. German GDP also disappointed at 0.4% against a 0.5% forecast. On top of these weaker-than-expected readings, the German ZEW economic sentiment indicator once again came in below expectations at 10.4 vs expectations of 15.1. Additionally, euro area industrial production for December declined by more than expected at -1.6% versus expectations of -1.4%. These lackluster data points weighed heavily on the already-pressured euro currency, helping to push EUR/USD closer to its 1.0500 downside target.\nAlso contributing significantly to the EUR/USD drop was a strongly boosted dollar as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen began her testimony in front of the US Senate Banking Committee. In this testimony, Yellen struck a tone that was decidedly more hawkish than had generally been expected. Her statements indicated relatively robust expectations that interest rate increases this year would be appropriate, and that it would be “unwise” to wait too long to raise rates. She also noted in response to a question that the Fed would be shrinking its balance sheet when interest rates began to normalize. Although Yellen was reluctant as usual to talk about the likelihood of a March or June rate hike, her overall tone was supportive of rate increases going forward. This more hawkish-leaning stance quickly boosted the previously lagging dollar on Tuesday.\nFrom a chart perspective, EUR/USD has been falling sharply since the beginning of February from the key 1.0800 resistance level, as the greenback has been in recovery mode after January’s dollar-slide. This EUR/USD pullback in February has shifted the currency pair back into the longer-term bearish trend. This bearish trend highlights the still-prevailing monetary policy divergence between the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Fed. Having just fallen below its 50-day moving average, EUR/USD is in position to reach towards its next major downside target at the key 1.0500 support level. With any further extension of the bearish trend below 1.0500, the next target is at the December-January lows around 1.0350.", "MUMBAI: Bankers expect equity capital market deals worth a record $20 billion (Rs 1.3 lakh crore) to be struck this financial year, including partial privatisations by the government of India, with the pace having been set by six companies that raised about Rs 22,300 crore through qualified institutional placements (QIPs) since April 1.Initial public offers (IPOs), follow-on pubic offers (FPOs) and QIPs will likely help fund-raising efforts hit a new high amid the continuing equity boom. QIPs set a record in FY10, raising Rs 40,000 crore, while that for IPOs was Rs 41,000 crore in FY08. That was the record for overall equity capital market (ECM) deals in India as well, with 122 companies raising about Rs 67,000 crore through IPOs and FPOs, according to Prime Database.All these records will be broken this fiscal, according to bankers, who believe that the first half of the current financial year is likely to be dominated by QIPs. In the second half, funds will be raised through IPOs and FPOs.“With several large equity issuances in IPO and QIP formats, we are confident that over $20 billion worth of ECM deals will get done this year, which include disinvestments,” said V Jayasankar, head of equity capital markets at Kotak Mahindra Capital Co. “Investors are looking at new avenues of investments given that valuations in Indian markets are quite fair at this stage and this is driving the demand for QIPs and IPOs.”Piramal Enterprises, Cadila Healthcare, Federal Bank, Hindustan Copper, Andhra Bank, Jammu and Kashmir Bank, JSW Steel and others are planning to raise funds through QIPs. State Bank of India’s recent Rs 15,000-crore QIP, the largest ever such placement in India, saw demand from several foreign portfolio investors across geographies, domestic institutional buyers and top individual shareholders who hold significant portfolios in India.“Companies are looking to position themselves for a gradual but accelerating capex growth cycle and, as a result, more such companies are planning to raise funds through QIPs or other options,” said Sanjeev Jha, head of global capital markets, Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Although there is enough appetite from global and domestic funds, investors remain focused on quality issuances and we have seen a lot of longterm investors participating in these QIPs.”Several financial sector companies including General Insurance, New India Assurance, United India Insurance, National Insurance, Oriental Insurance, HDFC Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard, Reliance Nippon, National Stock Exchange, Renew Power Venture, UTI Mutual Fund and Lodha Developers are looking to launch IPOs in FY18.Reliance Mutual Fund recently announced its intention to go public. Other mutual funds will follow, bankers said. The government will seek to raise Rs 72,500 crore through divesting stakes in state-run enterprises during the current fiscal.The government’s divestment programme includes listing of three railway public sector units —Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp., Indian Railway Finance Corp. and Ircon — and five general insurance companies.", "The Australian dollar hovered near three-month lows on Tuesday, undermined by acute risk aversion ahead of a much-anticipated US Federal Reserve policy meeting.\n[SYDNEY] The Australian dollar hovered near three-month lows on Tuesday, undermined by acute risk aversion ahead of a much-anticipated US Federal Reserve policy meeting.\nThe Australian dollar was also hit by weaker prices for iron ore, the country's top export earner, as fears of a global trade war swirled through commodity markets.\nThe Aussie was last down 0.1 per cent at US$0.7707 and within spitting distance of Monday's US$0.7687, which was the lowest since late December.\nThe New Zealand dollar edged down 0.2 per cent to US$0.7226 from Monday's trough of US$0.7197, a level not seen since early March.\nsentifi.com Market voices on:\nThe sell-off in the antipodean currencies accelerated last Thursday on concerns US tariffs on imported steel and aluminium would jeopardise world growth, which had seen its first synchronised upturn in years.\nThat hurt demand for iron ore, the key ingredient in making steel, sending the most-traded iron ore contract for May delivery on China's Dalian Commodity Exchange to its weakest since early November.\nUS President Donald Trump is expected to unveil up to US$60 billion in new tariffs on Chinese products by Friday, targeting technology, telecommunications and intellectual property, two officials briefed on the matter said on Monday.\n\"The Japanese yen and the Swiss francs are bought as safe haven currencies at the expense of the Australian and New Zealand dollars,\" said Tony Boyadjian, forex senior vice-president at Compass Markets.\n\"Global growth concerns have seen commodity currencies weaken. Risk trade has been unwound due to protectionist policies,\" he said, referring to the import duties.\nInvestors will now turn their attention to the March 20-21 Fed meeting, where it is all but certain to raise rates.\nAnalysts are divided on whether there will be a shift in the\"dot plots\", or the Fed's trajectory for future rate rises, which so far indicates three hikes in 2018.\n\"The risk is that the Fed is even more hawkish than what is currently expected,\" said Tapas Strickland, economist at National Australia Bank. \"It will take a lifting of the longer-run dot plots to elicit a significant reaction in the rates market.\"\nSo far though, the dollar has not really responded to Fed rate hikes, ending 2017 down about 10 per cent against a basket of currencies even after rates went up three times.\nThe Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released the minutes of its March policy meeting where it repeated its cautious views on consumer spending, affirming the need for interest rates to remain at record lows for longer.\nNew Zealand government bonds were barely changed.\nAustralian government bond futures were mixed, with the three-year bond contract down 1 tick at 97.865. The 10-year contract inched up 1 tick to 97.29.\nREUTERS", "London — Eurozone business growth accelerated in June, offering encouragement to the European Central Bank (ECB) to tighten policy, but optimism among purchasing managers was at its lowest ebb since late 2016, a survey found.\nFaster growth across the currency union, alongside rising price pressures, will reassure ECB policy makers who said in June that the bank would shut its hallmark bond purchase scheme by the end of 2018.\nBut in a balanced announcement reflecting uncertainties hanging over the economy, the ECB signalled on June 14 that any interest-rate hike was still distant.\nThe UK provided a similar story of stronger growth. Its large services industry grew in June at its fastest rate since October, suggesting the economy might be strong enough for the Bank of England to raise rates in August, as expected.\nIHS Markit’s final composite purchasing managers index (PMI) for the eurozone, seen as a good overall indicator of growth, rose to 54.9 in June from May’s 54.1, comfortably above the 50 mark separating growth from contraction.\nThat beat an earlier flash reading of 54.8, but the latest PMI is lagging much higher numbers from the beginning of 2018. The future output index, which tracks business optimism, fell to 63.4 from 63.7 — its lowest since November 2016.\nGerman services growth accelerated to a four-month high in June and French private sector activity picked up, helped by a rebound in the services sector that more than offset a further slowdown in manufacturing.\nIHS Markit said the PMIs signalled second-quarter economic growth of just more than 0.5%, matching the median forecast in a Reuters poll in June.\n\"This is a sign that at least some of the weakness in the first quarter was temporary and at least suggests we are not embarking on the start of a sharp slowdown,\" Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics said of the eurozone numbers.\n\"There has been some stabilisation in the surveys if nothing else. That will reassure the ECB that a gradual normalisation of policy is warranted.\" The June manufacturing PMI, released on Monday, showed eurozone factory growth slowed to an 18-month low, slipping for the sixth month in a row amid widespread concern about trade barriers and their effect on economic activity.\nServices firms were less affected by fears of a trade war.\nActivity in the bloc’s dominant industry accelerated, with the PMI jumping to a four-month high of 55.2 from 53.8.\nThat increase came despite firms raising their charges much more sharply. The services output prices PMI bounced to a five-month high of 53.2 from 52.0.\n\"Firms’ costs and average selling prices for goods and services are meanwhile rising at rates close to seven-year highs, which will likely feed through to higher consumer price inflation in coming months,\" said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit.\nEurozone inflation rose to 2% in June, its highest rate for more than a year and above the ECB’s target, preliminary data from Eurostat showed last week.\nReuters", "With Indonesia’s central bank failing to stem the slide in the currency to a two-year low this week, bets of a rate hike are increasing.\nPT Bank Mandiri expects the central bank to increase rates as early as this quarter to curb an exodus of investors from the country’s stocks and bonds, while PT Bank Central Asia says it will be difficult to go against the global trend of tightening monetary policy.\nIndonesia’s rupiah tumbled to a two-year low against the dollar this week despite the central bank intervening in the market since early February to ease heightened volatility. That’s raised concern that Bank Indonesia may be trying in vain to defend the currency as emerging markets face pressure from a surging U.S. dollar.\n“The Federal Reserve may accelerate its plan to increase its rate because economic data is good in the U.S. and inflation is picking up there,” said Bank Mandiri President Director Kartika Wirjoatmodjo. “If Indonesia doesn’t respond, we will be seen as lagging behind. That will trigger a selloff in bonds and equities.”\nWorst Performers\nThe Indonesian currency along with the Philippine peso and Indian rupee are among the underperformers among developing economies globally this year. With U.S. 10-year Treasury yields breaching 3 percent on Tuesday, the rupiah may face renewed selling pressure.\nThe rupiah was little changed on Wednesday. It has lost more than 2 percent against the dollar in 2018.\nBank Indonesia signaled a more hawkish tone last week when it left rates unchanged as inflation has been subdued and the current-account deficit well within its target. It last moved in September when it cut rates to support growth.\nThe losses for rupiah would have been greater had Bank Indonesia not made a \"sizeable\" intervention in the currency and bond markets, according to Governor Agus Martowardojo, who pledged to take more action.\nThe central bank may raise interest rates earlier than forecast because of tightening monetary policy elsewhere in the world and the rupiah volatility, according to Enrico Tanuwidjaja, an economist at United Overseas Bank Ltd. in Jakarta, who had penciled an increase in the fourth quarter.\nBut there are others who see another rate cut should the rupiah stabilize.\n\"Provided we see the currency stabilize, which we think is probably quite likely, then I wouldn’t rule out another cut,” said Gareth Leather, senior Asia economist with Capital Economics Ltd. in London.\nBank Indonesia is fighting a broad-based depreciation in currencies as global interest rates are on an upward trend, said Jahja Setiaatmadja, president director of Bank Central Asia.\n“Sometimes, it’s difficult to challenge the current unless Bank Indonesia wants to keep intervening with the risk of declining foreign reserves,” Setiaatmadja said. “It’s a difficult decision, but that’s the market.”", "A Chinese flag is seen near a construction site in Beijing's central business area, China, January 17, 2017. REUTERS/Jason Lee\nBEIJING China's economic growth is expected to slow to 6.5 percent in 2017, as the government seeks to cool the property sector and temper credit growth to contain risks from a dangerous build-up of debt, a Reuters poll showed.\nGrowth is then expected to weaken further to 6.2 percent in 2018, the Reuters poll of over 75 economists showed, extending a slowing trajectory for the world's second-biggest economy, which grew 6.7 percent in 2016, for its worst performance in 26 years.\nThe polling was conducted April 10 to 19. More than 70 forecasts were collected before the release of first-quarter gross domestic product data on April 17.\nThe forecasts for this year and in 2018 were unchanged from a January poll, underscoring the drag on the economy from property controls and tighter credit to contain risks from a dangerous build-up of debt.\nChina's economy is expected to grow 6.7 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, 6.6 percent in the third and 6.5 percent in fourth quarter, the poll showed.\nThe government is targeting annual growth of around 6.5 percent this year.\nData released on Monday showed GDP grew 6.9 percent in the first quarter, faster than the 6.8 percent expected, boosted by higher government infrastructure spending and a gravity-defying property boom which helped boost industrial output by the most in over two years.\nBut as Beijing looks to put the economy on a more balanced and sustainable footing, growth is seen losing steam later this year on the back of more property cooling measures and central bank steps to raise funding costs to defuse bubble risks.\nThe International Monetary Fund on Tuesday raised its forecasts for China's 2017 growth to 6.6 percent from the previous 6.5 percent and raised 2018 growth to 6.2 percent from 6.0 percent, but warned of potential disruptions in the medium term unless the country reduces its reliance on rapid credit growth.\nChina's debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 277 percent at the end of 2016 from 254 percent the previous year, with an increasing share of new credit being used to pay debt servicing costs, according to an estimate from UBS.\nAnalysts also expect annual inflation to average 2.1 percent in 2017 and 2.3 percent in 2018, up from 2 percent in 2016. Sluggish demand is expected to keep consumer prices largely in check despite a big bump in producer prices.\nTIGHTENING BIAS\nStronger global demand and China's bid to keep the economy on an even keel could support growth ahead of a major leadership transition later this year.\nThe People's Bank of China (PBOC) is trying to put the brakes on flush credit by guiding short-term interest rates higher, but it's expected to keep benchmark interest rates steady and may even loosen credit conditions if growth falters.\nHigher domestic borrowing costs could also support the yuan CNY=CFXS, especially if U.S. interest rates continue to rise, which could risk a resurgence in capital outflows from China.\nThe yuan has stabilized this year, due to curbs on capital outflows and a reversal of the dollar rally, following a fall of 6.5 percent in 2016. Currency strategists polled by Reuters earlier this month predicted it would weaken to 7.05 in six months and fall further to 7.10 in a year.\nAnalysts believe the PBOC will keep benchmark lending rates unchanged at 4.35 percent through at least the third quarter of 2018, the Reuters poll showed.\nThey have pushed back their expectations on a cut in the amount of cash that banks are required hold as reserves, or the reserve requirement ratio (RRR).\nThe central bank is expected to cut the RRR by 50 basis points (bps) in the fourth quarter this year to 16.5 percent, according to the poll.\nThe January poll had predicted a 50 bps cut in RRR in the third quarter of this year.\nFan Gang, an adviser to China's central bank, has said that cuts in the RRR would be normal given sharp drops in its foreign exchange reserves.\n(Polling by Shaloo Shrivastava and Khushboo Mittal in Bangalore, Jing Wang in Shanghai; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Sam Holmes)", "Two of India's largest states - Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra - recently announced farm loan waivers to the tune of over Rs 65,000 crore combined.\nWhile this is seen as a temporary relief for the farm crisis, experts believe farmers will be better off with lower input costs and an ensured safety net on their output produce.\n\"This is a political decision and may have been avoided if the government can give them a better sale price and reduce their costs which they bear before the produce,\" a senior bank executive told Moneycontrol.\nArvind Sonmale, a former State Bank of India banker and current MD and CEO of SAFL (‎Sustainable Agro-commercial Finance), said: “It (loan waiver) is not desirable and may seem a short-term relief, but farmers will suffer in the long term. After 2008 (the UPA-led central government waived loans worth over Rs 60,000 crore), no banks were willing to give loans to them.\"\nSAFL is a private non-banking finance company lending exclusively to agriculture-infrastructure in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.\nSonmale said that it is preferable to have some kind of safety net or give returns on the produce of the farmers.\n\"Sometimes, whenever there is a glut in the produce such as tomatoes, onions, grapes which is happening in the protest regions, the waiver money can be used to have a minimum support price during this period and get them a good price for it,\" he said.\nThere is also a need to control the input prices of materials such as seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and labour. These can be subsidized, the way urea is right now. There can be government outlets for such subsidies, he added.\n“One (government or bank) has to differentiate who is genuinely in difficulty and one who has capability. Farmers don’t stop paying at large levels but some do expect that and hence delay payments. We have to tell them the implications of not paying loans,\" another large public sector banker said.\nFather of India’s green revolution and agriculture scientist MS Swaminathan, in a tweet, said that while loan waivers are needed temporarily, they don't provide secure long-term credit system.\nLoan Waivers mean that money which could have gone to strengthening agricultural infrastructure will not have adequate funds.\n— M S Swaminathan (@msswaminathan) June 13, 2017\nThe loan waiver system implies that banks are compensated by the government.\nHe added that \"though there's a bumper crop this year, farmers are dissatisfied with procurement price & unable to repay institutional & private loans.\"\nFarmers stop repayments impacting State finances\nCiting the economics of it, experts see this move jeopardizing the states’ financial health and eventually the credit culture that could further restrict further lending to farmers.\nBankers not only lose out on the interest from the date of such an announcement till the actual receipt of the compensation, but also incur additional costs such as overdue charges, allied service charges like inspection or recovery efforts.\nIn March, Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman of State Bank of India had said: \"Credit discipline breaks when you waive off farm loans. Money will come in today because (the) government will pay but when we will give (a) loan in (the) future, farmers will wait for (the) next elections…Support to the farmers is necessary, but not at the cost of credit discipline.\"\nBankers now believe that the mood has become such that many capable borrowers want waivers. This increases bankers efforts and makes the recovery task much more difficult thereby leading to more NPAs (non-performing assets) in addition to the existing large bad loans.\nAgriculture NPAs for the financial year 2016 stood at 6-10 percent for PSU banks. As on March 2017, the total agriculture loans across states in India stood at Rs 953,900 crore.\n“About 2/3rd of the agriculture debt of this Rs 9.5 lakh crore is in states where a debt waiver has been announced or promised, or in states that will go to the polls in the next two years. With expectations of a waiver now increasing in other states, there is a possibility of agri stress increasing elsewhere, especially poll-bound states,\" Japanese brokerage Nomura said in a report.\nLoan waivers: Temporary tool, affects economics\nA week before the announcement, Maharashtra's chief minister Devendra Fadnavis had announced loan waiver for marginal farmers, but had ruled out a blanket waiver on the grounds that it would cost the government \"an unaffordable Rs 1.14 lakh crore\".\nIn the past 10 years, Maharashtra’s debt stock has surged from Rs 1.6 lakh crore in 2008-09 to Rs 3.71 lakh crore in 2016-17. For the year 2017-18, it was estimated to be at Rs 4.13 lakh crore, which will further rise with the farm loan waiver.\nIn April, the newly formed government in Uttar Pradesh, country’s most populous state led by Bharatiya Janta Party’s Yogi Adityanath, also announced a farm waiver of Rs 36,300 crore, fulfilling a promise made to the farmers before elections.\nEarlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Urjit Patel in the policy announcement said: \"The risk of fiscal slippages which by and large can entail inflation spillovers has risen with the announcements of the large farm loan waivers. There is a risk that unless there is existing fiscal space in State Governments’ Budget or some space is found, the likelihood of going down the slippery path and dissipating the important gains that we have made in the fiscal rectitude over the last 2-3 years can come about.\n“And past episodes in our country have shown that when there are significant fiscal slippages, they do permeate through to inflation sooner or later. So it’s a path we need to tread very carefully before it gets out of hand.”", "Most Asian stock markets rose Wednesday after U.S. benchmarks hit new highs and Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen said the U.S. central bank could raise interest rates as soon as next month.\nKEEPING SCORE: Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index rose 1 percent to 19,437.98 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 1.1 percent to 24,961.29. Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 gained 0.9 percent to 5,809.10. Seoul's Kospi added 0.5 percent to 2,083.86. The Shanghai Composite Index slipped 0.2 percent to 3,208.31 and India's Sensex dropped 0.6 percent to 28,158.79. Benchmarks in New Zealand and Taiwan rose, while Southeast Asian markets declined.\nWALL STREET: U.S. stock indexes hit new highs, boosted by bank stocks on hopes of bigger profits ahead. General Motors jumped 4.8 percent following news that France's PSA Group, maker of Peugeot and Citroen cars, is exploring a deal to buy Opel, GM's money-losing European business. Cynosure, which makes devices used in laser body contouring, hair removal and skin care, soared after agreeing to be bought by medical device maker Hologic for $1.57 billion. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 0.4 percent to 2,337.58 for its sixth straight day of gains. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.5 percent to 20,504.41. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.3 percent to 5,782.57.\nFED WATCH: Yellen told a Senate committee the central bank could raise interest rates as soon as next month. Bond yields jumped and fed through to shares of banks, which can benefit from higher rates by charging more for loans. Yellen said little to alter most investors' expectations. The Fed raised interest rates in December for just the second time in a decade, and Yellen said the strengthening job market and a modest move higher in inflation should warrant continued, gradual increases.\nANALYST'S TAKE: Yellen's comments were \"the main catalyst for overnight markets, evidently surprising on the hawkish side,\" said Jingyi Pan of IG in a report. \"While the market had expected a strong rhetoric on improving economic conditions, the push to hasten the next rate hike had been unexpected.\" Based on history, markets put the likelihood of a policy change out of the Fed's March meeting at 34 percent, Pan said, \"but that had not stopped the U.S. dollar and equity markets from ticking up.\"\nCHINA INFLATION: Chinese consumer and wholesale inflation ticked higher, fueling concern the central bank might hike rates or tighten access to credit. Analysts said they saw no sign the People's Bank of China would change course but money market rates should be elevated this year. Policymakers have indicated a \"tightening bias\" for policy since late last year but December and January data on credit \"clearly show that there has been no meaningful monetary and credit tightening at the macro level,\" said UBS economists in a report.\nCURRENCY: The dollar gained to 114.38 yen from Tuesday's 114.31 yen. The euro edged up to $1.0577 from $1.0571.\nENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude sank 35 cents to $52.85 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract gained 27 cents on Tuesday to $53.20. Brent crude, used to price international oils, lost 27 cents to $55.70 in London. It advanced 38 cents the previous session to $55.97." ]

[ "Telecom giant Vodafone has said it will invest more than two billion dollars in a drive to make its new Indian purchase, Hutchison Essar, the country's biggest mobile phone company." ]

[ "India's Essar conglomerate has said it would remain a partner in Hutchison Essar after British mobile phone giant Vodafone bought majority control of the Indian cellular company.", "Britain's Vodafone Group has won the auction for a controlling stake in Hutchison Essar with an offer that gives India's fourth biggest mobile operator an enterprise value of just under $19 billion, a source close to the auction said on Sunday.", "British mobile phone giant Vodafone agreed to buy an 11-billion-dollar controlling stake in India's Hutchison Essar in an attempt to move into the world's fastest-growing mobile phone market.", "Vodafone shares climbed on Monday after the British mobile phone giant beat rival suitors with an $11.1 billion bid for a controlling stake in Hutchison Essar, India's fourth-biggest cellphone firm.", "Shares in Vodafone Group PLC rose Monday as the market reacted positively to the weekend move by the world's largest mobile telephone company to gain control of Hutchison Essar India Ltd.", "Essar is keeping its 33% stake in Hutchison Essar after Vodafone bought out its partner, Hutchison Telecom.", "Vodafone Group Plc vowed not to pay \"over the top\" in the multi-billion-pound battle for India's Hutchison Essar on Wednesday, as the British mobile phone giant said it had crossed the 200-million customer mark.", "Vodafone on Friday dismissed an inquiry from the Indian authorities, who are seeking about $2bn in tax from the UK company following its $10.9bn takeover of Hutchison Essar, India&#39;s fourth-largest mobile phone operator.", "British mobile services operator Vodafone Group will acquire a majority stake in Hutchison Essar, winning a heated bid for control of the Indian mobile services operator.", "British mobile phone giant Vodafone, grappling with intense competition in Europe, tapped into the booming Indian economy after winning control of Hutchison Essar for 11.1 billion dollars.", "Vodafone buys a controlling stake in Indian mobile phone firm Hutchison Essar for $11bn (£5.6bn).", "Vodafone Group has been granted permission to challenge a tax claim by the Indian government over the UK mobile phone group's $10.7bn purchase of a stake in Hutchison Essar.", "Rival Indian telecoms firms greet Vodafone's purchase of Hutchison Essar as good news for the country.", "Indian NGO says that Vodafone investment in mobile services operator Hutchison Essar is in breach of government regulations.", "The offer values Hutchison Essar, one of India’s fastest-growing telecommunications companies, at about $19 billion.", "The deal for Hutchinson Essar, one of India’s fastest growing telecommunications companies, values the company at around $19 billion.", "InfoWorld - British mobile services company Vodafone Group has reserved the right to terminate its agreement with Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. (HTIL), if a &quot;prohibition&quot; comes in the way of the closure of its&#160;$11.1 billion acquisition&#160;of a controlling stake in Hutchison Essar, an Indian mobile services company.", "Arun Sarin, the chief executive of Vodafone, revealed yesterday the company was expecting to deliver annual cash flow improvements of £2.", "(InfoWorld) - British mobile services operator Vodafone Group will acquire a majority stake in Hutchison Essar, winning a heated bid for control of the Indian mobile services operator. Vodafone announced late Sunday that it has agreed to acquire companies that control a 67 percent stake in Hutchison Essar from Hutchison Telecommunications International, a subsidiary of Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa. Hutchison Telecommunications holds a majority stake in Hutchison Essar both directly and through a joint venture company in which Indian partners hold shares. Vodafone will pay $11.1 billion in cash for the acquisition, along with assuming $2 billion in debt, through its subsidiary Vodafone International Holdings. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of this year, and is conditional to Indian regulatory approval, it said. Hutchison's decision came over the weekend, after it evaluated bids from four key contenders including Indian mobile services provider Reliance Communications, the Hinduja Group of the U.K., and India’s Essar Group, which holds 33 percent in Hutchison Essar, according to informed sources. Vodafone will offer to acquire the Essar Group’s stake at the same price per share it is offering Hutchison, the company said. Indian regulations however do not allow foreign operators to hold more than 74 percent of the equity in an Indian telecommunications service provider. If the Essar Group sells its stake, Hutchison’s local partners, which together have a 15 percent interest in Hutchison Essar, will increase their interest to 26 percent, Vodafone said. The Essar Group said in its statement late Sunday that it was evaluating an offer from Vodafone to be a partner. The Essar Group has the option to continue as an equity holder in Hutchison Essar or sell its stake along with Hutchison Telecommunications. Vodafone has been seeking Hutchison’s stake since December last year, and in January the company’s CEO, Arun Sarin visited India to press its case with the Indian government and business partners here. India is adding over 6 million new mobile subscribers every month. Hutchison Essar had 23.3 million customers as of December 31, 2006, which gave it a 16.4 percent market share. Vodafone also offered Sunday to sell its stake of 5.6 percent in Bharti Airtel, also a large Indian mobile services operator, to another company of the Bharti Group for $1.6 billion, double the price for which it acquired the stake in 2005. It also announced a memorandum of understanding with Bharti Airtel for infrastructure sharing with Hutchison Essar.", "Arun Sarin, the chief executive of Vodafone, moved to grab more day-to-day control of the world&#39;s biggest mobile phone company yesterday by announcing a management shake-up which", "In one of India&#39;s largest media blitzes, Vodafone has kicked off the re-branding of its new Indian mobile phone business by buying all the commercials on Star India&#39;s cable channels and plastering 80 newspapers nationwide with advertisements.", "Mobile telephone operator Vodafone said it had appointed Shiro Tsuda as president and chief executive of Vodafone KK, its struggling Japanese unit.", "VODAFONE chief executive Arun Sarin today promised to return more cash to shareholders in the form of bigger dividends or share buybacks.", "By Kyodo News International, Tokyo Dec. 15--TOKYO -- NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Friday it has licensed Hutchison Essar Ltd. of India to offer i-mode cellphone-based Internet services.", "(InfoWorld) - Vodafone Group and the Essar Group could lock horns over the Indian company's demand to share management of Hutchison Essar, a large Indian mobile phone network operator. Essar claims it has the right to first refusal for any sale of equity in Hutchison Essar by Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. (HTIL), a claim denied by both Vodafone and HTIL. \"We want joint management and a partnership of equals,\" a spokesman for Essar Group in Mumbai said Tuesday. Although the Essar Group would leave the day-to-day management of the company to Vodafone, it wants to be consulted on all strategic decisions, the spokesman said. The Essar Group, which holds 33 percent of the equity in Hutchison Essar, is scheduled to negotiate later this week a shareholder agreement with Vodafone, which has agreed to acquire a 67 percent interest in Hutchison Essar from HTIL. The Essar Group claims that in its shareholder agreement, it has the right of first refusal if HTIL sells its equity, and that it may use this clause in the agreement to bargain with Vodafone. That view, however, isn't shared by Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, who last week told reporters that the Essar Group's right of first refusal doesn't apply to its agreement to acquire HTIL's stake. Nor does HTIL agree with the Essar Group. The right to first refusal applies only to the sale of equity by HTIL to local Indian competitors, the company said. The Essar Group is not a portfolio investor in Hutchison Essar and wants a say in running the business, the spokesman said. The arrangement would be similar to the one that the Essar Group had with HTIL and that helped grow the business for Hutchison Essar, he added. While announcing its agreement to acquire a controlling stake in Hutchison Essar, Vodafone also made an offer to acquire Essar Group's stake at the same price per share offered to HTIL. If the Essar Group sells its stake, Hutchison's local partners, which together have a 15 percent interest in Hutchison Essar, will increase their interest to 26 percent, Vodafone said. Current Indian rules restrict foreign ownership in telecom service providers to 74 percent. Vodafone expressed interest, however, in having the Essar Group continue as a joint-venture partner. Indian joint ventures of multinational technology companies have typically ended with the foreign company buying out the local joint venture partner. In 1991, for example IBM set up a 50:50 joint venture with India's Tata Group to meet Indian government regulations restricting foreign ownership in computer companies. When that restriction was eased, IBM bought out Tata's share. Last week, however, the Essar Group said it would not exit from Hutchison Essar and would even be interested in increasing its stake in the mobile phone operator if an opportunity arose, the spokesman said.", "VODAFONE has revealed it will hike its dividend payment when it reports half-year results in November, while chief executive Arun Sarin insisted he was keen to make further global acquisitions.", "Allen Lew, managing director of SingTel Optus Pty&#39;s mobile unit, and Andy Reeves, chief technology officer at Vodafone Group Plc&#39;s Australian unit, speak on a teleconference from Sydney", "Beleaguered Vodafone chief executive Arun Sarin has said that he had enough support to defeat a shareholder revolt to remove him from heading the British mobile phone giant.", "The FTSE 100 was trading lower on Monday despite sharp gains for Vodafone after the UK's largest mobile phone company sealed the $18.8bn battle for control of Hutchison Essar.", "(InfoWorld) - An Indian NGO (non-government organization) called Telecom Watchdog has filed a petition with the High Court of Delhi, alleging that foreign shareholding in mobile services operator Hutchison Essar is in breach of the Indian government's regulations on foreign direct investment (FDI). Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd. (HTIL) announced in February that it had entered into an agreement with a subsidiary of Vodafone Group to sell its 67 percent direct and indirect equity and loan interests in Hutchison Essar for a total cash consideration of $11.1 billion. India's Essar Group, HTIL's joint venture partner in Hutchison Essar, holds 33 percent of the equity in the joint venture, with some 22 percent of this held by an Essar group company registered abroad. Indian government regulations allow a maximum of 74 percent foreign holding in an Indian telecom services company. If one were to add HTIL's 67 percent interest in Hutchison Essar with the 22 percent held by an Essar entity abroad, it would appear that the total foreign equity is in excess of the 74 percent limit, but there are other Indian shareholders besides Essar also involved, said an informed source. Telecom Watchdog was not immediately available for comment. HTIL spokeswoman Mickey Shiu said Thursday that Hutchison Essar was fully compliant with Indian rules on foreign direct investment. Shiu confirmed that there were other Indian shareholders besides Essar, but declined to give a breakdown of its 67 percent interest in Hutchison Essar. The petition by Telecom Watchdog alleges that as a result of HTIL's arrangements with Indian shareholders of Hutchison Essar, the foreign shareholding in Hutchison Essar is in breach of the foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations in India. It alleges that HTIL provided loans to its Indian partners to help them acquire equity in Hutchison Essar. HTIL shareholders vote Friday on the proposed sale of HTIL's interest in Hutchison Essar to Vodafone. The Indian government's Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) is meanwhile looking into all aspects of the transaction between HTIL and Vodafone. The scrutiny by the FIPB follows Vodafone's request for government approval for the proposed sale of HTIL's interest in Hutchison Essar to a Vodafone subsidiary, and is not an investigation into any irregularities in foreign holding in the company, Shiu said. The FIPB had approved HTIL's reorganization of its holding and the shareholding pattern in Hutchison Essar last year as way back as July last year, she added. Negotiations are still going on between the Essar Group and Vodafone on a shareholder agreement. The Essar Group wants joint control of strategic decisions at Hutchison Essar.", "Arun Sarin, chief executive of Vodafone, saw his pay package rise nearly 20 per cent in the last financial year as he achieved many of the mobile phone group&#39;s internal performance targets.", "Vodafone picked a successor to long-time finance chief Ken Hydon yesterday and restructured its board in an effort to give chief executive Arun Sarin more operational control of the mobile phone company." ]

[ "Ed and Lorraine Warren" ]

[ "Maine", "northeastern Maine", "Riverboro, Maine", "coastal Maine", "Derry, Maine", "Orono, Maine", "Remember the Maine", "The Gulf of Maine", "Almost, Maine", "Ludlow, Maine", "Yarmouth, Maine" ]

[ "PARIS Tyler Hamilton, the American bicycle racer who won an Olympic gold medal in the time trial last month in Athens, strongly denied Tuesday that he had used illegal performance-enhancing blood transfusions there and in the major race in Spain." ]

[ "Cycling authorities have decided to study the possibility of imposing mandatory DNA testing on ProTour cyclists to combat doping.", "Republicans in tight re-election contests were unloading contributions they received over the years from Mark Foley, the former congressman ensnared in an e-mail sex scandal.", "The judge leading the Operacion Puerto anti-doping investigation in Spain will begin calling up implicated cyclists to give witness statements in December.", "The International Cycling Union asks all 600 ProTour cyclists to sign an anti-doping charter and promise to submit DNA samples before the Tour de France.", "The investigation into a doping scandal that rocked the 2006 Tour de France ends with no criminal charges.", "Tour de France winner Floyd Landis said he will not race in France until the end of 2007 and the French Anti-Doping Agency agreed to postpone its investigation into the cyclist.", "The International Cycling Union is threatening riders with fines in an effort to stop doping. The UCI asked all 600 ProTour cyclists to sign an anti-doping charter saying they are not involved in doping and promise to submit DNA samples to Spanish authorities investigating the Operation Puerto. Riders have until July 7 &#151; the start of the Tour de France &#151; to sign the document.", "Brocade Communications Systems Inc's former CEO was sentenced on Wednesday to 21 months in prison for backdating stock-option grants in a scandal that has ensnared scores of U.S. companies and led to billions of dollars of restatements.", "The state prosecutor involved in the Spanish investigation into a sports doping ring has said he will urge the investigating judge to call all the cyclists implicated in the case to testify before him.", "Lawmakers charged with enforcing ethics in the U.S. House of Representatives met on Thursday to begin an investigation of a sex scandal that has ensnared top Republicans and could harm their chances of keeping control of Congress in the November 7 elections.", "Floyd Landis' attorney figures if the American cyclist couldn't win his doping case, nobody can. Maurice Suh said Friday that Landis was discouraged and needed time to consider his options, which include an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and even possible litigation outside the anti-doping system.", "Documents stolen from the Equestrian Federation of Ireland were linked to the ongoing doping scandal surrounding an Olympic gold medal winning horse.", "Use of performance-enhancing drugs ensnared not just All-Stars like Bonds and Clemens but also fringe players trying to hang on.", "The Austrian Olympic Committee was fined $1 million by the IOC on Thursday in connection with the doping scandal at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin.", "At the time of year when Austria flexes its muscles as a winter sports powerhouse, the nation is reeling from a series of doping scandals.", "Cycling deserves to remain in the Olympics despite the spate of doping scandals that have damaged the sport's credibility, IOC president Jacques Rogge said Thursday.", "WASHINGTON - US Senator John McCain warned that Congress may consider imposing drug tests on major league baseball players, as Washington tries to stem the damage from a raging doping scandal that has discredited professional sport.", "The Austrian Olympic Committee imposed lifetime Olympic bans Tuesday on 14 team officials linked to the blood doping scandal at the 2006 Turin Games.", "SAN FRANCISCO - Baseball star slugger Barry Bonds told a grand jury that he used a clear substance and cream from a firm embroiled in a doping scandal, but never thought they were steroids, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.", "Athens - The Athens Olympics have turned from party to tragedy for hosts Greece after doping scandals involving three of their top athletes.", "A Greek court on Monday put off the trial of Olympic medalists Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou in a case linked to a doping scandal at the 2004 Athens Games.", "Five weightlifters were banned from the Olympics after failing drugs tests, officials said on Thursday, as doping scandals continued to dominate the first week of the Games.", "IOC president Jacques Rogge believes 2004 marked a breakthrough in the fight to rid sport of drug cheats despite the doping scandals that blighted the Athens Olympics.", "SALVO, North Carolina - Former world indoor 200 meters champion Michelle Collins was suspended for eight years after she was found her guilty of doping charges in connection with the BALCO scandal, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said on Friday.", "Athens - Greek athletes have been ordered not to dedicate Olympic medals to disgraced sprinters Kostadinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou, who withdrew from the team after a dope-test scandal.", "OTTAWA (CP) - Federal and provincial governments have a legal but limited duty to consult First Nations about use of land ensnared in unproven aboriginal claims, says Canada's top court.", "Carl Lewis, who won the Olympic 100 meters in 1988 after Ben Johnson was thrown out for using steroids, said Justin Gatlin and Yuliya Nesterenko&#39;s sprint victories weren&#39;t dimmed by doping scandals that dwindled the fields.", "Austrian Olympic leaders pledge to crack down on national ski team officials after being hit with a $1 million fine by the IOC for a doping scandal.", "Greek Olympic 200 meters champion Costas Kenteris, the focus of an Olympic doping scandal, withdrew from the Athens Games on Wednesday \"out of a sense of responsibility.\"", "Hundreds of thousands of athletes, officials and visitors waved goodbye to Athens in a post-Olympics exodus Monday, leaving city officials to probe a doping scandal that tarnished an otherwise dream Games.", "Seven-times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong says cycling's premier race can recover from a series of doping scandals and come back even stronger.", "Halfway through the Tour de France, no compelling newcomer has broken through, no favorite has emerged and doping allegations have surfaced yet again. Cedric Vasseur became the first French rider to win a stage this year, but his victory and the Tour were overshadowed by the announcement of the doping test on cyclist Patrik Sinkewitz during a training session last month that turned up high levels of testosterone." ]

[ "Drives me in circles in New Orleans. Approaching the city AMTRAK station for miles the Garmin kept me in the left interstate lane. Just when the traffic density picked up, it changed it's mind and switched me to an extreme right side lane. This happened more than once and I narrowly missed an accident and wound up driving in circles. It does not always find the 'fastest' route but usually the shortest one." ]

[ "This seria is awesome I really enjoy learning the history of New Orleans and the rise of the people after hurricane Katrina", "If you love historical New Orleans this book is a must! Lyle Saxon really loved New Orleans and it comes thru in his writing. Highly recommend this book.", "Kick back, relax, and enjoy the vivid, true-to-life New Orleans setting in this novel, the perfect escape from everyday life.", "Explains Mardis Gras AND Carnival perfectly. It doesn't just happen in New Orleans! They also talk about Brazil and Canada.", "Treme is an immersion into the cultural, musical depths of New Orleans and I loved every minute of it. Having been a professional musician and a visitor to the city, I enjoyed the nostalgia. You could almost smell the chicory and salt water.", "The characters in this book are very endearing. I really enjoyed the setting in South - New Orleans. It reminded me somewhat of Fried Green Tomatoes which is one of my favorite books. I read it very fast - which is the sign of a good book. I would have given it 4 stars because, at the end, I had one or two unanswered questions at the end and I just couldn't understand why one of the main characters died the way she did.", "Post-Katrina New Orleans turns out to be just as important a character as the human ones. The descriptions Ed Kovacs includes in this crime story are incredible. The murderer, when unmasked, is not a huge surprise but getting to the unmasking is a worthwhile read. This book touches on all the vices that makes New Orleans the \"Big Easy\". A little long but the descriptive passages which make it so are definitely worth the read. This is billed as Book One, and I assuredly will be reading Book Two. I was given a copy of \"Storm Damage\" for an honest opinion. My opinion is this is definitely a book to be on your \"to read\" list.", "This is also a replacement from Katrina. I use to sell them in a department store. I am sure many ladies in New Orleans and surrounding cities, would love to replace this book.", "I like to travel so I was thrilled to find restaurants from New Orleans. There are all kinds of iconic restaurants throughout the USA. Good color photos. I like Campbell recipe books.", "If you are a foodie, this excellent book should be in your collection. Tom Fitzmorris, a long-time New Orleans food writer, gourmet cook, and fabulous raconteur, has produced a very readable, entertaining treatise on New Orleans' restaurants and culinary traditions. Though not a cookbook per se, the book has enough classic New Orleans recipes in it to make it worth purchasing, but what really shines is his narrative about the landmark restaurants and restaurant-owning families in America's most unique dining mecca.", "As I was a history and art major many years ago, plus a teacher of photography and ceramics, the book was fascinating to me. I had just finished a book about New Orleans called \"Chasing the Devil's Tail, and was interested in finding out more concerning E J Bellocq. I have looked at the book many times, and continue to be intrigued by the sad faces, and what those expressions said about the tragic life that the \"soiled doves\" lived in those days.", "Ozo definitely ventures into more rock territory on this release, as opposed to the more hip-hop influenced Street Signs and Embrace the Chaos, but it works well for them. The unexpected New Orleans celebration of \"Magnolia Soul\" is also a really fresh burst of inspiration. Great work!", "If you never been to Mardi Gras, try to get there in your life time at least once. Meanwhile buy this CD and get the feel for the GRAS. Also, a must have for New Orleans blues and rock and roll fans.", "love this doll, i got it for chistmas as a gift and i love it so much that i brought it on a trip with me to new orleans....lol", "In new orleans everyone has their own gumbo, red beans and rice, and jambalaya recipe. These are some of of the best. If you use these recipes you are guaranteed the real deal and authentic new orleans taste. There is enough detail so even if you've never made gumbo before, you can can do it. There are many New Orleans Cook Books. This is one of the better ones.", "I have been looking for this cd for some time now after I misplaced between moving from one state to another. It has Rockin' Dopsie and the Mambo Boys playing a New Orleans Mardi Gras version of Lou Bega's \"Mambo #5\" on it. That was the main song I had rebought this cd for, but there are other good songs on it to celebrate the Carnival Season... whether you are or are not from New Orleans and if you are celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans or away from down there.", "This book destroyed me. Destroyed me at least until January when the next one comes out so we can resolve this....hopefully. **insert cry face emoji here** sigh\nSo let's talk characters because I can't spew spoilers(although I really really want to)\nMarlo. I didn't like her at first, but she grew on me. She's spirited and feisty but not over done. Well played JA.\nEver. There is nothing I like more than a tortured hero and Ever delivers. Oh yeah; he delivers it with MORE.\nThe setting is New Orleans which is fabulously done. As a frequent visitor of the Big Easy, I can say it was supremely accurate. The sounds, the smells, the FEELINGS of being in that city are singular and JA has captured it.\nMy life from this point out is waiting for the sequel. True story. I'll be hibernating till January. Someone wake me up on January 9th.", "Just glad I did not pay for it. Written at a sixth grader level. Some marginal value for new Orleans history. How on earth it has good ratings is beyond me.", "Saw this one-act play in New Orleans a few years ago. Its simply brilliant - and deserving of a national audience. Didn't know the text was available, so I'm delighted to have it ..... cannot wait to refresh my recollection of some absolutely wonderful lines. Sometimes hilarious and always thought-provoking, the play transcends its central character -- and that's quite Character !", "Im from Gulfport,Ms and it is really a shame that we recieved so little news coverage. We were hit head on and had tremendous damage and we were just forgotten... All my extended family live in New Orleans so im not undermining what happened to our beloved New Orleans, but lets face it what happened to New Orleans was not Katrina but ERROR in the levees... Gulfport 5 years later is still struggling and will never be the same... home insurance has gone through the roof leaving many uninsured... My sister lives above I-10 and had major damage to her home. It is not a contest of who suffered more but the lack of coverage and help to the Gulf Coast tragedy loss was and is painful...\n\nAnnette d. Cahalan", "Meet the Boudreaux Family!! After you get to know them, brace yourself to be enamored by them.\n\nI want to start by saying that I have never been to New Orleans. So as Ms. Proby is giving you a visual of where these characters are at, you feel as if you are actually there. That is just how involve this book makes you feel.\n\nWith that being said, I love that this new series has the author's signature. Humor, romance, alpha/possessiveness, sass, and sexy scenes that make you wish your kindle was waterproof. Easy Love broke the ground to what I can see is going to be another series that will stick with you. There's fictional realism with the story line as well as the characters.\n\nSo what sets this story apart from her With Me in Seattle? The characters in the Boudreaux are more intense, soulful and deeper. I'm already anticipating the next book and have made mental connections for what I am hoping are upcoming books. This is a must read!", "Good stories from a storied New Orleans musician. As far as Crescent City modern jazz and rock and roll in the 50's - 60's and beyond is concerned, Harold Battiste Jr. was There When It Happened. He cut his teeth in places like the Dew Drop Inn and Cosimo Matassa's famous studio. He obtained a college degree in music education and has perhaps a little more more \"legit\", less \"street\" experience to relate than the likes of Dr. John. But after moving to L.A., he provided crucial collaboration/adult supervision that resulted in \"Gris Gris\" and other early Night Tripper albums - these were as much or more his creations as the Good Doctor's. In addition he helped birth the careers of Sonny and Cher, among others. He has also been at the forefront of modern jazz in his hometown and to an extent in his adopted Los Angeles. Some of the personal stuff was less engaging to me, but it's all part of his (warts and all) story. Add some priceless photos and you have another essential volume for fans of New Orleans and popular music.", "Very disappointed in this cookbook. The Italian influence on the cuisine of New Orleans is rich and pervasive. I thought I might find some gems in here that I don't have in some of my other New Orleans cookbooks. However, no such luck. I will probably never use any of these recipes", "This is my go to New Orleans cookbook. Recipes are delicious and history and comments bring it all together. Add this as a solid reference.", "Outkast really did this one! I recommend this one as a must have. I can listen to this album all the way through...over and over and over again. A lot of people say that their music is only for people from Atlanta and no one else would like it. But that is B--LS--T! I am from New Orleans and I dug it! One thing that I like about the Kast is that they don't stay on the same type level for their albums. The first album was on that gangsta tip, the second album was on another level, and this album here is on yet another level. Hey Outkast keep doing what ya'll are doing! If ya'll keep handling ya'll bizness like ya'll are we will keep buying ya'll music until the end of time. Oh and keep representing that \"Dirty South!\"", "P. Curran came on the scene with his take on the 'strange story' genre, a type of writing that serves its unnerving terror in an atmospheric, surreal way, more psychological than out-and out horror writing. His stories are set in 1980's New Orleans. While Stay Out Of New Orleans and Naught But A Shadow were of this style, the third in the Trilogy, The Breathtaking Christa P, is more of the best of the pulp fiction type. Think Jim Thompson in 80's New Orleans and you got it. We have what seems to be an unreliable narrator (an escapee from a mental institution) who is actually more reliable than those around him. Coming to New Orleans to hide and make a fresh start, he crosses paths with an acquaintance from the past who, knowing his history, effectively blackmails him into spying on the man's ex-lover, with horrendous consequences.", "In light of the recent events of Hurricane Katrina, I discovered this book by accident when searching the internet for information on historic New Orleans. I found and read an html text version of this book, posted on the internet. The posting was complete with scanned in pictures of the original 1912 first edition, including all of the book's illustrations (which were engravings). I am waiting for a hardcover edition to be delivered to me.\n\nThis book has charmed me. If you love history, and are interested in a real historical perspective of old New Orleans, this is an excellent book to study. The story is author, Eliza Ripley's personal account of growing up in pre-civil war New Orleans, written in first person. Eliza Ripley wrote this at the turn of the 20th century, when she was an older woman.\n\nThe writing may appear to be a little dainty and sentimental to modern readers. However, like historic novels, it is important to remember the time in which it was written. The detailed descriptions and open frankness of this book are delightful. It is as if she were speaking to you directly, describing details of her personal life, which took place during an important time in history. With the recent events of Hurricane Katrina, I was especially moved. Eliza Ripley writes, \"I feel I am, for the fun of the thing, dragging forth a few skeletons from closets, but I do not ticket them, so no harm is done.\"", "In her new book, Mortal Sins, Penn Williamson offers her readers a taut mystery which they won't forget too quickly. The author, AKA as Penelope Williamson, is also well known for her historical romances. And it is obvious from this book as the author calls attention to detail when she describes New Orleans so that we as readers feel as though we are walking down these streets.\nWhen a well respected society member of New Orleans is killed, all fingers point to his beautiful actress wife who has recently returned to her hometown and married this man. What may appear to many to be an open and shut case, provides readers with a roller coaster ride and page turning read as the plot takes off. And complicating matters further is the detective who is investigating the murder. Not only is he a widower with an unusual background but he is also this womans former lover and he is desparate to prove her innocence.\nThroughout the book Ms. Williamson introduces us to a book filled with interesting characters and a myriad of plots which twist and turn and in the end keep us reading late into the night.\nThis is the first book I read by this author but it certainly won't be the only one.", "A lot of things I could do without . It has a lot of twists . Keeps the mind working five stars .", "This adventure has everything I look for in this type of game; a haunted house, a rainstorm (that you walk in and never get wet!), New Orleans and hints of voodoo. The characters are interesting, not annoying, and there are less phone calls than in other Nancy Drew games. I especially like the diorama that gives a miniature overview of the game sites.\n\nThe problem is that many of the puzzles are not solvable. They involve tedious trial and error for a solution that cannot be deduced by logical reasoning, or simply make no sense at all. I found myself on the cheat boards often, and felt disheartened when I realized there was no way to have figured it out myself. Play this one for the gothic dark bayou ambiance, but don't waste time if you can't 'get' the puzzle.\n\nAwakeatMidnight.org", "I love it! I'm in love with it! I can\"t live without IT, to the point that I've bought the series twice. Hurricane Sandy took my first copy but I got it back as I see it as a must have and keep all time classic. Experience gang life and life living and working the corners from their perspective. Very hard hitting and realistic at life's view from the street level and the series will leave you wanting more.", "Very informative. I learned a lot about slavery in Haiti, the slave revolt and the future in New Orleans. But all of that info was enough for two books." ]

[ "This tea tastes good, but it is very finely ground and some of that ends up in the cup. I like to use the same tea k-cup 2-3 times to make iced tea and with Twinnigs it doesn't work because there is so little tea in the k-cup (I suppose that's why it is so finely ground - so they can use less) that it ends up too dilute. With Timothy's Earl Grey, on the other hand, there is much more tea in the k-cup which allows for my reuse of 2-3 times and the grounds don't end up in the cup. The taste is about the same except you get more for your money with Timothys." ]

[ "This Honey is very different from any Honey I've ever tried. It is good in coffee, not good in tea. It has a slight molasses<br />taste and its after taste is similar to raisins. Very unique in taste, some believe it is good for a sore throat.", "I have had coconut oil before but none that compares to this. It is sooooo good! It looks good, smells good, and tastes good. It is well worth the price. It is very smooth and has a slightly sweet taste. I use it in place of butter and shortening. It is really good on toasted bread. I suppose it would be a really good skin moisturizer also.", "Finally, a French Roast K-cup that taste like..., a french roast. I tried a couple of the other brands french roast and didn't think any of those were very good and came across as just regular weak coffee. This one, while not as good as if I had used my drip coffee maker, taste really good for a K-Cup. Has a nice smooth taste and full bodied taste. Has no bitterness. An very good French Roast K-cup.", "Finally, a good-tasting cereal that is gluten-free but tastes like something the whole family would eat! It is crunchy, tastes good and is not any more expensive than the cereal found on any grocery store shelf.", "Unlike the other oatmeals, Nature's Path has perfected the taste of their oatmeals. Usually, microwaved oatmeal is not good. Theirs, however, is so good tasting and good for you. We are now buying it by the case to save money.", "good tea -- good for blood pressure. tastes good and smells good too.webvitamins good place to order from. fast and efficient, especially with amazon as the go-between.", "This is the dark chocolate you can eat every day guild free since it is very good for you. As more and more scientific evidence shows that dark chocolate is good for you I have been trying to find a bar that is very high in the percent coco bean but also tastes good. I had first bough a 95% bar that did not taste good. This bar has the right combination of taste and % for me and I suspect for others as well.", "These cookies have a rich buttery taste and only 23 calories per cookie. Good tasting and not fattening. This could start a trend.. Keep up the good work Lu Cookies.", "Worst tasting peanut brittle ever (if it even earns the rating to be classified as peanut brittle).<br />It simply just doesn't taste the way good peanut brittle should taste.<br />At first glance, it looks good in appearance; but don't let that fool you- it tastes absolutely awful of plastic, preservatives, with peanuts.", "This is one of the best gluten-free organic cereals there is on the market! It actually has fiber. Taste good and is good for you!", "this coffee taste good and makes a good strong coffee at the 5 oz level. perfect for the morning wake up.", "I first tasted this sauce while backpacking through Sumatra in the 80s. The taste of hot potato chips (fries) with this sauce never left me and I've had a bottle in stock ever since. Splash it on your chow-mein or spring rolls, take a dash in a good chutney sandwich or smear it into a good burrito - the sweet, hot, garlicky taste is the best of all the sauces I've tasted in this genre." ]

[ "girl is jumping" ]

[ "jumping ropes are short", "The cyclist is jumping rope at the park.", "A man is jumping rope at the park.", "The girls are jumping rope.", "A child jumps rope in the park.", "two girls jump rope", "A man is jumping rope in the park with children.", "A group of girls jump rope.", "A girl is jumping rope on the Moon.", "The girls are jumping rope in the backyard.", "girls don't jump rope.", "The girls play jump rope outside.", "Girls and women are jumping rope outside.", "Three young girls jumping rope.", "Three girls jumping rope in the backyard.", "A little girl is jump roping.", "Four girls play jump rope.", "three girls are playing with a jump rope.", "The girls were jumping rope near the crowd.", "The girl is jumping on a park bench.", "A group of girls jump rope as people pass.", "Three girls jump roping on the playground.", "A girl is jumping over two ropes.", "The two girls were playing jump rope.", "A man jumping rope", "The girl is playing jump rope in her bedroom.", "The men are jumping rope.", "The girl in the blue dress is jumping rope.", "The girl is barefoot in a parking lot.", "A woman jumps rope.", "There are only two girls playing with a jump rope.", "Three girls playing jump rope outside." ]

[ "Wheel of Fortune" ]

[ "John J. Pershing (in charge of the American Expeditionary Force)" ]

[ "NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has the best evidence yet for an underground saltwater ocean on Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon. The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth's surface." ]

[ "Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have produced new maps of Jupiter – the first in a series of annual portraits of the solar system’s outer planets.", "The independent ESA mission JUICE (JUpiter ICy moon Explorer) has the goal to explore Jupiter and three of its Galilean moons. The spacecraft (S/C) will launch in the year 2022 and arrives the Jovian system in the year 2030. RIME (Radar for Icy Moons Exploration) and other experiments aboard JUICE will analyse the celestial bodies. Some selected scientific objectives will be the characterization of Ganymede, Europa and Callisto as planetary objects as well as the exploration of potential habitats. Moreover, the Jovian system shall be investigated as an archetype for gas giants.", "Exomoons are the natural satellites of planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, of which there are currently no confirmed examples. We present new observations of a candidate exomoon associated with Kepler-1625b using the Hubble Space Telescope to validate or refute the moon's presence. We find evidence in favor of the moon hypothesis, based on timing deviations and a flux decrement from the star consistent with a large transiting exomoon. Self-consistent photodynamical modeling suggests that the planet is likely several Jupiter masses, while the exomoon has a mass and radius similar to Neptune. Since our inference is dominated by a single but highly precise Hubble epoch, we advocate for future monitoring of the system to check model predictions and confirm repetition of the moon-like signal.", "This work describes the design and characterization of the Calibration Hot Load that is applied in the Submillimetre Wave Instrument on-board the Jupiter and Icy Moons Explorer satellite of the European Space Agency. The dielectric properties of the cold temperature suitable coating material 2850FT have been investigated within the desired bandwidth between 560 GHz and 620 GHz. Numerical calculations and experimental tests are carried out showing a coherent backscattering S11 below −57 dB.", "There is enormous potential for ocean thermal extraction in the PICs. The larger islands are potential candidates for OTEC technology implementation.", "Since the discovery of the four largest moons of Jupiter by Galileo Galilei in 1610, the satellite systems of the outer planets have been intensely investigated, which culminated in the images and data obtained by the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft (flybys at the four giant planets and their moons between 1979 and 1989) and recently by Galileo (Jupiter orbiter 1995–2003), Cassini (Saturn orbiter since 2004) and the Huygens probe (lander on Titan, Jan 2005). The Galileo, Cassini and Huygens missions have immensely improved our knowledge of the Jupiter and Saturn system, with respect to the giant planets itself, their ring systems, magnetospheres and satellite systems. ::: ::: In this chapter, general concepts of modeling the interior structure and evolution of icy satellites will be introduced and applied to several moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Focusing mainly on results from the Galileo and Cassini/Huygens missions, select satellites are discussed in more detail at the end of this chapter.", "Following Mather et al. (1999) we describe a concept for a future space mission called SPECS, a spatial and spectral Michelson interferometer with Hubble Telescope-class angular resolution and sensitivity that operates in the far infrared and submillimeter spectral range. SPECS enables detailed studies of the physical conditions in high-redshift galaxies and has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.", "It is pointed out that the double-humped ion distribution observed in the magnetosheaths of Jupiter and Saturn has also been seen in the terrestrial magnetosheath. (AIP)", "Studies of a large frost-filled basin on Pluto show that this feature altered the dwarf planet's spin axis, driving tectonic activity on its surface, and hint at the presence of a subsurface ocean. See Letters p.86, p.90, p.94 & p.97", "Detailed photometric study of a gravitational arc detected in a distant early type galaxy based on high resolution imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope.", "Observations of the jovian system in the near-infrared (3.4 m) reveal a wealth of information about Jupiter's magnetic field, magnetosphere, and magnetospheric dynamics. This wavelength contains a ...", "Abstract: Results of research so far indicate that convection currents likely do not play a major role in continental drift. [1] However, it is known that moon and sun tidal forces are sufficient to distort the shape of the planet and likely is the energy source for continental drift in the form of tidal forces. This concept outlines those tidal forces at work on the ocean’s ridges, such as the Mid Atlantic Ridge (MAR). Magma entering fissures plus flexure at the ocean’s ridges mechanically generates sufficient movement to force the crust plates away from the ridges.", "Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, hosts liquid hydrocarbon lakes and seas on its surface. During the last close encounter with Titan (22 April 2017), the Cassini spacecraft used its RADAR as a sounder to probe the depth of several lakes in the north polar terrain. This was the first time that Titan’s lakes, as opposed to its seas, have been viewed in a sounding configuration. Here, we show that these lakes can exceed 100 m depth and their transparency at the 2.17 cm radar wavelength indicates that they have a methane-dominated composition. This composition differs significantly from that of Ontario Lacus, the only major lake in Titan’s southern hemisphere, which is more ethane rich. If the methane-rich north polar lakes, perched hundreds of metres above the major seas, are formed by a karstic-type process, then they may drain by subsurface flow at rates between 0.001 and 1 m yr−1 (Titan year). Subsurface reservoirs and flows therefore may be an important element of the Titan geochemical system.", "LAGUNA is proposed project to build in Europe a megaton‐scale detector for neutrino physics, neutrino astrophysics and proton decay requiring a deep underground site. We outline here the characteristics of Boulby Mine, UK as a potential place for LAGUNA. We find that this site, already the location of several particle astrophysics experiments at 1100 m depth, has several interesting advantages for LAGUNA.", "The article informs on the construction of natural gas underground storage that is being built by the important German gas corporation Wintershall in natural gas field Rehden on Midal pipeline. By year 1996 the underground storage Rehden should have become the largest storage in Germany with capacity 4.2 mld m 3 and one of the largest ones in Europe. It should significantly contribute to fluency of natural gas supplies also during seasonal peaks.", "One of the most exciting experiences we have as designers, manufacturers, and end users of marine instruments and equipment is when we actually get to try them in the ocean for the first time. It does not matter if they are instruments, cameras, cabled networks, ROV's, ocean energy devices, or something else we built or bought, sea trials is the first time we really see them operating as intended, and the first time we truly know whether we will be successful. It can be a very frustrating time, but it can also be a very rewarding time. Described herein is OceanWorks experience in conducting sea trials on one of the worlds largest ROV's, and though it may seem a misnomer, the worlds largest manned ROV.", "Even before the headline-making announcements of Petrobras' elephantine deepwater Tupi discovery off Brazil and the US Minerals Management Service's blessing of a flagship FPSO development in the US Gulf of Mexico, the international oil and gas industry had already pledged close to $40 billion to sail 120 FPSs into service over the next five years. Darius Snieckus tests the waters of a market still on a rising tide.", "The Sun size = 400 folds the moon size, but the Sun/ Earth distance = 400 folds the Moon/ Earth distance, for that reason the people on the earth see the sun size equals the moon size approximately, that enables the total solar eclipse to be occurred before our eyes! Is it just \"a pure coincidence\"? or there's a physical reason caused the Sun/ Moon sizes rate = the Sun / moon distances to the Earth rate, to enable the total solar eclipse to be occurred! In this paper, I prove there's a physical reason behind this pure coincidence..", "As seen in 2009, which is the International Year of Astronomy, the bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth, celebrations for Galileo (1609, the first viewing of the moons of Jupiter), and the 150th anniversary year of the publication of On the Origin of Species. In this year the Kepler space probe was launched, the Hubble satellite telescope was refurbished, and increasingly powerful technologies more and more invade our daily lives, but all this hardly seems to be stirring our sense of mystery and wonder.", "Where should NASA’s Juno spacecraft aim its camera during its next close pass of Jupiter on Feb. 2?", "1. Technical Data 2. The Solar System 3. The Sun 4. Mercury 5. Venus 6. Earth and Moon 7. Mars and Satellites 8. Jupiter, Rings and Satellites 9. Saturn, Rings and Satellites 10. Uranus, Rings and Satellites 11. Neptune, Rings and Satellites 12. Pluto and Charon 13. The Asteroids 14. Centaur Objects and Kuiper Belt Objects 15. Comets 16. Meteorites 17. Beyond the Solar System Glossary Index", "A recent failure of Galileo's magnetic recorder was attributed to LED degradation. Annealing the culprit OP133 proved successful: irreplaceable data, taken during the encounter with Jupiter's previously unvisited moon Amalthea, was recovered. Annealing test data for both proton and electron displacement damage combined with a simple device temperature model explains some details of the failure and the partial recovery of recorder motor function.", "Abstract Beneath the surface of the streets of Toronto lies a sprawling labyrinth that serves over 100,000 people every day and countless tourists and visitors. One of the city’s most under-valued urban spaces, Toronto’s underground is remarkably the largest underground shopping complex in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records with more than 30 km of shopping tunnels and retail nodes. Since the 1970s, this underground system has grown and multiplied beneath the surface of the city with relatively little intervention from city planners. This article discusses the development pattern of the underground as a network and the future it holds as an important urban infrastructure.", ": An interesting process is described where a particle can very rapidly jump between different resonance orbits about the Earth, where the resonances are with respect to the Moon. This was discovered numerically in 1988, and until recently there was no way to prove its validity. Recent results with Brian Marsden and the author have proven that comets are performing this dynamics about the Sun in resonances with Jupiter. The fast resonance shift, termed the hop, occurs in a region of sensitive dynamics where weak capture occurs. The hop provides an interesting mechanism for instability of motion in the n-body problem, n > 2. Although most of this paper is survey in nature, some new results are presented on special capture-hop-escape trajectories, CHEs, which may have relevance to the Birkhoff conjecture. The significance of the weak capture region about the Moon was demonstrated in 1991 when a Japanese spacecraft arrived there on a new low-energy transfer.", "Recent infrared radiometric observations of Jupiter have disclosed local temperatures in the North Equatorial Belt far in excess of those at the level of the solid ammonia clouds, and visual observations reveal an orange-brown coloration within this belt. We suggest that, in a multilayer cloud model, solar ultraviolet photolysis of hydrogen sulfide in regions where ammonia clouds are sparse or absent should lead to the production of substantial quantities of inorganic chromophores.", "Transmission spectroscopy is a powerful tool for probing atmospheres of extra‐solar planets when transiting their parent star. The first detection of atmospheric species was NaI in HD209458b (nicknamed Osiris), thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) sensitivity reaching ∼10−4 in relative absorption depth. Still with HST, HI, OI and CII were discovered in the far UV. Despite recent controversy (Ben‐Jaffel 2007), everyone now recognize that these observations must be interpreted by the evaporation of the so called “hot Jupiters” with an escape rate of the order of 1010 g⋅s−1 (Ben‐Jaffel 2008; Vidal‐Madjar et al. 2008). More recently H+ and H2 via Rayleigh scattering have also been detected using UV spectroscopy. This underlines once more the potentialities of the UV‐farUV spectral domain where a large number of diagnostic lines is available. The next steps will be the detection and characterization of additional species toward further extra‐solar planets, hopefully down to Earth‐like worlds which will r...", "The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, aboard the Aqua satellite, captures the powerful storm just before landfall over the African nation.", "The vertical stability character of the families of short and long period solutions around the triangular equilibrium points of the restricted three-body problem is examined. For three values of the mass parameter less than equal to the critical value of Routh (μ R ) i.e. for μ = 0.000953875 (Sun-Jupiter), μ = 0.01215 (Earth-Moon) and μ = μ R = 0.038521, it is found that all such solutions are vertically stable. For μ > (μ R ) vertical stability is studied for a number of ‘limiting’ orbits extended to μ = 0.45. The last limiting orbit computed by Deprit for μ = 0.044 is continued to a family of periodic orbits into which the well known families of long and short period solutions merge. The stability characteristics of this family are also studied.", "We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 images of the symbiotic star V1016 Cygni that, for the first time, directly explore the inner regions of the nebula to AU scales at optical wavelengths. They also suggest that the [O III] λλ4959, 5007 emission takes place in a bipolar outflow. We use these images to determine the position of the two stars and hence a projected binary separation of 84 ± 2 AU (assuming a distance of 2 kpc) and a position angle of 1435 ± 10°. Furthermore, we combine our images with Very Large Array radio imaging, which enables diagnostic tests to be applied and properties of the circumstellar nebula to be determined. Finally, we have obtained archive HST Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph spectra of V1016 Cygni, with which we were able to spatially resolve the source at various positions in the nebula. This enabled discovery of the ultraviolet counterpart to the ~25'' extended emission found by Bang and coworkers.", "Two deep zonal water masses at approximately 5°S and 10°N from 170° to 130°W and a depth of 4–5 km were inferred from anomalous oceanographic properties, in particular potential temperature and dissolved oxygen.", "The passage of the MINER Act of 2006 has placed stronger requirements on communication and tracking equipment used in underground mines for emergency operations. This review details the safety concerns of battery chemistries that are expected to see use in emergency communication and tracking equipment. The performance and safety requirements for portable and stationary equipment are summarised. Descriptions are provided for domestic and international standards regarding intrinsic safety. Common concerns for battery charging systems for underground mines are also addressed.", "The determination of the internal structure of the Moon using bulk waves is largely complicated due to inhomogeneities in its uppermost layer. We investigate the possibility of studying the Moon’s interior by a sensing method using the free oscillations of the Moon. The spectrum of the free oscillations is calculated for two current models of the internal structure of the Moon derived from the analysis of the Apollo seismic network data, based on new methods: the MG (Garsia, et al., 2011) and MW (Weber, et al., 2011) models. In contrast to the MG model, the MW model includes a solid inner core. In this latter model, we estimate how the shear modulus of the inner core affects the structure of the oscillations." ]

[ "Depends on circumstances and type of food. Look at the holocaust victims, they were literally starving to death and if you allow them small bits of food and sips of water their body can handle it and slowly get better. Some still died of starvation even after being rescued. This is very circumstantial." ]

[ "[Here's](_URL_0_) a reddit thread from /r/AskHistorians about the subject. It implies that they mostly starved to death or died of dehydration. But pushing food through the butt might have been used.", "[Here is a related discussion: An average sized man, a body builder and a morbidly obese man are all deprived of food. Who would starve to death first and why?](_URL_0_) I would be curious to know what essential nutrients the 800lb person would die from a lack of first.", "Lots of plants died out. Dinosaurs were enormous and needed a LOT of food, so when it all died out they starved to death. Mammals were about the size of a rat, and needed much less food, so they didn't starve. Also, it's likely that mammals were better equipped for the colder temperatures that came from the sun being blocked out.", "While I am very much for drug testing for welfare recipients I always think it's important to understand the other side of the argument. The basic idea is that just because someone is addicted to drugs is no reason to allow them to starve to death. Moreover, people deprived of welfare aren't going to make the decision between drugs or food... they'll make the decision to have drugs *and* food through crime.", "Because when your tastes evolved, those foods weren't bad for you. Today, our problem is generally *avoiding* calories in order to keep weight down. Historically, though, that's not at all the case. In most pre-technological societies, starving to death was a real risk. So our bodies wanted us to seek out sugars and fats - very dense forms of energy - to keep us from starving to death.", "You should keep in mind that for essentially every animal but present-day humans (and even for some of us today), famine is much more likely than feast. So all creatures are evolved with an emphasis on gathering, storing, and preserving reserves of energy in case of famine. There is a part of your brain that, towards that end, wants you to never exert more energy than you need to. Why run when you can walk? Save the calories. Why walk when you can sit? Save the calories. Why do crunches when you could... not? Save the calories. Of course, for most of us today, we have too much food, and all could stand to burn extra calories. But our bodies don't know that yet. They still assume we're one bad season away from starving to death.", "The aspartame and saccharin are artificial sweeteners that contain no food energy. The knee jerk reaction to the dissappeared ants is that they were poisoned to death. They likely starved to death instead and the colony collapsed.", "Assuming this isn't a trick question about dehydration, yeah the big guy would take longer to starve to death. Much longer. Sadly there's plenty of data on starvation. Many people going hungry in the world and several pretty well documented hunger strikes that went all the way to tragedy.", "Say you live in a hunter gatherer tribe, thousands of years ago. One of the things that your tribe often gathers are blackberries. You hate blackberries, and don't eat them if there's other food available. One day, the blackberries are contaminated with a disease, or had some poisonous berries mixed in by mistake. Everyone that ate them dies, except you, and whoever else didn't like blackberries. Your dislike of blackberries saved your life. Of course, people who are starving will even eat foods that they don't like, because the potential advantage of disliking this food is far outweighed by the risk of starving to death. Variations like this can protect against catastrophe.", "Most animals dont remember anything very well, but they get habits ingrained in them. For example, i have a rescue cat who still eats every meal like its her last and that she has to scrape up every last bit (even though shes absolutely fed enough). so in that sense they \"remember\" So with all that in mind, I don't think they can comprehend the concept of being \"saved\"; and I think any searching for a \"gratitude\" is humanizing animal emotions more than is correct to do. Animals are very much in the moment, and if you're making them happy in that moment, that's what matters.", "Most animals cannot recognize themselves and are not self aware (there are a few exceptions, mostly primates and dolphins). They may feel sad that there is no food, but they won't understand what that emotion means, or even feel that emotion in the way a human would - it's just an instinctive feeling. They don't understand or even think about death, so they wouldn't get \"sad\" if they starved to death. [Your assigned reading for the day.](_URL_0_)", "I would give 2 reasons: 1) people who are desperate and not provisioned for end up going into a life of crime and banditry. Of course, the alternative is starving to death and they don't have anything to lose now. This is bad for society as a whole. 2) all welfare spent helps grow the economy. Since welfare payments are small, the receivers will not have a savings margin. Everything they get will go into buying food, paying rent and bills, etc. that's good for the economy as almost all the money put into welfare is being circulated into a large range of industries.", "Actually, it makes a lot of sense evolutionarily :-) For 95% of human existence, food has been incredibly *difficult* to find. Our ancestors frequently starved to death, particularly during times of famine/drought/heavy winter. So nutrients like fat & sugar were *really* important to them; they gave a big hit of energy/calories, for very little intake. An easy survival mechanism. Of course, that's not how you and I grew up, but that's only a very recent change. Mass-production of food has only really been achieved in the last 100 years, and evolution typically moves on a *much* bigger timescale than that. More importantly, evolution doesn't really care whether food is 'healthy' or not. It simply cares about staying alive and procreating. So no matter how overweight you become from eating ice cream, as long as you don't kill yourself, and you're able to produce offspring, evolution will regard it as a \"win\".", "If you did it completely on a molecular level they would starve to death. There is something called \"chirality\" in chemistry that means that identical but mirrored molecules behave differently. Our human biology will work with one kind molecule but not its mirror image. You could consume sugar that is mirrored in such a way and it would taste the same and be the same but your body would not process it. If you mirrored a person completely down the molecular level they would be fine, but without a supply of equally mirrored food they would slowly starve to death as their body would not be able to fully process everything.", "In theory yes, but by an immeasurably small amount which is overshadowed by existing changes to Earth's rotation such as tidal forces. The Earth's moment of inertia about its polar axis is about [8.03e37 kg m\\^2](_URL_0_). The mass of the [Burj Khalifa](_URL_1_) is about 5e8 kg, and its height is 829 m. If we place a similar building at the equator and consider it to be a uniform rod, it increases the moment of inertia by about 2.8e13 kg m\\^2, which is about 24 orders of magnitude smaller than Earth's moment of inertia. This would correspond to a change in rotational period of about 10\\^-20 sec. For reference, the day length is currently lengthening by about 30ns per day due to tidal interactions with the moon.", "Last year I visited the NC Museum of Natural Science and I touched a meteor on display described as *older than the solar system.* It took a moment for me to understand the concept. [Here's an article about rocks *older than the sun*](_URL_0_)", "There's very little to eat on a starved to death human. They're also generally diseased and take a lot of effort to butcher.", "I would say yes. [Here's](_URL_0_) an article about Dr. Clara M. Davis, a pediatrician who did a ton of experiments where she presented a bunch of foods to infants and allowed them to pick whatever they wanted. She did find that infants did know what foods to choose, but the choices that were given were inherently not unhealthy, so that may be a confound. Unfortunately, all the data that she collected was lost.", "Well, since more acid is created when food is present/about to be present/was just present, I would say that it would be better to be shot in the stomach when it is empty and has been for a little bit. Other then acid content, I would have to say both would be equally bad", "Those noodles are basically made of water and fiber so they have very little to no nutritional value. If that was all you had to eat you most likely would starve to death.", "To conserve energy. Sloths have a very slow metabolism, which means they can get by with very little food or water. When food is scarce, sloths can survive when other creatures would starve.", "The short answer is evolutionary history - it's only been in the last few thousand years (arguably the last thousand) that we've had an abundance of food. Before that, we were just like other foraging animals - we had to constantly be looking for food. Because of this, it would be entirely possible that we may have to go days, even weeks with little to eat if the food supply was short. Essentially, our bodies wouldn't want to \"waste\" the fat we have stored up - it would be better to save it for when we really need it. Hunger likely evolved as a way to ensure a constant supply of food when it was available so fat stores could be saved for dire circumstances.", "A strategy is a plan, a tactic is an action. In battle terms, your strategy to defeat a town might be to starve them out, and your tactics would be blocking their supply lines or spoiling their food stores. That being said, I think that they're basically interchangeable in everyday language. There might be an implication that a 'tactical' decision is something done in-the-moment to achieve immediate ends, while a 'strategic' decision is part of a longer-term plan.", "Sugar, like salt, attracts water. If there's enough water, the sugar dissolves and is a very popular food for just about everything around, bacteria, bears, bees, all love sugar. On the other hand, if there is very little water present sugar can dry you out. If you're very small, like a bacteria or fungus, then concentrated sugar is like a delicious, dry, deadly, desert. If you don't believe me go and eat a couple cups of sugar and let me know how your mouth feels.", "Just a point about hunger: I used to have a pretty severe eating disorder, and I would be constantly dreaming about food. I'd dream of eating and then wake up terrified thinking that it was real. When your body is truly starving it tells you so in as many ways as it can, including while you're sleeping.", "Animal life has evolved over hundreds of millions of years to survive in hostile conditions. Fat is reserve energy for when you **can't** find any food and don't want to starve to death. For almost all of history, finding a consistent & reliable source of food has been a huge difficulty. In contrast, agriculture has only been around for about 10,000 years. Even then, people still had lean winters and drought years to survive through. The modern western lifestyle of plentiful food, all the sugar you want & sedentary desk jobs has only really existed for the last 50 or so years. The \"obesity epidemic\" only goes back a generation or so. These are inconsequentially small periods of time from an evolutionary timeline.", "In a word, no. Medieval sieges tended to take far, far longer with the general idea being to starve the enemy out and weaken them before risking the walls. It also took a great deal of time to move troops into position, build the necessary siege engines, and play out a siege. Food and water were critical. It was all about outlasting the opponent. Any attempt to take the walls at full strength would cost men at a heavy ratio. Thus defenders tried to present as unappealing a target as possible while hoping the attackers would either grow impatient and assault too soon, or exhaust the remaining food in the countryside and starve, either weakening their potential attack, opening them to counter-attack, or forcing them to move on before the destruction of their host through starvation, desertion, and disease.", "I don't have any sources, but I can say that the information itself is not harmful, it is however it is presented that makes the difference. (I took child development courses). For an extreme example, I would say teaching children about the holocaust by talking about events and ideology (usually happens pretty young) is different than letting them see videos of torture and death. There is a benefit for any child to be familiar with something, even if the details should be saved for later. At kindergarten age I think it's more important for them to know about their own genitalia and that is personal to them/ off limits to others. Even if this is vague, it might encourage abused children to come forward. They don't really need a step by step guide to sex, but it's important that the topic is open more than anything.", "_URL_0_ That's the last thread about this that I saved. Some really interesting answers and .pdf's in there.", "Because you didn't need incentive to seek out plant matter previously. It was easily obtainable and a staple so you ate it even if it was icky because it's better than starving Calorie rich food was rare so you should prioritize eating as much of that as possible. The vegetables will be fine tomorrow, but the delicious fat on the mammoth will be gone and that may result in you starving to death during the winter", "Your body needs other substances from food to survive besides calories, such as vitamins and minerals. If you stop eating, you can't properly regulate your body processes. Also, if you go long enough without eating, your body will believe you are starving to death and begin burning muscle rather than fat. You can keep on a low-calorie diet without starving yourself.", "Animals don't necessarily have the imagination necessary to understand that there are other options available and that a substitution would be nicer. However, it would be very hard to test this. Animals definitely have preferences if presented with two different foods together, after all. You can see that in pets; my dog will pick through kibble to get treats put in her bowl. But, many cats and companion birds are notoriously difficult to switch to different foods and treats. So how would scientists test boredom? [This article](_URL_0_) talks about boredom in animals in general, and some of this difficulties in determining it. You sent me into a bit of a wormhole so here's [another](_URL_1_) ." ]

[ "State lawmakers are debating whether or not to have Arizona opt out of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. KJZZ's Mark Brodie has the details." ]

[ "Connecticut became the first state to sue the federal government over the No Child Left Behind law. It's the most serious challenge to date for the three-year-old law, which was a major domestic priority in President Bush's first term. No Child Left Behind marked the broadest expansion of the federal role in public schools in a generation. Many states have chafed at its restrictions and what they say is too little funding from Washington. Diane Orson of member station WNPR reports. The dispute centers on testing requirements under No Child Left Behind. Students in Connecticut have been tested in grades 4, 6, 8 and 10 for two decades and state officials say the accountability program has worked. Connecticut students consistently rank near the top of the nation in academic performance. But beginning this school year, No Child Left Behind requires additional tests in grades 3, 5 and 7. State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says the law specifically prohibits unfunded mandates -- and Washington is illegally forcing Connecticut to spend millions of its own dollars on unnecessary tests. A cost analysis finds that by 2008, Connecticut will have to pay $41.6 million to implement all the requirements of the federal law. The federal government disputes that number. But State Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg says the suit is not just about the funding. She says if the state is forced to do more testing, she wants control to design tests that help classroom teachers. \"They're actually telling us to, and I hate to use the word, but dumb down our test,\" Sternberg says. But federal officials say the testing requirements in No Child Left Behind are aimed directly at states like Connecticut, where despite educational success there's a huge achievement gap between rich and poor, and white and minority students. \"It's unfortunate that the state has chosen to address their achievement gap with a lawsuit that takes attention from their neediest students,\" says Susan Aspey, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education. \"No Child Left Behind at its heart is designed to close the achievement gap and raise student achievement for all students regardless of race or income or background.\" And she says the federal government has provided more than enough funding to pay for the additional testing. MELISSA BLOCK, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel. Today, Connecticut became the first state to sue the federal government over No Child Left Behind. It is the most serious challenge so far for the three-year-old education law, which was a major domestic priority in President Bush's first term. BLOCK: No Child Left Behind was the federal government's broadest expansion into the public schools in a generation. Many states have chaffed at the law's restrictions and at what they say is too little funding from Washington. SIEGEL: In a moment, we'll hear about the states' concerns from NPR's Claudio Sanchez. First, Diane Orson of member station WNPR has details of today's lawsuit in Connecticut. DIANE ORSON reporting: The dispute centers on testing requirements under No Child Left Behind. Students in Connecticut have been tested in grades four, six, eight and 10 for two decades, and state officials say the accountability program has worked. Connecticut students consistently rank near the top of the nation in academic performance. But beginning this school year, No Child Left Behind requires additional tests in grades three, five and seven. State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says the law specifically prohibits unfunded mandates, and Washington is illegally forcing Connecticut to spend millions of its own dollars on unnecessary tests. Mr. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (Attorney General, Connecticut): Our message today is: Give up the unfunded mandates, or give us the money. Live up to the promise of this law. ORSON: A cost analysis finds that by 2008, Connecticut will have to pay $41.6 million to implement all the requirements of No Child Left Behind; the federal government disputes that number. But state Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg says the suit's not just about the funding. She says if the state is forced to do more testing, she at least wants control to design tests that help classroom teachers. Ms. BETTY STERNBERG (Education Commissioner, Connecticut): They're actually telling us to--and I hate to use the word--but `dumb down' our tests, do a less-rigorous test, sort of pull back on the high standards that we've had for 20 years. And I don't think that that is what our citizenry in general would want us to do. ORSON: But federal officials say the testing requirements in No Child Left Behind are aimed", "Editor's note: This is an excerpt of Planet Money's newsletter. You can sign up here. On Friday night, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that Congress had reached a bipartisan agreement on the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (H.R. 6201), and President Trump subsequently tweeted his support. The Senate is expected to vote on it this week. The multi-billion dollar bill has a number of measures to fight the COVID-19 outbreak, including free testing, expansion of unemployment insurance and food assistance, and, importantly, \"emergency paid sick days\" and \"emergency paid leave.\" The Act requires that most small and mid-sized businesses provide two weeks of paid sick leave during the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Likewise, employees of these companies will be eligible for up to three months of paid family and medical leave, giving them two-thirds of their average monthly earnings per month if, for example, they have to take care of their kids with schools closed. The bill compensates these companies for worker leave with government money. Heather Boushey, who heads the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, thinks the bill doesn't go far enough. \"The House bill includes far too many exemptions,\" she says. The biggest one: companies with over 500 employees, which means companies like Amazon and McDonald's are not required to provide paid sick, medical, or family leave. The Center for Equitable Growth leans left, and Boushey is not surprisingly looking out for workers. But there are selfish reasons to expand paid leave enormously. Given how many of these big businesses work in face-to-face services, like food and hospitality, she thinks the lack of a universal mandate for sick leave is not just a public health hazard, but a hazard to the economy. Boushey, like other economists we spoke to in a recent Planet Money episode, stresses that the first priority has to be containing the virus. When people are sick or quarantined or afraid, there's not much the traditional economic toolbox can do to return us to normal times. As Austan Goolsbee told us in the episode, \"The thing about virus economics that's different from regular business-cycle economics is the most important thing you can do for the economy has nothing to do with the economy.\" Paid leave would keep way more people isolated, which is exactly what public health officials are recommending right now. And Boushey thinks that's economically sound. \"This would decrease not only the spread of coronavirus, but also the flu and other contagious diseases,\" she told us, citing a study that found that paid sick leave dramatically lowers the rate of transmission of the traditional flu. \"That's going to lower the cost of this pandemic for our society. It's going to lower the stress on our healthcare sector.\" While the bill does not force large employers to provide sick leave, around 89 percent already offer some form of this policy, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Additionally, employers like Walmart and Uber, have been voluntarily adjusting their paid-sick leave policies in response to the crisis. But, as of 2019, the average amount of paid sick days at big employers was eight days, which is six days shy of the recommended 14-day quarantine for coronavirus. Jason Furman, former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama, is urging the federal government to mandate that all businesses provide paid sick and family leave. But he also believes that the federal government should pick up the tab. Simply mandating it without funding it, he says, would hurt companies that are already reeling from the rapid fall of consumer demand. \"A mandate would fall disproportionately on businesses in the leisure and hospitality industry that have thin margins and are being slammed by the current crisis,\" Furman says. \"The government should pay for it for all workers.\" Such a measure would cost billions and billions of dollars, but it comes with the very real social and economic benefits of slowing the spread of COVID-19. Maybe \"sick leave\" or \"medical leave,\" with its overtones of a kind of health vacation, is the wrong phrase. Maybe we should be talking about a \"containment stipend.\" Did you enjoy this newsletter? Well, it looks even better in your inbox! You can sign up here.", "Two record-setting parental-leave laws were passed this week, on opposite sides of the U.S. In New York, the state became the fourth in the country to offer some form of paid parental leave to residents. When fully implemented, the state's program will compensate parents for up to 12 weeks of leave — twice what's currently covered in the most generous states. And in San Francisco, city supervisors voted to require employers to give workers six weeks of paid parental leave — not just partially paid, but fully paid. It's the first U.S. city to pass such a measure. The State Of Parental Leave In The U.S. The U.S. is the only developed country in the world that doesn't mandate paid family leave. (It's also the only high-income country that doesn't mandate paid sick leave and is far behind comparable economies in terms of vacation days.) \"U.S. labor laws date to the 1930s, a time when most families had a stay-at-home mother,\" NPR's Jennifer Ludden noted in 2014. \"The only federally mandated leave covers just half of the workforce, and many people tell pollsters they can't afford to use it because it's unpaid.\" That's the Family and Medical Leave Act, which was established in 1993 and allows employees to take up to 12 weeks per year of unpaid leave to care for a new baby or a sick family member. But it doesn't cover many part-time workers and excludes anyone working at a company with fewer than 50 employees. And while it allows new parents to keep their health insurance and have a job to return to, it doesn't help pay the rent or the mortgage. Some states have expanded FMLA for their residents, either making it last longer or making it available for more people. Until New York passed its new legislation this week, only three states offered any paid family leave: California, New Jersey and Rhode Island. California covers 55 percent of an employee's wages for up to six weeks; New Jersey, up to about 67 percent for six weeks; Rhode Island covers a portion of wages for up to four weeks, based on the employee's income. Each state's program is funded through an employee payroll deduction, and payouts are capped. Washington state passed a paid-parental-leave law, but it was put on hold and has never gone into effect. (The chart below includes only currently active policies.) New York: An Issue Of 'Economic Justice' On Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a parental-leave policy into law as part of a state budget deal (which also mandated a statewide minimum wage of $15 an hour). The leave policy will begin to be implemented in 2018, covering 50 percent of a worker's average wages for up to eight weeks — already the longest period of time covered by a state leave policy. And when fully implemented, the policy will cover 67 percent of a worker's average wages for up to 12 weeks, fully twice as long as any of the current state policies. A statement from Cuomo's office described the paid-leave plan as \"a major accomplishment in the Governor's efforts to restore economic justice and fairness to working families.\" Like the other states that have implemented paid leave, New York will impose a cap on the money paid out to workers each week, and the leave payments will be funded by an employee payroll deduction. But some business leaders have objected that even if businesses aren't paying for the leave directly, the new law will pose a compliance challenge. Or they are concerned it will \"add to perception that the Empire State is hostile to business,\" as Heather Briccetti of the Business Council put it, according to a report by Syracuse.com. San Francisco: 'The United States Has Fallen So Far Behind' San Francisco's new measure, approved by the city's board of supervisors Tuesday and expected to receive Mayor Ed Lee's signature, affects businesses with more than 20 employees and will go into effect in 2017. The measure works hand in hand with California's existing parental-leave policy — which, as noted above, covers 55 percent of a new parent's income during his or her leave. The new San Francisco measure will require businesses to pay the remaining 45 percent. \"The United States has fallen so far behind the rest of the world in providing paid parental leave,\" city Supervisor Scott Wiener said in a statement. \"We shouldn't force mothers and fathers to choose between taking care of their child and putting food on the table.\" The Small Business Commission of San Francisco voted 6-1 to express its opposition to the new rules, saying it would put businesses at a competitive disadvantage compared with businesses in neighboring counties and threaten their profit margins. \"Ultimately this type of legislation, ironically, harms the employees of the small businesses,\" florist and small-business commissioner Kathleen Dooley said in that meeting. \"Because faced with more and more financial hits, the small-business employers who are generally pretty supportive of their employees are going to be pushed against the wall, and the fallout", "As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments over President Obama's health care overhaul this week, we take a look at the questions at stake each day. Monday: Can the courts even rule on the constitutionality of the law right now? Federal law bars individuals from challenging a tax in court before they pay it. The penalty for failure to have health insurance is levied on individual tax returns. But it does not kick in until 2015. So, since no one has paid the penalty yet, and no one has been hurt by it, the question is whether the court has jurisdiction to rule on it yet. The Obama administration and the challengers agree that the court should proceed to rule on the whole law, so the justices have appointed a third lawyer, Robert Long, to argue the opposite view. Tuesday: Can the government force you to buy health insurance? The Affordable Care Act requires virtually all legal U.S. residents to have health insurance coverage by 2014. That means that if you are not covered by Medicare, Medicaid or employer-provided insurance, you have to purchase insurance yourself, and the law provides generous subsidies for people who need help. This \"individual mandate\" aims at near universal coverage by spreading the risk among a lot more people. It is the key to paying for the things that everyone wants in the health bill — namely, a ban on discrimination based on previous medical conditions and a requirement that insurance companies generally charge people in the same age groups the same rates. Those challenging the law contend that this is the first time the federal government has required people to buy a commercial product they may not want, and that the government simply doesn't have that much power. The government counters that health care is unique — everyone will consume it, the only question is when, and the mandate is a way to ensure that everyone pays his or her fair share. Wednesday morning: If the mandate is struck down, do all the other provisions of the law fall? If not, which parts of it remain standing? The concept of what might remain if the mandate is struck down is called \"severability.\" Even the federal government concedes that the way the insurance business works, if everybody doesn't buy in, the insurance companies can't possibly afford to cover people with pre-existing health conditions at the same price as healthy people. So if the mandate is found to be unconstitutional, the pre-existing conditions provision would have to go, too. The challengers agree and go farther. They claim that similarly every provision of the law must fall if the individual mandate is struck down. Wednesday afternoon: Is Congress unconstitutionally twisting the arms of the states by requiring them to expand Medicaid? The health care overhaul law calls for greatly expanding Medicaid, a health care program for low-income Americans currently funded jointly by the states and the federal government. Right now, only certain types of people qualify for Medicaid: low-income children, pregnant women and people with disabilities, for example. States are not required to participate in Medicaid, but all of them do; the federal government picks up at least half of the tab. Under the health law, low-income people generally, not just specific groups like children, would be eligible for Medicaid. That would bring many more people into the program, but the federal government would pay all the costs related to this expansion for the first three years. States would only be liable for up to 10 percent of the costs by the end of the decade.That is far less than states generally have to pay for the rest of the program. The catch is that the states can't opt out of just this part. It is take-it or leave- it; if they don't accept the expansion, they would have to forego all their Medicaid money from the federal government. The states contend that this is unconstitutional coercion. So far, no court has bought that argument.", "Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has signed a law abandoning the standards of the Federal No Child Left Behind Act. While the Utah rules overlap with the federal law on some counts, the state's code will take precedence in cases of conflict. Some 15 states are considering following suit, despite millions in federal aid that could be lost. Guest: Margaret Dayton, Republican State Representative in Utah; leading the fight against No Child Left Behind in her state NEAL CONAN, host: President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act was intended to help address long-term inequalities in the education system. In the three years since it was signed by the president, more than a dozen states have taken moves to drop out of the unfunded mandate. Yesterday, Utah became the first to actually lay down the law. The state's governor, Jon Huntsman, signed a bill which orders education officials to use Utah's state standards over federally mandated ones. That's at the risk of tens of millions of dollars in federal funds. Margaret Dayton was the state representative who spearheaded this measure. She joins us now from her home near Salt Lake City. Thanks very much for being with us today. State Representative MARGARET DAYTON (Republican, Utah): I'm glad to be here. CONAN: What was your major problem with No Child Left Behind? Rep. DAYTON: My major concern with No Child Left Behind is that the federal government is involved in an arena that is not allowed for in the Constitution. CONAN: And isn't that an issue for the federal courts or the federal legislature? Rep. DAYTON: Well, we need to remind ourselves that the Constitution of the United States specifically says that the federal government has only those powers enumerated and delegated to it by the states, and all else that is not granted to it in the Constitution is reserved for the state. CONAN: This is the 10th Amendment, yes. Rep. DAYTON: Well, then, just in case that wasn't understood, it was restated and put in cement in the 10th Amendment. So initially, we shouldn't even have the federal government involved in education. But secondly, when the state of Utah was applying for statehood in the late 1890s, they had to meet certain requirements that all other states had had to meet when they came into the union, including having a proposed constitution. Now Utah had to have, like the other states did, several things in that proposed constitution that they all had in common, and one of those things was a plan for educating the citizens of their own state. There was this fear with the federal government that the new states would come into the union and expect the federal government to take care of their needs, including their education. So Utah had to have a plan for educating their own citizens in their proposed constitution, which it had. And then when it met all of the requirements for statehood, Congress issued what was called the Statehood Enabling Act, or a law creating the state of Utah. And part of that Enabling Act addresses schools and colleges and says--and I'm quoting here--\"The schools and colleges provided for in this act shall forever remain under the exclusive control of the said state of Utah.\" CONAN: We're speaking with Margaret Dayton, a Republican representative in Utah. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. And so like a strict constructionalist, you look at that law and you say the federal government has no business involving itself in Utah. Presumably, that includes federal money to support education in Utah. Rep. DAYTON: Well, I need to go a little further than that. You know, in the 1980s, when the Congress created the Department of Education, that was created under Public Law 96 def. 88. And that law says that the establishment of the Department of Education shall not increase the authority of the federal government over education or diminish the responsibility for education, which is reserved to the states. And that was in the 1980s when, you know, the Department of Education was created. So we have quite a standard here, starting with the United States Constitution, with the Utah Constitution, with the Utah Enabling Act and with the congressional language that created the Department of Education that restates over and over and over again that education is a states' rights issue. CONAN: And again, are you ready to send the check back to Washington? Rep. DAYTON: The bill is not written for that. You're probably remembering that two years ago, Utah had a bill, and it was the No Child Left Behind opt-out bill. CONAN: Right. Rep. DAYTON: And I started with that issue, and", "As congressional Republicans and the Trump administration keep chipping away at the Affordable Care Act, a number of states are enacting laws that aim to safeguard its central provisions. The GOP tax plan approved by Congress in the last days of 2017 repealed the ACA penalty for people who fail to carry health insurance, a provision called the individual mandate. But before that federal change happens next year, some states are working to preserve the effects of the mandate by creating their own versions of it. Maryland is on the cutting edge with legislation moving through both chambers of the Statehouse. \"We've been just struggling since Trump became president with how to protect the ACA in our state,\" says Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizens' Health Initiative, a nonprofit organization that has been instrumental in pushing the measure. Proposals have also been advanced in at least nine other states, including California, Washington and Connecticut, and the District of Columbia. Creating an individual mandate is just one way that states — generally blue states where Democrats control the legislature — seek to ensure what many lawmakers view as key advances made by the ACA don't disappear. And they're looking to one another as test cases to see how state-level legislation can either buttress or alter the ACA, according to Trish Riley, the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy. \"One state will try one approach, others will try it,\" Riley says. \"It's an experiment and an important one.\" Time is short since most states have limited legislative calendars and are fast approaching the deadlines for insurers to file their 2019 rate plans. Passing and implementing these kinds of measures will be tough, says Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, but adds: \"I think there's still a window of opportunity for states to do something and have an impact on 2019 premiums.\" How it's being done The federal individual mandate was put in place to make sure that younger, healthier people joined the insurance risk pool, helping to stabilize the market. The idea is that those customers help cover the insurers' costs for sicker customers' care, which keeps premium costs manageable. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 13 million people nationwide would become uninsured without the individual mandate. Health care experts and insurance officials have offered strong warnings about what could become of the individual insurance market without intervention. Most states that are contemplating replicating the insurance requirement have opted to follow the path put in place by the federal mandate. Maryland goes one step further, using the tax penalty, advocates say, as a \"down payment\" on an insurance policy. Beginning in 2020, if someone in the state indicates on their taxes that they're uninsured, instead of simply depositing the fine in a general fund, Maryland would use it, plus any tax credits from the federal government, to buy an insurance plan for that individual. The state would match its residents only with plans that cost nothing more than the fine plus the federal subsidy. So, if such a plan isn't available in a person's area, the state will hold on to the money in an interest-bearing account until the next open enrollment season. Then, the person has another chance to buy insurance. If at this time they don't purchase a plan, the state will deposit the money into an insurance stabilization fund. But Jason Levitis, a senior fellow at Yale Law School's Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy, who has been instrumental in helping other states craft their own proposals, cautioned that this kind of approach could face administrative challenges. States that follow a path that tracks more closely with the federal mandate, he says, will have an easier time implementing it because regulators have already had five years of experience enforcing it. That's why he favors approaches that use the same terminology, definitions and basic structure as the federal mandate. Still, Levitis praises the Maryland plan: \"There's something attractive about the idea there, that you put this money ... towards coverage.\" But a sampling of pending state proposals highlights a common theme. \"All the mandate efforts are based on the federal one,\" Levitis says. \"The variations are what you put on top, [how states] individually keep track of the money people pay and use it for healthcare services.\" He points to Connecticut as an example. It has two bills pending in its legislature – one that closely mirrors the federal mandate, but with slightly lower fines, and another in which the fines would be deposited into health savings accounts for the individuals. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, a Senate panel advanced a two-bill approach this week that would collect a fee from residents who opt against buying health insurance. These fines would then be used to help ", "Some states have registered protests to the new Real ID act, which will greatly increase the amount of paperwork state motor vehicle divisions have to handle. We hear from the governor of Arkansas about his objection to what he's calling an unfunded mandate. Guest: Gov. Mike Huckabee, Republican governor of Arkansas Cheye Calvo, transportation director, National Conference of State Legislatures FRANK STASIO, host: President Bush signed the Real ID Act into law last week, setting a federal standard for state-issued driver's licenses, and depending on where you live, applicants may now have to provide more forms of identification which states will then check against federal databases. Advocates for the act hope that it will help control illegal immigration and increase security. What do you think about the Real ID Act and about the balance between security and bureaucracy? And if you work at a DMV, we'd especially like to hear from you at (800) 989-TALK, (800) 989-8255. We're joined now by Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. He led state opposition to the law. He joins us from Newport Beach, California, where he is promoting his new book, \"Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork.\" Governor, welcome to the program. Governor MIKE HUCKABEE (Republican, Arkansas): Well, thank you very much, Frank. Pleasure to be with you for a few minutes. STASIO: What are your concerns about the Real ID Act? Gov. HUCKABEE: Well, once again Congress has stuck it to the states. I mean, that's it in a nutshell. They don't have the courage to put forth a national ID system which they believe that we need, so what they're gonna do is to hand not only the responsibility but also the burden of paying for it over to states already strapped by unfunded mandates like increases in Medicaid obligations and a host of things. It's completely the wrong approach. If we need a national ID system, and some have acknowledged that perhaps we're at a point in our national security that we do, something that clearly identifies not only citizenship but criminal background, that's fine. It becomes the essence of a passport. But let's be honest about it. Let's not ask states to make their driver's license a national passport. And for heaven sakes, let's not put people who are right now behind the counter of a DMV, who are not trained to be INS agents or FBI or CIA, suddenly make these folks who don't earn enough money as it is, take on the burden of screening out terrorists. It's a completely wrong way to approach this. STASIO: Well, we're also joined by Cheye Calvo, transportation director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, joining us from his office in Washington. Cheye, thanks for being with us. Mr. CHEYE CALVO (National Conference of State Legislatures): Pleasure to be with you. STASIO: How do you feel about that, and about what Governor Huckabee says is really the consequence of this? Mr. CALVO: I think state legislators agree completely with what Governor Huckabee articulated, but now we're sort of faced with the reality that this bill has become law, and so now states have to scramble over the next three years to meet the mandates that have been imposed and come up with the money to pay for those, or there are gonna be some serious consequences for state citizens. STASIO: How do you plan to come up with the money, Governor? Gov. HUCKABEE: Well, that's just it. We don't have plans to have to come up with the money because we just finished our two-year budget cycle. We weren't prepared to enact this. We've made enough changes in our driver's license system that it won't be as much of a burden on us as it will other states because we have a lot of those ID-readable driver's license. But here's the real catch for many states. It's gonna be coming at a time when the question is: If someone uses a driver's license to do some dastardly deed, is the responsibility gonna be pointed back toward a state government? And in the meantime, many states will be spending up to between 100 and $500 million to enact this. We feel like that a driver's license is exactly what it says, it's a driver's license. It's not a license to cross borders. It's a license to operate a motor vehicle within the confines of that particular state. STASIO: Well, what about that, Cheye Calvo? This is a national security issue. Should we be leaving this up to 50 states to figure out how to vet our citizens? Mr. CALVO: Well, it's a good question and it's important to understand that the intelligence bill that passed in December actually set up a state-friendly system to develop federal sta", "Betting that thin is in — and might be the only way forward — Senate Republicans are eyeing a \"skinny repeal\" that would roll back an unpopular portion of the federal health law. But health policy analysts warn that the idea has been tried before, and with little success. Senators are reportedly considering a narrow bill that would eliminate the Affordable Care Act's \"individual mandate,\" which assesses a tax on Americans who don't have insurance. The bill would also eliminate the ACA's penalties for some businesses – those that have 50 or more workers and fail to offer their employees health coverage. Details aren't clear, but it appears that — at least initially — much of the rest of the 2010 health law would remain, under this strategy, including the rule that says insurers must cover people who have pre-existing medical problems. In remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said that \"we just heard from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that under such a plan ... 16 million Americans would lose their health insurance, and millions more would pay a 20 percent increase in their premiums.\" The CBO posted its evaluation of the GOP's proposed plan Wednesday evening. Earlier in the day, some Republicans seemed determined to find some way to keep the health care debate alive. \"We need an outcome, and if a so-called skinny repeal is the first step, that's a good first step,\" said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. Several Republican senators, including Dean Heller of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona, appear to back this approach, according to published reports. It is, at least for now, being viewed as a step along the way to Republican health reform. \"I think that most people would understand that what you're really voting on is trying to keep the conversation alive,\" said Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. \"It's not the policy itself ... it's about trying to create a bigger discussion about repeal between the House and Senate.\" But what if, during these strange legislative times, the skinny repeal were to be passed by the Senate and then go on to become law? States' experiences with insurance market reforms and rollbacks highlight the possible trouble spots. Considering the parallels By the late 1990s, states such as Washington, Kentucky and Massachusetts felt a backlash when some of the coverage requirement rules they'd previously put on the individual market were lifted. \"Things went badly,\" said Mark Hall, director of the health law and policy program at Wake Forest University. Premiums rose and insurers fled these states, leaving consumers who buy their own coverage (usually because they don't get it through their jobs) with fewer choices and higher prices. That's because — like the Senate plan — the states generally kept popular parts of their laws, including protections for people with pre-existing conditions. At the same time, they didn't include mandates that consumers carry coverage. That goes to a basic concept about any kind insurance: People who don't file claims in any given year subsidize those who do. Also, those healthy people are less likely to sign up, insurers said, and that leaves insurance companies with only the more costly policyholders. Bottom line: Insurers end up \"less willing to participate in the market,\" said Hall. It's not an exact comparison, though, he added, because the current federal health law offers something most states did not: significant subsidies to help some people buy coverage. Those subsidies could blunt the effect of not having a mandate. During the debate that led to passage of the federal ACA, insurers flat-out said the plan would fail without an individual mandate. On Wednesday, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association weighed in again, saying that if there is no longer a coverage requirement, there should be \"strong incentives for people to obtain health insurance and keep it year-round.\" Individual mandate is still unpopular in voter polls About 6.5 million Americans reported owing penalties for not having coverage in 2015. Polls consistently show, though, that the individual mandate is unpopular with the public. Indeed, when asked about nine provisions in the ACA, registered voters in a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll said they want the Senate to keep eight, rejecting only the individual mandate. Even though the mandate's penalty is often criticized as not strong enough, removing it would still affect the individual market. \"Insurers would react conservatively and increase rates substantially to cover their risk,\" said insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski. That's what happened after Washington state lawmakers rolled back rules in 1995 legislation. Insurers requested significant rate increases, which were then rejected by the state's insurance commissioner. By 1998, the state's largest insurer — Premera Blue Cross — said it was losing so much money that it would stop selling new individual policies, \"precipitatin", "When the Affordable Care Act was unveiled, business groups railed against the provision that requires companies with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance for their full-time workers. The Obama administration responded by pushing back the deadline for the coverage, so it hasn't yet taken effect. Now support for this so-called employer mandate is eroding in some surprising quarters. A study called \"Why Not Just Eliminate the Employer Mandate?\" has been published by the Urban Institute, a center-left think tank based in Washington, D.C. It lists a number of reasons why dropping the mandate might be a good idea. Linda Blumberg, one of the authors, says first of all, requiring firms to offer health insurance could be a bad deal for lots of low-wage workers. \"A lower-income worker is going to do better, most likely — financially — by getting subsidized coverage through one of the health insurance marketplaces instead of through their employer,\" she says. That's because many of those workers make so little that they qualify for free coverage under Medicaid. Even workers making as much as 2 1/2 times poverty-level wages would get subsidies in the Obamacare exchanges, and that could make it a better deal than the coverage provided by their company. But if your employer has a health insurance plan and is paying a big chunk of your premium, isn't that a better deal? Not really, says Mark Pauly, a health care economist at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. \"Bosses don't give you anything,\" Pauley says. \"You're paying the lion's share of the cost of your own benefits just as part of your compensation for your work.\" Pauly and lots of economists say your company views its contribution to your health insurance as part of your total compensation. So, if you get some of your compensation in health care benefits, your cash wages are likely to be lower. That means that you are actually the one paying for your employer-sponsored health care. Employer-sponsored plans do make sense for lots of workers because they allow those workers to buy their insurance with tax-free dollars. But for low-income workers who may not pay any income tax, there's little benefit. Some supporters of the employer mandate say the requirement is necessary in order to keep companies from dropping their insurance coverage altogether. But Blumberg says employers already have plenty of motivation to keep offering coverage. \"Employers want to provide that coverage to their workers because that's how they attract them and retain them,\" she says. The Urban Institute study also concludes that the employer mandate won't be very helpful in increasing insurance coverage. It finds that only about 200,000 more people will be covered under the mandate. So, with these kinds of negatives, what's the incentive for hanging on to the employer mandate? Jon Gruber is an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped design the Massachusetts health care exchange under then-Gov. Mitt Romney. Gruber, who also consulted with the Obama administration on the Affordable Care Act, says that the most important incentive is money. \"The right way to think about the employer mandate is really as a revenue-raising tool,\" Gruber says. \"It does raise a lot of money.\" In fact, keeping the mandate would reduce federal deficits by $130 billion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But Gruber acknowledges that those savings come largely because the government would be paying fewer subsidies to low-income workers. Gruber says the mandate has its pluses and minuses, but he says there's about an even chance it won't ever take effect. \"The strongest argument probably for getting rid of this is political, which is that while this is really not a very fundamental piece of the law, it's catching a huge share of the flak around the law,\" he says. The Obama administration continues to stand behind the employer mandate, arguing that it will help get health insurance to more people and save taxpayers money.", "In his State of the Union speech earlier this week, President Obama pitched a plan to boost what he called \"middle-class economics.\" He asked Congress to help him make community college free, cut taxes for the middle class — and also do this: \"Send me a bill that gives every worker in America the opportunity to earn seven days of paid sick leave,\" Obama said. \"It's the right thing to do.\" Many in the business lobby aren't likely to agree with that. Lisa Horn, a lobbyist with the Society for Human Resource Management, says that businesses would prefer flexibility for workers to choose how to spend their leave — whether that means sick time or vacation. Horn asserts that the effect of a federal paid sick leave rule would be that businesses will cut back on other benefits. \"For all employers, regardless of size, they have a finite amount of resources that are dedicated to their total rewards package,\" she says. Jack Mozloom, spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business, agrees. He says the proposed mandate would create costs — not to mention some losers, too. Big firms can at least absorb the blow, he says. These companies have giant pools of workers they can shuffle around when workers don't show up. But small businesses don't have that advantage. About 40 million workers, most of whom work part-time or in lower-wage jobs, don't earn paid sick leave. But state and local laws have been gaining ground since San Francisco mandated paid sick leave in 2006. Since then, 15 more cities and three states have passed similar measures — including Louis Lista's home state of Connecticut, in 2011. Lista owns the Pond House Cafe, which employs fewer than 50 workers and doesn't fall under the state's new statute. Nevertheless, he has offered paid sick time for a decade. \"I don't think we've seen a huge cost impact,\" Lista says. \"I think it's helped us a lot with the retention rate.\" Besides the obvious benefit of keeping workers from infecting food or their co-workers, he says, the policy on paid sick leave also helps prevent competitors from poaching his people as easily. Chibuzo Njeze owns Springview Pharmacy in Irvington, N.J., where local lawmakers also recently passed a bill. Njeze says he has offered the benefit for at least 16 years, and many of his employees have stayed at least that long, which saves him both time and customers. \"In the pharmacy, customers are usually cantankerous,\" Njeze says. \"They're not happy to be there; they want to go home quickly. So if you have to keep training technicians, that slows you down considerably.\" This observation is typical, says Ruth Milkman. She is a sociologist at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, where she studies both sick leave and family leave. \"With paid family leave, there was all this same sort of alarmist rhetoric about how this was going to be a disaster, especially for small businesses,\" Milkman says. \"Actually, in that study we found that small businesses were more positive than the larger ones about the program.\" Regardless, given the political divisions, the Republican-led Congress is highly unlikely to take up the issue. On this matter, both opponents and supporters of paid sick leave agree. But Dan Cantor says that's almost beside the point. Cantor is director of the Working Families Party, a political group that campaigns on progressive issues. He says sick leave measures are not just being addressed at the federal level; they're also gaining support in state legislatures, including in Maryland, New Jersey and Oregon. \"The fight is at the state level,\" Cantor says. \"That's why the president putting his voice behind this is so valuable. It just raises the stature of the issue tremendously.\" DAVID GREENE, HOST: Middle class economics - that's what President Obama named the economic approach he pitched in his State of the Union address this week. He asked Congress to help him make community college free and to cut taxes for the middle class. And he asked lawmakers to... (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Send me a bill that gives every worker in America the opportunity to earn seven days of paid sick leave. That's the right thing to do. GREENE: Now, the business lobby objects to this idea, but some cities and states already mandate it and NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports on how that's going. YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Even opponents of this seven day a year paid sick leave proposal agree work isn't something that can or should be done in sickness as well as in health. LISA HORN: It's not that we think paid leave is a bad idea. In fact, we think employers should offer paid leave. But we just got to think about how we could encourage them to do it voluntarily rather than pursue rigid mandates. NOGUCHI: Lisa Horn is a lobbyist with the Society for Human Resource Management. She says businesses would prefer flexibility. So whether it's sick time or vacation, workers can choose how to spend their leave. The affect, Horn s", "If you've ever seen your waiter sneeze, you may have asked for a different server. If you've seen one sneeze repeatedly, you might wonder why he's still at work, serving tainted food. See, most restaurant workers don't get paid when they stay home sick. But, some go to work anyway, when they've got the sniffles or worse, because they need the paycheck. For labor advocates, that's a problem. \"The fact that we're forcing people to go to work sick is not something we want to do as a society,\" says Maryland state Rep. John Olszewski Jr., a Democrat. \"We shouldn't put people in a situation where they're forced to make impossible choices between themselves and their work and their families.\" Last month, New York City began requiring employers to provide paid sick days, joining the ranks of other cities such as Washington, Seattle and San Francisco. But while several cities have been willing to impose such requirements, states have been more reluctant. Olzewski's bill attracted a majority of his fellow state House members as co-sponsors, but went nowhere this year. Instead, a number of states — particularly in the South — have passed laws that block local governments from imposing sick day requirements on businesses. \"The problem I see with paid sick leave is not so much offering it, but the fact that it's mandated,\" says state Rep. Gail Lavielle, a Connecticut Republican. \"It seems as though the state is determined to do everything it can to discourage businesses from coming here and staying here.\" Not Available To All The more money you make, the more likely it is that you can stay home when you're sick and still get paid. A big majority — 87 percent — enjoy that benefit among the top 25 percent of earners. Only 34 percent of those in the bottom 25 percent have the same privilege, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Part-time workers are usually out of luck. \"Servers in restaurants and home health workers are the least likely to have paid sick time and the most likely to have contact with the public,\" says Vicki Shabo, vice president of the National Partnership for Women & Families. A number of women's organizations have embraced the cause of providing paid sick leave. House Democrats tout the idea as part of their \"economic agenda for women and families.\" \"It is not only good for workers, but also for businesses who have lower retention costs and greater productivity, as well as the broader economy,\" says Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who has sponsored federal legislation mandating paid sick leave. Swapping Shifts With Congress unlikely to address the issue, the action is in the states. In 2011, Connecticut became the first state to mandate paid sick leave. A survey of Connecticut employers released earlier this year by the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the City University of New York suggests that the cost for businesses has been minimal. \"A year and a half after its implementation, more than three-quarters of surveyed employers expressed support for the earned paid sick leave law,\" the study concludes. \"That's probably the opposite of what we're hearing,\" says Nicole Griffin, executive director of the Connecticut Restaurant Association. \"When the paid sick leave bill passed in Connecticut, employers felt it was yet another burden we'd have to deal with.\" When restaurant workers are sick, she says, they're better off trading shifts with other workers. That way, they can earn tips when they do come in, rather than just collecting their base salary. \"Restaurants certainly don't encourage workers to come in sick,\" Griffin says. \"That's why we have flexible shifts and hours.\" Blocking Local Laws This week, the Connecticut House approved changes to the law to simplify the ways companies tally up workers and their hours. It's only a tweak, says Rep. Lavielle. No \"intelligent employer\" is going to tell workers to come in when they're sick, she says. That's bad for morale and also bad for productivity and retention. But the law as written doesn't allow employers recourse if workers abuse the privilege, maxing out on \"mental health days.\" After Milwaukee voters approved a sick leave ordinance in 2008, the Wisconsin legislature passed a law prohibiting local governments from imposing such mandates. That move has since been copied by 10 other states. The coalition against paid sick leave often includes the same trade associations that oppose minimum wage increases, making many of the same arguments about burdens on businesses. They say the existing local mandates have reduced profits and forced cuts to other benefits. \"The paid sick leave bill, in our opinion, would put thousands of jobs at risk and discourage businesses from coming to the city of Philadelphia,\" Michael Nutter , the city's mayor, said last year when he vetoed a paid sick day law. Public Health Concerns Supporters of the idea aren't giving up. Paid sick leave is expected to be on the Massachusetts ballot this fall. \"I admit there's g", "Americans are big tippers. Every year, we leave more than $30 billion in tips, mostly in restaurants but also casinos, nail salons and other service businesses. Traditionally, the owners of those businesses have not had much control over how tips are distributed. But a proposed rule from the Trump administration could change that. \"This rule has really been pushed by the restaurant industry,\" said Heidi Shierholz, chief economist for the Labor Department during the Obama administration. \"They really want to get control of tips. They've finally found an administration that will do it for them.\" Restaurant owners are promoting the rule change as a way to address long-standing inequities in pay between servers and kitchen staff. \"Cooks historically and even today have always received the short end of the stick in terms of the tip world,\" said Kurt Huffman, who runs more than two dozen restaurants in Portland, Ore. Kitchen workers in his restaurants earn starting wages of about $13.50 an hour. With tips, servers can earn two or three times as much. Huffman tries to compensate by encouraging servers to share a portion of their tips with cooks and dishwashers. \"We've tried to be very, very careful in just communicating the fact to our servers and our bartenders that our kitchen is a critical part of our business,\" Huffman said. \"It is, in fact, the motor that runs the business.\" He said most servers are happy to comply. \"You don't want to be known as the guy or the girl who stiffs the kitchen,\" he said. \"The cooks are going to find out and that's just bad news for you and your table. So there's a certain common sense to it.\" But under current federal rules, any such tip sharing with kitchen staff must be voluntary, unlike tip pools with busboys and hostesses, which employers are allowed to mandate. As a result, the shared tips add only a few dollars to kitchen workers' pay, and Huffman often struggles to find qualified cooks and dishwashers. If the proposed Labor Department rule goes through, restaurant owners would have more control over tips and could redirect more money to kitchen workers. \"I think all of us see this as a way to reallocate the tips a little bit more fairly,\" Huffman said. \"And it's nice from an ownership perspective to feel like finally we have an opportunity to truly decide where these tips go.\" But critics warn the proposed rule would give restaurant owners too much leeway. \"As long as employers pay their workers the full minimum wage, they then take full control over the tips above that, and can do whatever they want to with them, including simply pocket them,\" says Shierholz, who's now with the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. \"The issue that I have with tip pooling is not that I'm sharing the tips,\" says former waitress Misty Cumbie. \"It's that the owner would have control over the tips.\" \"I think in general people assume that the money that they're leaving is for the server or the person behind the counter,\" Cumbie says. \"And definitely not for the owner.\" Cumbie, who has worked as both a waitress and in the kitchen, agrees that cooks and dishwashers deserve higher pay. But she says that money shouldn't come from the pockets of servers. Cumbie sued a former employer who insisted servers share the bulk of their tips with kitchen staff. The federal court initially ruled against her, finding that employers may take control of tips so long as servers are paid the minimum wage. The Obama administration then issued a rule making it clear that tips belong to the worker who receives them, whether that worker is paid minimum wage or not. The Trump administration is now preparing to reverse that with its own rule. The Labor Department has already received thousands of comments on the proposal. Its final decision may determine who keeps the money you leave as a tip. NPR RAD researcher Jane Gilvin contributed to this story. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Every year, Americans leave more than $30 billion in tips, mostly at restaurants but also at casinos, nail salons and elsewhere. Traditionally, the owners of those businesses have not had much control over how tips are distributed. But the Trump administration is proposing a rule that could change that. NPR's Scott Horsley has more. SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: OK, so you're out at lunch, maybe it's a fancy restaurant, white tablecloths, maybe it's the neighborhood diner. Either way, the bill comes, you pull out your wallet. And in addition to paying the tab, you leave something extra. Up until now, the federal government has had a pretty clear position on who that tip belongs to. HEIDI SHIERHOLZ: The law of the land now is that the tip belongs to the workers who earn the tips, full stop. HORSLEY: That's Heidi Shierholz, former chief economist for the Department of Labor. And I have invited you to lunch to talk through this because now those tips are at the center of a big legal and regulatory tug of war. SHIERHOLZ: The department has just rel", "The Federal Reserve may eventually take more steps to try to boost the struggling economy, but for now, its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is leaving its monetary policy unchanged. In a statement today, the (FOMC) announced its decision to keep the federal funds target rate at zero to .25 percent, because \"measures of underlying inflation are currently at levels somewhat below those the Committee judges most consistent, over the longer run, with its mandate to promote maximum employment and price stability. With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to remain subdued for some time before rising to levels the Committee considers consistent with its mandate. Read More According to Market News International's Steve Beckner, \"there had been speculation that Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues might return to so-called 'quantitative easing' -- purchases of bonds that inject reserves into the banking system and exert downward pressure on bond yields.\" While the Fed is not taking that step at this time, its rate announcement leaves the door open for the future. Noting the economy has slowed, it says the Fed will \"monitor\" developments and be \"prepared\" to provide additional monetary stimulus to support the recovery and boost the inflation rate from current levels. For the uninitiated, the Federal Open Market Committee \"consists of 12 members -- the seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; and four of the remaining eleven Reserve Bank presidents, who serve one-year terms on a rotating basis.\" The FOMC holds eight regularly scheduled meetings per year. At these meetings, the Committee reviews economic and financial conditions, determines the appropriate stance of monetary policy, and assesses the risks to its long-run goals of price stability and sustainable economic growth.", "Over the years Congress has played a major role in forcing the safer design of cars. Lawmakers mandated seat belts and air bags. They spent billions of dollars to improve highways. They used federal funds to pressure states to toughen drunk-driving laws. And they've gotten results: Highway deaths are way down. But now what? With a sour economy, spiraling deficits and automakers in trouble, the safety agenda is facing some obstacles. 1960s: From Nader To Safety Laws Federal lawmakers took over the safety agenda for highways and cars in the 1960s. Back then there were more than 50,000 highway deaths per year. Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar, a Democrat, was a congressional staffer at the time, on the panel he now chairs, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He says back then he — like many other people — took the design of roads, highways and cars for granted. \"What I had then was a Ford Galaxie,\" Oberstar says. \"It had the very minimum seat belt, just the lap belt. It didn't have the shoulder belt. Didn't have air bags. Didn't have adequate space and protection compartment between the engine and the driver. It was like so many cars of its nature at the time. It was a death trap.\" Spurred by the increasing number of highway deaths, President Lyndon Johnson began signing laws requiring auto companies to include certain safety features, such as better door latches and impact-absorbing steering wheels. But what really shook things up were revelations by consumer advocate Ralph Nader in his 1965 book Unsafe At Any Speed. In it, Nader dissected the design of the Chevy Corvair and put a spotlight on the auto industry's disregard for safety. A scandal ensued when it was discovered that General Motors had put private investigators on Nader's case to discredit him. The public outcry encouraged lawmakers to pass the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966 and the Highway Safety Act the next year. The laws set up new agencies to monitor safety data, issue regulations and mandate changes in auto and highway design. Congress would use the power of the purse to withhold highway infrastructure funding to get states to comply. The federal government would be able to demand everything from rumble strips and a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit to seat belts with shoulder straps in all new cars. States Leave Safety Off The Agenda Some describe this era as a golden age for the safety agenda, when Congress and the executive branch were on the same page. Some longtime safety advocates disagree. \"It wasn't a golden age,\" says Joan Claybrook, former president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. \"I mean, I was there. It was touch and go as to whether or not that legislation was going to get passed.\" During the Carter administration, Claybrook was appointed head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. She says states often objected to the imposition of federal mandates. Even today, she says, many states lack laws allowing police to address seat belt violations. At one point, NHTSA was banned from lobbying states directly to pass new laws. More recently, the auto company bailouts appeared to leave safety off the agenda. New green fuel safety standards got the attention of Detroit, but the government's speedy bankruptcy process freed the auto companies from pending product liability suits. \"The disadvantage right now is that the auto companies are still struggling in Detroit to find their feet and get back into profitability,\" Claybrook says. \"And there is a shortage of cash and those two things are major disabilities.\" Oberstar: Safety Not Off The Radar That's a shortage of cash in the states, which often carry out new safety mandates, and a shortage of federal cash to help them. Federal transportation and highway safety laws are set to expire at the end of this year. A bill to renew their funding is stalled in part because lawmakers fear they may have to raise gasoline taxes to cover the costs; there's little appetite for having that debate during midterm elections. But Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Oberstar insists that safety has not fallen off the radar. \"The democratic process is messy, to be sure,\" he says. \"There are forces for and forces against every initiative in safety that I have observed in 40 years. But in the long run the forces for safety have prevailed.\" Despite reluctance from some on Capitol Hill, Oberstar says he is pushing a six-year, $500 billion transportation reauthorization bill. It would add money for highway safety programs, force transportation agencies to form a joint safety council and set a long-term safety agenda. MICHELE NORRIS, host: Over the years, Congress has played a major role in forcing the safer design of vehicles. Lawmakers mandated seatbelts and airbags and spent billions to improve highways. They've gotten results too. Last year, the U.S. recorded the fewest highway deaths since 1961. But with a sour econo", "A few months ago, when I told friends and media colleagues that I was interested in the Common Core State Standards, the most common response was \"What's that?\" Now, it seems, everyone has an opinion about the Core. And right now, opinions about the K-12 learning goals for math and English that have spread nearly nationwide are trending toward the heated. While the school year is winding down, education policy sure isn't. This past week brought a bunch of front-page news on the Common Core. On May 30, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a law requiring the state to stop using the Common Core after the upcoming school year. And last week, Oklahoma dropped the standards effective immediately, bringing the total number of states embracing Common Core State Standards down to 42, from a high of 45 (Indiana is the third state to have pulled back). Those states that adopted, and then dropped, the Core now face spending tens of millions of dollars to create new standards, adopt new materials to go with them and retrain teachers. Speaking of millions of dollars, the money behind the Common Core was the topic of a long story in The Washington Post yesterday that focused on Microsoft founder Bill Gates' role in the creation of the standards and in encouraging their implementation. The story detailed how the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent some $200 million on the development of the standards, political lobbying, and grants to organizations that now support the Core. (The Gates Foundation is also a longtime supporter of NPR, including its coverage of education.) Education standards are not a new idea. They've been advocated in the United States at least since the 1950s. But our unique system of highly localized control of public schools with limited federal involvement in education has prevented them from getting much traction on a sustained, national level. Until now. As the piece, by Lyndsey Layton, details, Gates' money helped unite disparate interests behind a single policy in an incredibly short amount of time. \"The Gates Foundation spread money across the political spectrum, to entities including the big teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, and business organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — groups that have clashed in the past but became vocal backers of the standards. \"Money flowed to policy groups on the right and left, funding research by scholars of varying political persuasions who promoted the idea of common standards. Liberals at the Center for American Progress and conservatives affiliated with the American Legislative Exchange Council who routinely disagree on nearly every issue accepted Gates money and found common ground on the Common Core.\" What has seemed most troubling for critics of the Core, and of the influence of large philanthropies in U.S. policy generally, is the close association between the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education under the Obama administration. The Common Core are not, strictly speaking, national standards. They were developed independently of the federal government, and states are not under a mandate to adopt them. But the standards received a big boost in the form of funding incentives from the Obama administration. Behind the alignment of interests, the Post article noted several close ties: Margot Rogers, who was Education Secretary Arne Duncan's chief of staff, and James Shelton, now a deputy secretary, both came directly from the foundation. The administration waived ethics rules to allow the two of them to consult closely with former colleagues. And Chicago received $20 million in Gates funding to reorganize schools while Duncan was that district's CEO before leaving for his Cabinet position. We reached out to the foundation yesterday for comment on the article and on the developments in Oklahoma and South Carolina, but didn't hear back. Some of the frustrations with the adoption of the Common Core reflect broader concerns with education policymaking in general. In an ideal world, policies would be made like this: Practitioners in the field would develop solutions to problems. Disinterested experts would study and test them. Philanthropists would support that research and development phase without picking winners. And then politicians, through the democratic process, would make the case to the public to support the spread and implementation of the best identified solutions, while giving practitioners the leeway they need to continue to refine and propose new ones. Many in the ed-policy world agree: The Common Core State Standards skipped a few key steps here. Critics have long noted that the influence of classroom teachers in writing the standards was limited. They weren't pilot-tested, although, in fairness, it's pretty hard to pilot universal standards — either they're universal or they're not. They were adopted with little public debate. And their implementation, ", "If you've been paying attention to the political news in the past couple of years, you know that the U.S. stands virtually alone in not mandating paid leave of any type for its workers. It's hard to miss; the topic has become a top talking point for Democratic politicians. Hillary Clinton is advocating for stronger paid-leave policies on the campaign trail. In her Monday economic address, Clinton called for paid family leave as a way of helping women stay in the workforce. Sen. Bernie Sanders, her closest rival for the Democratic nomination, has advocated both paid vacation and paid maternity leave on the campaign trail. In addition, some cities and states have started instituting their own sick leave policies. President Obama likewise brought new attention to paid leave this year as well, when he pointed out in his State of the Union address that the U.S. is the only advanced economy that doesn't mandate paid sick or maternity leave for its workers. He was right about that — it's true that most American workers are covered by the Family Medical Leave Act, which allows workers up to 12 weeks of leave per year to care for family members. But that leave is unpaid. Here, for example, is where the U.S. stands on paid maternity leave in comparison with other countries in the OECD, a group of highly developed economies: The U.S. is the only one that doesn't mandate paid maternity leave. Likewise, the U.S. is one of nine OECD countries that have no leave policies in place for fathers. It's not just parental leave, of course — when it comes to vacation, the U.S. is also unique. The chart below shows combined mandatory vacation days and federal holidays in all OECD nations. All of the U.S. days represented below are federal holidays (which are also not guaranteed days off for all workers); the rest of the nations mandate paid vacation days in addition. It's a similar story on sick days — among high-income countries, the U.S. alone does not mandate sick leave, according to data compiled by the World Policy Forum. It's not at all new to point this out, but data like these pose a tougher question: How did it get this way? Why is the U.S. so different from the rest of the world in not giving workers paid days off? You could write an entire book about the complicated forces at work here, but a mix of a few big factors has helped set this scene: The aftermath of World War II, business lobbying, a diminished American labor movement, and the American love of individualism and bootstrap-pulling all have combined to help keep the U.S. alone in not giving its workers paid leave. American Democracy Is Different One way of thinking about why the U.S. stands alone on paid leave is to zoom way, way out and consider how Americans think about democracy in general — another area where Americans are arguably unique. Political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset spent much of his career thinking about American exceptionalism — trying to understand what exactly makes the U.S. such a strange creature. Our voting rates are low, but our volunteering rates are high, he pointed out. We're deeply religious. And while some European democracies went in a more socialist direction, the U.S. veered the other way. For a variety of reasons, Lipset argued, Americans have a different way of thinking about their democracy — the young American democracy was founded with values like individualism and equality of opportunity at its center. And unlike many European democracies, the U.S. has never been a monarchy or a feudal society — that means there's less awareness of class divisions and less deference to the state in the U.S., Lipset writes. He also proposes a similar explanation for how labor parties and trade unions managed to be stronger in other countries but not in the U.S. — where there's less class awareness, there's less likelihood to join unions. (This is just one of many factors he uses to explain U.S. unions' relative weakness, however.) It's easy to see how that might play out in the realm of paid-leave policies. First of all, with less labor power, there's less support of these sorts of policies. But in addition, when it comes to social class, individualistic, ambitious Americans think of not where they are but where they assume they eventually could be. \"[Lipset's] argument was that Americans identify with the social class that they aspire to rather than the social class that they were in,\" explains Peter Cappelli, professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. \"So Americans have a lot of sympathy for small business because American people you would have thought were workers historically thought of themselves as potentially being small-business people.\" The result is that Americans tend to have a bit more sympathy for business — after all, when we all own our own shops someday, we won't want our hands tied by any more regulations than absolutely necessary. How World War II Explains U.S. Maternity Leave It's n", "Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and a team of campaign finance lawyers have launched a legal attack on two rules written by the Federal Election Commission — rules that currently shield wealthy and corporate donors from public identification. The challenge, in a lawsuit against the FEC and a separate petition to the agency, comes as opponents of big money in politics struggle to regain the offensive. After years of court decisions that went against them, advocates who once fought to set tougher limits on contributions are now fighting to save transparency. Their immediate objective is to compel public disclosure of wealthy donors and corporations now being solicited to bankroll attack-ad campaigns in 2012. The rules challenged by Van Hollen apply to the hot new sources of political finance. Corporate contributions were spurred by last year's Supreme Court Citizens United ruling, which lets companies and unions spend freely on partisan political advocacy. And other recent court rulings have encouraged political contributions by wealthy individuals. \"The only reason we had more than $135 million in secret contributions in 2010 congressional races is because the FEC had adopted improper disclosure regulations,\" says Fred Wertheimer, one of Van Hollen's lawyers in the lawsuit. The secret contributions were raised by outside money groups such as Crossroads GPS and American Action Network, and were used mostly to finance attack ads on TV. The lawsuit contends that Congress wants the money behind such ads to be disclosed, and explicitly said so in the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law of 2002. The suit argues that the FEC gutted those disclosure provisions when it wrote the regulations to carry them out. The regulations require disclosure in just two circumstances, both easily avoidable: First, if the donor earmarks the money for a particular ad buy; and, alternatively, if the outside money group puts the money into a special advertising account. Defenders of the FEC say the agency was simply using common sense in interpreting McCain-Feingold. \"The FEC, for I think some pretty good reasons, have decided that the type of extensive and intrusive and burdensome disclosure regime simply is not practical,\" says Sean Parnell of the Center for Competitive Politics, which takes a dim view of mandatory disclosure. The lawsuit intensifies a growing battle over secret money and disclosure. Last year Republican senators blocked disclosure legislation, and then conservative groups dominated the outside-money game in the midterm elections. Democrats, including President Obama, attacked the anonymous contributions, but the issue didn't show any traction in polls. Now liberals are launching their own outside money groups. Some are organized as \"superPACs,\" political committees with a transparency mandate, while others are tax-exempt 501(c)(4) entities, working behind a veil. \"While this may not be the system that we all want, these are the rules of the game now, and we need to fight to win,\" says Chris Harris, spokesman for the new liberal superPAC American Bridge. At Crossroads GPS, a conservative group that does not disclose, spokesman Jonathan Collegio says the controversy over transparency may be diminishing. \"Now that we see that center-left groups are doing the same as the center-right, it does provide a degree of certainty to the donors who want to give to these groups,\" he says. But that may be wishful thinking. The disclosure issue is alive on several fronts. The White House is weighing whether to require all federal contractors to disclose their campaign giving, along with that of their executives, affiliates and subsidiaries. Shareholder advocacy groups are pressing corporations to reveal their political spending. A media watchdog group is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission for mandatory disclosure of the donors behind TV ads, regardless of what the Federal Election Commission might do. And Wertheimer says his legal team is laying the groundwork for a filing at the Internal Revenue Service, the agency with the most regulatory power over nondisclosing 501(c)(4) organizations. RENEE MONTAGNE, host: One thing members of Congress are raising is money for next year's campaigns. When it comes to big money in politics, the issue these days is disclosure. One congressman is suing for more transparency so the public can know which wealthy donors and corporations are bankrolling attack ads. NPR's Peter Overby reports. PETER OVERBY: In a lawsuit and a separate petition Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen is challenging two rules written by the Federal Election Commission -rules that govern donor disclosure. The rules apply to the hot new sources of political finance - corporate contributions - spurred by last year's controversial Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United and contributions from wealthy individuals prompted by other court rulings on campaign finance law. Fred Wertheimer is one of Van Hollen's lawyers ", "Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli seems determined to use an attack on health care reform to bring us back to the 1830s. Cuccinelli, to cheers from the Tea Party crowd, went to court this week to overturn the new law, which he says conflicts with a Virginia statute \"protecting its citizens from a government-imposed mandate to buy health insurance.\" \"Normally, such conflicts are decided in favor of the federal government,\" he said, \"but because we believe the federal law is unconstitutional, Virginia's law should prevail.\" The Republican attorney general's move reveals how far into the past America's New Nullifiers want to push the nation. They don't just want to abandon a more than seven-decade-long understanding of the Constitution's interstate commerce clause that has allowed the federal government to regulate a modern, national economy. They also want to resurrect states' rights doctrines discredited by President Andrew Jackson during the nullification crisis of the 1830s and buried by the Civil War. There are two issues here. One is whether the federal government can require individuals to buy health insurance. The other is the states' rights question. In a suit separate from Cuccinelli's, 13 state attorneys general — 12 Republicans and a conservative Democrat from Louisiana — also challenged the mandate. But their main argument is that the federal government cannot force states to pay for an expanded Medicaid program and take other steps the law requires. It would take a rashly activist court to find the individual mandate unconstitutional because it is structured as a tax. No one will go to jail for not buying insurance. Starting in 2014, people who refuse will have to pay a penalty to the federal government, administered by the IRS. There are subsidies for those who cannot afford coverage on their own, as well as hardship exemptions. The idea is simple: Most people without insurance currently receive at least some medical help, and the mandate is designed to get everyone paying into the system. One of the best defenses of a health insurance mandate came in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece published in April 2006. \"By law, emergency care cannot be withheld,\" this commentator wrote. \"Why pay for something you can get free? Of course, while it may be free for them, everyone else ends up paying the bill, either in higher insurance premiums or taxes.\" He concluded: \"Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian.\" That would be Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor is now trying to insist that the health plan with a mandate that he championed in his state — with the support of a legislator named Scott Brown — is oh-so-different from the bill President Obama signed this week. But Romney can't take back his own words. Still, at least the quarrel over the mandate is about something relatively new. The old states' rights argument, if successful, could upend years of federal legislation. Will we have a system where states can pick and choose among federal laws? We want our elderly to get Medicare, and give us more highway money, but forget this health care expansion. That sounds like the logic of the nullifiers of the 1830s, fighting to resist a federal tariff they thought was too high. Gov. Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, their leader, sounded rather like today's Tea Partiers. His state, he declared in 1832, was \"inflexibly determined never to surrender her reserved rights, nor to suffer the constitutional compact to be converted into an instrument for the oppression of her citizens.\" Andrew Jackson's response to the nullifiers is classic. He denounced \"the strange position that any one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution.\" He also wondered how a state could \"retain its place in the Union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider as constitutional.\" OK, at least today the attorneys general are going to court before taking further action. But in the case of Cuccinelli, the very law he is relying on to justify his suit was passed by Virginia's Legislature in direct defiance of a federal bill they knew might be coming. Call it Nullification Light. It's no way to run a serious country, and it's a reckless approach to politics.", "Efforts to legislate mandatory sick leave have been pushed aside by the health care overhaul debate at the same time swine flu experts are urging people who are sick to stay home. On Capitol Hill, legislation was introduced earlier this year that would require businesses with more than 15 employees to provide them with seven days of sick leave per year. About 75 percent of member businesses do offer some sort of sick leave, says Susan Eckerly, senior vice president of public policy at the National Federation of Independent Business. \"If they don't offer paid sick leave it's probably because they can't afford it,\" she says. \"Paying wages is sometimes all an employer can do.\" While the NFIB membership is sensitive to swine flu, it doesn't want a sweeping law, she says. \"You don't solve a short-term problem by imposing a long-term mandate at a time we're just seeing our way out of an economic recovery,\" she says. But Jeff Levi, head of the public health advocacy group Trust for America's Health, says a long-term mandate is needed, especially in the era of swine flu. \"Unfortunately not all businesses make the right decisions,\" he says. \"This is a case where we need a standardized approach, we need to make the workplace safe, make sure we're protected from the spread of infectious diseases.\" Indeed, plenty of people do go to work when they're sick because they can't afford not to, Levi says. And various estimates put the number of American workers without paid sick leave at just under 60 million. Although the health care overhaul bill is likely to be a large piece of legislation with many pieces tacked on, spokesmen for two of the main backers of the bills, Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-CT) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), say that's not likely to happen with this bill. It could be December or beyond before legislation about paid sick leave comes into play again. Where swine flu will be at that point no one knows. MELISSA BLOCK, host: The debate over health insurance has pushed aside another congressional effort that relates to your health. Congress had been considering legislation that would require employers to offer paid sick leave to their workers. Now, with the swine flu epidemic, the idea of paying people to stay home if they're sick has become more pressing. NPR's Joanne Silberner explains. JOANNE SILBERNER: Back in the first wave of the swine flu pandemic, last April 29th, President Obama had some advice. President BARACK OBAMA: If you are sick, stay home. If your child is sick, keep them out of school. SILBERNER: Not so easy for Marcy(ph), who lives in Southern California and doesn't want her last name being used. MARCY: Nine times out of 10 when I do get sick, I will go into the office anyway and work. SILBERNER: Even if she thinks what she has is infectious. MARCY: I'm conflicted, you know, because I don't want other people who get what I have. You know, I really don't. SILBERNER: Like seasonal flu, the H1N1 swine flu virus is thought to spread by touch and by inhaling coughed-out or sneezed-out air. Every time Marcy gets sick, she thinks about her co-workers. MARCY: I bring hand sanitizer and I try not to touch things that people - other people use, but I still come in because paying the bills to me is more important. You know, I don't really have a choice. SILBERNER: Her husband only recently got a job and they depend on her income. Various estimates put the number of American workers without sick leave at just under 60 million. Last spring, Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative Rosa DeLauro introduced legislation that would require employers with more than 15 workers to offer seven days of paid sick leave. The health overhaul plans have pushed those bills aside. Not a good thing, says Susan Eckerly, head of public policy for the National Federation of Independent Business. She says about three-quarters of NFIB's business owners do offer some sick leave, but... Ms. SUSAN ECKERLY (Head of Public Policy, National Federation of Independent Business): If they don't offer paid sick leave, it's probably because they can't afford it. SILBERNER: And she says, we may be in the time of swine flu, but it's also an era of a struggling economy. And that's not a good time for mandates. Ms. ECKERLY: You don't solve a short-term problem by imposing a long-term mandate on business, especially at a time when we are just seeing our way out of the economic recovery. SILBERNER: Yes, you do, says Jeff Levi, head of Trust for America's Health, a group that advocates for public health policies. Not all businesses make the right decisions, he says. Mr. JEFF LEVI (Director, Trust for America's Health): We desperately need to move out that mandated sick leave. We're in the middle of a pandemic and we have people having to make very difficult choices about whether they should protect the public's health by staying home from work when they have an infection or potentially spreading the virus even more because t", "Our relationship to the environment is tied to where we live and the connection we have to that space. That’s driven many to fight for clean beaches and plastic-free oceans, to choose to bring reusable bags to grocery stores, or install solar panels on the roofs of their homes. But others – including many people of color – feel excluded by the mainstream environmental movement, especially because communities of color are often the targets of environmental racism. And federal and state efforts to address the issues those communities face can oftentimes leave those communities behind. From Dorceta Taylor, a professor of Environmental Justice at Yale: Homogeneity, 150 years of it, has cost a lot of money. These organizations are not looking the way they look by total randomness. There’s an investment in the board, the staff, the volunteers, the members, to look the way they look. Therefore, to change that is going to require money to hire staff, to hire recruiters, to pay to place your [job] ad. When you’re advertising for new staff, you need to put it in a place where people of different backgrounds can see it. You cannot take the same organization doing the same old thing with no institutional change and expect diversity on the back end. It doesn’t work like that. Who’s pushing the movement to focus on environmental justice? And who’s being left behind?", "Updated at 7:15 p.m. ET House Republicans are bringing their health care bill back for a vote on Thursday. The American Health Care Act was pulled from the House floor just minutes before an expected vote in March, which was seen as a stark failure of Republicans on a key campaign promise. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday evening that they are confident in having enough votes to pass the bill in its latest form early Thursday afternoon. As they have tried to gather enough support to get their health care bill passed, Republican lawmakers keep adding pots of money to the proposal to pay the costs of people with high medical costs. The cash would very likely go to \"high-risk pools,\" which pay the expenses of the very sick so that insurance companies don't have to. The AHCA is the latest in a long line of attempts to transform the health care system. Those that have passed include Medicare, then Medicaid, and then Obamacare. Now we move to Trumpcare, or whatever it eventually is labeled, which seems to be turning into another big federal program to pay the bills for people with expensive illnesses. House Speaker Paul Ryan made the case for high-risk pools on the Charlie Rose television show in January. \"By having taxpayers, I think, step up and focus on, through risk pools subsidizing care for people with catastrophic illnesses, those losses don't have to be covered by everybody else [buying insurance] and we stabilize their plans,\" Ryan said. The original version of the House bill, called the American Health Care Act, includes a \"Patient and State Stability Fund\" with $100 billion over 10 years that would allow states to help defray their citizens' health costs or lower their premiums. Later amendments added an additional $30 billion to create a federal \"invisible\" high-risk pool, with money to reimburse insurers who cover patients with expensive illnesses and to pay for prenatal and childbirth care. And on Tuesday night, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., proposed adding an additional $8 billion over five years to ensure that sick people get adequate coverage through high-risk pools. \"It's our understanding that the $8 billion over the five years will more than cover those that might be impacted,\" Upton said Wednesday after a meeting at the White House. \"And as a consequence, [it] keeps to our pledge for those that in fact would be otherwise denied because of pre-existing illnesses.\" Ryan says the goal of the Republican bill is to offer more and cheaper health insurance choices. By separating out those who have expensive medical conditions, the remaining customers for individual insurance could buy stripped-down policies with fewer benefits at a lower price. Several states have tried high-risk pools in the past, but they were typically underfunded, leaving millions of people with no access to adequate health care. Lawmakers hope that by putting the heft and money of the federal government behind them, they may work better. The federal government is already in the business. It pays for the health care of more than 40 percent of the population, through Medicare, Medicaid, the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to the Census Bureau. Medicare is essentially a giant high-risk pool. The program, which pays for health care for people over 65, was created in 1965 because that population couldn't get affordable private health insurance precisely because their health costs were too high. Last year the federal government spent about $591 billion on Medicare, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Medicaid, which covers the poor or disabled, is essentially another high-risk pool, paid for with about $550 billion in tax money in 2016. And then there's the Veterans Health Administration, which pays for the care of many people who have served in the military. Covering the people that commercial insurance left behind was also the goal of the Affordable Care Act. The law was designed to ensure that people in the individual insurance market who have pre-existing medical conditions, who were often shut out of traditional insurance plans, could get coverage. Obamacare tries to achieve that goal by requiring everyone, sick and healthy, to buy insurance so that the cost is spread among a broad population. That led to higher premiums for many people who are young and healthy because they subsidize those who are sicker and older, and also because they have to buy insurance with a generous menu of benefits mandated by the government. The Republican plan aims to cut those premiums by getting rid of Obamacare rules requiring that policies offer a broad menu of benefits, including prescription coverage and maternity care; limit how much more companies can charge older people; and require insurers to charge the same price for people with existing medical conditions. But many Republican members of Congress, including Upton, aren't willing to see those with more medical needs shut out of the system o", "Imagine your city council telling the police department how many people it had to keep in jail each night. That's effectively what Congress has told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a policy known as the \"detention bed mandate.\" The mandate calls for filling 34,000 beds in some 250 facilities across the country, per day, with immigrant detainees. When NPR visited the Department of Homeland Security's detention center in Florence, Ariz., hundreds of men — nearly all from Latin America — were lining up for lunch. They were caught by the Border Patrol or, if apprehended away from the border, by local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. People can stay behind the razor-wire fences for days, weeks or years. NPR was not allowed to talk with anyone in the detention center, but Francisco Rincon, who was recently released from Florence on bond, says he was in the facility for three weeks. Every day he was in detention cost taxpayers at least $120. Add up all the nation's detention centers and that's more than $2 billion a year. The detention bed mandate, which began in 2009, is just part of the massive increase in enforcement-only immigration policies over the last two decades. The last time Congress passed a broad immigration law dealing with something other than enforcement — such as overhauling visa or guest worker policies — was 1986. Supporters of the directive include Rep. Hal Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. In an email, the Kentucky Republican wrote that the bed mandate is \"intended to compel the agency to enforce existing immigration law.\" But Janet Napolitano, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, called the bed mandate \"artificial\" when she spoke to a House Appropriations subcommittee in April. \"We ought to be managing the actual detention population to risk, not to an arbitrary number,\" she said. Supporters: Mandate Ensures Deportations Immigrants in detention range from violent criminals to people with no criminal history. On the day NPR visited Florence, nearly two-thirds of the 400 detainees had no known criminal record. Take Rincon. He came to the U.S. from Mexico eight years ago and had no trouble with the law. Then he was arrested by the Border Patrol near Tucson when he took a wrong turn on his way home from work as a day laborer. Rincon has a hearing before an immigration judge in February, and he says he'll ask to remain in the U.S. legally. \"Because for Mexicans, particularly from Chiapas, where I'm from, it is very hard to get a visa,\" he says through an interpreter. \"Otherwise, we come with visas.\" That kind of story upsets immigrant-rights activists. They say ICE and local police departments are arresting more and more people for less and less. \"They're trying to pick people up for either very minor traffic violations or other minor convictions that wouldn't be considered serious, but that they can quantify as a criminal alien,\" says Nina Rabin, an immigration law professor at the University of Arizona. Immigration hard-liners not only disagree with that contention, they want even more aggressive enforcement. They say the current detention system is too lax — and point to a startling statistic: As of October, a total of 870,000 immigrants have absconded after being ordered deported. They've gone back underground. ICE confirms that number. Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think-tank that favors tougher enforcement, says the only way to make sure that people ordered deported actually leave is to keep them under lock and key. \"Detention is necessary because of the high risk that people are simply going to flee or skip out on their hearings,\" Vaughan says. Looking For Less Expensive Alternatives Victor Cerda, ICE's head of detention and removal during part of the George W. Bush administration, says that argument is \"very simplistic.\" Such extensive detention, he says, is \"very expensive. It's very resource intensive.\" Cerda agrees that detention is the surest way to hold people, but says that building tens of thousands more detention beds is unrealistic. \"If you know what the problem is and the complexity of it, you quickly realize that there is not enough money in the government,\" he says. \"And I don't think the taxpayers are ready to fork over the amount necessary to detain everybody.\" There are options besides locking up tens of thousands of people. Alternative forms of supervision range from GPS-monitored ankle bracelets to routine check-ins with ICE. Those alternatives can cost less than $10 a day, but the budget for alternatives is only about 3 percent of the federal budget for detention. The immigration bill passed by the Senate earlier this year calls for increased use of detention alternatives, but the House has yet to pass an immigration overhaul. It reinforced the status quo in June — voting down a Democratic-sponsored end to the detention bed mandat", "The goal of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy is to juice the economic recovery. The low rates should make it easier for people to borrow money, which they'll hopefully spend; the increased demand for goods and services is then supposed to translate into more hiring. That's what the Fed is banking on. It hopes low interest rates will help with its mandate of achieving maximum employment, but it also has another mandate: to keep prices stable. \"In many cases, those two conflict,\" says economist Joe Gagnon of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Gagnon says you can understand the conflict of the Fed's dual mandate with this analogy: Imagine you have a big family, and you need an equally big car to cram them all into. \"You also don't want to pay a lot for gas, so you want a fuel-efficient car,\" he says, \"but in many cases, the largest cars tend to have the worst fuel economy.\" Gagnon says you often have to trade off between the two, and that it's the same for the Fed. \"When they try to push the unemployment rate down, in other words to increase employment and get the economy to grow faster, that can raise inflation, which jeopardizes the stability goal,\" he says. Gagnon thinks the Fed can safely do both at once: It can try to help the labor market without stoking inflation. It can get a big car with good gas mileage. But critics of the Fed's current policies disagree, and some of those critics come from within the Fed system. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Narayana Kocherlakota, has voted against the Fed's easy-money policies because of the inflation risk they pose. He is not currently a voting member of the rotating committee that makes decisions on interest rates, but his concerns about inflation persist. \"We're going to have to pay some costs in terms of inflation if we're going to go down this path of using accommodative monetary policy to go after long-term unemployment or try to bring people back into the labor force who are not currently in the labor force,\" Kocherlakota says. He worries that inflation could climb above the 2 percent range the Fed deems acceptable, as it already has during the recovery. A big, sudden jump could send the Fed scrambling to raise rates. \"The concern is that if you go down this path, [then] you'll see realizations of inflation that will trigger a lack of trust in the central bank's ability or willingness to keep that target,\" he says. \"The cost you suffer is the loss of trust.\" Robert Dye, an economist with Comerica Bank, says he thinks there's a danger to the Fed's own credibility. He says short-term rates have been near zero since 2008, and to keep them low for another 18 months is, in his view, unprecedented. Among the groups harmed by low interest rates, Dye says, are savers who can't get a good return on deposits; other problems may not even be discernible — yet. \"The longer we're in an extreme position relative to historical patterns, the more we risk these unforeseen and unintended consequences,\" Dye says. One such consequence could have to do with the message the Fed is sending about the economy. It's keeping rates low because the recovery is still weak and needs a boost. Dye and other economists say that vote of no confidence could by itself be harmful. DAVID GREENE, HOST: Ben Bernanke is testifying before a House Committee today about what the Federal Reserve has done to help the economy. The Fed's powerful Open Market Committee decided last month to keep short-term interest rates near zero. That's about 18 months longer than planned. And they've already been really low for several years. As NPR's Annie Baxter reports, there's a lot of debate about the benefits and costs of the Fed's policies. ANNIE BAXTER, BYLINE: The goal of the Fed's low interest rate policy is to juice the recovery. Those low rates should make it easier for people to borrow money, which they'll hopefully spend. The increased demand for goods and services is then supposed to translate into more hiring. That's what the Fed is banking on right now. It hopes low interest rates will help with its mandate of achieving maximum employment. But it also has another mandate: to keep prices stable. JOE GAGNON: In many cases, those two objectives conflict. BAXTER: That's economist Joe Gagnon of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He says you can understand the conflict of the Fed's dual mandate with this analogy: Imagine you've got a big family and you need an equally big car to cram them all into. GAGNON: You also don't want to pay a lot for gas, so you want a fuel-efficient car. But the largest cars tend to have the worst fuel economy. BAXTER: Gagnon says you often have to trade off between the two. GAGNON: It's the same for the Federal Reserve. When they try to push the unemployment rate down, in other words to increase employment and get the economy to grow faster, that can raise inflation, which jeopardizes their stability goal. ", "William Kristol is the editor of The Weekly Standard. Why is there still so much resistance among Republican primary voters to Mitt Romney, the likely but not inevitable GOP nominee? Perhaps the deepest reason is this: At a moment in history when we need a bold commitment to reform, a fundamental willingness to limit the state and revitalize self-government, Romney's achievements and qualifications seem out of step with the times. Consider a revealing debate moment. It's not from this year's campaign but from 2008, when Obamacare did not yet exist. Here's an exchange from the debate among Republican candidates at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire on January 5 that year: * * * Charlie Gibson: Governor Romney's system has mandates in Massachusetts, although you backed away from mandates on a national basis. Mitt Romney: No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work. Fred Thompson: I beg your pardon? I didn't know you were going to admit that. You like mandates. Romney: Let me — let me — oh, absolutely. Let me tell you what kind of mandates I like, Fred, which is this. If it weren't... Thompson: The ones you come up with. (Laughter) Romney: Here's my view: If somebody — if somebody can afford insurance and decides not to buy it, and then they get sick, they ought to pay their own way, as opposed to expect the government to pay their way. And that's an American principle. That's a principle of personal responsibility. So, I said this: If you can afford to buy insurance, then buy it. You don't have to, if you don't want to buy it, but then you got to put enough money aside that you can pay your own way, because what we're not going to do is say, as we saw more and more people... Gibson: Governor, you imposed tax penalties in Massachusetts. Romney: Yes, we said, look, if people can afford to buy it, either buy the insurance or pay your own way; don't be free riders and pass on the cost to your health care to everybody else, because right now... Thompson: The government is going to make you buy insurance... Romney: No, the government is going to stop... Thompson: and make you pay — I mean, the state — your state plan, which is, of course, different from your national plan, did require people to make that choice, though. The state required them to do that. What was the penalty if they refused?... Romney: If somebody is making, let's say $100,000 a year, and doesn't have health insurance, and they show up at the hospital, and they need a $1,000 repair of some kind for something that's gone wrong. And they say, \"Look, I'm not insured, I'm not going to pay.\" Do you think they should pay or not? Thompson: Did your plan cut people off at $100,000? Was that the level? Romney: No, actually... Thompson: Did it only apply to people with $100,000 income and over? Romney: It actually applies to people at three-times federal poverty. They pay for their own policy. At less than three-times federal poverty, we help them buy a policy, so everybody is insured, and everybody is able to buy a policy that is affordable for them. The question is this, again, if someone could afford a policy and they choose not to buy it, should they be responsible for paying for their own care? Or should they be able to go to the hospital and say, \"You know what? I'm not insured. You ought to pay for it.\" What we found was, one-quarter of the uninsured in my state were making $75,000 a year or more. And my view is they should either buy insurance or they should pay their own way with a health savings account or some other savings account. Gibson: We have an expression in television: We get in the weeds. We're in the weeds now on this... Yes or no, in your national plan, would you mandate people to get insurance? Romney: I would not mandate at the federal level that every state do what we do. But what I would say at the federal level is, \"We'll keep giving you these special payments we make if you adopt plans that get everybody insured.\" I want to get everybody insured. Gibson: Okay. Romney: In Governor Schwarzenegger's state, he's got a different plan to get people insured. I wouldn't tell him he has to do it my way. But I'd say each state needs to get busy on the job of getting all our citizens insured. It does not cost more money. * * * Thus spake Mitt Romney, able technocrat and clear-eyed manager. The well-informed technocrat looks at the current health care system and sees an inability to form stable insurance pools because of problems of adverse selection and free riders. Those problems can be solved — or at least addressed — by mandating that everyone buy coverage. Thus, Romney volunteers, \"I like mandates. The mandates work.\" The impatient manager looks at the current system and hears complaints about some people not being insured. So he commands, \"I'd say each state needs to get busy on the job of getting all our citizens insured.\" Or, as Obama and a Democratic Congress have subsequently done, imposes a federal mandate that diminishes our indi", "To reach Oakhurst, Calif., drive away from the green fields of the Central Valley, past miles of pistachio trees showing their spring buds and up toward the snow-topped peaks of the Sierra Nevada. Here, just a few miles from the entrance to Yosemite National Park, is the Sweetwater Steakhouse, a local watering hole where no one is shy about their opinions of President Obama's signature initiative. \"Obamacare is absolutely horrible, horrible, horrible,\" Joe Stern, owner of a local water-conditioning company, says as he sips a glass of pinot noir. \"It should be struck down immediately.\" By 5 o'clock on most weekday evenings, the Sweetwater bar is hopping, and locals, like Stern, stop by to josh and jest. Stern is a registered Republican. He's 66 years old and covered by Medicare, a program Stern says he is thankful for. Before he qualified for the federal program, Stern, who is single, used to pay $670 a month for insurance — more than $8,000 a year. \"I thought it was pretty brutal,\" he says, \"but I was still against Obamacare by far.\" Continue Reading Oakhurst caps the eastern end of Madera County, a largely conservative and agricultural region where unemployment runs stubbornly high, at 14.7 percent, and 32 percent of people have no health insurance. By and large, conservative voters in the county despise the federal health law's mandate that all Americans have health coverage, and many suspect the health insurance system isn't really all that broken. Reflecting a common sentiment, Stern says, \"I don't know of anyone that was left on the street to bleed to death. I don't know anyone that is really left out.\" It's not that Stern doesn't know people who don't have insurance. He cheerfully introduces his friend, Mary Westover, who is sitting next to him at the bar. Westover is a registered Republican and a self-employed artist and businesswoman who says she can't afford health insurance. She's been uninsured for 17 years — she hasn't had a pap smear in all that time — and is among the 13 percent of Americans who are uninsured and opposed to the health law. Westover, too, is against the individual mandate, but wasn't aware the federal government would give subsidies to people like her — whose incomes are below 400 percent of the federal poverty level — to buy a policy. That's once that part of the law kicks in, in 2014. \"If it were subsidized, if it were made, you know, manageable, I would want that,\" she says, adding that she doesn't know how people who can afford it \"can sit there and say that we shouldn't have that — because there are a lot more of us, than them.\" Although many here in Madera County say they want the U.S. Supreme Court to throw the federal law — and all of its big government mandates — out, they are struggling to reconcile their political ideologies with the basic need for health insurance and protection from financial calamity. Paul Ruffino, the manager of Chateau du Sureau, a five-star, luxury inn overlooking the mountains of Yosemite, is uninsured for the first time in his life. \"It's probably when I need it the most,\" he says, sitting in the inn's salon, with its fresco-painted ceilings and roaring fire. Ruffino says the health insurance policies he's looked at are expensive and won't cover his pre-existing conditions. Still, he says it was his decision to leave a previous job in Southern California that came with insurance and move to Oakhurst. As a Libertarian (the GOP is too liberal, he says), he doesn't think he should have help in getting insurance: \"Do I make the government responsible for my choices? I made the choice. I knew beforehand.\" Ruffino seems torn between his unsparing self-reliance and a sense that the insurance industry is unfair. He thinks insurance companies should not be allowed to pick out only the healthy and leave guys like him behind. He says there is a role for government in setting some of the rules, but he's uncertain just how far he wants to go. \"Does there come a time when government has to get involved and at what levels? But when you are distrustful of the system in whole it makes it difficult,\" he says. \"I go back and forth. I ping-pong on this issue all the time.\" It doesn't surprise Oakhurst insurance agent Doug Macaulay that many people are torn. Macaulay, who is also Republican, says people get mad at the insurance companies, but they don't see \"Obamacare,\" as they derisively call it, as the answer: \"You're complaining over here that you don't have health insurance and you can't buy it. And over here [the government is] trying to provide you with it but that's the worst thing ever. So there seems to be a disconnect in the thinking there.\"", "After a long stalemate, a bipartisan team of congressional negotiators has agreed to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The law, currently known as No Child Left Behind, sends roughly $14 billion a year to schools that serve mostly low-income students. Here's what we know about the rough agreement. First, annual testing — a major feature of NCLB — would remain for grades three through eight and at least once in high school. Schools would still have to test 95 percent of their students and report the results by race, income and special need. Delia Pompa, former vice president with the National Council of La Raza, says this requirement is crucial. \"It is the mechanism that brought to light how children in subgroups — I'm talking about Latinos, African-Americans, children in poverty, limited English-proficient children — how they're doing.\" As for what would change, the U.S. education secretary could no longer push for academic standards like the Common Core or mandate that teachers be evaluated based on things like student test scores. But the biggest change lawmakers are proposing is this: They want the federal government out of the business of identifying failing schools, leaving that tough job to states. Each state would come up with its own plan to help schools improve, its own deadlines and its own metrics to measure that improvement. If schools don't improve, states would have to figure out what to do. Under NCLB, the federal government has had a big role in all of that, and some lawmakers and advocates worry that this overhaul could move too far in the opposite direction, dramatically weakening the law's protection of poor and minority students. At a recent meeting with civil rights groups on Capitol Hill, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts sounded anxious. \"The idea that we would pass a major piece of legislation about education and, in effect, shovel money into states and say, 'Do with it what you want', and not have some accountability for how that money is spent, I think, is appalling,\" Warren said. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee and one of the architects of the law's rewrite, has dismissed this concern. He declined to be interviewed for this story but sent NPR a statement saying he disagrees with groups \"who believe that the path to higher standards, better teaching and real accountability is through Washington instead of states.\" But Daria Hall, with the advocacy group The Education Trust, says that, historically, \"states have not made decisions with the best interest of vulnerable kids in mind.\" Hall says, when given the opportunity, states still find ways to camouflage the fact that most of their low-income, black and Latino students don't get a quality education. As evidence, she points to the most recent reading and math scores from the so-called \"Nation's Report Card.\" \"Those kids are losing ground,\" Hall says. \"And yet, we're telling parents and the public this is an A school when the reality is it's doing C work or maybe D work. That's why we need a continued federal role in education.\" How significant a role is the question. Ted Shaw, former head of the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund, says that, without the federal government as a watchdog, it'll be up to states to take the lead in tackling the biggest problem of all — the concentration of poor and minority children in failing schools. \"This is one of the most important issues our nation faces when we talk about educational opportunity,\" Shaw says. \"Concentrated poverty is deadly, and we're not paying enough attention to it.\" A compromise bill will soon move to the full House and Senate before it can make its way to President Obama. LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST: After a long stalemate, a bipartisan congressional committee has agreed to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The law, known as No Child Left Behind, sends some $14 billion a year to schools that serve low-income children. Civil rights groups support the rewrite, which shifts some powers from the feds to the states. But as NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports, there are fears that this might weaken protection for poor and minority students. CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, BYLINE: Here's what we know about this compromise and what won't change. First, annual testing - a major feature of No Child Left Behind - is likely to stay for grades three through eight and at least once in high school. Schools would still have to test 95 percent of their students and report the results by race, income and special needs. That's crucial, says Delia Pompa, a former vice president of the National Council of La Raza. DELIA POMPA: ...Because it is the mechanism that brought to light how children and subgroups - I'm talking about Latinos, African-Americans, children in poverty, limited English proficient children - how they're doing. SANCHEZ: So what will change? The U.S. Secretary of Education can no longer prescribe or push for academic standards", "The past week's political firestorm in the presidential race focused on stay-at-home moms, but two-thirds of women with young children now work. Nearly half are their family's primary breadwinner. What some feel is being lost in the political debate are the challenges they face in the workplace. When Kids Get Sick \"We unfortunately have a number of workplaces that operate as if workers are still men, with wives at home full-time,\" says Ellen Bravo, who heads Family Values at Work, a coalition that promotes paid-leave programs. \"So many moms are dying to be able to stay home at the most important moments — namely, when they give birth, and when their kid is sick — and aren't allowed to do so,\" she says. That was the case for Marianne Bullock a few years ago, when her 18-month-old had a stomach virus. \"It was the first time that my daughter had really been sick,\" she says. \"She was not nursing, and she was lethargic.\" Bullock was a personal care assistant in Massachusetts; that day, she called in sick. The next day, she had to take her daughter to the hospital, where she was hydrated. The third morning, her daughter seemed better and Bullock got ready to leave for work. \"As I was walking out the door, she vomited again,\" Bullock says. \"And I was like, 'I just have to take her to the hospital.' And so I called in — and when I called in, the care manager that I spoke to said, 'You just might as well not come back.' \" Bullock was fired. She says the manager actually told her they'd rather hire someone without a child. Many companies do offer generous leave policies, and this year Connecticut became the first state to mandate sick leave. But the United States is one of the only developed nations with no federal policy requiring paid leave. The Day Care Dilemma Like many mothers, Amy Krohn works part time — in her case, for a municipal government in Ohio. \"I didn't, for about five years, have any paid time off,\" she says. \"So, I had no sick time, no vacation time.\" For her, staying home with a sick child has meant economic hardship. Even when Krohn was sick, money came into play. She once got strep throat when her husband was out of town. She took her two kids to day care because she didn't feel able to care for them. But then she worried. \"The fact that I had to take them to day care, and pay for it, really made me feel like I needed to go to work,\" she says. \"So I actually went to work with strep throat, and just tried to avoid people and not get the whole office sick.\" Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, head of the mother's advocacy group MomsRising, says having a baby is a leading cause of temporary poverty. Many women with no maternity leave end up quitting their jobs to care for a baby. \"And when they lose those needed jobs, it's very hard to get back into the labor force,\" she says, \"because all of a sudden, we have a cascading impact of motherhood. Right now, child care costs more than university costs in many states in our nation.\" Seeing A Political Gender Gap Combine that with women's unequal pay — and it's worse for mothers — and, Rowe-Finkbeiner says, some see no choice but to stay home, because they can't afford child care. She feels these issues help explain the current political gender gap. It's largely Democrats who champion paid leave and equal pay legislation. Republicans tend to join business groups in speaking out against them. \"We think employers are in a better position to offer that voluntarily, rather than having a one-size-fits-all federal leave mandate,\" says Lisa Horn of the Society for Human Resource Management. Horn says more businesses are trying to be more family-friendly on their own. But she says a mandate creates problems. \"It hampers an employer's flexibility in tailoring those leave programs,\" Horn says, \"and at the same time adds that compliance burden, and that's costly. Many simply just can't afford it.\" Especially, she says, in this bad economy, when businesses are trying to create jobs. Whatever the solution, the challenges of balancing work and family may yet play big on the campaign trail. Women make up more than half the electorate, and both parties will continue to heavily court their votes. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Now, that political firestorm over Ann Romney focused on stay-at-home moms. But two-thirds of women with young children work outside the home. Nearly half are the primary breadwinners for their families. And many say the political debate does not reflect their challenges in the workplace. NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports. JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: Two-earner families are the norm now. And yet... ELLEN BRAVO: We unfortunately have a number of workplaces that operate as if workers are still men with wives at home full-time. LUDDEN: Ellen Bravo heads Family Values at Work, a coalition that promotes paid leave programs. BRAVO: So many moms are dying to be able to stay home at the most important moments, namely when they give birth and when their kid is sick, and aren't allowed", "This has been a banner year for employees seeking greater paid parental leave. Accenture, Johnson & Johnson, Netflix, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs and the U.S. Navy are among those that have increased these benefits for employees this year. It's a big boost for some new parents. But advocates note many families are left behind. One fact about U.S. workplace policy has galled Ellen Bravo for a very long time: \"There is no federally required paid leave of any kind,\" she says. Bravo is executive director of Family Values @ Work, an advocacy coalition. She says the U.S. is the only major developed country offering no such leave. Only 13 percent of U.S. workers have paid family leave, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last year. But polls show there is increasing political support for it. Congress is considering a mandated paid medical or parental leave paid for out of an insurance fund. Three states have already created systems like that, and 18 more are considering them. Bravo says employers are finding good business reasons to extend their leave policies — like wellness, recruitment and retention. But she worries individual managers might undermine them by discouraging their use. \"If you want to be promoted here, if you want to be seen as a committed and devoted employee, you get that leave, but you better not take much of it,\" she says. Bravo says companies must not only offer paid leave but encourage workers to use it. \"You really have to change the culture and change the accountability from managers and how they supervise people,\" she says. Adobe recently nearly doubled its paid parental leave policy to up to 26 weeks. Chief People Officer Donna Morris says it's not just a formality. \"We expect people will take that period of time and in fact we want managers to look at it as a growth and development opportunity for others,\" she says. Since the 1960s, college-educated workers have seen their paid parental leave increase nearly five-fold, while for high school graduates, it has only doubled, according to the Census Bureau. Vicki Shabo, vice president at the National Partnership for Women and Families, says today's leave policies have a socioeconomic divide. Netflix's yearlong parental leave policy, for example, applies only to its digital division employees, leaving its DVD distribution centers out. \"As we saw with Netflix, sometimes companies have one set of policies for their most highly compensated ... white-collar workers and then a different set of policies or no policies at all for their hourly workers or lower-skilled workers,\" Shabo says. Companies view leave benefits as a recruitment tool, especially in fields where talent is scarce or where companies are trying to attract more female workers, says Bruce Elliott, benefits manager for the Society for Human Resource Management. \"The gender gap in Silicon Valley ... is kind of pushing this to the forefront,\" he says. That is creating pressure on other industries as well. \"Right now, more than ever, we are competing with different industries,\" says Judy Cascapera, the chief people officer at Nestle. \"We're right next to Silicon Valley in California and we see a lot of employees now coming back-and-forth or being poached by other industries.\" Nestle in June more than doubled its paid leave for new parents for its 340,000 employees worldwide. To get employees to stay, she says, companies are being more generous about letting them go on leave. STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: It's been a great year for many employees having children. A string of prominent companies has increased the amount of paid family leave. Microsoft did it this year. So did Goldman Sachs, Johnson & Johnson, and the United States Navy. So did Netflix, but not for everybody at Netflix, and that is a big part of this story. The rules do not apply to everybody. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports. YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: One fact about U.S. workplace policy has galled Ellen Bravo for a very long time. ELLEN BRAVO: There is no federally required paid leave of any kind. NOGUCHI: Bravo is executive director of Family Values @ Work, an advocacy coalition. She says the U.S. is the only major developed country offering no such leave. Only 13 percent of U.S. workers have paid family leave. That's according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics last year. But polls show there is increasing political support for it. Congress is considering a mandated paid medical or parental leave paid for out of insurance fund. Three states have already created systems like that, and 18 more are considering them. Bravo says employers are finding good business reasons to extend their leave policies, like wellness, recruitment and retention. But she worries individual managers might undermine them by discouraging their use. BRAVO: If you want to be promoted here, if you want to be seen by as a committed and devoted employee, you get that leave, but you better not take much of it. NOGUCHI: Bravo says companies must not only offer paid lea", "With more than half of adult Americans now fully vaccinated against COVID-19, many employers have started laying the groundwork to get back to the office. Returning to a post-pandemic workplace can be daunting — even more so as employers attempt to navigate safety and consider the sometimes-thorny issue of vaccine mandates. A large number of Americans still say they are hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine, leaving employers to decide about how to handle employee health and safety. If an employer wants its workers back in the office, can it mandate a vaccine to come back? And if a reluctant worker refuses to get immunized, can an employer show them the door? There is no federal law specifically addressing that issue. The matter remains up to private businesses, state or other local laws, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. \"Whether an employer may require or mandate COVID-19 vaccination is a matter of state or other applicable law,\" the agency said. The EEOC says employers can mandate shots Under recent guidance from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), employers have the legal right to make such a requirement. It's not a new concept. The federal workplace watchdog has allowed companies to mandate flu and other vaccines but allowed employees to claim exemptions where appropriate. Workers can still keep their jobs while opting out of receiving the vaccine by claiming medical or religious exemptions. Many long-term care operators have begun mandating that their workers get immunized to keep their jobs, according to AARP. The organization reports that Juniper Communities, which operates 22 facilities in Colorado, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas, established a mandate a few months ago. Atria Senior Living, which operates more than 200 long-term care facilities in the U.S. and Canada, did so in January. Silverado, which operates 22 facilities across six states, required shots starting in February. According to AARP, the long-term care companies say the mandate has largely worked. Each long-term care company established deadlines for workers to get vaccinated or face termination. At the time of the deadlines, all three companies said staff members were vaccinated at rates of 95% or more, AARP reported. Several universities across the country have also mandated that staff get a COVID-19 vaccine. Many employers still choose incentives over mandates Many major employers are stopping short of making a COVID-19 vaccine a requirement to return to work, for now. Employers such as Kroger, Target and Petco are relying on monetary incentives and other perks to get otherwise reluctant workers to vaccinate. States have also begun rolling out incentives and prizes to encourage more Americans to get vaccinated. Part of the resistance to requiring workers to roll up their sleeves stems from a real threat of worker lawsuits, experts say. \"Nothing stops anyone from bringing a lawsuit,\" Johnny Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, told NPR's All Things Considered. Courts have sided with employers, Taylor said, as judges believe mandating vaccinations amid a global health crisis is reasonable. An former deputy sheriff from North Carolina and a corrections officer in New Mexico filed lawsuits against their employers for vaccine mandates. Those cases argue that under federal statute their bosses can't require them to get a vaccine that was authorized for emergency use, prior to full approval. The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. States try to block employer vaccine mandates State lawmakers have introduced dozens of legislative proposals to make it harder for employers to require that their staffs get a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. At least 85 bills have been introduced to limit an employer's ability to require workers to get a vaccine or to fire someone who refuses to get immunized. Montana's legislature passed a bill in April that would prohibit employers from requiring vaccinations as a condition of employment. The state's governor, Greg Gianforte, issued an executive order that same month prohibiting the use of \"vaccine passports.\" He said receiving a shot \"is entirely voluntary and will not be mandated by the State of Montana.\" \"We are committed to protecting individual liberty and personal privacy,\" Gianforte said.", "The White House proposal to rewrite No Child Left Behind faced its first major test Wednesday as Education Secretary Arne Duncan defended the plan before two congressional committees: Some of the biggest concerns about the proposed rewrite came from Democrats. Duncan found few defenders of the law. Many in Congress share his concern that it has helped turn many schools into testing mills. \"It encourages a narrowing of the curriculum and focuses on test preparation,\" Duncan said. \"It labels too many schools with the same failing label regardless of their challenges.\" But the proposal announced by President Obama over the weekend has already run into a buzz saw of criticism. Senators on the Education and Labor Committee raised concerns about proposed requirements that low-performing schools replace their staffs. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) told Duncan the models the administration has proposed for remaking schools won't work in his rural state. \"Many of the rural school districts are unable to implement, I don't think, any of the four models because it's difficult to replace the principal, fire half the staff, close the school or convert the school to a charter school when the next-closest school is over 60 miles away,\" Enzi said. School administrators have raised similar concerns, saying the proposal would essentially place the lowest-performing schools under federal control. Duncan insisted No Child Left Behind 2.0 offers plenty of flexibility. Many Democrats are also worried about new mandates that would make states compete for a growing share of federal money. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) said she is worried that her state will lose grants that support better teacher evaluations. Duncan said the switch to competitive grants is supposed to force change on a broken system. \"But honestly what we don't want to do is continue to fund the status quo,\" Duncan said. \"When it doesn't work for any adult, it's not working for children, either.\" Murray said: \"I can understand requiring states to undertake activities to improve their teacher quality grants. But if we make this into a winner-loser competitive thing, we're going to create a bigger gap.\" If successful states get financial rewards, she said, they will pull further ahead of struggling states. The pressure to improve teacher evaluations is something both parties are worried about. Republicans charged that the requirement would simply detract from state efforts to improve teaching. Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma pointed to a proposed requirement that states develop definitions for effective teachers and principals. \"That's another Washington mandate that we're going to develop ... and we're going to say whether you're going to measure it, when, in fact, outcomes are what count,\" Coburn said. As Duncan testified, headlines flashed about more schools closing in Detroit and schools nationwide facing catastrophic funding cuts. Many schools say they are worried about adapting to new federal rules while old economic pressures continue to mount. MELISSA BLOCK, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. Im Melissa Block. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel. We begin this hour with the ESEA. That is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, passed back in 1965. The Bush administration called its rewrite of the act No Child Left Behind. And today, the Obama administration's version faced its first major test. Education Secretary Arne Duncan defended his plan before two congressional committees. As NPR's Larry Abramson reports, some of the biggest concerns about the proposal came from Democrats. LARRY ABRAMSON: Secretary Duncan found a few defenders of the existing law. Many in Congress share Duncan's concerns that it has helped turn many schools into testing mills. Secretary ARNE DUNCAN (Department of Education): It encourages a narrowing of the curriculum and focuses on test preparation. It labels too many schools with the same failing label, regardless of their challenges. ABRAMSON: But the new proposal, announced by President Obama this past weekend, has already run into a buzzsaw of criticism. Senators on the Education and Labor Committee raised concerns about requirements that low-performing schools replace their staffs. Senator Mike Enzi, a Republican from Wyoming, told Duncan the models the administration has proposed for remaking schools won't work in his rural state. Senator MIKE ENZI (Republican, Wyoming): Many of the rural school districts are unable to implement, I don't think, any of the four models because it's difficult to replace the principal, fire half the staff, close the school, or convert the school to a charter school when the next closest school is over 60 miles away. ABRAMSON: School administrators have raised similar concerns, saying the proposal would essentially place the lowest-performing schools under federal control. Secretary Duncan insisted No Child Left Behind 2.0 offers plenty of flexibility. Many Democrat", "The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Monday in a case testing what states must do to comply with the federal law requiring public schools to teach children to speak English. Butting heads in the case are politicians, federal laws, the power of the federal courts to enforce judicial orders, and the power of state legislatures to decide how to spend taxpayer money. Nogales, Ariz., along the border with Mexico, is heavily Hispanic. Many, if not most, of the children who go to school there speak Spanish at home. Unless they learn English at school, they almost inevitably fall behind. Miriam Flores was one of those youngsters. \"It was quite a disadvantage, definitely,\" Flores says. \"For example, even when it comes to math, I mean problem solving, they were all in English. So in order to understand, you need to be proficient in your reading in English.\" The same was true for science, social studies and the other subjects. Flores and other youngsters like her were drowning — falling further and further behind. So Flores' mother and other parents sued the state of Arizona for failing to live up to the federal law that requires all states to take the steps needed to overcome language barriers so that non-English language speaking students can become English-proficient and fully competitive. The law, first enacted in 1974, provides a right to sue to enforce this mandate. In 2000, a federal judge declared that the state of Arizona was in violation of the federal law. The judge said the state had failed to put in place trained teachers and programs reasonably calculated to teach English. He found that some teacher aides did not themselves speak adequate English, and that the state was spending less than $150 to bring each child up to speed. Since then, the state says it has built more schools, hired more teachers, shrunk the size of classes and doubled the amount spent per pupil on English language learning. But the state and the courts have remained at loggerheads. Most recently, a federal appeals court ruled that the state's overall increase in general education spending and management improvements in Nogales did not excuse the state from its obligation to develop and fund an appropriate English language learners program. When the state's Democratic attorney general decided not to appeal, the Republican speaker of the House and the Republican president of the Senate hired their own lawyers, appealed, and to the surprise of almost everyone, the Supreme Court agreed to take a look at the case. Their principal ally is Tom Horne, the state's superintendent of education, also a Republican. He sees the case as an example of a judiciary run amok. \"That's why it's so vital that we win this case and that the U.S. Supreme Court rule that it's up to the people of Arizona, the taxpayers, to determine how much they want to spend, and it's not a matter to be dictated to by lifetime federal judges who are not responsible to anyone. Lawyers for the non-English speaking children say that's a caricature. For years, they say, Arizona failed to come up with any sort of a plan that would comply with federal law. \"What the state needs to do is to come forward with a plan and a commitment of resources that shows a sustainable, durable program that's going to ensure that these students have an equal opportunity to participate in the educational system,\" says lawyer Sri Srinivasan. \"And they haven't done that to date.\" RENEE MONTAGNE, host: The U.S. Supreme Court today hears arguments in a case about education. The question at hand: what must states do to comply with the federal law requiring public schools to teach children to speak English. Butting heads in the case are politicians, federal laws, the power of the federal courts to enforce judicial orders, and the power of state legislatures to decide how to spend taxpayer money. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports. NINA TOTENBERG: Nogales, Arizona, along the border with Mexico, is heavily Hispanic. Many, if not most of the children who go to school there speak Spanish at home. So unless they learn English at school, they almost inevitably fall behind. Miriam Flores was one of those youngsters. Ms. MIRIAM FLORES: It was quite a disadvantage, definitely. For example, even when it comes to math, I mean problem solving, they were all in English. So, you know, in order to understand that kind of thing, yeah, you need to be proficient in your reading in English. TOTENBERG: The same was true for science and social studies, everything. Miriam and other youngsters like her were drowning - falling farther and farther behind. Eventually, Miriam's mother and other parents sued the state of Arizona for failing to live up to the federal law that requires all states to take steps needed to overcome language barriers so that non-English language speaking students can become English-proficient and fully competitive. The law, first enacted in 1974, provides a right to s", "President Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are proponents of school choice. That includes publicly funded, privately managed charter schools and voucher programs, which give families money to pay tuition at private schools. Advocates say school choice gives students and families a broader range of options when it comes to education. Critics say the programs undermine public schools. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson talks with Sam Abrams (@Samuel_Abrams), director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Columbia University&#8217;s Teachers College, about the push to privatize public education. \nMore from our series, &#8220;Privatization In America&#8221;\n\nInterview Highlights On the origins of privatizing public education &#8220;We can go back to Milton Friedman with this. He wrote an important essay in 1955 called &#8216;The Role of Government in Education,&#8217; and Friedman&#8217;s argument was that parents should be able to shop for schools in the same way they shop for anything else, and use vouchers to do that shopping. And Friedman thought that this would help students in poor neighborhoods escape poor neighborhoods. He specified that the vouchers would be worth a certain amount of money, and private schools could charge more than that specified sum. But his concern, fundamentally, was improving the quality of education for all children, and giving parents more latitude.&#8221; On how much vouchers have caught on across the country &#8220;Milwaukee is the city where this really began &#8212; it took a long time to catch on in the United States. So that started in 1990, there are about 28,000 students in Milwaukee. Across the country, we have programs in Cleveland, D.C., we have nearly 100,000 in Florida, and we have quite a few in Arizona now. The number of students using vouchers, however, is not that great. The alternative form of choice has really been charter schools, which were much less controversial in the public eye than vouchers.&#8221; On advocates who say vouchers and charter schools give parents more choice &#8220;It does. It does give parents more choice. The big question is, does it provide choice for better education? Or is it just a different door that students are going through, but the education isn&#8217;t necessarily better &#8212; and sometimes might be inferior &#8212; than what students would get at their default neighborhood public school.&#8221; On whether privatization in education makes public schools worse &#8220;There is an argument to be made in that regard, because what we have happening is a certain kind of atomization. The neighborhood isn&#8217;t the neighborhood that it once was, because you have students crossing school districts to go to different schools. So the community involvement in the neighborhood public school has been lost. &#8220;Moreover, because we have this sorting of good schools and so-called &#8216;bad schools,&#8217; with a lot of the students who can abide by the high academic and behavioral expectations at the demanding charter schools, then you have students who can&#8217;t abide by those high academic and behavioral expectations, and get concentrated in the default neighborhood public schools. And we do have research that shows that, when you have that concentration, they cause problems for other kids.&#8221; Array On whether testing in schools is a byproduct of privatization &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t say the testing itself is a product of privatization. This was mandated by the federal government, with No Child Left Behind in 2002, and we had a lot of states who are mandating this kind of testing a decade earlier. And you do have these companies who not only benefit from this mandated testing, but they also manufacture need with a lot of benchmark assessments throughout the year to prepare students for these exams. I see the testing, though, as a product not so much of privatization, but of this commercial mindset. And then we like to think of everything in terms of profits and losses, and reading and math scores comport with that vision of how schools work, as any aspect of our economy works.&#8221; On Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the future of privatization in public education &#8220;Well, from her visit to a Catholic school with Donald Trump in Orlando several weeks ago, we know that she&#8217;s a big fan of tuition tax credits, which become vouchers for poor children. So she can lobby for that. How she can make it happen at the federal level is another question. There isn&#8217;t that much money in the federal budget for education. So it&#8217;s a bit of a mystery about how she can really make privatization take that much more hold across the country.&#8221; &#8220;Much can happen without her, and that&#8217;s already happened recently in Arizona. We have a push in Nevada that&#8217;s in the court system right now about making money available to all parents regardless of income so they can" ]

[ "A 17-year-old young man presented with vision loss and discrete, bilateral foveal lesions. The patient returned 6 weeks later with worsening vision, prominent bilateral retinal lesions, and a full-thickness macular hole in the right eye consistent with recurrent self-inflicted handheld laser retinopathy. After instructing the family to remove the patient's access to laser pointers, follow-up examination revealed spontaneous closure of the macular hole but minimal vision improvement. Recurrent ocular exposure to handheld lasers can masquerade as an organic process in patients who withhold pertinent history. Clinicians should rely on the distinguishing features seen on examination and multimodal imaging to make the diagnosis of handheld laser retinopathy." ]

[ "CASE REPORT: A 20-year old female complained of a paracentral scotoma after having suffered a whiplash injury. Eye fundus examination and fluorescein angiography suggested the diagnosis of traumatic retinopathy. DISCUSSION: There is not a clear explanation to justify the development of traumatic retinopathy after an indirect ocular trauma. Some authors favour a mixed mechanism, mechanic and vascular, to explain these alterations. We consider that a vascular aetiology is the most possible explanation for the development of traumatic retinopathy. Language: es", "A laser stimulator and a special silver hook electrode were used to record the local ERG for investigation of the functional state characteristics of the macula. Patients affected with hereditary retinal diseases and diabetic retinopathy were examined. The results show that the laser ERG changes depend on origins and states of macular diseases.", "We present a case of unilateral traumatic retinal angiopathy following a mandibular fracture. An 11- year-old child involved in a bicycle accident developed Purtscher's retinopathy in the left eye with retinal hemorrhages, cotton wool spots, and optic disc swelling on funduscopy. The visual acuity in this eye was counting fingers at one meter.", "Abstract A case of recurrent Miller–Fisher syndrome is presented and features of this very rare condition are discussed.", "Replantation of a penis with microsurgical repair of vessels and nerves can restore normal genitourinary function. A case is presented of an amputated penis that was ischemic for sixteen hours before being microsurgically revascularized. The patient has at all times appreciated having an intact penis despite the fact that the injury was self-inflicted. Self-mutilation is not considered to be an absolute contraindication to replantation.", "Purpose:To evaluate the intermediate-term efficacy and safety of micropulsed diode laser cyclophotocoagulation in recurrent pediatric glaucoma.Patients and Methods:A prospective interventional stud...", "PURPOSE. To understand whether laser photocoagulation of the retina for the treatment of diabetic retinopathy (DR) alters directly or indirectly the function of the macular region. METHODS. Transient pattern electroretinograms (PERGs) to 30' checks have been recorded in DR patients before and 7–10 days after one treatment session (established protocol with Argon laser) of either the peripheral retina (panretinal treatment) or the central retina (paramacular focal treatment). RESULTS. Treatment of the peripheral retina causes, in most eyes, a small increase (about 15% on average) of the PERG amplitude. Focal paramacular treatment causes a marked decrement (about 40% on average) of the PERG amplitude. Simulated retinal amputation induced by focal treatment, obtained by means of adequate stimulus masking, resulted in a 15–20% PERG decrement only. CONCLUSIONS. The PERG increase after peripheral treatment may be due to rearrangement of both retinal and choroideal hemodynamics and does not necessarily result in...", "Stab wounds are usually produced when the force is carried along the long axis of narrow or pointed objects. Narrow or pointed objects like knife, sword, dagger, screw driver, arrow, spear etc. commonly cause stab wounds. Stab wound can also occur by broken objects like glass or wooden material. Stab wounds generally occur by assault, sometimes it may also occur by self-infliction. However, self-inflicted stab wounds are rare. Similarly, self-inflicted fatal stab by broken glass bottle is rare and uncommon. In present case, a 30 years old male was brought with history of stab over neck by broken glass bottle causing fatality. In this case, presence or absence of particular features (e.g., hesitation marks, defence wounds) allows distinction between suicide and homicide. The present case is described for its rarity and pattern of causation by broken glass bottle, which is rarely mentioned in literature to the best of our knowledge.", "Abstract With a wide range of applications, laser pointers used as toys by children has become a major public safety problem worldwide. Here we present a long term followup of a ten-year-old boy retina injured patient who suffered from green light laser pointer. Retina injured patients caused by green light laser pointer were traditionally treated by steroid. We gave Lutein treatment prescription according to the wishes of the patient’s parents. Over 12 months followup, the patient’s visual acuity and retinal recovery outcomes were similar as in cases with steroid treatment. Primary school teacher and parents should pay more attention to children playing with laser pointer to prevent laser injury accident through school and family education.", "A 38-year-old female presents with recurrent redness, pain, blurry vision, and protrusion of the left eye. Exam was remarkable for mild proptosis. What is your differential diagnosis?", "This case is submitted by Drs. Francisco J. Ascaso, Maria Rojo, and Enrique Minguez from the Department of Ophthalmology, “Lozano Blesa” University Clinic Hospital, Zaragoza, Spain, for the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Challenges Section of Retina; and commented by Dr. Steven M. Cohen, Clearwater, Flo", "Abstract PURPOSE: To report a patient with a macular injury caused by a laser pointing device. METHODS: Case report. A healthy 34-year-old man was examined 2 days after he deliberately gazed into the beam of a laser-pointing device with his left eye for an estimated 30 to 60 seconds. His uncorrected visual acuity in each eye was 20/20. He reported a transient central scotoma in the left eye and headache after laser exposure. RESULTS: Both eyes were unremarkable except for a focal retinal pigment epithelial disturbance at the nasal edge of the fovea in the left eye. Fundus fluorescein angiography demonstrated window- defect type hyperfluoresence in the same location. CONCLUSIONS: Laser-pointing devices may cause macular injury when used inappropriately. Conformance with consumer safety recommendations should minimize potential hazards.", "Abstract A case of traumatic self-inflicted glossectomy has been reported. It is difficult to understand how this patient tolerated the pain associated with this self-inflicted wound and why she did not bleed to death in the process.", "Changes in retinal hemodynamics are a factor of major influence in diabetic retinopathy. With the aid of videoangiography, the changes in retinal circulation times before and after therapeutic laser coagulation were examined in a prospective study. A marked diminution of all circulation times was observed after laser coagulation procedures: the arterial circulation time decreased from 1.02 s to 0.74 s average, the early venous circulation time from 5.18 s to 3.50 s average, and the late venous circulation time from 9.07 s to 8.16 s. Laser coagulation has a more significant influence on the capillary circulation of the retina than on the venous phase. In diabetic retinopathy, the improvement in pathologic hemodynamic situations in the retina may be a very important mechanism of action in laser coagulation therapy.", "Purpose. This study presents two cases of persistent glare symptoms after laser peripheral iridotomy despite the patients undergoing corneal stromal tattooing with black ink placed in a manually constructed stromal pocket. Possible reasons as to why each case resulted in treatment failure are described along with a technique to reduce such failures. Methods. The study design is a retrospective report of two cases of corneal stromal tattooing after symptomatic laser peripheral iridotomy. Results. In both cases, failure to resolve glare symptoms was attributed to patchy pigmentation in the corneal stromal pocket that was highlighted only with retro-illumination at the slit lamp. Conclusions. The method proposed to reduce failures is verifying with retro-illumination for defects in a corneal tattoo as a method to reduce failures.", "This article presents a case study of a 19-year-old man who was a self-inflicted immolation victim. The medical and psychologic issues that developed, and the nursing interventions that were used are also described. Additional issues explored include the effects the patient had on the burn team and the unique action plan developed by the team.", ". Ninety-seven laser treated eyes from 55 highly selected childhood onset diabetics (diabetes before the age of 15, proliferative retinopathy before the age of 31, and a follow-up time of at least 5 years) were examined retrospectively. The eyes were divided into two groups, with or without high-risk characteristics according to DRS classification. They were all treated with a blue-green argon laser in the years 1974 to 1981. Of 34 eyes with high-risk characteristics, 12 (35%) were blind (less than FC 1 M) after 5 years. Of 63 eyes without high-risk characteristics, 8 (13%) were blind after 5 years.", "The invention relates to a method for determining 3D coordinates of an object (2) by a handheld laser-based distance measuring device (1), the method comprising determining an object point (20) at the object (2); measuring a distance (100) from the handheld laser-based distance measuring device (1) to the determined object point (20) by means of an EDM (10); capturing a 3D image (110) of the object (2), the 3D image (110) includes the determined object point (20); identifying the determined object point (20) in the captured 3D image (110); and linking the measured distance (100) with the identified object point (20) in the 3D image (110). The invention also relates to a handheld laser-based distance measuring device (1) and a computer program product for execution of said method.", "A 57-year-old man with a past medical history of diabetes presented for consultation with a several year history of slowly progressive vision loss in both eyes, which continued to deteriorate over 7 years of follow-up. Multimodal imaging was performed and was significant for the following: on spectral domain optical coherence tomography, a gap lesion was present in the ellipsoid layer, beneath the umbo, as well as subtle macular changes on auto fluorescence imaging. Multifocal electroretinography was performed and was abnormal, and a clinical diagnosis of occult macular dystrophy was made. The patient was subsequently evaluated with genetic testing that revealed a novel p.P73S:c 217C>T nonsense mutation within the retinitis pigmentosa 1-like-1 (RP1L1) gene. The clinical significance of the identified variation will require further investigation.", "PURPOSE ::: To report a case of asymmetric retinopathy of prematurity associated with a peripapillary staphyloma. ::: ::: ::: METHODS ::: Case report. ::: ::: ::: RESULTS ::: A 1,545-g male infant was born at 34 weeks' gestation. He was noted on initial examination to have a peripapillary staphyloma in the left eye and immature retinal vasculature in zone 2 of both eyes. Follow-up examination at 16 weeks of age showed a normal right eye with full vascularization and zone 2, stage 2 retinopathy of prematurity in the left eye. ::: ::: ::: CONCLUSION ::: To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of peripapillary staphyloma in which only the affected eye developed retinopathy of prematurity.", "We reviewed the preoperative, postoperative, and follow-up examinations, fundus photographs, and fluorescein angiograms of 175 eyes of 134 patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy treated with panretinal photocoagulation. Forty-four (25%) of these eyes lost two or more lines of vision by the time of the last follow-up examination. Follow-ups ranged from 3 to 48 months, with a median follow-up of 15 months. The most common cause of decreased visual acuity was chronic macular edema that had developed following laser treatment, occurring in 14 (8%) eyes. The causes of visual loss following panretinal photocoagulation are discussed.", "To explore the operation and prognosis of the operation of vitreous hemorrhage in diabetic retinopathy. Methods Vitrectomy and intraocular Ar+ laser coagulation were performed in 41 cases (47eyes) of vitreous hemorrhage in diabetic retinopathy, stripping and cutting of membrane, liquid perfluorodecalin, electric coagulation, condense, cerclage and silicon oil were carried out. Visual acuity(VA) , intraocular pression(IOP) and fundus were observed after sugery and followed up for 12～24 months. Results After operation, VA of 42 eyes was improved, 3 eyes was same, 2 eyes was decreased. IOP of 47 eyes was all below 3. 192Kpa. No detachment of retina was observed. The main complications in the operation were bleeding and iatrogenic holes of retina. Conclusions Vitreoretina operation is valid treatment for vitreous hemorrhage in diabetic retinopathy. It is important for prognosis to choose the correct opportunity.", "A 78-year-old man with perifoveal subretinal neovascularization originally treated with krypton red laser was re-treated. An attempt was made to produce a “chalky white” burn at the site of the neovascular frond. Immediately after a bum, a brisk choroidal haemorrhage followed, apparently from a ruptured choroidal vessel. Bleeding occurred subretinally and into the vitreous, blinding the patient. While the krypton red laser carries advantages over the argon laser in the treatment of subretinal neovascular fronds, this case indicates that hard burns with the krypton laser carry a risk of massive subretinal haemorrhage.", "Purpose: The purpose was to study the incidence, risk factors, and anatomical outcomes after laser treatment in retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods: A retrospective observational study was carried out. Infants admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of 12 referral hospitals between April 2016 and September 2017 were screened according to the latest Indian guidelines based on the International Classification of Retinopathy of Prematurity. Results: The incidence of ROP in 1648 eyes screened was 25.36% (418 eyes), out of which high-risk prethreshold ROP (type 1) was observed in 9.95% (164 eyes). Decreased hemoglobin (P", "The authors saw a patient in April 1967 who had impaired vision (4/10 in both eyes) with pigmented degeneration of the macula diagnosed as Stargardt syndrome. She had taken the oral contraceptive Ovulene for 6 months but stopped although she did not disclose this to the ophthalmologist. In October 1967 her vision had imrpove to 12/10 but the macula remained the same so the diagnosis was revised to retro-bulbar neuritis. She began taking pills again in July 1968 and her vision deteriorated to 2/10 in the right and 10/10 in the left. The macula remained the same but there was central scotoma and central achromotopsia on the right. Intraocular pressure pupil reflexes peripheral visual fields and neurologic exam were normal. She stopped pills and her vision returned to normal (10/10 in both eyes) in September 1968 when she finally mentioned use of oral contraceptives.", "Laser photocoagulation is a type of laser surgery that uses an intense beam of light to burn small areas of the retina and abnormal blood vessele beneath the macula. The burns form scar tissue that seala the blood vessels, keeping them from leaking under the macula. By sealing the leaky blood vessels, laser photocoagulation slows down, The buildup of fluid under the retina that distors the shape and position of the macula. The growth of scar tissue and the abnormal membrane under the retina, both of which damage the cells in the macula. But, also there is some of riskk of using a laser.. laser photocoagulation burns and destroys part of the retina and often resuls in some permanent vision loss. This is usually unavoidable. In this paper we show a case report of patient with proliferative diabetic retinopathy. We perfomed a panretinal Argon laser photocoagulation. After the laser treatment and regulation a level of glucosis in blood, our patient a good visual acuity and he will not need vitreoretinal surgery.", "The authors report a nontraditional effective method of treating patients with contusion semiluxation of the lens. It consists in fixation of the lens at the expense of formation of posterior synechiae because of an inflammatory process induced by laser exposure of pigmented epithelium of the iris and ciliary body. Complex clinical evaluation of the organ of vision in 132 patients, including the remote period (after 3-10 years), showed good stabilization of visual functions and of the geometrical position of the incompletely dislocated lens after its laser fixation.", "A case of a 46-year-old, generally healthy man, with sudden deterioration of visual acuity associated with macular haemorrhagies is presented. Angioid streaks were diagnosed basing on the ophthalmoscopical and angiographic picture of the fundus.", "A case of giant optic disc drusen is presented. Diagnostic difficulties and a role of fluorescein angiography, CT and static perimetry in diagnosing these alterations are described.", "Thirty cases with malignant neoplasms of the oral and maxillofacial regions treated by Nd-YAG laser are presented. All of them have been followed-up for 2–4 years, and the results are satisfactory. In 26 cases, the tumours disappeared clinically, were negative in pathological examination, and no recurrence was found in the 2–4 year follow-up period.", "Purpose: To report a rare case of relapsed inflammatory choroidal neovascularization (CNV) in a young female patient after intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) treatment for subfoveal CNV secondary to punctate inner choroidopathy (PIC). Case summary: A 25-year-old myopic female presented with PIC complicated by subfoveal CNV in the right eye. Her lesion initially responded to three monthly 1.25 mg IVB injections, but the lesion recurred two months after the final injection, and the size of the lesion was larger than that observed before treatment. Further treatment with systemic steroids and IVB resulted in successful anatomic and visual improvement. Conclusions: This report presents a rare case of relapsed inflammatory CNV in a young female patient after IVB treatment for subfoveal CNV secondary to PIC. Systemic steroid and IVB were performed after relapse, which successfully improved and maintained vision for longer than 18 months. J Korean Ophthalmol Soc 2016;57(3):513-517", "This article describes the development procedure and results achieved for a green laser cavity for 4W power output at 532nm wavelength based on a Diode Pumped Solid State Laser technology and Second Harmonic Generation. The main application of the designed cavity module is the development of a portable equipment for Retinal Photocoagulation that will be able to treat several kinds of eye diseases, such as: proliferative and non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy, retinal detachment, retinal tears, retinal hemorrhage, vein occlusion and Glaucoma. The cavity was designed in a “V” folded shape side pumped. The maximum power output reached for this cavity architecture was 4.0W for 2.0 seconds pulse duration and 3.0W for 4.0 seconds pulse duration, both cases with duty-cycle up to 50%." ]

[ "The Japanese company Thanko has introduced a nose hair trimmer that plugs into a smartphone. The company has already brought us an armpit fan and a pocket washing machine." ]

[ "San Francisco 49ers linebacker Chris Borland is leaving football over concerns about head trauma and his future health. At the ripe age of 24, and with one stellar rookie season under his belt, he is retiring. &#8220;From what I&#8217;ve researched and what I&#8217;ve experienced, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s worth the risk,&#8221; Borland told ESPN&#8217;s &#8220;Outside the Lines. &#8220;I feel largely the same, as sharp as I&#8217;ve ever been. For me, it&#8217;s wanting to be proactive. I&#8217;m concerned that if you wait till you have symptoms, it&#8217;s too late.&#8221; Here & Now&#8217;s Robin Young speaks to ESPN&#8217;s Jane McManus about Borland&#8217;s decision. Guest\n\nJane McManus, a sportwriter for ESPN. She tweets @janesports.", "Last year, a 19-year-old from Indiana, Zach Anderson, had sex with a 14-year-old girl from Michigan. She told him she was 17, and the age of consent in Michigan is 16. Anderson served 75 days in jail after pleading guilty to fourth-degree sexual contact, and he was ordered to register as a sex offender, which restricted him from talking with anyone under the age 17, except for immediate family, and barred him from using a smartphone or the Internet. “It’s almost unconstitutional in today’s age of technology,&#8221; Zach&#8217;s mother Amanda Anderson told Here & Now back in August. &#8220;All the things that have been taken from him.” Berrien County Judge Angela Pasula, on Monday, re-sentenced Anderson to two years probation and lifted many of the most draconian rules placed on him. The judge also removed Anderson from the Michigan sex offender list. Some say this case revealed flaws in the rules regarding sex offender registries. &#8220;It is very difficult because a lot of our focus has been on trying to get our son&#8217;s life back, because at the end of the day, you know, there aren&#8217;t many quote-unquote crimes, if you want to call it this, that carry the weight that something like this does,&#8221; Zach&#8217;s father Les Anderson told Here & Now in August. &#8220;And it&#8217;s hard to swallow when it&#8217;s a consensual act. We&#8217;ve had a conversation with the mother and the daughter and as a family we&#8217;ve both asked for forgiveness, because there were two wrongs done, not just one.&#8221;", "Designer Dominic Wilcox uses his iPhone in the bathtub. But he couldn't hold it and scroll without dropping it in the water. He tried scrolling with his nose but couldn't see what he was doing. So he invented the \"finger-nose stylus\" — a Pinocchio like nose extension that's strapped on with elastic.", "Do you use those tiny toiletry bottles in hotels? Maybe you take them home and stockpile them.  But have you thought about how much plastic that is? Legislators in California have. In April, members of the state assembly voted to replace small plastic bottles with dispensers or bottles larger than 12 ounces.  If approved, as expected, by the governor, the bill would go into effect in 2023 &#8212; banning little shampoo, conditioner and body wash bottles in hotels, bed and breakfasts, resorts and vacation rentals. The bill is modeled after an ordinance adopted by the city of Santa Cruz last year, which made it the first jurisdiction in the state to ban small plastic bottles. Marriott International also announced last year that it would place dispensers in some 1,500 hotels in North America, The New York Times reports. The move by the hotel chain is expected to eliminate 10.4 million plastic bottles, which adds up to 113,000 pounds of plastic annually.  Industry leaders in California are behind the bill as well. Lynn Mohrfeld, president and CEO of the California Hotel & Lodging Association, says his group is “fully supportive” of the initiative.  While Morhfeld says he’s personally over mini plastic bottles, he admits that some have strong feelings about them. “When I tell my friends about this, they&#8217;re like, &#8216;Well, wait a minute. I like the small bottles,&#8217; ” Mohrfeld tells Here & Now’s Robin Young. “So there&#8217;s definitely a whole lot of different opinions out there, but I think it&#8217;s the right way to go because of sustainability.”  Having a dispenser in the room means guests can use as much shampoo, conditioner and body wash as they want, Morhfeld adds. “So the dispenser, you&#8217;ve got follically challenged people like myself who don&#8217;t use a lot of shampoo, and then you&#8217;ve got some folks with some long hair that use a lot of shampoo and conditioner,” he says. “We have methods now to keep it healthy and sanitary.” The association has asked for an extension on the deadline for implementing the dispensers, Mohrfeld says. “The timing on this was a little bit too steep for us. We&#8217;ve got 600,000 rooms in California,” he says. “There is the cost of dispenser and you have to install the dispenser, and it&#8217;s surprisingly complicated when it comes to operations and housekeeping carts and everything else.” Mohrfeld says originally, he didn’t think the legislation was necessary because the industry was already going in that direction. But now he’s glad everyone in the business can reach a common goal.  “A lot of us in the industry said, &#8216;Hey, we don&#8217;t really need a bill,&#8217; and then we&#8217;re looking at it and saying, &#8216;OK, well, let&#8217;s all get there together,&#8217; ” he says. “And as long as it&#8217;s fair and consistent &#8212; we&#8217;ve got this all the way across the state &#8212; we&#8217;re OK with the legislation. Just give us enough time to implement it.” This article was originally published on WBUR.org.", "While smartphone makers Apple and Samsung may be household names in the U.S., there is another player out of China primed for global recognition. In just five years, the Beijing-based Xiaomi has grown from start-up to the largest smartphone maker in China. They boast high-quality smartphones for half the price of an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy and they&#8217;ve recently announced plans to expand beyond the border. Here & Now&#8217;s Jeremy Hobson spoke with mobile editor Ina Fried of the tech news site Re/code for a look at what the company is all about. Guest\n\nIna Fried, senior editor at Re/code. She tweets @inafried.", "Researchers at Japan's Osaka University have announced a prototype cell phone that they say will help users \"feel closer\" to those they're talking to. The Elfoid is shaped like a human and controlled by hidden buttons. It also has an outer coating that feels like human skin.", "German researchers have patented a chip for sending smells through mobile phones. The chip has been in the works for eight years, and may not be on the market for another two. If it does come out, a spokesperson for a German technology company says people will be able to send the scent of the ocean breeze while on vacation.", "How many times a day do you check your smartphone? For the average American, that number is 52. According to Deloitte&#8217;s Global Mobile Survey, 63 percent of respondents said they have tried to limit their smartphone usage, but only around half succeeded in cutting back. Cal Newport, author of the new book &#8220;Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World&#8221; and an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University, argues that phone use is getting in the way of too much of our lives. The main complaint he hears? People are losing their autonomy. &#8220;This idea that they have to keep going to the phone, more than they think is useful, more than they think is healthy, to the exclusion of things they know are more important,&#8221; Newport tells Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson. Newport explains that smartphone addiction is &#8220;what a psychologist would call a &#8216;moderate behavioral addiction,&#8217; which means if you have it around, you&#8217;re probably going to use it more than is healthy.&#8221; He says that definition matches many people&#8217;s current relationship with their phone: the feeling of needing to look at it or have it handy at all times. So why should we cut back on time spent on our phones? One reason, Newport says, is solitude: losing the time to reflect and be alone with your thoughts is &#8220;one of the biggest undetected consequences of what we&#8217;ve engineered at this digital age.&#8221; He says that when people struggle to step away from their screens, they are missing out on activities that are &#8220;crucial to a flourishing, functional human life&#8221; &#8212; like taking time to self-reflect, having a face-to-face conversation with someone or simply being bored. &#8220;This might sound intolerable to the modern smartphone, sort of, infected individual, but it&#8217;s absolutely crucial to reset in your mind, to [have] insights, to [have] successful self-reflection,&#8221; Newport says. To cut back on constant scrolling, Newport recommends starting from scratch. &#8220;Clear it all out. Step away for 30 days,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Get back in touch with what you really care about, what you want to spend your time on, and when you&#8217;re done with the 30 days, rebuild that digital life from scratch &#8212; but do it this time with real intention.&#8221; If you can&#8217;t commit to completely wiping out apps on your phone for a month, Newport suggests starting by deleting any app in which a company makes a profit every time you click on it. He says you don&#8217;t have to cancel the service, but only use it when you&#8217;re on a device other than a smartphone. Another suggestion is to reintroduce leisure activities you used to do to before compulsively checking your devices &#8212; reading books, cooking, writing or visiting with friends. Finally, Newport recommends evaluating how much time has been wasted skimming and tapping through your phone. Being a successful digital minimalist, he says, is weighing cost over benefit. &#8220;What is the cost in terms of your life energy, your life force, [and] time you could be spending on something more important?&#8221; he says. Interview Highlights On whether smartphone use has gotten worse over the years &#8220;It&#8217;s definitely gotten worse. A big part of this is that the user experience of social media was re-engineered so that it would foster more compulsive use. So Facebook 10 years ago is an experience that&#8217;s very different than Facebook today. Ten years ago, you were looking at your friends&#8217; profiles. Today, it&#8217;s this unending stream of rich rewards, likes, @ tags and @ comments, that are coming at you all day long, that you have to keep compulsively checking.&#8221; On the costs and benefits of the digital minimalist lifestyle &#8220;[Henry David] Thoreau was a great minimalist and he had this idea that, if you just look at the benefits, you become a maximalist. So you&#8217;re always trying to maximize the number of these little benefits that you&#8217;ve accrued. But in doing that, you miss what are the costs, what you actually have to pay to get these benefits &#8230; so the maximalists fake they&#8217;re better off because they&#8217;re hunting down all the small scraps of value. But what they&#8217;re really missing out on is the great satisfaction that comes from taking that energy and consolidating &#8230; the small number of things that you know, for sure, are really important to you.&#8221; On giving up apps on your smartphone for 30 days &#8220;It sounded hard to me, so when I put a call out to my readers to say, &#8216;Hey, who wants to do this experiment?&#8217; I thought maybe 20 or 30 people would volunteer. Instead, 1,600 people signed up to spend the month of January 2018 without this technology. That&#8217;s what told me, yeah it&#8217;s hard, but the way that we&#8217;re living now is even harder. People are hungry and ready for a chan", "Inventors always seem to give the same advice: come up with a good idea, and a way to sell it, and you'll be filthy rich. I'm not sure this guy actually invented anything, but it's sure an interesting way to make money. About $70 will get you one breakup message, delivered, so you don't have to. And, if you're classy enough to do the dumping in person, Bernd Dressler will coach you on how to do it. He averages about three minutes per break-up, so he must be a pro at the drive-by dumping. (His services also include advice on how to save your relationship, though if that doesn't work he can handle the breakup, too.) Anyway, it seems to me that if Bernd can make money by delivering breakups, you can make money handling all kinds of desperate news for people... from \"you're fired!\" to \"get out of my house!\" to \"Sorry, I ran over your dog.\" (Or, more personally, \"Neal, I lost the scripts for today's show!\") What other bad news would you pay to have delivered?", "First there was the Smell-O-Vision, a technology that brought aromas to movie theater audiences. Then there was Scratch 'n' Sniff, paper you could smell. Now, a company in Paris has developed a mobile phone that sends aromatic text messages. It's called the oPhone — \"o\" for olfactory. David Edwards, the mastermind behind the oPhone, is a Harvard University professor and the founder of Le Laboratoire in Paris. He and his students thought up a way to transmit all kinds of aromas, \"from bread and flowers to the smell of Paris 300 years ago,\" he says. These aromas are preprogrammed into the oPhone device, which has four small fingernail-sized chips that act as \"ink cartridges for aroma,\" Edwards says. Air flows through them in different ways to produce various smells. On one end, a user can type a message and attach a related smell, and someone with an oPhone on the receiving end will get a small whiff. Edwards says communication is just missing something without a smell. \"Clearly, [there's] a big difference between me saying to you the word 'croissant,' or even showing you a picture of a croissant, and you smelling a croissant,\" he says. He's working with businesses like coffee shops to make the oPhone part of the consumer experience. Edwards says oPhones will be for sale in late fall, although you can't record your own smells yet. \"However, being able to transmit the aroma of what I'm experiencing through a kind of a camera is imaginable, so I think that will be coming,\" he says.", "A German company is working on a mobile phone that detects not only bad breath, but... other odors... that a caller might give off. Seimens Mobile says the phone has a tiny chip that detects smells \"in the vicinity\" including alcohol and \"atmospheric gas.\"", "Legendary Welsh singer Tom Jones is back with a new album, \"Surrounded By Time.\" In the 1960s during the British invasion, Jones stormed the U.S. from Wales and unlike the boy bands at the time, he put on an old school show with hits like \"It&#8217;s Not Unusual\" and \"What&#8217;s New Pussycat?\" Over the next five decades, he sold over 100 million records and starred in hit variety TV shows in the U.S. and the U.K., most recently sharing his musical wisdom as a coach on \"The Voice UK.\" At 80, Jones hasn't slowed down. \"Surrounded By Time\" features covers from The Waterboys to Bob Dylan&#8217;s \"One More Cup of Coffee\" — which comes more than 40 years after Jones first heard the Dylan hit. \"You see, when you get older, you start to listen to things in a different way to what you do when you&#8217;re young,\" he says. These days, Jones says he's less concerned with overblown vocals and more focused on finding the meaning within lyrics. But don't let that fool you — his youthful voice still sounds as vibrant as ever. His voice is \"alive and well and living in an 80-year-old man,\" he says. \"But my voice is about 30.\" Watch on YouTube. The importance of time came into perspective for Jones after the death of his wife — the two had been married for 59 years — in 2016 and when the world came to a standstill because of the pandemic. Humans are confined by time, \"whether you like it or not,\" he says, so \"you've got to make the most of it while you're here.\" Jones hopes he'll be back on stage performing in front of crowds sooner rather than later. \"I live on stage, you see,\" he says. \"To me, all roads lead to the stage and the audience [is] dying for us to get up there.\" Interview Highlights On tweaking the lyrics of \"I'm Growing Old\" by jazz composer Bobby Cole \"When I first heard it, I was only in my 30s and Bobby Cole came in the dressing room and he said, 'I&#8217;ve got this song, what do you think?' And I said, 'I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m old enough to sing it yet, but maybe when I get to 80, if I get there, then I will definitely do it.' So I am 80 and so now I&#8217;m doing it. All the words in this song are true except for one line that I&#8217;ve changed since I recorded it. There&#8217;s a line in there that goes, 'And though I save a lock of hair, I seldom dream about my wife.' I flipped it.\" On the meaning behind \"I Won&#8217;t Crumble With You If You Fall,\" the death of his wife, and how she wanted him to keep singing \"That&#8217;s exactly what she said not to do, because she had terminal lung cancer and she knew she was dying and I was with her for the last 10 days and she said, 'Look, I got to go. You know, there&#8217;s nothing I could do about it, but don&#8217;t you fall with me. You&#8217;ve got to get up on that stage and you&#8217;ve got to sing.' And I said 'I don&#8217;t know whether I&#8217;ll be able to do it,' because if I get too emotional, you can&#8217;t be that emotional and sing, you see, because it gets stuck in your throat. So she said, 'Well, just think of me laughing,' because she loved it when I would tell her a joke, if I came off the road, she&#8217;d say, 'Have you heard any new jokes lately?' and I would tell her one and she would laugh. So she said, &#8216;Think of me like that when you get on a stage. Don&#8217;t think of me like I am now.&#8217; \"But she was the coolest person in the room. Myself and my son, we were basket cases, and she said, &#8216;You two got to mentor one another now.&#8217; So, yeah, I&#8217;ve got her ashes with me in my bedroom on the chest of drawers with a picture above it. So she&#8217;s the first person I talk to in the morning and the last person that night.\" Watch on YouTube. On being a young, trained singer up against huge bands like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles in the 1960s \"Well, first of all, I could sing. A lot of those fellas — I&#8217;m not putting anybody down here — but in the '60s, there were not many singers around. There were a lot of bands fronted by people that expressed things, but they weren&#8217;t necessarily singers. So I&#8217;ve always been a singer of songs, you see. All kinds of songs, though. Like, for instance, on my first album I did 'Autumn Leaves,' but I also did 'Memphis Tennessee.' I mean, with \"It&#8217;s Not Unusual,\" because I did that, I did 'What&#8217;s New Pussycat' for Burt Bacharach because he said we need a strong voice on this thing. We need somebody that&#8217;s singing it like it was midnight hour.\" \"I always thought I was ahead of the game, not behind it. I was only 24 when I recorded \"It's Not Unusual.\" I was the same age as John Lennon, but I didn&#8217;t look like a boy. I looked like a man, you see, with a busted nose. I came out of South Wales and they said that macho s*** went out with Elvis Presley, and I said, 'I don&#8217;t think so.' So that was it. \"I was up against it from the beginning, you see, because trends, you get The Beatles and the Stones, you know, people like that, lookin", "A Japanese company recently announced it has such a device. Using a smartphone app, you can flush without touching the handle. You can also raise and lower the seat, and there are built-in speakers.", "If you&#8217;re a regular public radio listener, chances are you&#8217;ve heard a StoryCorps conversation &#8211; and maybe even shed a tear. The ongoing oral history project, which is the brain child of Dave Isay, has recorded more than 65,000 interviews over the past 11 years, and archived them at the Library of Congress. Last year, Isay was awarded the TED Prize, $1 million grant that allows the winner to create something they wish to see in the world. Today, Isay is revealing his wish: a mobile app that will allow StoryCorps to extend its reach around the world, and allow anyone with access to a smartphone to record a conversation and submit it to the archive. Here & Now&#8217;s Robin Young talks to Isay about his dream of using the app to &#8220;collect the wisdom of humanity.&#8221; \nMore details about the new StoryCorp app (and how to get it)\nRelated: Our 2013 conversation with Dave Isay about StoryCorps&#8217; 10th anniversary\n\nGuest\n\nDavid Isay, founder of StoryCorps, and author of “Ties That Bind.”", "When you watch detective shows you see police dogs sniffing out the crime scene or dogs leading police to the crime scene. But what if your pet could help solve crimes by just being around? Vicki Croke of The Wild Life blog tells Here & Now&#8217;s Robin Young the emerging field of veterinary forensics is helping crack human crimes and crimes against animals. &#8220;Even a single dog or cat hair can act like a department store tag, which can tie criminals to the crime they&#8217;ve committed,&#8221; Croke said. &#8220;And people in law enforcement have realized, &#8216;You know what, here is a good opportunity to grab some physical evidence.'&#8221; And it&#8217;s not just hair: it&#8217;s feces, saliva and other things pets shed that carry their DNA. Croke says animal DNA is profiled similarly to human DNA. Then the crime lab conducts a probability test to determine how likely it is that the DNA comes from any other animal in the area. \nThe Wild Life: Pet CSI: How Dog And Cat DNA Nabs Bad Guys\n\nGuest\n\nVicki Croke, animal reporter for WBUR’s The Wild Life. The blog tweets@TheWildLifeWBUR.", "In our \"Weekly Innovation\" blog series, we explore an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Do you have an innovation to share? Use this quick form. Just two days ago I wrote about getting personal styling sent to your doorstep. Now, after receiving a personalized outfit selection, you can just stay at home and await an on-demand hair stylist, too. Following a trend of on-demand meals, ice cream, dog walkers and more, hair stylists are making house calls. Soon, if you're in Washington, D.C., a stylist will come to you for a blowout or an updo, within 45 minutes of tapping an app. The service Blowdry Taxi has about a dozen stylists at the ready and for $50, you can get a salon style, without the salon. \"I'm a working mom and I look around and think I don't have time to get a blowout,\" said founder Sona Sut. \"Women are busy with family and career but still want to look and feel good, even if rushed.\" While the concept is new for the nation's capital, Glamsquad is a similar on-demand beauty service available in New York and Los Angeles. It's led by the Gilt Groupe co-founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson. But since Blowdry Taxi has taxi in the name, we think an even better idea would be if you actually got an updo or blowout while in a taxi, so you don't waste a single minute during your commute. Get picked up with wet hair, show up at work or an event with perfect hair. I feel like this is my Kickstarter. Who's with me? Meanwhile, the actual Blowdry Taxi app (not the one I'm imagining) will be ready on Sept. 23, for those of you in Washington who are interested in trying this out.", "Nearly 6,000 pedestrians were killed on American streets in 2017. A report out Wednesday by the Governors Highway Safety Association puts some of the blame on people who are walking while texting, and finds states that have legalized marijuana have seen an increase in pedestrian deaths. &#8220;You have to go back over 25 years to find a time in American history where that many people die in pedestrian crashes,&#8221; Richard Retting, director of safety for Schwartz Consulting and author of the report, tells Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson. &#8220;The last two years have set records for modern times.&#8221; Interview Highlights On the role of distracted driving, and pedestrians walking while texting &#8220;Well unfortunately, smartphones are like a visual magnet, and people can&#8217;t seem to keep their eyes off them. I don&#8217;t wanna single out any one particular road user in this case. Drivers bear a lot of responsibility, keeping in mind that, even at speeds as low as 30 miles an hour, a driver looking down for a couple of seconds is essentially blindfolded and traveling more than 50 feet. &#8220;Pedestrians, if they are distracted, add to that safety concern. Imagine a scenario where both a driver is looking down and a pedestrian is staring at a phone &#8212; they don&#8217;t see each other coming. And again, we don&#8217;t wanna jump to conclusions and say, &#8216;That&#8217;s driving all pedestrian crashes,&#8217; because it&#8217;s not. But we&#8217;ve seen a surge in pedestrian fatalities since 2010 and that coincides with rapid increase in cellphone use, particularly smartphone use and multimedia messaging on those phones.&#8221; On many of the fatalities happening at night &#8220;This has been a longstanding concern. We see in the most recent data, 75 percent of pedestrian fatalities occur in the dark. But likewise, again there, the glow of a cellphone on the dashboard of a car can be very distracting and cause drivers to not see what&#8217;s happening right in front of their face.&#8221; On whether location plays a role &#8220;There are variances across the states and across cities. So for sure, while for example on a national basis 18 percent of pedestrian fatalities occur at intersections, the vast majority of pedestrian fatalities occur away from intersections, mid-block, places where traffic speeds are higher. But there are states &#8212; New York is one of them &#8212; where a larger proportion of pedestrian fatalities occur at intersections.&#8221; On drawing a connection between pedestrian fatalities and legalized marijuana &#8220;This is the first opportunity that we&#8217;ve had to look at some early data. While there&#8217;s no definitive link here in the study and we&#8217;re not claiming a hard connection, it&#8217;s curious that in the eight states that legalized recreational marijuana, there was over 16 percent increase in pedestrian fatalities, whereas all other states combined, there was a drop. So it could be an early warning sign that marijuana is having its desired effect in terms of people being less in the moment. Let&#8217;s face it: People get high for a reason. It alters the state of mind.&#8221;", "The Bellefonte Nuclear Facility in northern Alabama is up for auction by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which spent $5 billion on its development. The facility, however, has never produced a single watt of nuclear power, as it fell victim to lower demand and increased energy efficiency. Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young talks with plant manager Jim Chardos, who&#8217;s worked at the facility since 1994. Interview Highlights: Jim Chardos On finding a new owner and a new use for the facility &#8220;It&#8217;s money already spent. So they&#8217;ve got an asset here that maybe somebody else can use. And if they don&#8217;t need it in traditional use, which was a nuclear power plant making electricity &#8230; in essence the board of directors has decided to put up an auction and see if, in fact, someone will buy the property, and bring jobs and economic opportunity to Jackson County and to northeast Alabama.&#8221; On the importance of the facility in the community &#8220;Recently in 2011, we had 600 [to] 800 people on site but once it became clear that we didn&#8217;t need electricity, the number of people that you need to maintain it is 45 or so. I&#8217;ve been here 22 years and I&#8217;ve seen a lot of people come and go. But in the end, it&#8217;s a family thing and especially for the people who live in this area. Forty-five people but 40 of them must work within 10, 15, 20 miles of the plant. So to them, this is employment. This is the job. So finding something for 1,400 acres and a partially completed nuclear power plant to help out northeast Alabama is a plus.&#8221; On the goal of the auction &#8220;If in fact, no one bids to complete it as a nuclear power plant, and [provides] other alternatives, in the end, to be honest with you, it comes down to employment and opportunity for investment in the general area. &#8220;Just something to make activity for jobs and investment and community. We want to make sure that we can do something &#8212; bring jobs to a couple of hundred people, or 400 people, and kind of a long term thing. That&#8217;s really what would be best for everybody here.&#8221; On the facility&#8217;s significance  &#8220;It&#8217;s kind of like a second home. You want to maintain your house at home home, and this one is the same way with the same kind of tear, only in this care here, I&#8217;ve got 45 people to help me maintain it. It&#8217;s two homes.&#8221; Guest Jim Chardos, senior manager of the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in Hollywood, Alabama. The Tennessee Valley Authority tweets @TVANews.", "The constant stream of gossip, photos, videos, updates, tweets, news and information online has been a growing distraction for many people. Smartphones mean that people can connect with this digital world anywhere, at any time. Andrew Sullivan, contributing editor to New York Magazine, argues that this constant distraction is an addiction, and that it&#8217;s hurting our lives and relationships. Sullivan discusses trying to break his addiction to online information with Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson. \nRead Andrew Sullivan&#8217;s New York Magazine piece, &#8220;I Used to Be a Human Being&#8220;\n\nInterview Highlights: Andrew Sullivan On losing touch with the &#8220;regular world&#8221; &#8220;Until I realized at some point, you know, it&#8217;s a zero-sum question, this. We&#8217;ve deluded ourselves &#8212; at least I had deluded myself &#8212; into thinking that I could have my cake and eat it too, that I could be online but still in my regular world. Over time I realized, you know, that&#8217;s just not true. You are where your attention is. If you&#8217;re involved in the web, you&#8217;e not actually with your friends, you&#8217;re not with your spouse, you&#8217;re not with your kids. You&#8217;re somewhere else.&#8221; &#8220;That means you&#8217;re not really having a relationship with them, and if you only have relationship with abstract entities online as opposed to actual physical, awkward, flawed but fascinating human beings, we&#8217;re really making our lives much shallower than they need be. We&#8217;re missing out on lives. It struck me this is a way, in the end, of not living.&#8221; On facing our existential questions and anxieties &#8220;&#8230;What surprised me &#8212; it shouldn&#8217;t have, really &#8212; was that when you remove slowly all the distractions that you&#8217;re using, you come face to face with what you&#8217;re distracting yourself from. And that can obviously mean many different things for different people. We all have deep and underlying questions and anxieties in our lives. We also all have, at some level, an existential dread, a sense that we&#8217;re here and we die. And the modern world has conspired brilliantly to enable us to forget about that constantly as if we&#8217;re not actually mortal creatures, and that we don&#8217;t have to ask ourselves what on earth are we doing in this universe right now, because these questions are of course terrifying.&#8221; On overcoming the addiction &#8220;I think it requires real self-discipline. And we just, as a society, I think, this piece was trying to say, &#8216;It&#8217;s time to try and master this.'&#8221; On how information consumption relates to the 2016 presidential election, and thoughts on the race &#8220;I&#8217;m terrified. I really believe that one of the candidates, Donald Trump, is a unique threat to peace in the world, to civil peace in this country and possibly to our entire liberal democratic system. I&#8217;ve never come across a character quite as dangerous or as menacing as this person, who&#8217;s evoked the kind of passions that he&#8217;s evoked. And who, if he were to win, would have nothing to restrain him &#8230; and who has expressed the desire for a kind of authoritarian government. He&#8217;s a wannabe tyrant, that people seem to want as a tyrant, and so much is at stake. &#8230; Many elections have been extraordinarily important in the past. This one is really, I think, for me, life and death for this republic. And the danger of this man, his unpredictability and instability, and, to put it bluntly, fascistic tendencies &#8230; all these traits that we must know by now from history are deeply dangerous. He&#8217;s really close to coming to power in this country than any time in my lifetime. And so I wanted to disengage &#8230; but I can&#8217;t. On my iPhone I have a an actual icon that can give me the latest polling results for everything, and I&#8217;m checking it three or four times a day, as a way to sort of, kind of comfort myself. &#8230; Maybe he&#8217;s got under my skin, but I&#8217;ve read enough history, I know enough about how government works in this country to be deeply afraid.&#8221; Guest Andrew Sullivan, political commentator and writer for New York Magazine. He tweets @sullydish.", "California's Humboldt County is known for its towering redwoods. But this region about 200 miles north of San Francisco has another claim to fame. Humboldt is to weed what Napa is to fine wine — it's the heart of marijuana production in the U.S. Every fall, young people, mostly in their 20s, come from all over the world to work the marijuana harvest. They come seeking jobs as \"trimmers\" — workers who manicure the buds to get them ready for market. The locals have a name for these young migrant workers: \"trimmigrants.\" There are more than 100,000 marijuana plants growing in the hills around Humboldt, the county sheriff's office estimates. They all need to be harvested around the same time and processed quickly to avoid mold and other problems. So from September through November, it's all hands on deck. That's where trimmigrants, also called scissor drifters, come in. To understand this story, you need to know what trimming is. Marijuana grows like a huge bush, and the flower it produces is the marijuana bud. Trimmers manicure the buds, snipping off the leaves and stems and then shaping them with their scissors. The idea is to make the weed stand out, so it sells well at medical marijuana dispensaries and on the street. Garberville, a tiny town of about 900 residents in Humboldt, swarms with trimmigrants during the season — girls and guys with big, bulky backpacks and pit bulls. Many of them look like modern-day hobos. I meet Fermin, a 24-year-old artist from Tennessee, at the far end of town. Like all the trimmers I spoke with, Fermin would use only his first name. Trimming for an illegal operation could make him an accessory to a drug crime. \"I heard you could get work pretty easy,\" Fermin says. \"The reality is it's taking a little bit longer than I expected.\" Fermin has been here for about a month and hasn't found any work yet. It's getting colder and the rains are coming. He sleeps in the woods just outside town and Dumpster-dives for food. Until he finds a job trimming weed, he gets by on selling his art and playing music on the street. 'We Cannot House These People' Trimmers are paid by the pound, and fast trimmers can make $300-$500 a day, in cash and under the table — but of course, if the place where you're trimming gets busted, it could also land you in jail. Some trimmigrants, like Fermin, give the impression they're here to work. But the scene is also attracting drifters who hang around looking pretty drugged out. Locals say European youths often get hired over Americans, who are stereotyped as hippie kids. Kristin Nevedal says migrant trimmers are everywhere, obstructing local businesses and damaging the river with their squatter camps. Nevedal is a local resident and co-founder of the Emerald Growers Association, a group of 400 marijuana farmers all over California. \"This is not the fun vacation thing to do, right? To like, show up in Garberville in the fall and see if you can get a job,\" Nevedal says. \"We cannot house these people. Like, don't come unless you have a job.\" According to the county sheriffs, the majority of growers in Humboldt are operating illegally. So hiring strangers from the side of the road, they say, puts the growers at risk. There is risk for trimmers, too. Every year, some go missing, and trimmers have even been killed. They often work in remote areas with no cellphone service or running water, sleeping in tents. Sometimes they don't even know where they are. Tim Blake has been growing marijuana since the '70s. His collective, Healing Harvest Farms, is just south, in Mendocino County. Blake's is a small farm, and it's legal. He grows 25 plants — the county limit for medicinal marijuana — but the plants are huge. \"Look at the different colors,\" Blake says, showing off his plants. \"You got the purples, then you got the dark greens, the light greens.\" Blake's marijuana plants look almost like small trees. They're 10 feet high and he says each one will produce about 8 pounds of weed. \"As soon as you squeeze it, you can feel the resin on it,\" says Blake, handling a plant. \"It gets right on your fingers. It's like, all over it.\" Good Pay — At Least For Now Blake brings me to the trimming room where six people, most in their 20s, are sitting and snipping away. Out of concern that a stranger could steal his entire harvest, which is worth almost a quarter-million dollars, Blake only hires trimmers he knows. \"You're sitting here all day long,\" said a trimmer named Bishma, a local who does catering work that mostly supports his wife and two kids. But during the fall harvest, he lives on the farm full time. \"Some people think I sit eight hours at a job,\" said Bishma, \"[but] it's like we're sitting here 14 hours. And it's the same repetitive motion over and over and over again, so people just go to town and just, like, listen to every kind of music they can.\" Music is a big part of trimming, and the faster the music, the faster the trimmers snip. I watch as their scissors sync with th", "The Trump administration is exploring whether to reverse Obama-era guidelines addressing racial disparities in how schoolkids are disciplined. Last year, black students in Minneapolis made up just 41 percent of the student population, but 76 percent of the students suspended. Minnesota&#8217;s Department of Human Rights notified 43 school districts and charters in February that their policies suggest discrimination. Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young talks with former Minneapolis schools Superintendent Bernadeia Johnson (@BernadeiaJ) and St. Paul teacher Jeffrey Parker. Interview Highlights On differences seen in how black students and white students are disciplined Bernadeia Johnson: &#8220;If you were a white student and you were being naughty, you were called &#8216;precocious,&#8217; &#8216;bright,&#8217; someone who is inquisitive, and if you were a black child, it was everything that you would think of as negative, like, &#8216;you&#8217;re a thug, you&#8217;re just not meant for school,&#8217; or whatever the case may be. And if you go deeper around that, it&#8217;s that they already determined what the student&#8217;s future will be. So you saw some of those differences in how people will explain away behaviors.&#8221; On how one white middle school student was disciplined after kicking a door BJ: &#8220;They gave him a little timeout, but I know that if there had been a black child that destroyed property, he or she would have been suspended. And the reason I know [is] because I reviewed every suspension in Minneapolis public schools.&#8221; Johnson, on what she sought to achieve in Minneapolis BJ: &#8220;My ultimate goal was to change the trajectory of the child&#8217;s experience. I wanted more engaged students, I wanted students that have trusting relationships with adults. I wanted them to participate in their educational experience. And I wanted them to be looked at as human beings, and not as some anomaly. But what was most surprising to me is when I look at suspensions of preschoolers, and kindergarten and first-grade students, and that&#8217;s when I decided to put a moratorium suspending kids for nonviolent behaviors &#8212; especially our littlest learners. All our kids are learning what it means to become an adult. And our job is to socialize them into the school environment so that they know what&#8217;s expected of them. And sometimes I&#8217;ve seen that students have been suspended because of inconsistent expectations among teachers, among the schools.&#8221; On alternatives to suspension when a rule like &#8220;no hats in school&#8221; is broken &#8220;I&#8217;ve actually gone to the student, pulled him or her aside and said, &#8216;You know one of the rules that we agreed upon is that you don&#8217;t wear hats in school.&#8217; And invariably you will find out that the kid maybe was getting her hair braided the night before and it wasn&#8217;t finished, and they didn&#8217;t wanna be embarrassed, so they&#8217;d rather face the wrath of a teacher in a school than embarrass themselves by not looking put together like they want to. And so in those cases, I&#8217;ve actually said to the teachers of the kid, and to the student, that, &#8216;Today, you can wear your hat. You have a special pass from me to be able to do that.&#8217; And I think that&#8217;s all about relationships too, connecting with students. Discipline is not about punishment. It is about learning.&#8221; On teachers reacting differently to students of color Jeffrey Parker: &#8220;Oh yes, it&#8217;s prevalent, and I think it&#8217;s .. to a certain degree, that&#8217;s human nature. We&#8217;re all going to make judgments. Perception is what makes misbehavior misbehavior, and to deny that I think would be to miss a very, very important point. I think it bears mentioning that I am a black man, and that creates an entirely different set of thoughts and expectations, and in my mind that I have to address daily.&#8221; On those thoughts in the back of his mind JP: &#8220;I hear my parents talking about the idea of behavior. My dad used to say, &#8216;You gotta keep your nose clean. If you&#8217;re not gonna keep your nose clean, keep a handkerchief,&#8217; meaning you need to be able to clean up your mess. I was taught how to do that. Not everyone was taught how to do that. And I would hear a lot of black colleagues, and a lot of black parents, putting even more pressure on students to do quote-unquote &#8216;the right thing.&#8217; They also wanted some pretty severe penalties for wrongdoing.&#8221; On whether he feels a desire as a black teacher to be firmer with black students, to help them succeed JP: &#8220;Yes, and again, I have to be aware of that on a daily basis. Our communities also have that reflection of, &#8216;Wrongdoing needs to be punished.&#8217; The entire restorative justice movement that started in the &#8217;90s kind of began on that premise &#8212; not, &#8216;What can we do to punish wrongdoing?&#8217; ", "That's the name of Oscar Mayer's new app and iPhone device — limited edition hardware that plugs into the headphone jack. Along with your alarm, you get the signature smell and sizzle.", "The Selfie Brush is a normal hairbrush — except that it has a pocket in which you can stick an iPhone.", "The once-futuristic concept is closer than ever to becoming a reality. Parallel parking? Let the car find the perfect approach. Squeezing into a tight space? Hop out and use your smartphone.", "These new LED teeth might appear to be just another trend destined to start and end in Japan, but could be useful if: 1. You want to make out with someone at your local NPR station's annual fund-raising rave and have a hard time aiming in the dark. 2. You're eating alone and your mouth wants to see what it's eating. That's pretty much all the uses I can think of, but there must be others.", "Google Nose was unveiled Monday morning. It's \"the new scentsation in search.\" Just put your nose to the screen to sample \"15M+ sentibytes.\" Google's also offering new options to its \"I'm Feeling Lucky\" button, including \"I'm Feeling Wonderful\" and \"I'm Feeling Hungry.\" Twitter is out with \"Twttr,\" a version that only lets you use consonants. YouTube is shutting down until 2023 because it \"finally has enough videos\" to select the best video of all time. The Guardian introduces \"Guardian Goggles\" — \"augmented spectacles\" that take you to a new universe. Morning Edition profiled \"Hootie and the Time Travelers,\" a group of reenactors that celebrates the '90s. P&G rolls out Scope Bacon (a few days early, though, so maybe there's hope!). If you haven't looked at the calendar yet, trust us: it's April 1. And if you see or hear something that's really funny, please share it in the comments thread. Meanwhile, the Mirror rounds up the top 10 April Fools' Day pranks of all time. They include the BBC's classic spaghetti trees spoof. All Things Considered reported on the work of an oral history project to preserve the memory of military dolphins.", "What would it be like if you could control your mood with a hand held device?", "Researchers at the University of Bath in England have created software that allows a 3D scanner to recognize individual noses. It turns out, noses are unique just like fingerprints. Police may someday be able to identify suspects by following their nose.", "If you have a teenager at home, this might be the answer to your prayers. Called PocketFinder, it's about the size of a cookie. You can dump into your kid's backpack and then track him or her on the internet in real time. Per The New York Times: PocketFinder lets you designate safety zones and danger zones, and alerts you if the device enters or leaves such areas. It can also track how fast the device is moving and notify you if a preset speed limit is exceeded (parents of teenage drivers, take note). Big technological breakthrough... Or big brother (big mother?)?", "Chapter One Too Confident Like most fast-��talking, opinionated New Yorkers, I have an affinity for sarcasm. At fifteen, though, it���s hard to convince anyone that sarcasm���s a cultural thing and not a bad attitude. Especially when your stepmother can���t drive, ���cause she���s also from New York, and spills your coffee with maniacal brake pounding. I wipe a dribble of hazelnut latte off my chin. ���It���s okay. Don���t worry about it. I love wearing my coffee.��� Vivian keeps her hand poised over the horn, like a cat waiting to pounce. ���All your clothes have holes in them. Coffee isn���t your problem.��� If it���s possible for someone to never have an awkward moment, socially or otherwise, then that someone is my stepmother. When I was little, I admired her ability to charm roomfuls of people. Maybe I thought it would rub off on me�����an idea I���ve since given up on. She���s perfectly put together in a way I���ll never be, and my vegan leather jacket and torn black jeans drive her crazy. So now I just take joy in wearing them to her dinner parties. Gotta have something, right? ���My problem is, I don���t know when I���ll see my dad,��� I say, staring out at the well-��worn New England homes, with their widow���s walks and dark shutters. Vivian���s lips tighten. ���We���ve been through this a hundred times. They���ll transfer him to Mass General sometime this week.��� ���Which is still an hour from Salem.��� This is the sentence I���ve repeated since I found out three weeks ago that we had to sell our New York apartment, the apartment I���ve spent my entire life in. ���Would you rather live in New York and not be able to pay your father���s medical bills? We have no idea how long he���ll be in a coma.��� Three months, twenty-��one days, and ten hours. That���s how long it���s already been. We pass a row of witch-��themed shops with dried herbs and brooms filling their windows. ���They really love their witches here,��� I say, ignoring Vivian���s last question. ���This is one of the most important historical towns in America. Your relatives played a major role in that history.��� ���My relatives hanged witches in the sixteen hundreds. Not exactly something to be proud of.��� But in truth, I���m super curious about this place, with its cobblestone alleys and eerie black houses. We pass a police car with a witch logo on the side. As a kid, I tried every tactic to get my dad to take me here, but he wouldn���t hear of it. He���d say that nothing good ever happens in Salem and the conversation would end. There���s no pushing my dad. A bus with a ghost-��tour ad pulls in front of us. Vivian jerks to a stop and then tailgates. She nods at the ad. ���There���s a nice provincial job for you.��� I crack a smile. ���I don���t believe in ghosts.��� We make a right onto Blackbird Lane, the street on the return address of the cards my grandmother sent me as a child. ���Well, you���re the only one in Salem who feels that way.��� I don���t doubt she���s right. For the first time during this roller coaster of a car ride, my stomach drops in a good way. Number 1131 Blackbird Lane, the house my dad grew up in, the house he met my mother in. It���s a massive two-��story white building with black shutters and columned doorways. The many peaks of the roof are covered with dark wooden shingles, weathered from the salty air. A wrought-��iron fence with pointed spires surrounds the perfectly manicured lawn. ���Just the right size,��� Vivian says, eyeing our new home. The redbrick driveway is uneven with age and pushed up by tree roots. Vivian���s silver sports car jostles as we make our way through the black arched gate and roll to a stop. ���Ten people could live here and never see each other,��� I reply. ���Like I said, just the right size.��� I pull my hair into a messy ball on top of my head and grab the heavy duffel bag at my feet. Vivian���s already out of the car, and her heels click against the brick. She makes her way toward a side door with an elaborate overhang. I take a deep breath and open my car door. Before I get a good look at our new home, a neighbor comes out of her blue-��on-��blue house and waves enthusiastically. ���Helllloooo! Well, hello there!��� she says with a smile bigger than I���ve ever seen on a stranger as she crosses a patch of lawn to get to our driveway. She has rosy cheeks and a frilly white apron. She could have stepped out of a housekeeping magazine from the 1950s. ���Samantha,��� she says, and beams. She holds my chin to inspect my face. ���Charlie���s daughter.��� I���ve never heard anyone call my dad by a nickname. ���Uh, Sam. Everyone calls me Sam.��� ���Nonsense. That���s a boy���s name. Now, aren���t you pretty. Too skinny, though.��� She steps back to get a proper look. ���We���ll fix that in no time.��� She laughs a full, tinkling laugh. I smile, even though I���m not sure she���s complimenting me. There���s something infectious about her happiness. She examines me, and I cross my ", "Detroit startup Loveland Technologies is helping the city combat urban blight with “Blexting,” a smartphone app that allows volunteers to record pictures and information about the abandoned properties in their neighborhood. The company’s programs and databases give Detroit “x-ray glasses” on its troubled properties, allowing authorities to start rebuilding and investors to find opportunities. Loveland Tech has created several programs for Detroit’s failing infrastructure, including “Blexting” and “Why Don’t We Own This?” an app that comprehensively catalogs Detroit’s properties and references public documents to determine the owner and their contact information. Jerry Paffendorf, CEO of Loveland Technologies told Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young that an army of volunteers cataloged 380,000 properties and entered other identifying factors like condition and occupancy information. He says the city is able to make &#8220;much more intelligent decisions about how to allocate resources,&#8221; based on the information. The survey found about 50,000 vacant structured, and 10,000 that were most likely vacant. &#8220;Once you recognize that scale, then you&#8217;ve got to get more fine-grained about thinking about, of those, which are fire damaged or heavily distressed enough where they have to come down, and which ones can we actually rehabilitate or put on the market?&#8221; Paffendorf said. &#8220;It&#8217;s kind of like going from Detroit not having glasses &#8212; about how to fix itself &#8212; to suddenly being able to see what the problem is.&#8221; Guest\n\nJerry Paffendorf, CEO of Loveland Technologies. He tweets @WELLO.", "&#8220;Do You Know Who I Am?&#8221; is a one-act show featuring autobiographical monologues written and performed by youth living in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, staged at the Motus Theater in Boulder, Colorado. This weekend, the show will feature a unique twist when the Boulder County district attorney, the county sheriff and police chiefs from the Colorado cities of Longmont, Louisville and Lafayette take on the roles of these immigrants, for a single performance. Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett (@DAGarnett) and show writer and performer Victor Galvan (@victorgalvan247) join Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young to discuss why the show is taking this unusual turn, and what it means to the original actors and law enforcement officials who will share their stories. \nWatch the show on Vimeo, or streaming live Sunday on Facebook\n\nArray\nInterview Highlights Galvan, on what the theater&#8217;s program means to him Victor Galvan: “I have been my telling my story since I was about, I’d say 13, but more in third person, as if I was reading someone else&#8217;s monologue. Through Motus Theater, the work that I&#8217;d been doing in immigrant rights and as an activist, I really learned to tune in the more emotional part of my story, and not just as facts and statements.&#8221; Galvan, on law enforcement reading the group&#8217;s monologues VG: &#8220;It&#8217;s an interesting step for us, because we had agreed as a group that we would never have anyone read our stories without our permission, and to have this opportunity to have not only the district attorney and the Bolder sheriff but chiefs of police, to read our story in such a pivotal moment, where not just immigrants but Mexican immigrants specifically are being targeted by the current administration, is powerful. To hear the words &#8216;I am not a criminal&#8217; uttered by law enforcement through our monologues, for me, is very, very powerful.&#8221; Garnett, on how the project fits into his other work with immigrant communities Stan Garnett: &#8220;I&#8217;ve been district attorney for almost nine years, and we&#8217;ve had, out of my office what we call the Immigrant Protection Initiative in place for six years. We have spent a lot of time working with marginalized communities in Boulder County, people who feel afraid, who don&#8217;t feel confident that they can trust police or law enforcement to build their trust. Because everybody involved in law enforcement knows that if the people you&#8217;re trying to protect don&#8217;t trust you, don&#8217;t think they can call you, can&#8217;t report crimes, then the bad guys are going to take advantage of that and you&#8217;re going to have a real problem. This is an outgrowth of what we&#8217;ve been doing for quite a while. Obviously the events of the last few months have brought it really to the fore. We&#8217;re proud to do it and I know that law enforcement in Boulder County is very committed to protecting everyone who lives here, no matter who they are.&#8221; Array Garnett, on reading a monologue written by Ana Casas SG: &#8220;Ana Casas has lived most of her life in Boulder, and it&#8217;s a very powerful monologue about the experience that she had when her little brother was deported to Mexico. It&#8217;s powerful for me to read it just to myself, I think it&#8217;s going to be powerful to perform it. What&#8217;s been great about this ‘Do You Know Who I Am’ performance &#8212; and I&#8217;ve seen it performed several times and I&#8217;ve read a lot about it &#8212; is that it helps non-immigrants in Boulder County understand what the experience has been of the undocumented community and what it&#8217;s like to live that way in our community.&#8221; &#8220;I actually do have a hard time [reading the piece]. As a father of two boys myself, the whole idea of this boy being deported from his family is very emotional.&#8221; On how the performance helps offer perspective on immigration SG: &#8220;We&#8217;ve spent a lot of time, we&#8217;ve done probably close to 200 events in Boulder County and elsewhere in Colorado. A lot of the problems around immigration in our country are based on lack of understanding &#8212; lack of understanding the law, lack of understanding the experience, lack of understanding what options are. What I say to lots of folks, and I spend a lot of time in the community talking about these issues, is when you understand the intersection of federal law and state law, the difference between committing a crime and being undocumented &#8212; and there&#8217;s a large difference &#8212; and you understand the enormous contribution that the undocumented community makes, you will approach these issues with a much more thoughtful and I think compassionate approach. It&#8217;s been my experience that when people really understand&#8230; one of the problems we have nationally now is that people don&#8217;t really talk, they kind of yell at each other. An" ]

[ "The U.S. Constitution's Requirements for a Presidential Candidate: At least 35 years old. A natural born citizen of the United States. A resident of the United States for 14 years." ]

[ "3. There are no official qualifications for becoming a Supreme Court justice. The Constitution spells out age, citizenship and residency requirements for becoming president of the United States or a member of Congress but mentions no rules for joining the nation's highest court.", "Car rental age requirements The minimum age requirement to rent a vehicle with Alamo is 21 years of age. In Michigan and New York states, rentals are available to anyone aged under 21. There are no maximum age limits in the United States and Canada.", "What is the minimum age to rent a car in the United States? Most states in the U.S. require rental car companies the discretion to set their minimum age requirement, which is generally but not always 25. Renters age 21 to 24 can drive but will be subject to a surcharge payable on collection of the vehicle.", "An acting president of the United States is an individual who legitimately exercises the powers and duties of the president of the United States even though that person does not hold the office in their own right. ... A vice president can also become the acting president if the president becomes incapacitated.", "On July 17, 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, a law that required states to raise the drinking age to 21 or face a 10 percent cut to their federal highway funding. All states complied and adopted the higher drinking age.", "The United States Presidential line of succession defines who may become or act as President of the United States upon the incapacity, death, resignation, or removal from office (by impeachment and subsequent conviction) of a sitting President or a President-elect.", "The United States presidential line of succession is the order in which officials of the United States federal government assume the powers and duties of the office of president of the United States if the incumbent president becomes incapacitated, dies, resigns, or is removed from office.", "Youth access laws The minimum age to purchase tobacco products in California is 21. In December 2019, the United States adopted a law raising the federal minimum age of sale of all tobacco products to 21, effective immediately. Establishments are required to post signs stating that sales to minors are prohibited.", "Status as a natural-born citizen of the United States is one of the eligibility requirements established in the United States Constitution for holding the office of president or vice president. This requirement was intended to protect the nation from foreign influence.", "What is the President's role as Chief of State? The President is chief of state. This means he is the ceremonial head of the government of the United States, the symbol of all the people of the nation.", "What is the minimum age to drive in the USA? The minimum age to drive in the USA is just 16 in some states, however other states require you to be at least 18. You can obtain a learner's permit in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, North and South Dakota at just 14 years old.", "The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution says that if the President becomes unable to do their job, the Vice President becomes the President. This can happen for just a little while, if the President is just sick or disabled for a short time.", "What are the requirements to be a member of the Senate? must be at least 30 years of age, citizens of the United States for at least nine years, and residents of the states from which they are elected.", "If no candidate receives the minimum 270 electoral votes needed to win the election, the United States House of Representatives will select the president from the three candidates who received the most electoral votes, and the United States Senate will select the vice president from the candidates who received the two ...", "Overview. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child recommends a minimum age of criminal responsibility of at least 12 years old. As of 2014, 19 U.S. states had established a minimum age threshold for juvenile delinquency jurisdiction, with twelve states setting a minimum age of 10.", "The United States Constitution designates the Vice President of the United States as President of the United States Senate. The Constitution also calls for a President pro tempore, to serve as Senate leader when the President of the Senate (the Vice President) is absent.", "The minimum age to receive your pilot's license in the United States is 17, and there is no maximum age for being a private pilot. However, airline pilots in the United States currently have a forced retirement age of 65.", "The Seal of the President of the United States is used to mark correspondence from the President to the United States Congress and as a symbol of the presidency. The central design is based on the Great Seal of the United States and is the official coat of arms of the U.S. presidency.", "What is the Electoral College? 1. Made up of 538 electors who cast votes to decide the President and Vice-President of the United States. 2.", "To be eligible to adopt, most states require parents to be at least 18 years of age, with a minimum age difference between the child and adoptive parent(s) set by the state. Citizenship and residency requirements also vary.", "The Electoral College is a body of electors established by the United States Constitution, which forms every four years for the sole purpose of electing the president and vice president of the United States. ... Some states require electors to vote for the candidate who won the popular election in that state.", "The Speaker is elected by the majority party members in the House to serve for two years. The Speaker runs the House's business and is in line to become the President of the United States if the elected President and Vice President cannot serve.", "In the United States, a presidential transition is the process during which the powers of the president of the United States are transferred from an incumbent president to the president-elect.", "Minimum Requirements to be a Police Officer in Florida: be at least 19 years of age. be a citizen of the United States. have earned a high school diploma or equivalent (GED) for law enforcement and corrections applicants. A bachelors degree is required for correctional probation officers.", "The United States Constitution says that the Vice President of the United States is the person who will replace the President if the President is not able to continue.", "Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA) laws specify the legal age when an individual can purchase alcoholic beverages. The MLDA in the United States is 21 years. However, prior to the enactment of the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, the legal age when alcohol could be purchased varied from state to state.", "Age Limits and Parental Consent Most states have no minimum age for obtaining an ID, but many states do require parental consent if the applicant is under 18. Twenty states require the signature or presence of a parent or guardian to obtain a state identification card.", "A candidate should have scored a minimum aggregate of 50% marks to become eligible for CPL. The minimum age limit for CPL is 17 years, and the maximum age limit is 60 to 65 years. A candidate is required to pass the class 2 medical test to become eligible for CPL.", "The Seal of the President of the United States is used to mark correspondence from the president of the United States to the U.S. Congress, and is also used as a symbol of the presidency itself.", "What happens if the President and the Vice President are unable to serve out their terms? The leader of the Senate becomes President. ... The Speaker of the House becomes President.", "The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act. The 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, [23 U.S.C. § 158], requires that States prohibit persons under 21 years of age from purchasing or publicly possessing alcoholic beverages as a condition of receiving State highway funds.", "Alcohol consumption by youth in the United States of America is an umbrella term for alcohol consumption by individuals under the age of 18 in the country. Although the minimum legal age to purchase alcohol is 21 in all states (see National Minimum Drinking Age Act), the legal details for consumption vary greatly." ]

[ "Earth sized impacts do not come from Earth sized objects. The impact was from an object much much smaller than Earth" ]

[ "A 100 m object impacting Earth can destroy a city. A 100 m object impacting the Moon will lead to some small secondary objects flying around, they are too small to make it through our atmosphere. The few that hit Earth produce meteors. To make an impact on the Moon a problem the object has to be really big and we know nearly all the really big asteroids that could cross our orbit. New discoveries of objects larger than 1 km close to Earth are very rare. In 2000 we found 85 new asteroids that size, since 2015, despite much better observation tools, we find less than 10 per year. [Graph](_URL_0_).", "Both Earth and Moon are hit by asteroids frequently. The impact rate was much higher when the Solar System was young - by now most things that could collide with another object did collide already. The impact that formed the [South Pole–Aitken basin](_URL_0_) was massive, and would have been catastrophic to life on Earth if it would have hit recently but Earth was hit by similar objects, we just don't see the craters any more. It is generally expected that the Moon itself formed from an even larger impact on Earth - an object as large as Mars, probably.", "Given the scale of the impact theorized there wouldn't really be a crater. We're talking about an object the size of Mars hitting the Earth. Had it not happened so long ago that gravity had once again smoothed out the Earth's surface, we'd notice a hell of a lot more than something like a crater. This theory is all about what we see on the moon and (mostly) not about what we see on Earth. The moon is made of almost the exact same type of stuff the Earth's crust is made out of in all the same proportions that the Earth has. However, the moon has almost none of the stuff found in the lower layers of the Earth. As such, it looks like the moon is made out of material from the Earth's crust. The most promising theory about how a bunch of the Earth's crust got 300,000 km away is that an impact blasted it out into space where its gravity caused it to collect and condense into the moon we see today.", "On one hand, they would probably have trouble seeing Earth, since we have several gas giants on the outer edge of our solar system; most Human technologies for detecting planets has to do with gravity's effects, and having large gas giants can obscure the smaller gravity wells of the inner planets. But, if we were a human-like alien, on an Earth-like planet, with Earth-like technologies looking at Earth's solar system from light-years away, and weren't put off by Jupiter and Saturn, they would see three earth-like planets in the habitable zone: Mars, Earth, and Venus. There's a slight possibility that their math may be inconclusive and detect a 4th planet just inside Jupiter's orbit or mis-measure Mars' size and orbit, due to the asteroid belt, but the asteroid belt doesn't have much mass (less than the moon) so it might not be an issue.", "As far as we know, the answer to your question is No. There's a limit to how far we can \"see\", and I've put \"see\" in quotes because the limit isn't just about seeing, it's about how far *any* information could have travelled to get to us. This limit is based on the speed of light and the age of the universe, and how far light could have travelled since the start of the universe. This is known as the \"visible universe\". Outside of the visible universe, we can't know for sure what's there - but we can make some educated guesses. If the universe was finite in size it would likely be curved. The Earth is finite in size, and doesn't appear curved to the naked eye, but we know that it is curved. We've done tests to check if the universe is curved in the same way, and it appears that it isn't. And that would suggest that it's almost certainly infinite in size.", "The Earth and Titan are the only planetoid with a significant atmosphere. The reason is that most of them are either too light to keep an atmosphere, or doesn't have a magnetosphere to protect the atmosphere from solar radiation. The Atmosphere will create friction with any asteroid which gonna decrease their size. So only the larger asteroid can reach the ground and of course those are rarer. That said each year on average an meteorite the size of a car hit the earth. & #x200B; In addition, the Earth surface move enough that most of the impact become hidden over time, and this doesn't happen as much on other planet, so we can see impact that are much older on those planet. On Earth you have water that can hide an impact, erosion from water and wind that make the impact crater smaller or less apparent, you have flora that can cover it, you have tectonic plates or volcano that can remake the surface or cover an impact.", "A black hole that size has about five times the mass of Earth. It might have passing gravitational effects on small objects as it passes them, which we might see if we happened to have a telescope trained on one.", "No we can't see such small details from any earth or earth orbit based telescope. They are too small. Remember that the moons disk as you see in in the sky is several thousand kilometer (3,474 km to be exact) big. The stuff left behind by the Apollo astronauts was only 2 m to 4 m big. So an object of that size that was right in the center of the near side of the moon would be a millionth time of the size entire moon's disk. The moon takes up a whole lot of space as seen from earth. It covers about half a degree of the sky. Half a degree is about 30 acrminutes or 1800 arcseconds. A millionth of that would be 0.0018 arcseconds. Hubble which is Earth's orbit has an angular resolution of 1/10 of an arcsecond (two orders of magnitude larger than what we are trying to see on the moon.) The atmosphere around our planet and the physical characteristics of visible light make it unlikely that we could ever hope to see the moon rovers with a normal telescope from earth.", "I'll briefly say why we need one before attempting to answer your question. Why an electron microscope is needed? We see objects because light reflected from that object enters our eyes. There is a limit to how small an object can be to reflect light. If an object cannot reflect light, it can not be seen. This is why we need an electron microscope to see objects smaller than the theoretical limit of light. How an electron microscope works? Light is made of photons which are both a particle and a wave. An electron is also both a particle and a wave. Instead of using light rays to illuminate an object, an electron ray is used. For example, Imagine a flashlight that does not produce photons 'light' but rather electrons. We can't see the reflection of an electron wave from an object. However, a computer can detect the reflection and add effects on it depending on how much of the ray has been reflected to generate a grayscale image which is what we see using an electron microscope.", "If I understand the gist of your question, it's whether an outside source can illuminate objects in space so that we can see them better. For our entire galaxy, the answer is no. Most of the stuff that we can see in the galaxy emits its own light. Unlike objects on earth (which only emit in the infrared) which we can see by reflected solar or artificial light, we don't see most objects in the galaxy by reflected light. Planets and other solid objects have some reflectivity (called [Albedo](_URL_0_)), but stars, for example, are not reflective. There is no event that could change that. That said there are some clouds of gas (nebulae) in the galaxy that \"reflect\" light from nearby stars (though \"scatter\" would be a better word.) They are called [Reflection nebulae](_URL_1_) and can be quite pretty.", "A 3-torus (hyperdonut) would be an example of such a shape. If the universe were like that, then light from distant objects could reach the Earth through multiple paths, and we'd see distant objects at multiple points in the sky. [We can look for signs of that](_URL_0_), to see if the universe has that shape. We do not find that evidence.", "We have one star real close. The sun. We know it's temperature (based on color), it's size (on diameter), it's composition (from spectral diagram), how fast it spins (again, just by looking) and most importantly, age (as very similar to Earth's age (based on Earth geology). We also know mass because it's an easy calculation from size and composition. As you can see, everything except age is learned only by looking at it. This allows looking at others stars, gathering similar information, and comparing it to known. There are also a lot of starts. Sometimes, we can see a star in the process of dying, or being born. And probably, bundle of stars has a similar age just as all of solar system has a similar age. This is how big chart of stars get's created, which we use to estimate age of stars.", "It depends on what you mean by moon. If you mean a very small \"moon\" around 6.2mi in diameter with the same impact velocity as one needed for the theorized chicxulub crater then sure you could say that. A counter to that though is the impact velocity and angle needed to create the crater that is theorized to be the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. We don't have conclusive evidence that the dinosaurs were even wiped out by an impact event. If it was an impact event, a captured moon that orbited the earth for a very long time before impacting is very unlikely. A previous impact event that could have created our moon is theorized but that impact was orders of magnitude larger. If you are talking about a full sized moon hundreds or thousands of miles in diameter, an impact from that would not only wipe out the dinosaurs, it would blast large amounts of the earth's mantle into outer space and send the earth into a primordial phase that could last millions if not billions of years for life to reform.", "If the universe is a spherical finite universe (which we know it isn't) they a sufficiently powerful enough telescope on earth could observe a younger version of itself (since it could see all the way around the universe and back to itself). However, we know the universe is not a spherical finite universe. That said... the answer is no. Even if we could send a telescope at the speed of light to a far off place to look back on us... we would not see the earth, solar system, or galaxy as it looked BEFORE we took off. Consider... if we travel at light speed 1 million miles, and then look back, we will only see light that was emitted after us - since it will take that light just as long to travel the same distance we traveled. You would have to travel at a significant speed above the speed of light to observe light that is older that the light was when you left.", "The answer depends on the size of the impacting object and your distance from it. You can explore the possibilities yourself using [this handy impact effects calculator](_URL_0_), designed by some impact experts. For instance, according to the calculator the damage from an near-Earth asteroid the size of a skyscraper would be contained within a 100-km area if it struck land, but if it landed in the ocean could create a significant tsunami 1000 km away or more.", "We can answer this question without having to travel through a (hypothetical) worm hole... since we do this every day. When you look at the sun... that light is 8 minutes and 20 seconds old. When we train our telescopes at an object 10 million light years away, we are seeing that object as it was 10 million years ago (not as it is currently today). So the answer to your question would be yes... you would be seeing light from earth that was produced years before (based on your distance from the earth).", "On a human scale.. improbable to the point of impossible. Even if you have a good understanding of physics, the mass of Earth is just staggering compared to any form of energy we can create. The angular momentum of the Earth is just ridiculous. On the order of 10^30-40 kg-m^2 / s ish. A large enough asteroid that impacted the earth could have the desired effect, but you must understand that it would have to be pretty massive and asteroids travel on the order of km/s. Even the asteroid that fried the dinosaurs didn't knock us out of orbit or change our axial tilt very much. The impact that created our moon knocked us to ~23 degrees. And that was with an impact with a body roughly the size of mars.", "It's not so much about magnification, but how much light you can collect. Galaxies are incredibly faint. Most of the stars in our own galaxy are impossible to see with the light pollution we have today. The Andromeda Galaxy is several times the angular size of the Moon in our sky, but it is incredibly faint. And this is the nearest galaxy to us! If you could see the whole sky with the brightness of objects magnified (or if you just take a long exposure shot of the sky compensated for Earth's rotation), you wouldn't need a lot of magnification to make out different galaxies.", "Both get hit all the time, but the earth's atmosphere causes most below a certain size to burn up before reaching the surface. On the moon, they all impact. Whenever you see a shooting star, that's what you're seeing.", "In principle, yes, as /u/RobusEtCeleritas states the tidal forces drop off as the cube of the distance. That is to say that if the Moon were three times farther away, the tidal forces we feel on Earth would be 27 times weaker. Gravitational forces are infinite in extent by Newton's Law, so distant objects do impact our tides. The effect is so minuscule, however, that they are completely negligible. The Sun, on the other hand, is a distant yet massive object that does impact the Earth's tides. See [this nice article from EarthSky on the subject](_URL_0_). Edit: fixed math error caught by /u/celo753", "I'll gloss over the fact that Pluto isn't defined as a planet anymore and inform you that it's actually in good company in the outer solar system: > The classical (low-eccentricity) belt is home to at least three dwarf planets: Pluto, Haumea, and Makemake. The [Kuiper belt](_URL_1_) is full of remnants of the formation of our solar system, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if we find more Pluto-sized objects floating around out there. But don't hold your breath waiting for Earth-sized objects to be found: we would have seen the gravitational effects of any such large body long ago.", "Remember, it's the age of the universe, not the age of the earth, that puts an upper limit on how far back we can see. We can see things that occured before the formation of the Earth. When those happened, the universe existed but Earth didn't. While that light was moving from the other galaxy to where we are, Earth formed, the first single cell lifeforms formed and evolved into humans, and humans created the tools to be able to view it. The term 'observable universe' comes in to play here. There is a theoretical limit on how far back we can see, it's just based on the age of the universe, not of Earth. It's arrived at by taking the age of the universe (14 billion years) and accounting for the expansion of the universe during that time. You arrive at a number (wiki had 45 billion lightyears) that is the furthest an object can be from us and still be in our 'light cone' - we can observe it.", "Any supernova close enough to rip mercury to shreds would have left a lot of evidence here on Earth which we do not see. We do have some subtle evidence of supernovae going off in the same neck of the woods as the sun some 10s of millions of years ago, but nothing that would impact the bulk properties of a planet nearby.", "There are a couple of ways to *deal* with our star becoming hotter and larger as it ages. One would be, as you suggest, shielding the Earth from some of the sun's light. The shield wouldn't have to be reflective, although that would help allieviate the buildup of heat on it. You could just build a massive solid wall in space oriented so that it blocked some of the sun's light, and slowly add to it as the sun grows hotter. This will only work until the sun starts growing larger, though, since as the sun goes into its final stages of life its size will expand to larger than the size of the Earth's orbit. Before this point we would have to *move* the Earth, which is actually possible using a [gravity tractor](_URL_0_) to expand the orbit outward. The Earth would have to be moved somewhere near the current orbit of Jupiter by the time the sun expands to its largest size to maintain habitability on its surface.", "Depending on the composition and size, likely nothing. If it was entirely water, or other light elements it would make the sun slightly hotter. If the asteroid was the size of Jupiter and composed entirely of ice, then it would burn much hotter due to the addition of fuel. If it was mostly iron or other heavy elements then it may be able to do damage but not from the impact. The heavy elements are harder to fuse in the core of the sun, so a long time after the impact the sun may begin to age prematurely and become a red giant sooner than it would have. However... this depends on the asteroid being far larger than the earth. **TLDR: Likely nothing, but if it was large enough it could shorten the sun's lifespan by a small amount.** Source for why water makes it hotter and live shorter: _URL_0_", "The favored explanation for the formation of the moon is the \"giant impact hypothesis\", which posits that during the early formation of the solar system (about 4-4.5 billion years ago), a Mars-sized object called Theia formed at earth's L4/L5 lagrange points (same distance as Earth from the sun, but located 60 degrees in front of and behind the earth, in the same orbital plane). Gravitational tugs from Venus/Jupiter eventually sent Theia crashing into the young Earth at an oblique angle (a head-on glance would have destroyed earth), ejecting a huge amount of material into space that relatively quickly (less than a century) coalesced into the moon.", "This depends not on the size of the object but on the surrounding environment. If you have a moon orbiting a planet then the planet's influence can make it impossible to have a satellite around the moon. Satellites can only orbit inside the [Hill sphere](_URL_2_) of an object. If that sphere is smaller than the object itself then orbiting becomes impossible. One notable example is how you can't orbit something like the Space Shuttle or the ISS in low earth orbit. In theory we could have a black hole in low orbit around the earth with a few satellites rotating around it very quickly. But not a regular moon made of stuff like rock and metal.", "We can easily tell which moons are bright enough to be seen from Earth with the technology Galileo had available, so we simply look for them from Earth, compare with images from advanced telescopes, Pioneer, and Voyager, match the positions of the moons Galileo would have seen with the moons we see in the better images, and voila - we've identified the Galilean moons.", "To reiterate what Weed_O_Whirler said, most of the inner planets don't have moons because their gravity wells are so small. The formation of the Moon as explained by [giant impact hypothesis](_URL_0_) probably was a pretty unusual event: instead of a Mars-sized planetesimal being gravitationally pulled in by one of the gas giants, it was grabbed by the early Earth. So really the bigger question is: **Why does the Earth have any moons at all?**", "I don't know about the satellites themselves having proximity sensors, but NASA and NORAD keep very close track of anything orbiting Earth. Like down to sizes around 1cm. There's an amazing amount of junk flying around up there. There's a very real possibility of mankind trapping ourselves on the planet if we don't do something to mitigate the amount of objects in orbit. Something the size of this 'o' can be traveling at several thousand miles per hour. If/when it hits something, the kinetic force is like a 50 cal bullet impact.", "Well we know of at least one earthlike planet (Earth). So we know it's not impossible. And we know of several planets that are not like Earth. So we know the probability is somewhere between 0 and 1. Constraining it any further than that is going to be extremely difficult. A *lot* of individual things have to go right to get a planet like Earth to happen. You're probably familiar with the so-called \"Goldilocks Zone\" around stars, i.e. the family of orbits where liquid water can exist. But we need a heck of a lot more than that to go right. We need water to be there in the first place. That means we need Oxygen, which isn't all that prevalent in the universe to begin with. And we need the water to *stay* on the planet, which is harder than you'd think. Earth has a violent history of repeated impacts from giant objects, tectonic shifts and eruptions, etc. To make a long short, it's hard. Really hard. But not impossible.", "The periodic table we have doesn't have any gaps. There are no places to squeeze in extra elements that we haven't seen before, past adding more to the big end. And we expect/have seen those to be really unstable. We can see the light coming from other galaxies. By analyzing the exact energies of light received, we can figure out what elements are emitting that light. Because we can get the exact same emission spectra from elements we have here on earth, we can figure that those elements are the same as ones we have here on earth." ]

[ "I am in first year Btech. How should I start preparations for UPSC from 2016?" ]

[ "How do I start preparing for civil services in first year of engineering?", "How do I prepare UPSC exam and what is the syllabus of UPSC exam?", "How do I prepare for anthropology as a main subject in the UPSC mains?", "Can I change my college after first year of engineering?", "How should I prepare right from first year to crack Google Summer Of Code?", "How should I study in first year of MBBS?", "How do I crack UPSC CSE in the first attempt while being under any circumstances?", "How should I start preparing sociology as an optional subject of the IAS UPSC?", "I am in first year. In which direction should I start my preparation to clear for IAS exam?", "How do I change college in 2nd year?", "What is ACM-ICPC? How should I prepare for it in a year from scratch?", "How can I start preparing for neet 2017?", "What should I do for preparation of IAS in one year?", "How can I prepare for civil services?", "How can I prepare in IIT Mains?", "How do I study for first year engineering?", "How do I start preparing for NEET?", "How was the first day of your college?", "What can I expect for freshman year in college?", "How can I prepare for SSC je from mechanical?", "How do I prepare for my first MUN?", "How do prepare for IAS for a fresher?", "Do UPSC repeat questions from previous year question papers?", "I'm a 2nd year MBA marketing student. Placements have started in my college. How should I prepare myself for placements?", "How should I prepare for JEE (Advanced)?", "How can I prepare for SSC CGL?", "How do start preparation for IAS?", "How do I study to get distinction in MBBS first year?", "What is the time table to crack IAS if I start preparing for UPSC in January?", "How do I prepare for my first presentation?", "How can I prepare for civil services (IAS)?", "How do I prepare for the UPPCS exam?" ]

[ "The federal government says hackers breached the computer system of the Office of Personnel Management in December. The personal data of 4 million federal employees may have been compromised." ]

[ "The U.S. government says the fingerprints of five times as many people as originally believed were included in the data hacked from Office of Personnel Management computers earlier this year. OPM says hackers were able to steal the prints of some 5.6 million people; the original estimate was 1.1 million. All are among the 21.5 million people — mainly government workers who underwent background checks and their families — whose data were stolen in the massive breach disclosed in June. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Wednesday that he did not have any further details on who is responsible for the breach, but privately, U.S. officials have pointed to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with President Obama later this week, and cybercrimes are expected to be a major topic of their discussions. The U.S. has warned China that economic sanctions may be imposed if the cyberbreaches continue. Xi has denied that his government is responsible for the attacks. In response to the OPM hack, the U.S. has offered limited credit monitoring and ID theft protection to those whose records were stolen. Officials worry the fingerprint data could possibly be used to identify intelligence agents, though they have not seen any evidence of that so far. In a statement, OPM said federal experts believe that \"as of now the ability to misuse fingerprint data is limited. However this probability could change over time as technology evolves.\"", "The White House today admitted that one of its computer networks had been targeted by a cyber attack, but it downplayed a report that sensitive nuclear networks were targeted. The AFP, Politico and Fox News quote a unnamed administration officials saying the network hit did not contain any classified information and there was no indication any data was stolen. The AFP reports: \"The US official said the attack was against 'an unclassified network' and was a case of 'spear phishing,' in which a spoofed email tricks a user into clicking through to a website where a hacker can install malicious software or gain control of another computer. \"'These types of attacks are not infrequent and we have mitigation measures in place,' the official said. \"'In this instance, the attack was identified, the system was isolated, and there is no indication whatsoever that any exfiltration of data took place. Moreover, there was never any impact or attempted breach of any classified system.'\" The White House was responding to questions that arose from a report published by the Free Beacon, a conservative website, this weekend. The Free Beacon reported that Chinese-linked hackers \"broke into one of the U.S. government's most sensitive computer networks, breaching a system used by the White House Military Office for nuclear commands, according to defense and intelligence officials familiar with the incident.\" The White House, notes Fox News, downplayed that report saying it did not involve nuclear systems. \"In this instance the attack was identified, the system was isolated, and there is no indication whatsoever that any exfiltration of data took place. Moreover, there was never any impact or attempted breach of any classified system,\" Fox quotes an unnamed White House official as saying.", "<em>The New York Times</em> says hackers in China infiltrated the newspaper's computer systems. The Chinese government closely watches and censors Chinese media reports about policy and officials but it is less able to do so with the foreign press. The attack on the <em>Times</em> may signal a tactic that can be used against foreign news organizations.", "Announcing what it calls \"the first cyber bug bounty program in the history of the federal government,\" the Department of Defense says it's inviting hackers to test the security of its Web pages and networks. The contest is only for \"vetted hackers,\" the DoD says, which means that anyone hoping to find vulnerabilities in its systems will first need to pass a background check. Participants could win money and recognition for their work, the agency says. The pilot program is slated to begin in April. And if you're wondering whether the hackers might disrupt a critical piece of the Department of Defense's infrastructure, the agency says that hackers will target a predetermined system that's not part of its critical operations. According to a list published by the Defense Department, it currently manages 488 websites, which are devoted to everything from the 111th Attack Wing and other military units to the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program. The \"Hack the Pentagon\" initiative is the work of the Defense Digital Service, a DoD unit that was launched last fall as part of the White House's U.S. Digital Service. According to DDS Director Chris Lynch, \"Bringing in the best talent, technology and processes from the private sector not only helps us deliver comprehensive, more secure solutions to the DoD, but it also helps us better protect our country.\" News of the bug bounty program, which is similar to security-boosting strategies used by private companies, follows word that the Defense Department \"plans to hire private contractors to develop a $600 million-plus computer system for a new background check agency,\" as Reuters reports. Last summer, the Office of Personnel Management revealed that the private information of more than 20 million U.S. government workers and others had been stolen in a massive security breach. Nearly three years ago, the Pentagon publicly said China's government had conducted cyberattacks against the U.S. government, citing attacks on \"numerous U.S. diplomatic, economic and defense industry networks,\" as the Two-Way reported.", "Updated at 5:25 p.m. ET The Chinese government says U.S. allegations that China is behind a massive cyberattack against the Office of Personnel Management are \"counterproductive\" and \"irresponsible.\" As we reported Thursday, the U.S. government said that a data breach in April may have exposed the personal information — names and Social Security numbers, birthdates — of nearly 4 million past and current federal employees. Anonymous U.S. officials told several news outlets that authorities believed the attack originated in China, but they were still investigating whether it was state-sponsored. Sen. Susan Collins told The Associated Press the same thing, but added that the breach was \"yet another indication of a foreign power probing successfully and focusing on what appears to be data that would identify people with security clearances.\" The Chinese government quickly responded to the allegations. Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported that the Chinese embassy in Washington warned of \"jumping to conclusions.\" \"Cyber attacks conducted across countries are hard to track and therefore the source of attacks is difficult to identify. Jumping to conclusions and making hypothetical accusation is not responsible and counterproductive,\" Zhu Haiquan said, according to Xinhua. The AP reports that this morning Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was on the defensive, echoing what the embassy said Thursday. \"It's irresponsible and unscientific to make conjectural, trumped-up allegations without deep investigation,\" Hong said at a briefing. Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to pick up the pieces. The New York Times reports: \"The personnel office told current and former federal employees that they could request 18 months of free credit monitoring to make sure that their identities had not been stolen, and it said it was working with cybersecurity specialists to assess the effects of the breach. It was clear, however, that the scope was sweeping, potentially affecting a vast majority of the federal work force. J. David Cox Sr., the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said he had been told that the breach might have affected 'all 2.1 million current federal employees and an additional two million federal retirees and former employees.' ... \"The attack drew calls for legislation to bolster the nation's cyberdefenses. In a series of Twitter posts, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, called the intrusion 'shocking because Americans may expect that federal computer networks are maintained with state of the art defenses.' \" And, as NPR's Brian Naylor reported on All Things Considered, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the hack occurred late last year: \"Earnest said officials believe the attacks had begun in December. They were discovered in April. And it wasn't until last month that it was determined the hackers made off with employees personal data. Its clear the OPM computers are an inviting target. OPM acts as governments HR department, and conducts background checks on employees who need security clearances. Their computers are subject to an estimated 2 and a half billion attacks every month. \" And Earnest said \"it's not clear yet\" who the perpetrators are behind the attack.", "When Chinese hackers swiped classified secrets from Indian government computers, they were unaware that their operation had also been hacked. A team of virtual investigators based at the University of Toronto, headed up by Rafal Rohozinski, spends their time tracking, and stopping, e-crime.", "The computer network at the Democratic National Committee has been breached by Russian hackers. Renee Montagne talks to Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief technology officer.", "This week marks a year since the government first revealed that hackers had stolen personnel files of some 4 million current and former federal employees. About a month later, that number grew to more than 20 million people, including contractors, family members and others who had undergone background checks for federal employment. Everything, from Social Security numbers to birth dates, even fingerprint records, was accessed through Office of Personnel Management networks. \"Massive Data Breach,\" the headlines called it. So has anything changed in the succeeding 12 months? Acting OPM Director Beth Cobert thinks so. \"There's a whole series of things around technology, around people, and around process that are different today than a year ago,\" she says. Cobert is herself one of the changes at OPM, named to replace Katherine Archuleta, who resigned under pressure from Congress last July. Cobert says cybersecurity has been amped up at OPM under her watch. The agency now requires employees to use two-factor authentication to log into their computers, meaning a password and a secure card. Employees can no longer access their Gmail accounts from their office computers. OPM has also implemented new tools to detect malware. Colbert says the government can see all the devices connected to its networks as well as monitor the data moving into and out of the system. \"There's a whole series of multilayer defenses we've put into our systems,\" she says. It's still unclear how exactly the data were stolen, but investigators believe that hackers may have gained access to the government system through a contractor's website. So the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security have been helping OPM design a new, more secure software system to allow the personnel agency to conduct its own government background checks rather than outsourcing them. \"[OPM] had older systems, that needed to be modernized,\" says Ann Barron-DiCamillo, who led the DHS cyber team that investigated the OPM breach. \"They had neglected networks from the perspective of putting in the cybersecurity sensors and technologies that they need to find adversaries in the network.\" Plus, OPM workers were using weak usernames and passwords, she says. \"The majority of things that were hitting OPM at that time was going to be your typical phishing scams, you know, targets of opportunity,\" Barron-DiCamillo tells NPR's Audie Cornish. Barron-DiCamillo says much attention has been paid to brand-new vulnerabilities, but in many cases, on older civilian systems, hackers exploit older vulnerabilities that have existing fixes that aren't adopted fast enough — in many cases out of budget constraints. \"[The OPM hack] brought into the forefront that smaller-sized, medium-sized agencies that didn't consider themselves to be such a threat to cyberactivity from data thieves, that they also have this potential publicity associated with becoming a target and becoming a victim,\" Barron-DiCamillo says. \"They have increased the spending associated with that or are asking Congress for increased budgets.\" Rep. Will Hurd, chairman of the information technology panel of the House Oversight Committee, says OPM may be moving in the right direction now, but vulnerabilities remain across government agencies — whether it's the Department of Education, which he says has \"tons of information on anyone who's going to school,\" or the Social Security Administration. \"They're not even adopting some of the best practices when it comes to good digital system hygiene,\" says Hurd, a former CIA agent whose personnel records were among those hacked. It took OPM some six months to formally notify the millions who had their records breached. They're now eligible for three years of credit monitoring and identity theft protection services. Hurd says he personally hasn't noticed any ill effects from the stolen records, but Ryan Lozar thinks he has. The former federal court law clerk says he froze his bank accounts after someone spent thousands at Best Buy in his name and opened a PayPal account. The hack has caused him \"endless explaining, explaining, explaining,\" dealing with his banks,\" Lozar says. \"It's just kind of exhausting and frustrating.\" Lozar is a plaintiff in a class-action suit filed against the government by the American Federation of Government Employees. Among other things, it seeks monetary damages as well as lifetime credit monitoring and identity theft protection for the affected people. A hearing is expected this fall. Barron-DiCamillo says her information was also part of the breach. She encourages those affected to use the free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services — and make sure to monitor them. \"There's an interesting discussion I heard from OPM that they should even offer [lifetime identity theft protection] as part of federal benefits, because of the kinds of data that they mandate that we provide to them when we sign up for service in federal government,\" says Barr", "The president of the largest federal employees union says all data for every current and retired federal employee and up to 1 million former employees were stolen by hackers. He says those data include names and Social Security numbers, military service and insurance and pension information. The government has acknowledged that data of as many as 4 million current and former employees and retirees were stolen, but it hasn't detailed which employees were affected. Nor has it specified which data were stolen. But J. David Cox, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, charges it was all employees and all data. In a letter to Katherine Archuleta, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, Cox also charges that the Social Security numbers kept on government computers were not encrypted, \"a cybersecurity failure\" that Cox calls \"absolutely indefensible and outrageous.\" Cox says his information about the extent of the breach is \"based on the sketchy information OPM has provided.\" The agency has publicly acknowledged that data were stolen from \"approximately 4 million individuals,\" but little else. OPM says affected employees will be eligible for 18 months of credit monitoring and $1 million in liability insurance, which the union says is inadequate. AFGE says the fact that OPM has outsourced to a contractor the responsibility for answering affected employees' questions \"adds insult to injury.\" The agency did not provide a response to the letter. The Obama administration has not publicly stated who it believes is responsible for the breach, but lawmakers have pointed the finger at China.", "Russian government hackers have breached email systems at federal agencies. It's being called the largest and most sophisticated hack in the past five years.", "In the past few months, hackers like Anonymous and Lulz Security have claimed responsibility for breaching what were thought to be secure websites. But law enforcement seems at a loss to stop them. To help navigate through the web of cyber crime, Robert Siegel talks to Hugh Thompson, chief security officer at the software protection company People Security and adjunct professor of computer science at Columbia University.", "The Justice Department announced charges on Wednesday against five Chinese nationals in connection with the hacking of more than 100 American and foreign companies as well as of nonprofits and universities. The department also charged two Malaysian businessmen with conspiring with two of the indicted Chinese nationals to target companies in the billion-dollar computer game industry. American officials say Malaysian authorities have arrested the businessmen, who now face extradition to the United States. The charges against the defendants came down in three separate indictments. They are the latest from the Justice Department to take aim at suspected Chinese hackers, although in this instance, prosecutors do not allege in court papers that the defendants were working on behalf of the Chinese government. But U.S. officials pointed to some of the suspected targets, such as pro-democracy activists and students in Taiwan, to suggest the defendants may have been proxies for Beijing. \"The Department of Justice has used every tool available to disrupt the illegal computer intrusions and cyberattacks by these Chinese citizens,\" said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. He criticized Beijing for failing to prevent the continued stream of cybercrime from its own territory. He accused China's government of providing safe haven to Chinese cybercriminals \"so long as they help with its goals of stealing intellectual property and stifling freedom.\" The alleged conspiracy Three of the defendants — Jiang Lizhi, Qian Chuan and Fu Qiang — face racketeering conspiracy, money laundering and hacking charges, among others. The men work for a Chinese company called Chengdu 404 Network Technology, and allegedly compromised more than 100 companies in the U.S. and elsewhere, including Australia, South Korea and Brazil. They also allegedly breached Vietnamese and Indian government networks. Prosecutors say the trio used sophisticated techniques, including what's known as \"supply chain attacks,\" in which they hacked software providers and inserted malware into their products. That allowed hackers to then compromise the companies and individuals downstream that purchased the software. Two other defendants, Zhang Haoran and Tan Dailin, are accused of hacking into high-tech companies, including online game firms. Zhang and Tan allegedly compromised video game companies to steal in-game currency they then sold for a profit for real-world money. These men face a range of charges, including conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering and computer hacking. The remaining defendants are Wong Ong Hua and Ling Yan Ching, Malaysian businessmen accused of conspiring on the cyberattacks on game companies. They are accused of using a company founded by Wong to sell online game currency they knew had been stolen by hackers, including Zhang and Tan. People in the real world paid the brokers actual money for it so they could then use it within the virtual environment of the video game. Although the Malaysian defendants are under arrest and may be extradited to the United States to face trial, the Chinese defendants charged on Wednesday likely won't see an American courtroom. China's government probably will not extradite them. The Justice Department and other U.S. government agencies argue that even though they seldom actually can prosecute the people allegedly involved with cyberattacks, the indictments are still worthwhile because they make clear that American authorities have evidence of sufficient detail about the foreign cybercrimes they could try the case before a jury.", "Katherine Archuleta, the head of Office of Personnel Management who has been under fire since revelations that millions of people's personal data was compromised by hackers, is resigning. Around midday Friday, Archuleta released a statement saying, \"This morning, I offered, and the President accepted, my resignation.\" Her last day on the job will be today. The role of acting director will be filled by Beth Cobert, a former director at consulting firm McKinsey & Company who has led the Obama administration's efforts to improve the OPM's efficiency. In her statement, Archuleta explained that it's \"best for me to step aside and allow new leadership to step in, enabling the agency to move beyond the current challenges and allowing the employees at OPM to continue their important work.\" Calls for Archuleta's resignation began last month as the scope of the intrusions into the OPM's databases became evident. At the same time, critics pointed out that the federal agency's inspector general had warned that the systems were very vulnerable. Archuleta is stepping down after weeks of scrutiny — and one day after her agency said the data breach was worse than many expected. On Thursday, the OPM said that the breaches — which affect not only federal workers but also people who are listed as references on their security clearance records — included the Social Security numbers of 21.5 million people. \"OPM says the breach of 21.5 million records 'is separate but related to a previous incident' in which it identified 4.2 million current and former federal employees who had their records stolen,\" as NPR's Brian Naylor reported. That earlier incident became public knowledge on June 4, when the OPM announced that a cyber attack in April had resulted in names, dates of birth, current and former addresses and other information being harvested by hackers. Here's Brian reporting on June 16, about congressional hearings on the data breach: \"House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said the inspector general's office had said earlier that OPM's computer security was so bad some of the systems should be shut down. His voice rising, Chaffetz told Archuleta, 'your systems were vulnerable, the data was not encrypted, it could be compromised, they were right!' Chaffetz went on, 'last year they recommended it was so bad that you shut it down and you didn't and I want to know, why?' \"Archuleta said some of the OPM computers were too old to handle encryption, and that shutting down the systems would have created payroll and benefit problems.\" After Archuleta resigned, Rep. Chaffetz issued a statement saying, \"This is the absolute right call. OPM needs a competent, technically savvy leader to manage the biggest cybersecurity crisis in this nation's history.\" He added, \"This should have been addressed much, much sooner but I appreciate the President doing what's best now.\"", "A cybersecurity expert accused of hacking the data of more than 5 million Bulgarian taxpayers was released by police Wednesday after his charges were downgraded. Kristian Boykov, a 20-year-old Bulgarian cybersecurity worker, was arrested in Bulgaria's capital Sofia last week in connection to the breach. Police raided his home and seized computers and mobile devices with encrypted information. The hacker was found by police through the computer and software used in the attack, according to the Sofia prosecutor's office. Due to his work, which involves testing computer networks for potential vulnerabilities, some believe Boykov is a \"white hat hacker\" — a hacker that breaks into computer networks to expose vulnerabilities and push for the weaknesses to be fixed. He has made news in Bulgaria before. In 2017, he hacked the Bulgarian education ministry's website to expose its vulnerabilities. In a television interview, he described the work as \"fulfilling my civic duty.\" Sofia prosecutors claim they tracked one of the stolen files from the latest data breach to a username used by Boykov. Boykov and his lawyer reject the allegations against him and say he was not involved in the incident. The hack of the nation's tax agency database is believed to be the largest data breach in Bulgaria's history. Nearly every working adult in Bulgaria was impacted. In a country of 7 million, more than 5 million people had personal data such as social security information, addresses, incomes and names leaked and made easily accessible on the Internet. Boykov was initially charged with a computer crime against critical infrastructure, with a maximum sentence of eight years in jail. Those charges were dropped and he was given a lesser charge of crime against information systems, which has a maximum jail sentence of three years. The initial hack is believed to have happened in June. The breach remained undetected until an email from a Russian email address was sent to Bulgarian news outlets last week claiming responsibility for the attack. In the email, the sender claimed to be a Russian hacker, gave downloadable links to the stolen information and mocked Bulgaria's cybersecurity efforts. Police are still in the early stages of the investigation. If Boykov was in fact involved, it is unknown whether he worked alone or as part of a larger group, but police are looking at outside involvement as a possibility. According to The New York Times, some Bulgarian officials have suggested that Russia may have been behind the attack as retaliation for the country's purchase of American-made fighter jets. Last year a data protection law was implemented across the European Union that fines companies that mismanage their data. Bulgaria's tax agency is facing a fine of up to 20 million euros, or $22.4 million, for the data breach. Experts who examined the stolen data in Bulgaria said the hack wasn't a complicated operation, and that lack of preventative action from the government is to blame. Out-of-date computer systems are especially vulnerable to a breach. Less than a year ago, the country's Commercial Registry got taken down by another cyberattack. Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said in a government meeting on Wednesday that Boykov is a \"wizard\" hacker and that the country should hire similar people to work for the state.", "FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told Congress Tuesday his agency is implementing changes to ensure the nation's air traffic control system is protected against computer hackers. Huerta told a House panel \"the system is safe,\" despite a Government Accountability Office report that found \"significant security control weaknesses.\" Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore, one of the lawmakers who requested the GAO report, said at a House Transportation subcommittee hearing that he is concerned the system could be vulnerable to breach by terrorists. \"We know there is an enduring interest in terrorist groups in aviation; they've used our aviation system as weapons. One can imagine they might be interested in hacking the system and perhaps could facilitate a midair collision.\" The GAO report found the FAA has taken steps to protect air traffic control systems, but that weaknesses remain in, among other things: controlling, preventing, and detecting unauthorized access to computer resources identifying and authenticating users encrypting sensitive data Huerta told the panel that \"first and foremost, the system is safe.\" He said a significant number of the GAO report's recommendations have been \"remediated already.\" The air traffic control system is operated by more than 46,000 FAA personnel and handles as many as 2,850 flights in a given moment. The GAO report found the FAA has \"not fully established an integrated, organization-wide approach to managing information security risk that is aligned with its mission.\" Therefore, the report says, air traffic control systems are at \"increased and unnecessary risk of unauthorized access, use or modification\" that could disrupt air traffic control operations. Most of the report's findings are classified. Huerta said the FAA had previously established a cybersecurity steering committee and said he is \"very actively focused\" on the GAO's recommendations.", "In the most detailed comments so far, the U.S. government said Tuesday that a massive hack into government and private computer networks was \"likely Russian in origin\" and will take a long time to repair. \"This is a serious compromise that will require a sustained and dedicated effort to remediate,\" said the lengthy statement issued on behalf of several national security agencies, including the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Department of Homeland Security's cybersecurity agency. The statement was the first time the U.S. government officially attributed blame, though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Dec. 19 that Russia was \"pretty clearly\" responsible. The following day, President Trump tweeted that China might be behind the hack, but he offered no evidence and otherwise has said almost nothing about the episode. Some 18,000 entities — including U.S. government agencies and private organizations — had their computer networks compromised as the hackers hid malware inside a software update provided by the Texas company SolarWinds. The statement said \"fewer than 10\" U.S. government agencies have been hit, though it did not describe the extent of the damage. The statement did not name the agencies, but several have been identified previously, including the departments of Treasury, Commerce, State, Homeland Security, as well as the U.S. Postal Service and the National Institutes of Health. Some U.S. government agencies have said previously that the hackers entered email accounts, but it's still not clear whether they broke into classified systems. Hallmarks of Russia \"At this time, we believe this was, and continues to be, an intelligence gathering effort,\" the security agencies said in the statement. This suggests the hackers wanted to gather as much information as possible about the inner workings of U.S. government agencies, but they were not trying to disrupt government operations. Cyber experts have said that the operation has the hallmarks of Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, whose hackers are known as Cozy Bear. Russia has denied any involvement. The episode is the latest in a long list of suspected Russian electronic incursions into other nations under President Vladimir Putin. Multiple countries have previously accused Russia of using hackers, bots and other means in attempts to influence elections in the U.S. and elsewhere. U.S. national security agencies made major efforts to prevent Russia from interfering in the 2020 election. But those same agencies were apparently blindsided by the hackers who spent months digging around U.S. government systems before they were detected. Breach dates back months The hackers breached the computer systems as early as March of last year, or perhaps even earlier. The U.S. cybersecurity firm FireEye was the first to detect the hack, issuing a Dec. 8 statement saying it found that its own systems had been breached. \"Based on my 25 years in cyber security and responding to incidents, I've concluded we are witnessing an attack by a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities,\" Kevin Mandia, the company's chief executive, said at the time. \"The attackers tailored their world-class capabilities specifically to target and attack FireEye,\" he added. \"They used a novel combination of techniques not witnessed by us or our partners in the past.\" Microsoft, which is helping investigate the hack, said last month it had identified 40 government agencies, companies and think tanks that have been infiltrated. While more than 30 victims are in the U.S., organizations were also hit in Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Spain, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United Arab Emirates. The New York Times reported on Saturday that the number of organizations hit may have now reached 250. Greg Myre is an NPR national security correspondent. Follow him @gregmyre1.", "As the U.S. government investigates the breach of Marriott's Starwood chain hotel reservation system, it appears Chinese state hackers are mostly likely responsible for the data breach. The information of about 500 million customers worldwide was exposed. The New York Times, which reported the story first, and The Washington Post quote unidentified people who have been briefed on the government's preliminary findings. NPR has not independently confirmed the details provided by the papers' sources. The Post reports that its sources \"cautioned that the investigation has not been completed, so definitive conclusions cannot be drawn. But the sweep and tactics of the hack, which took place over four years before being discovered, prompted immediate speculation that it was carried out by a national government.\" According to the paper, \"preliminary indications show the breach was executed by hackers affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal information not yet ready for public release. The MSS, an intelligence and security agency, has been behind many Chinese government intrusions into sensitive U.S. networks in recent years.\" The hack into Marriott's Starwood is part of Chinese intelligence-gathering efforts that also hacked into health insurers and security clearance files of millions of Americans, The New York Times reports. And that the \"discovery comes as the Trump administration is planning actions targeting China's trade, cyber and economic policies, perhaps within days.\" The Times reports \"those moves include indictments against Chinese hackers working for the intelligence services and the military, according to four government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The Trump administration also plans to declassify intelligence reports to reveal Chinese efforts dating to at least 2014 to build a database containing names of executives and American government officials with security clearances.\" The paper goes on to say \"other options include an executive order intended to make it harder for Chinese companies to obtain critical components for telecommunications equipment, a senior American official with knowledge of the plans said.\" The latest news come at a sensitive time for U.S.-China relations. The Trump administration has been working with Chinese officials to negotiate an end to the trade war. Looming over the trade talks are legal proceedings in Canada. The U.S. requested that Canada detain Chinese tech executive Meng Wanzhou, of Huawei, the company founded by her father. The U.S. suspects Huawei of fraud involving violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran. On Tuesday she was granted bail in Canada while she awaits extradition to the U.S. The hack into Starwood's reservation system was discovered in September and was publicly revealed last month — shortly before the U.S. began a 90-day trade truce with China that was negotiated by President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Buenos Aires, which hosted the G-20 summit. As reported by NPR's Avie Schneider, \"For 327 million of the affected guests, the compromised data includes some combination of name, mailing address, phone number, email address, passport number, Starwood Preferred Guest (\"SPG\") account information, date of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preferences.\" A spokesman for the Chinese government earlier denied any knowledge of the data breach.", "The United States Postal Service is the latest victim of a wide-scale online data breach. A USPS spokesman told NPR today that more than 800,000 employees may have been affected. In a statement, USPS said \"names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, beginning and end dates of employment, emergency contact information\" may have been compromised. USPS says customers were affected as well. Although the service couldn't provide an exact number, it did say customers who contacted their Postal Customer Care Center via phone or email between Jan. 1, 2014, and Aug. 15, 2014, might be vulnerable. The FBI is leading an investigation into the hack, and USPS said all of its operations are still functioning normally. It's unclear who might be responsible for the hack, though The Washington Post writes that \"some analysts say that targeting a federal agency such as the post office makes sense for China as an espionage tool.\" NPR previously covered allegations that Chinese hackers accessed U.S. government computer networks earlier this year, to find information about employees who have applied for top-secret security clearances. USPS says it's offering a year of free credit monitoring to employees and customers who may be at risk. The organization also apologized for the breaches: \"The privacy and security of data entrusted to us is of the utmost importance. We have recently implemented additional security measures designed to improve the security of our information systems, including certain actions this past weekend that caused certain systems to be off-line. We know this caused inconvenience to some of our customers and partners, and we apologize for any disruption.\" USA Today is reporting that USPS told members of Congress about the hack in two briefings over the past few weeks. Democratic House member Elijah Cummings of Maryland sent a letter to the postmaster general Monday, requesting more information on the breach and sounding the alarm on the recent frequency of these types of hacks. \"The increasing number of cyber-attacks in both the public and private sectors is unprecedented and poses a clear and present danger to our nation's security,\" he wrote. So far this year, multiple large organizations have been victims of wide-scale data breaches, including Target, Home Depot and the federal contractor USIS.", "The Office of Personnel Management provided new details on the largest ever cyber breach of federal employee data. It now says that sensitive information of some 22 million individuals was stolen.", "Along with the massive security breach that exposed millions of federal workers' personnel records, a possible separate intrusion may have exposed information from background checks that were done on both federal employees and applicants. That's part of an update from a senior Obama administration official who declined to be named on the record because of the ongoing investigation into the cyberattack against the Office of Personnel Management. The official says the investigators have told other U.S. agencies \"that there was a high degree of confidence that OPM systems containing information related to the background investigations of current, former, and prospective Federal government employees, and those for whom a federal background investigation was conducted, may have been exfiltrated.\" The official added that because the inquiry is in process, the full scope of the compromised information isn't yet known. The large-scale attack was revealed in early June. At the time, officials said that the data of nearly 4 million past and current federal workers were at risk. That breach was said to reveal information such as \"people's names, Social Security numbers, dates and places of birth, and current and former addresses,\" as Sam Sanders reported for the Two-Way. The Washington Post reports: \"The separate background check database contains sensitive information — called SF-86 data — that includes applicants' financial histories and investment records, children's and relatives' names, foreign trips taken and contacts with foreign nationals, past residences and names of neighbors and close friends.\" When they released news of the hacking attack, government officials said they would be getting in touch with people whose data were compromised between June 8 and June 19. While early speculation placed the blame for the attack on China, there's been no official confirmation of that. And there's been a debate over whether the information was targeted for financial gain or to bolster attempts to steal intellectual property. \"It's possible that hackers are building databases on individuals who are deemed particularly valuable for their financial worth or their access to U.S. state secrets,\" NPR's Aarti Shahani reported last weekend.", "Hackers used a ransomware attack on Friday compromise the computer networks of telecommunications companies, health care systems and other corporations around the world.", "The White House says it has taken steps to address \"suspicious activity\" detected on the unclassified Executive Office of the President computer network in recent weeks — a breach that The Washington Post says may be the work of hackers hired by the Kremlin. According to the Post, the breach has resulted in \"temporary disruptions to some services.\" The newspaper quotes unnamed White House officials as saying that it did not damage any systems and that there's no immediate evidence that a classified network was breached. The Post says the attack is consistent with a state-sponsored effort, and Russia is thought to be the most likely culprit. The Post says: \"The breach was discovered two to three weeks ago, sources said. Some staffers were asked to change their passwords. Intranet or VPN access was shut off for awhile, but the email system, apart from some minor delays, was never down, sources said. \"The Russian intelligence service was believed to have been behind a breach of the U.S. military's classified networks, which was discovered in 2008. The operation to contain the intrusion and clean up the computers, called Buckshot Yankee, took months.\" The Associated Press says the White House has declined to officially comment on the Post report that Russia may be behind the breach.", "Updated at 5:00 p.m. ET Russian hackers working for the Kremlin are believed to be behind breaches of U.S. government computer systems at the departments of Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security that may have lasted months before they were discovered, according to U.S. officials and media reports. The hackers reportedly broke into the email systems at the government departments, but the full extent of the breach was not immediately clear as U.S. officials scrambled to make an assessment. There are concerns that hackers may have penetrated other government departments and perhaps many private companies as well. The Commerce Department, the National Security Council and the Department of Homeland Security all acknowledged the intrusion in brief statements but provided no details. \"We can confirm there has been a breach in one of our bureaus,\" the Commerce Department said. \"We have been working closely with our agency partners regarding recently discovered activity on government networks,\" said NSC spokesman John Ullyot. The U.S. government did not name Russia or any other actor as being responsible. Reuters first reported the story on Sunday, and subsequent reports identified Russia's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, as the most likely culprit. Russia's SVR, the rough equivalent to the CIA in the U.S., was blamed for major hacks in 2014-15 that involved unclassified email systems at the White House, State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Russia on Monday denied any involvement in the latest reported breach. Emergency directive Meanwhile, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which is part of Homeland Security, issued an emergency directive calling on all federal civilian agencies to review their computer networks for signs of the compromise. The statement also said agencies should disconnect from SolarWinds Orion products immediately. SolarWinds has government contracts, including with the military and intelligence services, and also works with many large private companies. The attackers are believed to have used a \"supply chain attack\" method that embeds malicious code into legitimate software updates. \"The compromise of SolarWinds' Orion Network Management Products poses unacceptable risks to the security of federal networks,\" CISA's acting Director Brandon Wales said in a statement. \"Tonight's directive is intended to mitigate potential compromises within federal civilian networks, and we urge all our partners — in the public and private sectors — to assess their exposure to this compromise.\" SolarWinds, based in Austin, Texas, put out its own statement saying it was aware that its systems were experiencing a \"highly sophisticated, manual supply chain attack\" on specific versions of its Orion platform software released between March and June of this year. \"We have been advised this attack was likely conducted by an outside nation-state and intended to be a narrow, extremely targeted, and manually executed attack, as opposed to a broad, system-wide attack,\" the company said. Kevin Thompson, SolarWinds' president and CEO, said the company was working with the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community and other law enforcement agencies to investigate. Tech companies respond Two other tech companies, Microsoft and FireEye, also weighed in. Microsoft said in a blog post late Sunday, \"We believe this is nation-state activity at significant scale, aimed at both the government and private sector.\" The Commerce Department and the Treasury Department use the Microsoft Office 365 platform, Reuters and The New York Times reported Sunday. FireEye reported last week that hackers, also believed to be Russians, stole the company's key tools used to test vulnerabilities in the computer networks of its customers, which include government agencies. FireEye said in a blog post late Sunday night that it had identified \"a global campaign that introduces a compromise into the networks of public and private organizations through the software supply chain.\" Speaking in Moscow last Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed allegations that Russia was involved in the FireEye hack. \"I want to remind you that it was President (Vladimir) Putin who proposed that the American side agree and conclude agreements (with Russia) on cybersecurity,\" Peskov said, adding that Washington had ignored the offer. \"If there have been attacks for many months, and the Americans could not do anything about it, it is probably not worth immediately, groundlessly blaming the Russians. We didn't have anything to do with it,\" he said. NPR's national security correspondent Greg Myre contributed to this report.", "The two sides of this story couldn't be further apart: The Wall Street Journal says it's been told by unnamed \"government officials\" that the FBI \"is probing a computer-security breach targeting Citigroup Inc. that resulted in a theft of tens of millions of dollars by computer hackers who appear linked to a Russian cyber gang.\" But Citigroup's Joe Petro, managing director of its Security and Investigative Services, says that \"we had no breach of the system and there were no losses, no customer losses, no bank losses. ... Any allegation that the FBI is working a case at Citigroup involving tens of millions of losses is just not true.\"", "The director of the Office of Personnel Management underwent another grilling Wednesday, this time from members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Katherine Archuleta sat for more than three hours as lawmakers questioned her competence and her estimates of how many government workers may have had their data breached in the hacking of OPM's computers discovered this spring. NPR, along with other news organizations, has reported the hack may have exposed the personal data of more than 18 million current and former government workers. But Archuleta told lawmakers that 18 million \"refers to a preliminary, unverified, and approximate number of unique Social Security numbers,\" adding \"it is a number that I am not comfortable with.\" Archuleta stood by earlier estimates that 4.2 million current and former government employees' data was exposed. Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, wondered if the number \"could be as high as 32 million.\" That was a reference to OPM's budget request in which it stated it has records for 32 million current and former employees. Archuleta reiterated that she was not going to \"give you a number that I am not sure of.\" Other members of the panel expressed anger at the way government employees have been treated and informed their data may be at risk. Chaffetz reiterated his call for Archuleta to step down, telling her, \"I think you're part of the problem.\" He also called for OPM Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour's resignation, telling her, \"I think you're in over your head.\" But Gerald Connolly, D-Va., came to Archuleta's defense, saying \"it's easy to make a scapegoat out of somebody,\" but what the government is facing is \"a much bigger threat than a management snafu.\" Connolly said the U.S. is \"facing a systematic, organized, financed, pernicious campaign by the Chinese government ... to penetrate our cyber world.\" Blaming Archuleta for the breach, he said, \"is to miss the big picture.\" Archuleta faces another hearing Thursday, her third this week, when she is scheduled to appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee.", "As cyberattacks continue, analysts are seeing a new pattern: Hackers are focused on stealing personally identifiable information. That includes the security clearances of U.S. intelligence officers, with the reported theft of background information. It also includes information that's less sensitive but far-reaching — like Social Security numbers. In an interview with NPR's Audie Cornish, NPR's Aarti Shahani took a look at just how many Americans' Social Security numbers have been stolen so far, and what's being done about it. Interview Highlights Let's start with stats. Following big data breaches like Anthem and, more recently, the federal government's Office of Personnel Management, how many Social Security numbers have been taken? The question sent us on a wild goose chase. The Social Security Administration says it does not have a count. So we turned to the Federal Trade Commission, which is the lead agency on identity theft for the federal government. FTC officials say they don't have anything approximating that number because they don't track data breaches. It's not part of their mandate from Congress. The FTC suggested we contact Verizon. Their business unit, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, publishes a very popular annual report on breaches. So, to get a tally on theft of Social Security numbers, the federal government sent NPR to a phone company? Pretty much. Verizon gets cyberattack data from dozens of organizations around the world, including federal agencies like the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team. Jay Jacobs, lead data scientist at Verizon for the breach report, is a foremost expert who has been slicing and dicing this data for years. He estimates 60 percent to 80 percent of Social Security numbers have been stolen by hackers. NPR put the question to him multiple times and he stuck by this estimate. That number is staggering. It's far larger than the estimate, by the federal workers union, that every federal employee is a victim. Jacobs pointed out that while Social Security numbers have been stolen for decades, the scale of the problem is new. Before, socials were written or typed on a piece of paper, and breaking into one filing cabinet doesn't scale up. But now that everything is digital, if hackers compromise a server or data warehouse, that theft scales into the millions, quickly. \"It's gotten somewhat easy for the attacker,\" Jacobs says. \"I think we're underestimating just how [many] records are out there.\" So the problem of theft has changed by orders of magnitude, but just because your number was stolen doesn't mean you're a victim of identity theft? Correct. The number of victims is definitely smaller. But we don't have a great estimate on how many people have actually been harmed. That'll unfold over time. One key detail: The burden falls on you to vigilantly monitor if you are a victim. The Social Security Administration has a policy: You can't change your Social Security number just because it's been stolen. You need proof it's been abused. SSA is strict about it. In all of 2014, they replaced only 250 Social Security numbers based on misuse and disadvantage. What about technological solutions? Is there something better than a Social? In health care, which is where a lot of this problem is originating, there are efforts to reduce the so-called Social Security footprint. Aetna, the health insurer, has a policy to collect, store and share Social Security numbers in fewer and fewer places, to reduce the threat of exposure. There's a new generation of health apps that help you visit the doctor or ER. A popular one called iTriage has a policy of not collecting or storing Social Security numbers, specifically for security reasons. Outside health care, there are tech companies working on alternative ways to identify a person through biometrics (think iris scans), and systems that track your behavior to block access if it looks like you're not acting like yourself. Experts say systems have to be revamped to do two-factor authentication — where the user provides not just a password, for example, but also a fingerprint.", "U.S. officials believe they now understand the scope of the Office of Personnel Management hack revealed earlier this month. Officials say the OPM hack likely affected 14 million people.", "This past week, the Pentagon fired off a stern warning about Chinese computer hacking, and the Chinese responded with a tense rebuttal. Weekends on <em>All Things Considered</em> guest host Arun Rath speaks with James Fallows, national correspondent with <em>The Atlantic</em>, who's been in Beijing all week and saw the response firsthand.", "The Office of Personnel Management was the target of a massive cyberattack. Four million people may have had their data stolen. OPM says it will start notifying victims on Monday.", "Apple said today that the computers of some of its employees were attacked by hackers, who used the same vulnerability to access computers at Facebook. All Things D reports: \"'Apple has identified malware which infected a limited number of Mac systems through a vulnerability in the Java plugin for browsers,' the company said in a statement to AllThingsD. 'The malware was employed in an attack against Apple and other companies, and was spread through a website for software developers. We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network. There is no evidence that any data left Apple. We are working closely with law enforcement to find the source of the malware.' \"The company noted that it has been shipping Macs without Java since the release of Mac OS X Lion, and that it also has a software mechanism that disables Java if it goes unused for 35 days. Apple is also releasing an updated software tool to detect and remove Java-related malware.\" Last week, Facebook said their systems had been breached in January. Both companies said that no user data had been compromised. Reuters points out one of the interesting quirks of this hack: This is the \"highest-profile cyber\" attack to target Mac computers. \"Hackers have traditionally focused on attacking machines running the Windows operating system, though they have gradually turned their attention to Apple products over the past couple of years as the company gained market share over Microsoft Corp.,\" Reuters reports. This news comes the same day that an American security company revealed it had connected hacks targeting 141 American companies to the Chinese government.", "A group of hackers, allegedly from Russia, found a fundamental flaw in Microsoft Windows and exploited it to spy on Western governments, NATO, European energy companies and an academic organization in the United States. That's according to new research from iSight Partners, a Dallas-based cybersecurity firm. Last month, the U.S. and the U.K. were preparing to meet at a NATO summit to talk about Ukraine. Emails were flying back and forth. Different experts were offering to talk at the conference. And in the midst of all the digital traffic, hackers jumped into the conversation. Patrick McBride, a spokesman with iSight, says the hackers targeted specific officials using a well-known kind of attack called spear-phishing. Hackers would craft a message with a PowerPoint document attached. For example, they'd say, \"We'd like to be involved in the conference.\" And when an unknowing recipient opened the corrupted PowerPoint, the file was exploited to load a piece of malware onto the computer that the attacker could then use later to \"exfiltrate documents,\" McBride says. The hacker group, dubbed the \"Sandworm Team,\" allegedly pulled emails and documents off computers from NATO, Ukrainian government groups, Western European government officials, and energy sector and telecommunications firms. In the mad dash to grab information, McBride says, the hackers got a little sloppy and dropped hints about their identity. He says they're Russian, \"but we can't pinpoint if they work for the Russian government or work in a particular department in the government.\" The Russian embassy did not immediately respond to NPR's inquiry. Microsoft says that Tuesday, it's patching the security flaw so that PowerPoint and other Office products can't be exploited again in the same way. Lonnie Benavides, a researcher with the cybersecurity services firm DocuSign, says if the findings are true, they represent an interesting turn of events. \"Typically Russians stick to making money, stick to stealing credit cards and identities as far as trends go,\" he says. Federal authorities are investigating the role of Russian hackers in the major breach against JPMorgan Chase. Benavides says Russia provides an enabling environment for cyber offenses — whether it's crime like stealing credit cards, or espionage to steal state secrets — because the country has some very talented hackers who do not get prosecuted. \"I'm certainly not seeing waves of people that are being put in jail, in order to send a message, in order for this to stop,\" he says. Even though the iSight report points to code that was in the Russian language, Benavides would not jump to the conclusion that the hacker group is state-sponsored or even from Russia. \"There's an attribution problem,\" he says. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: A group of hackers - allegedly from Russia - found a fundamental flaw in Microsoft Windows. And they're believed to have exploited it to spy on Western governments, on NATO, on European energy companies and on an academic organization here in the U.S. Now this is all according to new research from a cyber-security firm called iSight Partners. NPR's Aarti Shahani has the story. AARTI SHAHANI, BYLINE: Last month, the U.S. and the U.K. were preparing to meet at a NATO summit - the North Atlantic Treaty Organization - to talk about Ukraine. E-mails were flying back and forth. Different experts were offering to talk at the conference. And in the midst of all that digital traffic, hackers jumped into the conversation. Patrick McBride, a spokesman with iSight, says they targeted specific officials. PATRICK MCBRIDE: So you would craft a message, it might have an attachment with a PowerPoint in it, say hey, you know, take a look at this PowerPoint, see if that makes sense. We'd like to be involved in the conference, for example. Or any number of other things that might get the attention. SHAHANI: A hacker group found a vulnerability in Microsoft software and launched a well-known kind of attack called spear phishing. When an unknowing recipient opened the corrupted PowerPoint, the file was exploited. MCBRIDE: To load a piece of malware onto the computer that the attacker can then use later. SHAHANI: The hacker group called the Sandworm team allegedly pulled e-mails and documents off computers from NATO, Ukrainian government groups, Western European government officials and energy sector and telecommunications firms. In the mad dash to grab information, McBride says, the hackers got a little sloppy and dropped hints about their identity. MCBRIDE: It's Russian actors, but we can't pinpoint that, you know, they work for the Russian government or they work in a particular department in the government. SHAHANI: The Russian Embassy did not immediately respond to NPR's inquiry. And Microsoft says that today it's patching the security flaw so that PowerPoint and other office products can't be exploited in the same way. Lonnie Benavides, a security researcher with the cyber-security serv", "Updated at 2:40 p.m. ET The Justice Department has announced charges against four people, including two Russian security officials, over cybercrimes linked to a massive hack of millions of Yahoo user accounts. Two of the defendants — Dmitry Dokuchaev and his superior Igor Sushchin — are officers of the Russian Federal Security Service, or FSB. According to court documents, they \"protected, directed, facilitated and paid\" two criminal hackers, Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov, to access information that has intelligence value. Belan also allegedly used the information obtained for his personal financial gain. \"The criminal conduct at issue, carried out and otherwise facilitated by officers from an FSB unit that serves as the FBI's point of contact in Moscow on cybercrime matters, is beyond the pale,\" Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord said. She told reporters that U.S. investigators believe Dokuchaev and Sushchin were working in their official capacity as FSB agents at the time. Baratov was arrested Tuesday in Canada. NPR's Greg Myre reports that the U.S. plans to seek his extradition, and that three other defendants are in Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the U.S. Belan is one of the world's most notorious hackers. There's an Interpol \"Red Notice\" for his arrest, and he has been listed as one of the FBI's Most Wanted hackers since 2012. \"Rather than arrest him, however, the FSB officers used him,\" the indictment reads. It alleges that the officers also \"provided him with sensitive FSB law enforcement and intelligence information that would have helped him avoid detection by law enforcement.\" The massive hack against at least 500 million Yahoo user accounts happened in 2014. The company publicly acknowledged the breach last September, saying at the time that it believed a \"state-sponsored actor\" was responsible, without naming any foreign government. The disclosure prompted an investigation by U.S. authorities. Some of the accounts breached had obvious intelligence value. According to court documents, these included: \"Russian journalists and politicians critical of the Russian government; Russian citizens and government officials; former officials from countries bordering Russia; and U.S. government officials, including cyber security, diplomatic, military, and White House personnel.\" Other targets included businesses, such as a Russian investment banking firm as well as \"a French transportation company; U.S. financial services and private equity firms; a Swiss bitcoin and banking firm; and a U.S. airline.\" The court documents state that Belan \"provided his FSB conspirators ... with the unauthorized access to Yahoo's network.\" He is also accused of using the access to the network for personal financial gain. For example, he allegedly stole financial and gift card information from the Yahoo accounts, and implemented a spam marketing scheme that impacted millions of users, according to the documents. Baratov allegedly helped the FSB agents access accounts at other providers such as Google, often assisted by information stolen from the breached Yahoo accounts. He was allegedly paid about $100 per account accessed. You can read more details of the allegations in the indictment: The company has also indicated in regulatory filings that forged cookies may have been used to access user accounts. It said today that those cookies are also part of the alleged Russian security breach. \"We appreciate the FBI's diligent investigative work and the DOJ's decisive action to bring to justice those responsible for the crimes against Yahoo and its users,\" the company said in a statement Wednesday. \"We're committed to keeping our users and our platforms secure and will continue to engage with law enforcement to combat cybercrime.\" This wasn't the only major breach Yahoo has reported in recent years. The company revealed an even larger hacking incident impacting more than 1 billion accounts that occurred in 2013, as we reported. It's not clear whether the intrusions are related. Today's charges are also distinct from the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia launched an \"influence campaign\" in order to help President Trump win the election. The Department of Justice is trying to ratchet up pressure on foreign hackers accused of carrying out cyberattacks on U.S. targets. Federal officials have also recently charged individuals from China and Iran over hacking allegations. In 2014, as NPR's Carrie Johnson reported, the Department of Justice \"charged five uniformed members of Unit 61398 of the People's Liberation Army of China with stealing secrets from American business competitors.\" Last year, U.S. officials indicted seven hackers with links to the Iranian government for cyberattacks. \"Court papers said the intruders attacked the web sites of dozens of major U.S. banks and breached controls at a dam in Rye, N.Y., raising alarms about safeguards in American infrastructure,\" Carrie reported." ]

[ "Any risk presented by conducting such interviews is presumably far lower than the risk of not conducting them.\n\nThe question seems to assume that the fact that a person is being considered for top secret security clearance is in itself sensitive information. But in fact it's often obvious if someone you know personally has security clearance, even if you weren't interviewed for their background check. In many cases, this is even public information.\n\nThere may be certain specific instances where background interviews are limited due to such security concerns, but I'm not seeing any documentation of this. It seems more likely to me that if a person who has close ties to someone considered risky in any way, the candidate would be dropped before interviews even occur." ]

[ "These are common interview questions, and there are ways to answer them that will be helpful to you.\n\nSources you often use to consult and improve your testing knowledge.\n\nFrankly, unless you read through any suggestions you get and keep going back, you will be cheating - and if the interviewer is familiar with a source you give that you're not familiar with, you will not only lose any change of working with that organization, you could find yourself on multiple people's \"do not hire\" lists because people will talk about someone who tries to cheat their way through an interview.\n\nThat said, some of the sites I find particularly helpful are:\n\n\nThe Ministry of Testing and all their associated sites\nThis site.\nAlan Page's blog.\n\n\nHow do you know test cases cover the requirement\n\nYou don't. You do your best to decompose the requirement into granular pieces of functionality and aim to test those. There's always the chance you'll miss something so you ask others to check your tests to see if there are any conditions you've missed. You discuss the requirement with others to look for implied functionality and assumptions that the author of the requirement may have been making. You look for prerequisites and incompatible functionality.\n\nWhen you think you might have most of it, you look at the risks of each thing you've identified failing, and you test more or less in this order:\n\n\nMust have (the requirement fails if it does not do these things)\nHighest risk\nOther tests from high-risk to low risk.", "If so what is the need for a stronger refugee laws and control?\n\n\nThe primary problem is that we don't have good sources for the data. From your link: \n\n\n \n The screening looks for indicators, like:\n \n \n Information that the individual is a security risk\n Connections to known bad actors\n Outstanding warrants/immigration or criminal violations\n \n \n\n\nBut where do we get that data? It's not like the country they're fleeing would give us that kind of information even if it had it. And it's not like the \"bad actors\" will tell us. \n\nBasically we check to see if we've previously encountered the individual. If we haven't, that person generally passes those checks. The interviews are more likely to catch someone who has been radicalized without previous contact with us. But they aren't perfect. \n\nA side issue is the problem of radicalization in the United States. This more often happens with the children of immigrants than with the immigrants themselves. The children might be born in the United States. No screening process will ever catch that.", "The purpose of the CBP Trusted Traveler programs is to establish that you are a low security risk. They want to know about any criminal history, associations with terrorist or anti-government groups, violations of customs or immigration laws, and so on. To help with that, you provide them a travel history they can look over for suspicious destinations.\n\nYour non-travel to a non-suspicious destination is not going to constitute a reason for denial. Consider furthermore that they don't expect you to know your exact travel plans for the next five years. Someone applying for a NEXUS card because of frequent work travel to Canada might switch jobs and no longer make those drives; that alone is not going to cause either the Canadian or American government to decide that she is now a threat.\n\nThe application form does not ask any questions about when or where or how you plan to use the program. You are not required to make any number of trips to any particular destination over the lifetime of the membership to maintain it, either. It's not unlike someone applying for a passport but never going on any international trips. In fact, it's less strange than that. The NEXUS processing fee is subsidized expressly to encourage people to apply for it, and it's not against the law to take advantage of a bargain even if you're interested in some benefits more than others.\n\nIf you are asked about it during the interview, just be truthful. I doubt you will be asked, however. If you're like me— a natural-born U.S. citizen with a clean criminal record and no ties or past travel to suspect countries— the interview is something of a bureaucratic formality; they've already done the background check at that point. My Global Entry interview lasted at best 10 minutes, and the vast majority of that was the interviewer reading from a script and then taking my fingerprints.", "Would it negatively affect the chance of getting hired?\n\n\nYes.\n\nAny time an interviewer asks you to do something and you decline, it will hurt your changes of getting hired - if only a little.\n\nYou get to decide how important it is for you not to be recorded.", "OK I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, but my answer is that the time to bring this up specifically is never.\n\nTo be clear, I am not suggesting that you hide your needs or quirks, but making any big points about a personal situation that does not require accomodation is quite awkward when it's done without context, and it is not likely to accomplish much that is positive, unless your aspergers actually relates directly to the position.\n\nYou most definitely can and should communicate your needs (order, quiet, distraction free environment, etc) and you should also highlight your strengths. I really don't see the qualities you mentioned to be overly specific to those with aspergers, per se, and depending on the company/team your personal qualities will be valued to varying degrees.\n\nYou just have to accept that in some teams, being obsessed with order, for example, is just not going to work for anyone (yourself included). In another team/office you will fit like a pea in a pod. You can't ask an employer to make this work, based on your asperger's, you just have to suss out, like we all do, whether you and the employer are a good match. \n\nI can understand why you might want your coworkers to be aware of your aspergers, but I think that is better addressed with your coworkers directly, on an as-needed basis. I myself HATE phone calls, and I simply request that people email me instead. There is no need to explain why I prefer it that way, I just make my preference known, and the overwhelming majority of people respect that. There's not always a need to go so deep with these things. \n\n\n I don't want to end up in a company that doesn't understand or discriminates against that kind of stuff.\n\n\nI think you can still accomplish this in the standard way we all do: during interviews, be forthcoming in describing yourself, and ask plenty of questions to see of the environment will suit you. Interview \"filtering\" works both ways: they will see your quirkiness and be ok with it or not. You will see their style as well, and you will be ok with it or not.", "It doesn't matter what the supervisor's Ph.D. was in, originally: fields are protean and careers take all sorts of strange paths. What really matters is whether the supervisor's knowledge is sufficient to supervise the research that the student will be conducting. That depends on the path of their career, the precise focus of the student's research, etc.\n\nMy advisor, for example, had a Ph.D. in mathematics (since computer science didn't really exist as a separate field yet), but has worked in artificial intelligence, electrical engineering, physics, VLSI, biological modeling, and astronomy, and would be quite appropriate to supervise students in projects in any of those fields, if their focus and his background had sufficient overlap. Likewise, my background in artificial intelligence was no barrier to supervising a biology Ph.D. (which I have done), given the path of my own research over time.", "Use intelligence checks, in particular, the Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion skills.\n\nFrom the Ability Scores and Modifiers section of the basic rules, under Intelligence:\n\n\n An Intelligence check comes into play when you need to draw on logic, education, memory, or deductive reasoning. The Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion skills reflect aptitude in certain kinds of Intelligence checks.\n\n\nAs guildsbounty suggested in the comments:\n\n\n Don't tell your players what they are fighting. Describe the monster to them. Make them do a reflexive knowledge check to see if they recognize it (unless they have recognized it previously, or it is an extremely common creature, like a goblin). The results of their check details how much info you give them about the creature. Before a social encounter, call for a History Check to see if the bard can remember the customs of this particular land so he doesn't offend anyone...or at least comports himself in a respectable way (possible advantage on success?), etc.\n\n\nThere are other uses for intelligence. For instance, on the Astral Plane, intelligence determines how fast you travel. From the DMG, p. 46:\n\n\n A traveler in the Astral Plane can move by simply thinking about moving, but distance has little meaning. In combat, though, a creature's walking.speed (in feet) is equal to 3 x its Intelligence score. The smarter a creature is, the easier it can control its movement by act of will.", "This is fine. The only exceptions would be for identifiable data which would be covered by responsible conduct of research. You should take that training if you have not already in order to make sure you do not run afoul of the institutional IRB.", "From a German perspective this sounds intrusive and unusual. There is typically also less emphasis (officially) on personal references in application processes than in the Anglosphere. \n\nIf at all, I'd rather expect that for low-level jobs where you get very young people that might have never worked or studied before and the employer wants to get a rough grasp on the general (work) morale of the interviewed person. Or for entry level service oriented jobs where the employer wants to get a feeling for the interviewee's socialisation. Perhaps the person handling the interview is from an international background or in other ways not so well integrated into normal German privacy culture. \n\nPersonally, for my roles, I'd decline to provide any friend information and if the interviewer persists, decline to go any further with the interview process, as I'd consider them out of line and insisting on information that will not very much help them and waste all our time (my friends don't work with me so cannot judge my professional efforts and surely will only say nice things about me - and that only if I'd tell them explicitly to not consider the call a phishing attempt and have him bugger off).\n\nThe less senior the position, the lower paid, the more wild and mixed the applicant pool, the more I could to some degree understand such an attitude and perhaps tolerate it, while still thinking the essential information you could get from a normal interview and talking to the friends will not help in most cases.\n\nAlso, in some cases, you obviously cannot be a chooser.\nBut I'm also pretty sure that process would not stand in front of a German court (but no legal advice here^^)", "Yes.\n\nThe data has to get into their database somehow, or they wouldn't be asking you to enter it.\n\nIf you don't type it in, they have to decide whether to spend their money typing it in or just toss your resume in the circular file.\n\nDo you really want to start the interviewing process by being needlessly uncooperative? Or by establishing that you don't follow directions?", "I think what you want is to see whether this person is trustworthy and safe to be around. I question the assumption that a criminal background check will tell you that, for a few reasons:\n\n\nAn official background check will only potentially tell you about a few specific kinds of negative behavior, leaving out lots of things that could actually be important to your decision to travel with them. For example, someone might be petty, rude, manipulative, and a liar, but that may never result in anything official on their record.\nBackground checks only show stuff that people got caught doing. Just because someone has a clean background check doesn't mean he or she isn't a thief, batterer, drug user, rapist, etc. For something like rape, estimates indicate that only a tiny minority of cases ever result in an arrest, let alone a conviction. All of those unreported cases end up on no one's record at all. \nRelated to the previous point, who gets caught doing what (and therefore, what makes it onto our official records) is subject to a range of complex issues including institutional bias (here's a link on well-documented racial bias in drug arrests and charges). By relying on these records, you may inadvertently replicate those biases in your search for a traveling companion. \n\n\nMoreover, as you suggest in your question, asking for a background check has the potential to cause offense or scare people away. Personally, I know my record is completely clean --- if a stranger I met on the internet (and that's indeed what you are to them, as much as they are to you) asked me for information to conduct a background check, it would raise all kinds of red flags. Imagine how much more intense the negative reaction might be for someone who feels they have something they definitely don't want to share (maybe their mom is undocumented, maybe they got caught up in a bad situation when they were a kid and some judge decided to make an example of them, etc.). To answer your question directly, I think it is \"too much\" to ask someone to submit to a background check in this scenario. Moreover, I expect conducting those background checks would be mostly a waste of time and money for you anyway.\n\nInstead, I recommend you attempt the old fashioned \"getting to know you\" approach. :) Invite them to tell you about themselves, their habits/likes/dislikes, favorite travel memories, whatever. And you reciprocate. Write back and forth a few times. If you're close enough, ask to meet in person to chat, or maybe plan a phone call or video chat. Ask questions, get to know them. Swap social media details with them, so you can check out their facebook/twitter/instagram/linkedin/whatever and they can do likewise. \n\nDuring this process, you will be able to check up on plenty of the details they offer, to reassure yourself. A google search for their full name is likely to pull up any news articles featuring them. If they've told you, for example, cities they've lived in, places they've worked or studied, etc. you can add those terms to your googling to pull up more relevant results. Many court records are also freely available online (try googling \"court records\" and your state, or the state your potential travel companion lives in). \n\nAnd, of course, you'll want to practice some good common sense: Whether or not you have a background check and/or you've been pen pals for ages, you should still put some extra protections in place and plan an exit should you need it. Have a phone that will get signal throughout your trip, and make sure other people know when to expect you at different points throughout your journey. Ideally, have another friend accompany you and your traveling companion at the beginning of the trip; if things don't feel right, you can bail when your friend does. I hope you have a great trip!", "Great Question\n\nAs per my experience, it's very difficult to get a right employee who has very good judgment, sharp focus, attention &amp; great observation skills.\n\nEarlier it was very difficult to filter right candidate but our team come with some solution for that We made some minor changes in our interview process as follows:-\n\nNow before conducting F2F interview We give some Android/iOS application's &amp; instruction sheet to the candidate and ask to perform any type of testing(functional, GUI, Usability, Security....etc ) &amp; find any kind of the bug based on this instruction. We give around 1 hour time to the candidate to find bugs as much as He/she can find. If the candidate is able to find even a single bug then we go for next round F2F interview otherwise we don't proceed with the candidate.\n\nThis small change saves a lot of time of our working employee &amp; it helps us to figure out these basic qualities of the candidate like.\n\n\nJudgement Capability\nDecision making capability (Bug or not)\nAttention to details (Instruction sheet)\nEfficiency of the candidate\nFocus on random application (Layman approach)\nFlexibility with the situation &amp; work\nTime management\nObservation of the random application....&amp; much more\n\n\nThen in the F2F interview, we start to ask the question-related to AUT we ask about his experience about that hour and Other skill sets (In resume) And try to judge the above properties in a good candidate.\n\nI can't say that it is a standard procedure but its help us a lot to filter out a very good candidate from crowed, for our work.", "This is a very odd situation, which can also be seen as quite unfair.\n\nIf you feel uncomfortable about it, or don't trust your colleagues to remain professional, then I would suggest speaking to a HR manager/senior manager to request if your colleagues could be left out of the interviews due to a conflict of interest.", "Plan an interview strategy with the whole panel. Your whole team should meet before you start interviewing candidates, and discuss how you want to approach it. \n\nThis is the perfect venue for expressing your concerns about the difficulty of some of the questions, and the pacing. \n\nI'd start by asking if you can schedule a brief meeting to coordinate how you want to approach interviewing. State that you think it would help the interviewing process if there was planning for who leads, what the agenda would look like, how the questions should work, etc..\n\nFrom your comment, I'm not clear if you discussed this before during an interview, or outside of the interview and were cautioned to not bring that up during the actual interview. Either way, it is good advice not to question or make suggestions about the interview process while a candidate is present.\n\nRemember: you want to impress the candidates, so that when you find ones that you want to work with, they're more likely to want to work with you. Coming across as an organized team that handles the interview smoothly will provide a good impression. Having members of the interviewing panel engage in sidebar discussion or asking questions about how they should proceed will provide a negative impression.\n\nIf you're concerned that you may be overstepping your bounds, phrase it as requesting guidance for what you should be doing during the interview, such as when you should ask questions, what areas you should focus on, how many questions you should plan on asking, etc..\n\nYou should try and avoid singling out the individual coworker that you feel is too aggressive. Make it about how to work best as a team, and not about concerns you have with members of the team.\n\nI would caution against suggesting that no difficult questions be asked. There is a lot to be learned about a candidate from how they approach difficult problems; even problems beyond their abilities.\n\nIt is not uncommon to start with some easy questions, to, as you say, calm the candidate down and make them feel at ease. Once the candidate is feeling comfortable, though, there's no problem with asking some more difficult questions.", "I would err on the side of caution, internal processes or HR practices/Standard Operation Procedures may be in place that advocate AGAINST this type of behavior.\n\nWhile I understand the human side of wanting to offer critiques and advice to some interviewees there can be some unintended side-effects/consequences to doing so, such as you getting name dropped to whoever the 2nd/3rd round interviewer is, which would be my Director - and they would be displeased if I did that. It puts your superiors/peers in a tough spot especially if they end up NOT hiring the person.\n\nOn the converse, you can give a negative critique or maybe tell them you did not think they are a fit, and they get hired anyway, same thing - you piss off your manager/supervisor, as well as that interviewee. I cannot speak to legal implications, but if there is a process/SOP against it then you can be laid off, or other internal adverse actions.\n\nTo reiterate some points of others, I would decline to give feedback and give them a vague/indirect reason such as evaluation, or having to get feedback from a manager/director. You should be as objective as possible, even in closing, and a critique is leaning towards the subjective side.", "I think its fine. It just shows the interviewer you actually know what the real meaning of big-O and theta are. Just make sure its actually true (the $\\Omega$ part) when you have a complicated algorithm and you have used some inequality for big-O complexity proof.", "Game AI will encompass all those types of math. Making an intelligent AI system is a very challenging task. This task will rely heavily on machine learning, statistics, probability theory and graph theory. \n\nAnother area would be in procedural generation. Creating a world and most if not all the items in it intelligently, without much manual content generation is an excellent goal. Simulating the creation of goods, their use and resulting location in the world would be very interesting.\n\nMore procedural generation tasks may include:\n\n\nGeneration of a detailed history of a world. Wars fought, the naming of lands, the rise and fall of leaders, plagues, etc.\nCharacter creation for NPC characters. With the traits of their ancestor y and personal histories.\n\n\nThere are a number of mini-games you can make with this kind of math background as well. For example:\n\n\nSimulating the spread of disease and the efforts to combat it\nGenerating efficient travel networks for transportation between nodes (cities, planets, etc.)\nSimulation of evolution of player made organisms.\nand so on.\n\n\nMost of these things you can start small with and develop solo. They may not have fancy graphics or spectacular effects, but they'll demonstrate your potential and develop your skills.\n\nYou do it gradually like any other task you're learning in life. Start very simple, create something small that can be improved over time with more and more complexities.", "No organization can be sure that a person isn't an insider threat, which is why they operate assuming anyone could be. Physical and logical controls operate on a principle of least access, which means that no person should have access to information which they don't have a specific need to know or areas that they don't have a specific need to access. \n\nAgencies perform background checks before employment and on an ongoing basis, at a rate that they find satisfactory to balance the cost of the investigation against the value of the information the person is working with. For example, before being granted a Top Secret clearance, a person needs to have a Single-Scope Background Investigation. While I don't know if the trainings the government gives on insider threats are public information, you could take a look at this article on Insider Threats in the private sector to get a good idea of what kind of behavior government auditors and security personnel are looking for when trying to figure out if someone is an insider threat. Some examples include: Downloading or accessing substantial amounts of data, attempts to bypass security, and discussions of resigning or new opportunities.\n\nAgencies will also provide an appropriate level of auditing and surveillance to their information and facilities (appropriate again meaning they have weighed the damage of disclosure against the cost of implementation), so when someone does exfiltrate information they will hopefully be able to find them and stop them before they can do further damage, or even block the attempt in progress.", "Your question used the words insider information. If the company is a public company (in the US) this refers specifically to not-yet-announced financial information such as the present quarter's sales figures. If you personally are in possession of insider information in a company like that, you know it. Somebody in your treasury department has already explained your responsibilities. Follow them. If you don't the Securities and Exchange Commission will become annoyed with you, and that is not good. \n\nIf you're not sure whether the stuff you know is specifically insider information, it probably isn't (unless you fished a spreadsheet out of the trash or looked at a financial system or some such thing).\n\nAs far as other business metrics you might put on a resume, make sure they're about your accomplishments. For example, these are fine.\n\n\nI created better new-customer materials, and new-user service calls decreased 23%.\nMy improved order-entry application reduced shipping errors by 14% and allowed the company to reduce the product return reserve by $500K.\n\n\nIf you're a programmer the tech you use (.NET, Java, Python, etc) isn't confidential unless somebody has explained to you that is, and why. \n\nDon't mention the names of your customers unless they're monopsonies. Similarly, don't describe your employer's business arrangements with suppliers in specific terms.\n\nThe point of a resume is to invite conversation (an interview). So you don't have to worry about being very specific. But do keep in mind that competitors sometimes gather business intelligence by conducting sham interviews.", "Legally? Don't know, but off the record and probably fine at risk per JeffO's answer.\n\nEthically? Definitely inappropriate. You have it backwards. Discrimination is automatic and requires conscious correction. So when you say:\n\n\n does not seem to be affecting hiring decisions\n\n\nmy reaction is, \"When did they do something specific to make you think that?\" Fortunately this is a good learning opportunity. Bringing the subject up (assuming you have the tact and/or sway to do so, tread carefully) is a good way to say, \"I know this looks trivial, but we need to be extremely diligent in the hiring process.\" Feel free to point to numerous studies and anecdotes on the topic.\n\nThis 'How to Fight Race and Gender Bias in Science' Editorial in the Oct 2014 issue of Scientic American sums ups the issue quite nicely.", "I completely agree with the answers by ff524 and Pete L. Clark, but I'd like to highlight one issue that's in the background here, regarding whether this behavior is normal. When someone makes a point of emphasizing a professional title, it might be because they are pompous, but they might actually have a good reason for it. It's difficult to do your job well if the people you are interacting with don't maintain an adequate level of respect and professionalism, and insisting on titles can be an effective way to control the tone of your interactions.\n\nWhether this is helpful is often correlated with gender or race: many white men are treated respectfully by default, while women or minorities sometimes find that students or colleagues interact with them in troubling ways that don't arise nearly as often for their white male coworkers. For example, students sometimes expect unreasonably forgiving and nurturing behavior from women and react harshly if they don't get it, students sometimes disrespect women in class and try to challenge or undermine their authority (for no intellectually compelling reason), etc. Of course this doesn't always happen, but it's a real problem for some people.\n\nInsisting on the use of a formal title is one way to address this issue. You run the risk of looking pompous or uppity, but you are willing to take that risk in exchange for reminding everyone of your position and your desire to maintain a formal and respectful tone. This may not be the best solution in any given circumstances, but it works well enough that it's reasonably common.\n\nSo my recommendation is to approach this issue with some charity. If you hear complaints about someone insisting on a title that nobody else cares as much about, especially a woman or minority, you should keep in mind that it may be their way of dealing with a difficult situation.", "No, it's not a red flag, it's a sign that they're using the same script to ask questions for this role.\n\nClearly, the people running those stages of the interview don't talk to each other and just pick up their questions from a central depository.\n\nYou could have joked about this during your interview and seen what their response was.", "Sensitivity has nothing to do with the amount of background noise picked up. The background is still the same relative level to your voice, no matter how sensitive. Polar pattern is the only differentiator, but I can't imagine any headset mic being other than a cardioid [their site gives no spec I can find].\nThe only way to reduce background noise [other than move away from it] is to use a noise-cancelling system, using bone conduction [Plantronics, Jawbone] or multiple mics [iPhone etc].", "About the AC: The same issue happened in Scandinavia 2 or 3 years ago:\nMale coworker complain they were sweating because of hot temperature and the obligation to wear uniform long pant whereas they wanted to wear short pant.\nFemale coworker were at this time allowed to wear dress.\n\nManagement refused to listen to the male coworker stating that the long pant was part of the job. Male coworker decided to wear skirt to protest.\nManagement couldn't forbid them to wear the dress otherwise they could be subject to court claim about gender inequality. So in the end the mangement changed the rules and male can now wear short pants.\n\nThe example is kind of extreme and should only be used when ALL negociations fails.\n\nWhat you and you male coworker do need to do ( in order of importance) :\n\n\nmake a meeting with all the female coworker to officially talk about the situation and try to find a solution ( the company can provide a vest to the female coworker if they are cold, change the desk so female are regroup in 1 part of the office, males in an other part so it is more easy to set 2 differents tempeature)\nask to formal meeting with your bosss to adress the issue and prepare some solution like giving a vest to all female so they are not cold.\nwrite an open letter with a signature of everybody and give it to your boss and upper management.\ncontact the local union to know if there is a solution\n\n\nIf all the above fail, you can try the following ( but there is risk to get bad reputation/ blame/ fired).\n- change set temperature all the time so it will force your boss to adress the issue.\n- come to work in short pant and short shirt ( but it should be all the male to do it, not only you).\n\nRegarding the law, of course it depend on the contry, but there is usually only a limit of the \"acceptable for health\" temperature like 35 degree celcius in the office, there is no \"confortable\".\n\nIn all the discussion and meeting you should ONLY talk about the AC issue, don't talk about other things ( like you boss being only good toward woman) otherwise it would like you want to get revenge on your boss and not solve this issue.", "No. It's your commute, and there may very well be case workers who have longer ones than that to get to their job. If they ask, you can explain it, but that is a readily defensible situation.\n\nThe scenarios that normally raise eyebrows are ones where the immigrant has never lived close to their work and lives hundreds of miles away. And even that is drawing less scrutiny these days for certain professions where the work doesn't necessarily require on-site presence.", "Can photography actually be used for terrorism?\n\n\nIt can absolutely be used for aiding in planning terror attacks. \n\nI don't have the articles handy at the moment but a good source is StratFor's series of counter-terrorism and security articles. To paraphrase their many articles:\n\n\nAny planned terror attack has standard phases, one of which is recon of the objective. \n\n\n\n StratFor's Vulnerabilities in the Terrorist Attack Cycle\n \n During the target selection and planning stages, terrorists conduct pre-operational surveillance...\n \n Al Qaeda training manuals, including the infamous “Military Studies in the Jihad against the Tyrants,” and their online training magazines instruct operatives to perform surveillance, and even go so far as to discuss what type of information to gather. \n\n\n Military Guide to Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century\n \n U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, DCSINT Handbook No.1, 2007 Appendix A: Terrorist Planning Cycle \n \n Phase II: Intelligence Gathering and Surveillance\n\n\nTaking photographs is both a good cover for hanging around a public place and checking things out without looking conspicuous; also photographs provide a wealth of possible information in post-recon planning phase - both to remind of the details that are otherwise forgotten and to help with visual/spacial reconstruction of the target environment.\n\n\n\n National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (9/11 report) \n \n (84) On the group's surveillance and photography activities, see trial testimony of L'Houssaine Kherchtou, United States v. bin Laden, Feb. 21, 2001 (transcript pp. 1499-1500); FBI reports of investigation, interviews of L'Houssaine Kherchtou,Aug. 18, 2000; Oct. 18, 2000; see also FBI report of investigation, interview of confidential source, Sept. 16, 1999. \n\n\n\n*\n\n\n On or about 05/15/2010, at a hotel in Herndon, Farooque Ahmed allegedly agreed to watch and photograph another hotel in Washington, D.C., as well as a Metro station in Arlington to get information about their security and busiest periods\n\n\n\nIn addition, photography can be possibly used as cover for actual attack execution (OBL's assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud, Northern alliance commander, on 9/9/2001, was done by a guy posing as a news reporter with the bomb hidden in video camera).\n\n\n Can restricting photography reduce terrorism?\n\n\nNot likely, since you can always use other means of helping with recon. In addition, these days surreptitious photography is extremely accessible, with spy cameras of low end type going for like $20-$50 on meritline.com - I can provide a link if one is required as proof. Not to mention there are photos of most public places all over Internet these days.", "I think there is a risk - but it should be possible to mitigate it.\n\nThe key is to emphasise why the skills you use in volunteering are useful to the business. For example, if you volunteer at a cat shelter and your job is feeding the animals - that's probably not going to help you get a job in accountancy!\n\nSo, what are the aspects of your volunteering which will help get a job?\n\n\nFund-raising\nNegotiating \nWorking with large teams\nApplying for Government grants\netc\n\n\nIf you can show the hiring manager that your skills are relevant, they're less likely to care that they don't personally support your charity.\n\nIf the skills you use are not relevant to that specific job, leave it off your CV.\n\nNow, on to the tricky part - what to do if the employer is opposed to the particular charity?\n\nFirstly, unless your charity has a really bad reputation, they're unlikely to care much. The majority of people aren't anti-immigration and - to be blunt - you probably don't want to work for someone like that.\n\nSecondly, show that it is a legitimate charity and briefly explain its mission.\n\n\n Froggy-Feet (Registered Charity #123456) is a voluntary organisation dedicated to keeping frogs healthy. Its patron is the Earl of Downton.\n\n\nFinally, remember, your CV is an advert for you. If you think that your quest to abolish alcohol is going to make it harder for you to get a job at a pub - leave it off.", "Yes, potentially. It depends on the wording of the refusal. Once a deception is on record, any future application may also be refused (for up to 10 years, I believe) under paragraph 320(7B) of the immigration rules. \n\nSee: General Grounds for Refusal", "There is no doubt that AI has the potential to pose an existential threat to humanity.\n\n\n The greatest threat to mankind lies with superintelligent AI.\n\n\nAn artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence will be capable of exponentially increasing its own intelligence, resulting in an AI system that, to humans, will be completely unstoppable.\n\nAt this stage, if the artificial intelligence system decides that humanity is no longer useful, it could wipe us from the face of the earth.\n\nAs Eliezer Yudkowsky puts it in Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk,\n\n\"The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.\"\n\n\n A different threat lies with the instruction of highly intelligent AI\n\n\nHere it is useful to consider the paper clip maximiser thought experiment.\n\nA highly intelligent AI instructed to maximise paper clip production might take the following steps to achieve its goal.\n\n1) Achieve an intelligence explosion to make itself superintelligent (this will increase paperclip optimisation efficiency)\n\n2) Wipe out mankind so that it cannot be disabled (that would minimise production and be inefficient)\n\n3) Use Earth's resources (including the planet itself) to build self replicating robots hosting the AI\n\n4) Exponentially spread out across the universe, harvesting planets and stars alike, turning them into materials to build paper clip factories\n\n\n Clearly this is not what the human who's business paperclip production it was wanted, however it is the best way to fulfil the AI's instructions.\n\n\nThis illustrates how superintelligent and highly intelligent AI systems can be the greatest existential risk mankind may ever face.\n\nMurray Shanahan, in The Technological Singularity, even proposed that AI may be the solution to the Fermi paradox: the reason why we see no intelligent life in the universe may be that once a civilisation becomes advanced enough, it will develop an AI that ultimately destroys it.\nThis is known as the idea of a cosmic filter.\n\nIn conclusion, the very intelligence that makes AI so useful also makes it extremely dangerous.\n\nInfluential figures like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have expressed concerns that superintelligent AI is the greatest threat we will ever have to face.\n\nHope that answers your question :)", "I guess there could be many, but:\n\n\nThe existing data might not be good quality or sufficient quantity.\nReliance on a single person may lead to failure if they have health problems, or get a new job.", "Alone, the answer to both questions would be no. With corroborative evidence like school reports, personal account, addressed mail etc, it could be included as part of a conclusion.", "'How common' is not answerable or useful - you need to look at your risk.\n\n'How easy' is much simpler to answer. It is incredibly easy if you are on the same network segment as an endpoint, but it is also easy if you can compromise a router or switch.\n\nSo, if you have data communications that are a target for an attacker, then they will work out how much value that data has for them. The threshold here is pretty low, because of the ease of attack, however it requires the attacker to have a local connection of some kind.\n\nThe tools to do this are free and easy to use, so please conduct your own risk assessment to identify the risk to you." ]

[ "By . Daniel Bates . PUBLISHED: . 11:00 EST, 11 December 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 16:51 EST, 11 December 2012 . Justin Bieber’s Twitter tribute to six-year-old cancer victim Avalanna Routh was the most re-tweeted of 2012. The pop star’s heartfelt message to the little girl who he called 'Mrs Bieber' said: ‘RIP Avalanna. i love you’, was sent on by his fans 223,771 times. The second most shared Tweet was from Michael Jackson fans @obeyMJ who retweeted: ‘R.I.P. Whitney Houston. Retweet for respect’ some 191,043 times. Scroll down for video . Touching tribute: Justin Bieber's message about the death of six-year-old brain cancer victim Avalanna Routh became the most retweeted of 2012 - being sent almost 224,000 times . Angel: The pop star posted this picture with Avalanna shortly after the little girl lost her battle with cancer . On the official list of Twitter statistics 2012, British boy band One Direction have also come out on top. Band members Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Niall Horan had the biggest increase in followers of any celebrity Twitter account. Horan had the largest jump and saw his fan base shoot up by 712 per cent to 8.2 million. In its end-of-year roundup, Twitter revealed select data about what has been hot on the social networking site over the last 12 months. Trendy on Twitter: One Direction (from left) Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Harry Styles arrive at Nickelodeon's 25th Annual Kids' Choice Awards in Los Angeles . Bieber’s fans were . deeply moved by the death of six-year-old Avalanna Routh, who the singer . met after a Twitter campaign by her parents. When they met he dubbed her ‘Mrs Bieber’ and posted touching pictures of them hugging, playing board games and eating cupcakes. Routh died on September 26 of brain cancer and in a concert in Glendale, Arizona three days later, Bieber dedicated a song to her. @justinbieber RIP Avalanna. i love you (223,771 retweets) @obeyMJ R.I.P. Whitney Houston. Retweet for respect. (191,043 retweets) @Harry_Styles We owe you everything. Thank you so much for this. Three VMAs!! YEAH .xx (125,379 retweets) @BenSavage I'm going to be a father! Well, on TV at least. The \"Boy . Meets World\" sequel is officially happening! (114,179 retweets) @NiallOfficial Guys its been 2 years today since we were formed, its . been incredible so far, its all down to you guys! Love you all soo much ! Thank you (103,772 retweets) His full Tweet read: ‘[J]ust got the worst news ever, one of the greatest spirits i have ever known is gone. please pray for her family and for her... RIP Avalanna. i love you.’ The third most shared Tweet was from One Direction’s Harry Styles who wrote to fans on the night of the MTV Video Music Awards: ‘We owe you everything. Thank you so much for this. Three VMAs!! YEAH .xx’ Farewell: Michael Jackson fans @obeyMJ tweeted an RIP message after Whitney Houston died earlier this year . The VMAs were the most Tweeted event of the year. Fans cast 52 million votes via Twitter while the show generated 14.7 million Tweets. Whitney Houston’s death came in next as the most shared event with ten million Tweets at a rate of 73,662 per minute when she died on February 11. One Direction saw the biggest increases in their Twitter followers by far, with Horan in front, followed by band member Liam Payne who got 608 per cent more and now has six million followers. The third biggest increase was for @onedirection, the band’s official Twitter account, which had 605 per cent more followers in 2012 and now stands at 6.7million. In fourth place was Tomlinson who saw 587 per cent more people follow him and give him 5.8 million Twitter fans, while Styles now stands at 6.7 million having a hike of 493 per cent. Despite the gains, Bieber still remained the most Tweeted about celebrity, followed by Horan, Styles and One Direction’s Zayne Malik. Twitter senior manager Rachael Horwitz told USA Today that more established musicians like Neil Young are now joining Twitter and using it to conduct interviews with fans. Family GuyAmerican DadHey ArnoldAmerican IdolPretty Little Liars106 & ParkSNLFresh PrinceBoy Meets World . Think Like a ManThe Hunger GamesThe AvengersRed Tails21 Jump StreetDark Knight RisesDark ShadowsThe Devil InsideSafe House . She said that Bieber’s Tweet to Avalanna ‘was something beyond his music’ and was ‘him and his fans saying goodbye to one of their own and it clearly resonated with folks’. She added that one of the joys of Twitter was that it allowed a one-on-one conversation with a celebrity who normally would be far removed." ]

[ "The eyewitness who took a video of Orlando Bloom throwing a punch at Justin Bieber has said that it wasn't their only scuffle on the night - and that the actor was being cheered on by his A-list pals at the time. Former Spanish journalist Anastasia Skolkova was quick to share her video of the fight, which took place at Cipriana restaurant in Ibiza on Wednesday night, using Twitter and Facebook. But she told The Mirror, that the Pirates of The Caribbean actor threw more than one punch at pop singer Justin, much to the delight of fellow diners, which happened to include Leonardo DiCaprio, Lindsay Lohan and P Diddy on the night. Scroll down for video . Not the first time: An eye witness says there was more than one punch thrown during an altercation between Justin Bieber and Orlando Bloom in Ibiza . Ding, ding: An eye witness told one newspaper that there was more than one punch thrown between Lord Of The Rings actor Orlando Bloom (left) and pop singer Justin Bieber (right) The eyewitness remembers the Baby singer provoking the first punch. 'Justin said something when he came in which was aimed at Orlando, who then jumped onto a sofa to try and get at Justin.' she recalls. She added to the Daily Mirror: 'When Orlando punched Bieber, everyone started clapping. Lindsay was laughing. It was amazing. The whole table he and DiCaprio were on were clapping. Afterwards, I don't know if people were congratulating Orlando or trying to calm him down.'When security saw that when they got separated, Bieber and Orlando tried to punch each other again, security were like, 'Bieber came, Bieber provoked this fight', so they took his hands behind his back and took him away from the restaurant.' Anastasia, who was sitting next to Orlando's table where he dined with actor Leonardo Dicaprio before the fight broke out, filmed Bieber allegedly yelling, 'What’s up, b***?' to Bloom in the video. Round one: Orlando Bloom can allegedly be seen to throw a punch at Justin Bieber, but the source says it wasn't the only one . Friends in high places: Lindsay Lohan and Leonardo DiCaprio, who are both currently holidaying in Ibiza, were said to be cheering Bloom on during the scuffle . She said: 'There were actually two moments when it turned violent, it wasn't just the one punch thrown.' The two men met by chance at the Spanish eatery, but appear to have a common connection in Orlando's estranged wife Miranda Kerr. One . version of the event hears that 20-year-old Bieber told Orlando he had slept with . Miranda, whom he first met at a Victoria's Secret show in 2012, to prompt him . to hit the singer. Justin told Orlando to 'Say hi to Miranda for me!' just moments after the actor tried to punch him, one onlooker told MailOnline. The New York Post reported on Thursday that Bloom 'never looked at her [Miranda] the same', after rumours of a hook-up between her and Bieber at the 2012 Victoria's Secret show in New York (a year before the couple announced their marital break-up). Squaring up: Justin has been accused of provoking Orlando to throw the first punch . Representatives for Bloom and Bieber have refused to comment on the restaurant fight, despite the in-depth eye witness accounts. Meanwhile, Bieber has continued to provoke the English actor by posting a picture of his former wife Miranda in a bikini with a crown symbol caption, followed by a picture of Orlando Bloom wiping his eyes as if to cry. Miranda on the other hand, has used Instagram to prove that she's not getting involved. Posting a series of model shots from recent campaigns and a sweet mother-son picture with the couple's little boy Flynn Bloom, the former Mrs Bloom can be seen to turn her back on the whole situation. 'Say hi to Miranda': Justin Bieber allegedly told Orlando to say hi to his ex-wife following rumours that they'd hooked up .", "By . Daily Mail Reporter . PUBLISHED: . 04:56 EST, 14 December 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 16:25 EST, 14 December 2012 . Gangsters who plotted to murder Justin Bieber and castrate him with a pair of garden shears were offered a bounty of $2,500 for each of the teen heart-throb's testicles, it has been claimed. Jailed Dana Martin, who has a tattoo of the star on his leg, is accused of offering the reward after recruiting two men to kidnap the singer along with his body guard and two other victims. According to police Martin hatched the grisly plot because he felt Bieber had snubbed his efforts to contact him. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO . Target: Two men who planned to kill and castrate Justin Bieber after . his November 28 concert at Madison Square Garden in New York (pictured) were offered $2,500 for each of the singer's testicles it has been claimed . Plot: Dana Martin (left) is said to be obsessed with the pop singer, and has a tattoo of Bieber on his leg; he recruited Mark Staake (right) to carry out the plot . He allegedly ordered his accomplices to first . strangle the victims with a paisley tie as it was his 'calling card' which he had used in previous attacks. Martin met Mark Staake, a fellow . inmate at Las Cruces state prison in New Mexico years ago. While there, . Staake agreed to enlist his own nephew in order to carry out the . murderous plot. Tooled up: One of the gang was picked up in possession of pair of garden shears he allegedly planned to use to carry out the castration . Staake and Ruane were alledly poised . to strike while the Canadian singer was in New York for a performance at . Madison Square Garden on November 28. But for unknown reasons, Martin told . jail wardens about the plot and Staake, 41, was arrested in Vermont on . an unrelated outstanding warrant while driving with 23-year-old Ruane. Ruane was released but was later recorded discussing plans with Martin on the phone. According to court documents obtained by the Sun Newspaper, when Mr . Martin asked what Staake had bought to castrate the victims, Ruane said . he had bought a pair of hand-held hedge clippers. When Ruane was arrested in New York on . November 20 police discovered a brand new pair of Fiskars Durasharp . pruning shears in his car. A police document sates: 'In response . to Mr Staake’s reluctance to follow through with the castrations, Mr . Ruane stated he was going to do it and get ‘five large for each one I . get’. Mr Martin confirmed that Mr Ruane was going to get $2,500 per . testicle.' Mastermind: Dana Martin was arrested for raping and killing a 15-year-old girl in 2000 (seen here), but since spending time behind bars, his newest teenage target appears to be the Canadian singer . Criminal relatives: Mark Staake (left) met Martin in prison and agreed to take on the assassination plot with the help of his nephew Tanner Ruane (right) Martin is currently serving two life sentences for raping and killing a 15-year-old girl in 2000. In an affidavit enclosed with Tanner . Ruane's warrant Martin explained that had plotted the attack because he . was upset that Bieber had snubbed his attempts to make contact. According to the arrest warrant Martin . had asked Ruane if they had bags to put the testicles in and had . suggested hiding them in the engine compartment of the car to avoid . detection should they get pulled over by police. The court papers state: 'When asked to . explain why Victim 3 (Bieber) was to be killed, Mr Martin stated that . Victim 3 has a measure of fame and that he had become infatuated with . Victim 3. Turning against them: Martin was the one who reported the plot to police, even though he planned the whole operation, including the instruction to use paisley ties (right) since those were his 'calling card' 'Mr Martin stated he had attempted to solicit correspondence on numerous occasions and that Victim 3 never returned in kind. 'This perceived slight made Mr Martin . upset and, coupled with Mr Martin’s perception of being a ‘nobody’ in . prison, led him to begin plotting the kidnap and murder.' As Martin is already serving life . sentences it is not known if he will face further charges. But a New . York State Police spokesman said he may be responsible for other . kidnaps and murders across America. A spokesman for Bieber, 18, who has sold more than 15million albums since bursting on the scene in 2009, said every precaution was taken to protect the star and his fans. WATCH THE VIDEO . Police: NM men plotted to kill Justin Bieber .", "Singer Justin Bieber was two hours late for his debut show at the O2 after 'throwing a massive tantrum', ranting at worried staff: 'It's my gig, I will go out when I want to' - it has been claimed. According to backstage sources Justin, 19, was in a foul mood after waking up late because of a night out and the 'stroppy youngster locked himself in his dressing room to play computer games'. Despite being accused of coming onstage two hours after he was billed to, with hundreds of upset teenagers leaving before getting the chance to see their idol, Justin said he was only 40 minutes late on Monday - blaming technical difficulties and saying the gig was 'great'. Gamer: Justin Bieber was apparently two hours late to his show on Monday because he was playing video games and woke up late . One O2 worker, who did not want to be named, told The Sun: 'He was arguing with members of his management, his family. It was a really uncomfortable atmosphere. His attitude was, \"I’m the star and I can do what I want\"'. Another worker, Ellie Grace, said: 'I hope I never have to experience so many upset children and disappointed fans again.' Speaking to Heat magazine, an insider said the 19-year old refused to go onstage before showering, despite desperate pleas from his management to perform. Diva: A source close to the star told Heat magazine that the Canadian threw a tantrum before the Monday night show at the O2 . Tardy: Despite fans complaining, Bieber still maintains he was only 40 minutes late to stage . Curious: Wearing two expensive watches it's a wonder how Justin couldn't see he was late to his own concert . Another backstage source added: 'His . lateness was because he didn’t get out of bed until late and sat in his . dressing room playing games - even though his door was being knocked.' 'He then threw a strop as he said he wanted a shower first, despite already being late.' It is thought Justin arrived at the O2 arena at 3pm 'to do some meet and greets' but he . was suffering after a ' heavy night at his hotel. But the great audience at the O2 weren't the only ones to be disappointed. A . 15-year old fan - who did not want to be named for fear of backlash . from the Belieber community - was 'blanked' by her musical hero even . though she had won a competition to meet him before the show. The unhappy girl told Heat that she and her friends, waited for three hours to see Justin. However, when their idol finally arrived, they say he spent 'less than ten seconds' with him. She also claims the singer declined to give her a hug, ironically telling his fan 'I don't have time.' A source close to Justin said: 'There was no competition winner that we knew or approved of.' 'If it was a radio contest winner who got a meet and greet, they got the same amount of time as everyone else and exactly what was promised.' The rest of the accounts are 'wildly exaggerated or just untrue.' Party doesn't stop! After his show, Justin heads out for another 'good time' in London . Even an O2 staff member witnessed . Justin's alleged diva-like behaviour: . 'He was arguing with members of . his management, his family. It was a really uncomfortable atmosphere. His attitude was, \"I’m the star and I can do what I want\".' Despite . a wealth of attendees confirming his two hour delay to stage, the . Canadian star still maintains he only kept his fans waiting for 40 . minutes. Still popular: Justin Bieber was presented with an official Wembley Way . Stone this week after playing the stadium last year, causing his fans to record . the loudest scream during the Capital FM Summertime Ball . 'Last night i was scheduled after 3 opening acts to go on stage at 935 . not 830 but because of some technical issues i got on at 10:10..so...(sic)' the singer tweeted. Digital Spy also reported that the star is being asked to pay a £300,000 fine to Greenwich Council for causing the gig to run past the 11pm closing time. However, a Royal Borough of Greenwich spokesperson said: '[We] have not taken any action against the owners of The O2 in relation to Justin Bieber’s recent performance, as no breach of our licensing conditions took place.' Poser: Justin visited Wembley Stadium on Monday to be honoured with his official Wembley Way Stone following his loudest scream recorded at a concert there last year . 'I never have any intent to upset or let anyone down. and Im not okay . with things being exaggerated. once again sorry for anyone upset.(sic)' But to ensure the backlash didn't . continue, the following night's performance saw Justin arrive on stage . two minutes early, according to his official Twitter page. However . it seems the furore hasn't dampened the Girlfriend's singer's feelings . towards the English capital, tweeting a simple message in the early . hours of Wednesday: 'Lovin London. #goodtimes'. And Bieber's popularity doesn't seem to be waning completely either. The Baby hitmaker was presented with his very own Wembley Way Stone this week ahead of his London concerts. Pants down!: Justin Bieber managed to flash his boxers while sitting in his car, giving passerby a glimpse of his bottom . Justin met up with The FA team and headed to Wembley on Monday, where he was inducted into the Wembley Way walk of fame after his performance at last summer’s Capital FM Summertime Ball. Bieber will now be immortalised with a Wembley Way Stone having rocked the stadium last year causing his fans to raise the roof at the national stadium with the loudest scream recorded at the venue. Justin said: 'Thank you to Wembley Stadium for presenting me with my official Wembley Way Stone!  Such an honour to be part of Wembley history, and thank you to my amazing UK Beliebers for helping me put on an incredible show last year!' The pop sensation becomes the second Capital FM Summertime Ball act to be honoured on Wembley Way; he follows Coldplay who were also given a Wembley Stone having been voted as Wembley Stadiums Greatest Moment of the Year for 2012.", "Selena is radiant and smiling like everything's alright with her superstar beau . Estranged couple have 'tentative plans' to meet ahead of his Monday night Brooklyn gig . Bieber tells interviewer: 'I don't know what's going on in my life' Justin performs break up song Cry Me a River day after news breaks . By . Amelia Proud . PUBLISHED: . 22:19 EST, 11 November 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 06:26 EST, 12 November 2012 . Selena Gomez looked far from heartbreak during an appearance for discount chain store K-mart in White Plains, New York on Sunday. Dressed smartly in a red jacket, ivory scarf, black-striped top and form-hugging black trousers, the 20-year-old forced a smile as she touted her fashion line. The young singer seemed bolstered by her throng of fans who had gathered to meet her and she was certainly putting on a brave face since reports of her split with boyfriend Justin Bieber. Scroll down to hear Justin refuse to confirm any split... Happy: Selena Gomez smiled during promotions at K-mart in White Plains, New York, another sign that 'it's not over' with Justin Bieber. In fact, there are 'tentative plans' to meet up ahead of his Brooklyn show on Monday . At one point Selena was so overcome with happiness that she gave one female follower a big hug. Perhaps Selena is also relieved that her relationship with Justin may still have legs, as the teen 'Never Say Never' heartthrob is said to want her back and believes their split is just a temporary 'blip.' Gomez is said to have 'tentative plans' to meet her estranged beau ahead of his Brooklyn concert on Monday night. A source told Mail Online: 'It's not just over for Justin and Selena, whatever happens they have a lot to talk about.' Traffic stopper: Selena wowed the crowd in red jacket, black pin-striped top and hugging black trousers during her visit to the discount chain store . Animated: Selena was very lively with the group, and always gesturing and giggling . Happy shopper: Selena helps a young fan pick out an item from her clothing range at discount store K Mart . 'Their schedules have been packed but Selena has made tentative plans to see Justin in New York before his Brooklyn concert, she hasn't decided if she'll attend yet, but she's keen to talk... and so is he,' the source added. 'They're both being a bit cagey and stubborn but they're desperate to see one another. 'This isn't new for them, they often have a tumultuous relationship. We all expect them to work it out.' Friendly: Selena spent a lot of time chatting and getting to know some of the people attending the promotion . Picture time! Selena posed with one eager fan . Awww: Selena was feeling the love and gave her fan a big hug - will Justin get the same treatment when they meet up? Selena's promotional visit to K-Mart in White Plains was nicely timed to coincide with Justin. Further sources close to the Canadian singer have revealed that the 18-year-old is NOT involved with anyone else despite the fact that he stepped out with Hungarian fashion model Barbara Palvin, 19. The moles, who spoke to TMZ, also explained that Justin feels that he and Selena have broken up before many times and that this split is just another 'blip.' Forcing a smile: The young pop princess appeared relaxed as she chatted to fans during her appearance . Moral support: Selena left her New York hotel later on Sunday night holding a friend's hand . All in the jeans: The actress changed up to head out but stuck to jeans, blue for day... black for night . They added that the pop juggernaut is not 'freaked out' because he believes there's a good chance they'll get back together. And on Saturday, Justin refused to confirm the split when he phone into a radio show. He said: 'I don't know what to say,' he said in an interview with Open House Party. Talks? Bieber wants Gomez back and he's about to get the chance to persuade her . 'I don't know what's going on in my life. To even assess that it doesn't make sense 'cause I have not made any comment.' But he did chose to play a cover version of the song Justin Timberlake wrote after his split from Britney Spears, Cry Me A River, just a day after the 'news' broke. The split came after Justin was apparently seen 'chatting up' models backstage at the Victoria's Secret show on Wednesday. The Canadian singer was seen taking Palvin to see The Lion King on Broadway. E! Online then reported that the couple have gone their separate ways. According to a source they broke up about a week ago, and were last spotted together as long ago as October 20. An insider said: 'Because of their crazy schedules, it was getting harder and harder to maintain a relationship.' Amongst . claims they split last week, Selena angrily posted a picture on her . Twitter page showing Justin with his rumoured new squeeze in the . background on Thursday. The text the 20-year-old posted alongside it was a mysterious, '...' To add even more spice to the story, it . has emerged the fashion model criticised the Wizards of Waverly Place . actress earlier this year. In a webchat 11 months ago she offered to sing her fans a song of their choice, but added: 'I don't like Selena Gomez by the way...' But it seems she was trying to trying to . take back the insult, as when fans tweeted her about the video, she . told them: 'I do like her as an actress! she is talented!:) I did that . ustream a year ago. Just forget it.:).' New friend: After reportedly 'trying to chat up' multiple models at the Victoria's Secret show he ended up taking Barbara Palvin to see the Lion King . Game face: Justin didn't look like he was suffering from heartbreak as he performed in concert in New York on Friday . However she was not shy to post images of her and the star at the high profile fashion show, and next to one where she is in her dressing gown with him, she said: 'Okay sooo because u guys were askin for it! with @justinbieber! you were great tonight!' She also posted an image where she is posing with Justin's manager Scooter Braun and director Alfredo Flores. Additionally, she later wrote 'The Lion King,' with a heart symbol alongside it, however she was clearly referring to the 18-year-old hunk on Friday morning when she posted on Twitter: 'Hey everyone. please calm down. he is all yours!! :) please :).' Despite all the speculation, the Believe star, who was seen appearing in concert in New York on Friday evening, has been keeping mysteriously quiet on the subject. Nearing the end: Justin and Selena did not look very close when he visited her on set on August 29 . Justin was spotted getting flirty with various Victoria's Secret models on Wednesday night after performing at the catwalk show. But Selena seems to be moving fast too if her own online postings are anything to go by. On Thursday night she tweeted a cosy . snap of herself lying down next to British star Gregg Sulkin as they filmed until . the early hours of the morning on location in Hollywood, where they are . shooting their Wizards Of Waverly Place reunion movie. She's got the look: Barbara seen on the catwalk of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show this week, left, and on the pink carpet, right . Telling tweet: Selena added fuel to the fire when she tweeted this photo of Justin with Barbara in the background . Moving on? Selena got tongues wagging when she posted this picture of her and co-star Gregg Sulkin . The news may be received well by fans . of the Baby singer, who have been unpleasant towards Selena since they . started dating in early 2011, frequently attacking her via the internet. She . has said in the past of the comments: 'It hurts, it really does. I . don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. I've been best friends with him . for a very long time. 'It does hurt my feelings a lot, but I try not to focus on it.' Over: Justin and Selena, pictured in April, apparently broke up due to their conflicting schedules .", "They were voted the biggest fashion faux pas of last year, but three young designers want 'meggings' - that's male leggings - to become a wardrobe staple this season. Luke Shipley, Joe Hollingworth and Tom Hunt have unveiled a range of meggings, called sTitch Leggings, which they hope will enable men to 'both look great and feel comfortable in leggings.' So convinced are the trio by their brainchild, which came about after they were forced to wear 'ill-fitting female leggings' to a themed party, that they pitched it on Dragon's Den on Sunday. Stylish? Meggings are the natural evolution from the skinny jean and the once widespread baggy jean, claim sTitch founders, (left to right) Joe Hollingworth, Tom Hunt and Luke Shiple, who are hoping to make the trousers into the next big fashion trend . Priced at £25, sTitch leggings are inspired by celebrities like Russell Brand and Justin Bieber, who both favour meggings for casual daytime wear. They come in an array of bright designs including rainbow-coloured diamonds and hot pink - and even come complete with back pockets for your valuables. The founders claim that they are the natural evolution from the skinny jean and the once widespread baggy jean. Writing on their website, the team say: 'We envision a day where men can wear what they want as opposed to what they should. 'To achieve this, we will strive to design and produce garments that liberate the modern man from conventional male fashion.' However, judging by their appearance before Duncan Bannatyne, Kelly Hoppen, Deborah Meaden, Piers Linney and Peter Jones, the world isn't quite ready for meggings. The idea for meggings came about after the trio were forced to wear 'ill-fitting female leggings' to a party . Priced at £25, sTitch leggings are available in an array of fun designs and even come complete with a back pocket to store your valuables . Deborah Meaden retorted: ‘Seriously, it’s a bet, isn’t it?', while Peter Jones forced the men to swear the pitch wasn’t actually a joke. Kelly Hoppen tweeted during the show saying: 'Is this a joke?' and 'I couldn't be more out if I tried'. All of the Dragons decided against investing the £20,000 requested and Peter Jones concluded by saying meggings were 'one of the most ridiculous ideas in the Den we’ve ever seen’. Speaking to MailOnline following their humiliating appearance on the show, the trio said: 'Six months, three auditions, weeks worth of preparation and rehearsing and we're finally stood in front of big Duncan staring us down, wearing leggings looking redder than the red carpet on Oscars night.' Duncan Bannatyne, Kelly Hoppen, Deborah Meaden, Piers Linney and Peter Jones weren't impressed with the meggings, which one man tests out whilst practicing yoga . 'Duncan said that men don't wear leggings in his gym. You've obviously not graced the gym floor in the past two years big man,' retorted the founders of sTitch leggings, who shared this snap of a man wearing their brand whilst working out . Not ones to take the criticism lying down, they added: 'Debra was the worst. She was the most insulting. 'These guys are so out of touch with the real world that they didn't get the product. 'Big Duncan's telling us that men don't wear leggings in his gym? You've obviously not graced the gym floor in the past two years, big man.' Despite getting turned away by the Dragons, the team have seen a large rise in traffic and social media interaction, including receiving a tweet from the National Lottery. Speaking about the future, they said: 'We will be expanding our range from nine designs by adding a further 12 and there is even talk of a completely new product before the year is out. 'Taking this into account, we are on track to double our 2014 sales figures. 'With every new sale we add to our growing community of men in leggings around the world, this shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.' All of the Dragons decided against investing the £20,000 requested and Peter Jones, second from right, concluded by saying meggings were, 'one of the most ridiculous ideas in the Den we've ever seen' The Twittersphere didn't seem to be convinced by the fashion brand . Fans of the . tight-fitting apparel include Russell Brand (left) and Justin Bieber . (right), who inspired the range .", "By . Jill Reilly . and Eliza Wilson . He infuriated his Chinese and South Korean fans after attending a controversial Japanese shrine. And Justin Bieber went into damage control on Wedneday, sharing a photo on Instagram which showed him visiting children at an orphanage. 'Visited a Japanese orphanage.. Love these kids!!' the singer wrote alongside the short clip. Scroll down for video . Damage control: Justin Bieber visited a Japanese orphanage after a trip to a controversial shrine . The video showed the 20-year-old pop star hanging out with several youngsters, high-fiving, tickling and pretending to wrestle with them. The children may be too young to be fans of his, but they certainly seemed to love Bieber and he in turn couldn't wipe the huge grin off his face. The Baby hit-maker was clad in a long white top, denim and tartan shorts, along with a gold chain around his neck and a Chicago Bulls baseball cap. Child at heart: The 20-year-old was clearly having a great time wrestling, high-fiving and tickling the youngsters . In his element: Justin couldn't stop grinning and posted a video of the visit with the words: 'Love these kids' It comes after the Canadian star set tongues wagging when he put photos on his Instagram feed of Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo which commemorates Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including convicted war criminals. The shrine is highly controversial, with both China and South Korea viewing it as a glorification of Tokyo's wartime aggression, when Japan occupied large areas of China and the Korean peninsula during the Second World War. Justin is . on holiday in Japan with his mother and he posted a photo of the shrine . on his Instagram account - tweeting the link to his 51 million Twitter . followers. Cute as can be: While the children are probably too young to be fans of his, they certainly seemed to love Justin . Travelling: The Canadian pop star is currently in Japan on holiday with his mother . 'I am fashion': Earlier on Wednesday Justin shared this photo along with a very modest caption . One photo, of him standing in front of the shrine, was captioned, 'Thank you for your blessings'. Another which read 'Good morning' showed a photo of him posing with a man in traditional Japanese clothing. The photos, which got more than 585,000 likes, also sparked outrage among his followers. Not happy: Justin infuriated many Chinese and South Koreans by posting photos online of his visit to a controversial Japanese shrine . In bad taste: The Canadian pop star posted photos on his Instagram feed of the Yasukuni Shrine which commemorates Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including convicted war criminals . One user wrote: 'The Yasukuni shrine is dedicated to [those who] killed countless Chinese prisoners ... Japanese planned Nanjing massacre killed tens of thousands of people [in] China. Please face up to history. As a Chinese ... I am so sad that you visited the Yasukuni Shrine.' Another incensed fan wrote: 'Maybe you are a giant in Japan and thats the reason why you like Japan. Anyway, please dont come to China forever, we really don't like stupid people.' The photos have now been removed and Bieber wrote on his Twitter page: 'While in Japan I asked my driver to pull over for which I saw a beautiful shrine. I was mislead to think the Shrines were only a place of prayer. Sorry: The teen popstar was forced into grovelling apology after the visit which he posted on his Twitter account . Holiday: The popstar poses in Japan - he has regularly been updating his Instagram page with photos from his trip . Backtracking: The photos of the shrine which have now been removed, sparked outrage among his followers . 'To anyone I have offended I am extremely sorry. I love you China and I . love you Japan'. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang, said he had not been aware of Bieber’s visit to the shrine, reported the New Strait Times. The Yasukuni shrine was built in 1869 under Emperor Meiji in memory of the country’s war dead. The shrine contains the remains of some of those commemorated, but is mostly a symbolic destination for relatives. However the souls of hundreds of convicted war criminals are also enshrined there. They include Second World War leader General Hideki Tojo, who was put to death for war crimes in 1948. China . and South Korea see the shrine as a symbol of Tokyo’s aggression during . the Second World War, when Japan occupied large areas of China and the . Korean peninsula. Japan entered an unwritten agreement with China in the 1970s which suggested that serving leaders would not visit the shrine. But he added: 'I hope that this Canadian singer after visiting the Yasukuni shrine can have a clear understanding of Japan’s history of invasion and militarism, and of the source of Japan’s militarism.' Last year Bieber was forced to issue an apology after he was pictured kicking the national flag off the stage during a performance in Buenos Aires. He insisted he had believed the flag was a top, and didn't mean any disrespect by his actions, which caused outrage among many fans in the audience. The teen idol also ran into trouble after spraying graffiti on a wall in the same country. A . few months earlier he caused outrage after leaving a 'tasteless' comment in the guestbook at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. The . singer visited the famous home where Jewish wartime diarist Frank and . her family hid from Nazi persecution for two years during the Holocaust. After . spending an hour touring the home, which opened as a museum in 1960, . Bieber wrote a message in the guestbook, which read: 'Truly inspiring to . be able to come here. 'Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a belieber.' The Facebook post garnered hundreds of comments expressing dismay over the young pop sensation's presumptuous remarks. Many described it as 'disrespectful,' 'disgusting' and an 'embarrassment to Canadians. China's . ties with Japan have long been coloured by what Beijing considers . Tokyo's failure to atone for its brutal wartime occupation of parts of . the country and what it sees as whitewashing of atrocities in school . textbooks. Further straining fraught regional ties: Yesterday a Japanese cabinet minister and some 150 politicians visited the shrine . Controversial: The Yasukuni shrine was built in 1869 under Emperor Meiji in memory of the country's war dead. The shrine is mostly a symbolic destination for relatives . Yesterday a Japanese cabinet minister and some 150 politicians visited the shrine, in a move that could further strain fraught regional ties. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent an offering to the shrine on Monday, just days before a Tokyo visit by U.S. President Barack Obama, provoking an angry response from China and South Korea, which decried it as romanticizing Japan's wartime past. Yoshitaka Shindo, the internal affairs minister, along with a close aide to Abe, paid their respects at Yasukuni,as part of the shrine's annual spring festival that ends on Wednesday, the day Obama arrives. 'As this visit was my personal visit, I . don't believe that it will have any effect on the U.S. President's . visit,' Shindo said. A separate visit Shindo made to Yasukuni earlier . this month prompted an angry response from China. Sharp . exit: Justin Bieber leaving the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam in April . after writing a comment that left  Facebook and Twitter fans . outraged in April 2013 . 'I'm sorry': Justin Bieber has apologised to his fans in Argentina after a video which appeared to show him kicking their national flag off stage during a performance in Buenos Aires last year . Abe made a December visit to the shrine which sparked widespread global anger, with key ally the United States saying it was 'disappointed'. But this time Abe opted for an offering, and not a visit, aimed at pleasing his conservative supporters while trying to minimise international criticism. Seiichi Eto, a special aide to Abe, told reporters that his visit and those of the lawmakers 'should have nothing to do' with Obama's visit. 'The government should not interfere with a shrine visit made by an individual, since that would infringe on their freedom of belief,' chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference on Tuesday. 'This is the fundamental thinking of the Abe government.'", "There's nothing between him and Victoria's Secret model Barbara Palvin . Selena seen leaving her New York hotel on Sunday . Estranged couple have 'tentative plans' to meet ahead of his Monday night Brooklyn gig . Bieber tells interviewer: 'I don't know what's going on in my life' Justin performs break up song Cry Me a River day after news breaks . Justin Bieber wants Selena Gomez back and believes their split is just a temporary 'blip.' And Gomez flew to New York on Saturday with 'tentative plans' to meet her estranged beau ahead of his Brooklyn concert on Monday night. A source told Mail Online: 'It's not just over for Justin and Selena, whatever happens they have a lot to talk about. Scroll down to hear Justin refuse to confirm any split... Time to talk: Selena Gomez arrived in New York on Saturday night with 'tentative plans' to meet up with Justin Bieber ahead of his Brooklyn show on Monday, she was seen leaving her New York hotel on Sunday morning . 'Their schedules have been packed but Selena has made tentative plans to see Justin in New York before his Brooklyn concert, she hasn't decided if she'll attend yet, but she's keen to talk... and so is he. 'They're both being a bit cagey and stubborn but they're desperate to see one another. 'This isn't new for them, they often have a tumultuous relationship. We all expect them to work it out.' Selena was in the city for a promotional visit to K-Mart in White Plains, nicely timed to coincide with Justin. Further sources close to the Canadian singer have revealed that the 18-year-old is NOT involved with anyone else despite the fact that he stepped out with Hungarian fashion model Barbara Palvin, 19. The moles, who spoke to TMZ, also explained that Justin feels that he and Selena have broken up before many times and that this split is just another 'blip.' Preoccupied: Selena seemed to have a lot on her mind as she walked near her Manhattan hotel on Sunday morning . Long way to go: Selena looked miserable but a source close to her revealed she does want to meet with Justin on the East Coast . Moral support: Selena left her New York hotel later on Sunday night holding a friend's hand . All in the jeans: The actress changed up to head out but stuck to jeans, blue for day... black for night . They added that the pop juggernaut is not 'freaked out' because he believes there's a good chance they'll get back together. And on Saturday, Justin refused to confirm the split when he phone into a radio show. He said: 'I don't know what to say,' he said in an interview with Open House Party. Talks? Bieber wants Gomez back and he's about to get the chance to persuade her . 'I don't know what's going on in my life. To even assess that it doesn't make sense 'cause I have not made any comment.' But he did chose to play a cover version of the song Justin Timberlake wrote after his split from Britney Spears, Cry Me A River, just a day after the 'news' broke. The split came after Justin was apparently seen 'chatting up' models backstage at the Victoria's Secret show on Wednesday. The Canadian singer was seen taking Palvin to see The Lion King on Broadway. E! Online then reported that the couple have gone their separate ways. According to a source they broke up about a week ago, and were last spotted together as long ago as October 20. An insider said: 'Because of their crazy schedules, it was getting harder and harder to maintain a relationship.' Amongst . claims they split last week, Selena angrily posted a picture on her . Twitter page showing Justin with his rumoured new squeeze in the . background on Thursday. The text the 20-year-old posted alongside it was a mysterious, '...' To add even more spice to the story, it . has emerged the fashion model criticised the Wizards of Waverly Place . actress earlier this year. In a webchat 11 months ago she offered to sing her fans a song of their choice, but added: 'I don't like Selena Gomez by the way...' But it seems she was trying to trying to . take back the insult, as when fans tweeted her about the video, she . told them: 'I do like her as an actress! she is talented!:) I did that . ustream a year ago. Just forget it.:).' New friend: After reportedly 'trying to chat up' multiple models at the Victoria's Secret show he ended up taking Barbara Palvin to see the Lion King . Game face: Justin didn't look like he was suffering from heartbreak as he performed in concert in New York on Friday . However she was not shy to post images of her and the star at the high profile fashion show, and next to one where she is in her dressing gown with him, she said: 'Okay sooo because u guys were askin for it! with @justinbieber! you were great tonight!' She also posted an image where she is posing with Justin's manager Scooter Braun and director Alfredo Flores. Additionally, she later wrote 'The Lion King,' with a heart symbol alongside it, however she was clearly referring to the 18-year-old hunk on Friday morning when she posted on Twitter: 'Hey everyone. please calm down. he is all yours!! :) please :).' Despite all the speculation, the Believe star, who was seen appearing in concert in New York on Friday evening, has been keeping mysteriously quiet on the subject. Nearing the end: Justin and Selena did not look very close when he visited her on set on August 29 . Justin was spotted getting flirty with various Victoria's Secret models on Wednesday night after performing at the catwalk show. But Selena seems to be moving fast too if her own online postings are anything to go by. On Thursday night she tweeted a cosy . snap of herself lying down next to British star Gregg Sulkin as they filmed until . the early hours of the morning on location in Hollywood, where they are . shooting their Wizards Of Waverly Place reunion movie. She's got the look: Barbara seen on the catwalk of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show this week, left, and on the pink carpet, right . Telling tweet: Selena added fuel to the fire when she tweeted this photo of Justin with Barbara in the background . Moving on? Selena got tongues wagging when she posted this picture of her and co-star Gregg Sulkin . The news may be received well by fans . of the Baby singer, who have been unpleasant towards Selena since they . started dating in early 2011, frequently attacking her via the internet. She . has said in the past of the comments: 'It hurts, it really does. I . don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. I've been best friends with him . for a very long time. 'It does hurt my feelings a lot, but I try not to focus on it.' Over: Justin and Selena, pictured in April, apparently broke up due to their conflicting schedules .", "The latest stars eager to take the Los Angeles Clippers off the hands of disgraced owner Donald Sterling are reportedly unlikely duo Floyd Mayweather Jr and Justin Bieber. According to Melanie Collins, a sports reporter for Yahoo, the pair are planning to join forces, along with Magic Johnson, to buy the team. 'Just spoke to Mayweather, he told me he put in a call to Magic [Johnson] and had Justin over last night to discuss joint Clippers ownership,' reads a tweet she posted Friday. Unlikely team: Floyd Mayweather Jr (left) and Justin Bieber (right) are reportedly combining forces to purchase the Clippers . Potential buyers: Last night, the pair indulged in some pampering and allegedly discussed the possibility of buying the team . There's definitely some truth to the speculation - Bieber and Mayweather were together last night as evidenced by photo and video posted to Instagram of the pop star and the boxer enjoying his 'n' his pedicures. In the video Mayweather says: 'Pedicure, massage - we make it do what it do.' The 20-year-old singer is apparently helping the undefeated boxer prepare for his bout with Marcos Maidana on Saturday. Mayweather, 37, wrote on Instagram: '#moneyteam spa. Gettin ready for the fight.' The pair struck up their unlikely friendship last year, with the singer flying out to Las Vegas to see the fighter take on Canelo Alvarez in September. Is the next step NBA team ownership? Scoop: Melanie Collins tweeted about the possibility today . Embattled: Stars are lining up to take the Clippers of the hands of disgraced owner Donald Sterling . American talk show host Oprah Winfrey has also added her name to the list of stars looking to buy the Los Angeles Clippers. After . Clippers owner Donald Sterling was banned for life by NBA commissioner . Adam Silver, a number of people have expressed an interest in the . franchise including Oscar De La Hoya and Magic . Johnson. But now Oprah has joined David Geffen and Larry Ellison and formed a consortium to take over the NBA team. The three billionaires have a combined wealth of $60 billion (£35.54b). Partners: Oprah Winfrey (seen here on Tuesday) leaving the CBS Studios in New York City has confirmed that she and David Geffen (right) want to buy the LA Clippers . Interested party: Oracle CEO Larry Ellison watches the Los Angeles Clippers face the Golden State Warriors in Game Three of the Western Conference Quarterfinals during the 2014 NBA Playoffs at Oracle Arena on April 24, 2014 in Oakland, California . Competition: Floyd Mayweather, who is preparing to fight Marcos Maidana, wants to buy the Clippers along with Justin Bieber . Television . entrepreneur Winfrey, is joining forces with the world's fifth richest . man, Ellison and entertainment mogul Geffen to pry the franchise from . Sterling's grip - after he revealed he would not sell the team he bought . for $12 million (£7.1m) in 1982. Mayweather, meanwhile, wants to put the $40 million which is his guaranteed minimum for Saturday night’s fight towards cost to purchase the Clippers. However, despite the celebrity . billionaire interest, Sterling is refusing to sell his team - . signaling a lengthy and costly legal battle with the NBA. On the court: The Clippers lead Golden State 3-2 in their first round play-off series . Adamant: Despite the high level of interest in buying the franchise he has owned for 32-years, Donald Sterling has declared he has zero intention of selling the LA Clippers . Long-time friends: Oprah Winfrey and David Geffen pictured in November 2012 in Los Angeles . Friends: Lary Ellison (left) with his son David and his wife Melody and David Geffen (right) at a screening of the 'Flyboys' in September 2006 . NBA commissioner Silver has told Sterling that he wants him to sell the Clippers as part of the extreme sanctions brought against the owner in response to racist comments he was recorded making by a former girlfriend. 'I fully expect to get the support I need from the other NBA owners to remove him,' Silver said. The NBA on Tuesday banned Sterling from the game for life and fined him $2.5 million for racist comments that drew a storm of outrage from players, fans and commercial sponsors. Laying down the law: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that Donald Sterling will be banned from the sport of professional basketball for life and will not allowed to be involved in the business of the LA Clippers . Under fire: Sterling was interviewed by NBA investigators and they determined that it was his voice on the tape and he did hold the 'hateful' views . Recording: The racist comments were made on a phone conversation between Sterling and his girlfriend V. Stiviano (left) and the NBA investigation determined it was his voice on the tape . Hiding: Stiviano, who works as a model, has been using visor hats to keep her hidden from cameras (pictured Monday) in light of the scandal but she has denied leaking the recording ." ]

[ "Oxygen is 21%, Nitrogen is 78%, Carbon Dioxide and other elements like argon make up the other 1 percent." ]

[ "One of the major gases is inert-Argon, and doesnt really seem to cycle-it makes up about 1%. The primary gas is nitrogen, a small amount of which is fixed in the roots of plants (or by symbiotic organisms in those roots) and lifeforms such as blue-green algae-it makes up about 78%. The greatest cycling gas is oxygen, which makes up about 21%. Free oxygen, as found in our atmosphere, is extremely rare and likely would not be found in the absence of life-Oxygen in very reactive-many elements and compounds readily oxidize, such as iron turning to rust. On Earth, plants take in carbon dioxide and split it, using the carbon to build things such as carbohydrates- the oxygen is releases, and used by aerobic lifeforms for respiration. The level of carbon dioxide is about 0.1%- This is also very unusual, since in other planets with an atmosphere, carbon dioxide is a major gas...again, low CO2 is probably a sign of life. The CO2 is low because the plants use it-it is returnd to the atmosphere by respiration.", "None!\\n\\nAtmosphere is made up of Nitrogen (78%), Oxygen (21%),Argon (0.9%) and other gasses e.g Carbon dioxide, Methane, Rare (inert) gases (0.1%)", "Three ways to interpret this question.\\n\\n1. As a percentage of all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is ~380ppm or 600 x 10^15 g C. In this case we add <1% per year. The atmospheric carbon dioxide is then projected to double, at present rates of increase, in just over 100 years.\\n\\n2. As a percentage of the net input flux of carbon of which we are responsible for about 95%.\\n\\n3. As a percentage of the net total flux of carbon, of which we are closer to 15-20%, which I think somebody already mentioned.", "As of right now, no. Earth's atmosphere is about 20-25% oxygen and about 75% nitrogen. Mars' atmosphere is about 95% carbon dixoide, so humans cannot breathe on Mars. It is conceivable that certain types of photosynthetic algae could survive on Mars, transforming carbon dioxide to oxygen via photosyntheis. However, the atmosphere would still require nitrogen to be breathable.", "oxygen and carbon dioxide", "Primarily made up of nitrogen (78.09%) and oxygen (20.95%). The remaining 1% is made up of argon (0.93%), carbon dioxide (0.03%) and other trace gases (0.003%). Water vapor (water in its gaseous state) is also present in air in varying amounts.", "Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen", "Although in the 1950s' experiments, the early atmosphere of Earth was thought to be highly reducing, with methane, ammonia and hydrogen, currently many researchers consider that this early atmosphere was not so reducing, and it was dominated by carbon dioxide (CO2) rather than methane (CH4), and molecular nitrogen (N2) instead of ammonia (NH3). There would also have been sulphur gases from volcanic activity.", "From the name I'd say hydrogen, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen", "Well Global warming is a great threat, it is damaging planet earth. I was reading in this physics book about the effects of global warming and it stated that the rising levels of harmful chemical gases in the earth's atmosphere could damage the earth forever. It says the with the build up of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen, methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere, a giant chemical ring will form around the earth's atmosphere blocking sunlight coming into earth, so therefore the earth turns into \"lo\" one of jupiter's many moons. I'm not saying that this is true, but that's what i read in my book.", "ALL human beings inhale atmospheric air, absorb its oxygen, and exhale carbon dioxide.\\nOn the other hand, ALL plants intake atmospheric air, absorb its carbon dioxide, and exhale the oxygen - which proves beneficial to humankind !", "Nitrogen Cycle, natural cyclic process in the course of which atmospheric nitrogen enters the soil and becomes part of living organisms, before returning to the atmosphere. Nitrogen, an essential part of the amino acids, is a basic element of life. It also makes up 79 per cent of the Earth's atmosphere, but gaseous nitrogen must be converted to a chemically usable form before it can be used by living organisms. This is accomplished through the nitrogen cycle, in which gaseous nitrogen is converted to ammonia or nitrates (salts of nitric acid). The high energies provided by lightning and cosmic radiation serve to combine atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen into nitrates, which are carried to the Earth's surface in precipitation. Nitrogen fixation, the biological process which accounts for the bulk of the nitrogen-conversion process, is accomplished by free-living, nitrogen-fixing bacteria; symbiotic bacteria living on the roots of plants (mostly legumes and alders); cyanobacteria; certain lichens; and epiphytes in tropical forests.\\n\\nNitrogen “fixed” as ammonia and nitrates is taken up directly by plants and incorporated in their tissues as plant proteins. The nitrogen then passes through the food chain from plants to herbivores to carnivores in the process known as the food web. When plants and animals die, the nitrogenous compounds are broken down by decomposing into ammonia, a process called ammonification. Some of this ammonia is taken up by plants; the rest is dissolved in water or held in the soil, where micro-organisms convert it into nitrates and nitrites in a process called nitrification. Nitrates may be stored in decomposing humus or leached from the soil and carried to streams and lakes. They may also be converted to free nitrogen through denitrification and returned to the atmosphere.\\n\\nIn natural systems, nitrogen lost by denitrification, leaching, erosion, and similar processes is replaced by fixation and other nitrogen sources. Human intrusion in the nitrogen cycle, however, can result in less nitrogen being cycled, or in an overload of the system. For example, the cultivation of croplands, harvesting of crops, and cutting of forests have all caused a steady decline of nitrogen in the soil. (Some of the losses on agricultural lands are replaced only by applying energy-expensive nitrogenous fertilizers manufactured by artificial fixation.) On the other hand, the leaching of nitrogen from overfertilized croplands, cutover forestland, and animal wastes and sewage has contributed to water pollution by adding too much nitrogen to aquatic ecosystems, resulting in reduced water quality and the stimulation of excessive algal growth. In addition, nitrogen dioxide poured into the atmosphere from vehicle exhausts and power plants breaks down to form ozone and reacts with other atmospheric pollutants to form photochemical smog.\\n\\n\\nCarbon Cycle (ecology), in ecology, the cycle of carbon usage by which energy flows through the Earth's ecosystem. The basic cycle begins when photosynthesizing plants use carbon dioxide (CO2) found in the atmosphere or dissolved in water. Some of this carbon is incorporated in plant tissue as carbohydrates, fats, and protein; the rest is returned to the atmosphere or water by respiration. Carbon is thus passed on to herbivores that eat the plants and thereby use, rearrange, and degrade the carbon compounds. Much of it is given off as CO2 in respiration, as a by-product of metabolism, but some is stored in animal tissue and is passed on to carnivores feeding on the herbivores. Ultimately, all the carbon compounds are broken down by decomposition, and the carbon is released as CO2 to be used again by plants.\\nOn a global scale the carbon cycle involves an exchange of CO2 between two great reservoirs: the atmosphere and the Earth's waters. Atmospheric CO2 enters water by diffusion across the air-water surface. If the CO2 concentration in the water is less than that in the atmosphe", "Check out the source below, there are great animations there as well as the following information:\\n\\nThe origin of the Earth\\nThe age of the Earth was once, and still is, a matter great debate. In 1650 Archbishop Ussher used the Bible to calculate that the Earth was created in 4004BC. Later on in the mid-nineteenth century Charles Darwin believed that the Earth must be extremely old because he recognised that natural selection and evolution required vast amounts of time. \\n\\nIt wasn't until the discovery of radioactivity that scientists began to put a timescale on the history of the Earth. Rocks often contain heavy radioactive elements which decay over long periods of time, the decay is unaffected by the physical and chemical conditions and different elements decay at different rates (These rates are slow and half-lifes of several hundred million years are not uncommon)\\n\\nThroughout this century the race has been on to discover the oldest rocks in the world. The oldest volcanic rock found so far has been dated at 3.75 billion years old, but this is not the whole story. Meteorites created at the same time as the Earth hit us all the time, radioactive dating shows that they are about 4.55 billion years old.\\n\\nTHE EARLY ATMOSPHERE\\n\\nThe present composition of the atmosphere is: 21% OXYGEN \\n 78% NITROGEN \\n 0.04% CARBON DIOXIDE \\n ~0.9% ARGON \\n\\nThe atmosphere wasn't like this when the Earth was created over 4½ billion years ago.\\n\\nTHE FIRST BILLION YEARS\\n\\nThe Earth's surface was originally molten, as it cooled the volcanoes belched out massive amounts of CARBON DIOXIDE, STEAM, AMMONIA and METHANE. There was NO OXYGEN. The STEAM condensed to form water which then produced shallow seas. \\n\\nEvidence points to bacteria flourishing 3.8 billion years ago so this means that life got under way about 700 million years after the Earth was created. Such early forms of life existed in the shallow oceans close to thermal vents, these vents were a source of heat and minerals. \\n\\nTHE NEXT BILLION YEARS\\n\\nThese primitive life forms then took the next evolutionary step and started to PHOTOSYNTHESISE (using sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water to food energy and oxygen). This was an important turning point in Earth history because the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was being converted to oxygen. \\n\\nThese green plants went on producing oxygen (and removing the CO2). \\nMost of the carbon from the carbon dioxide in the air became locked up in sedimentary rocks as carbonates and fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide also dissolved into the oceans. \\nThe ammonia and methane in the atmosphere reacted with the oxygen. \\nNitrogen gas was released, partly from the reaction between ammonia and oxygen, but mainly from living organisms such as denitrifying bacteria. (remember that nitrogen is a very unreactive gas and it has built up slowly). \\n\\nTHE LAST 2½ BILLION YEARS OR SO\\n\\nAs soon as the oxygen was produced by photosynthesis it was taken out again by reacting with other elements (such as iron).This continued until about 2.1 billion years ago when the concentration of oxygen increased markedly. As oxygen levels built up and then . . . . . . \\n\\nThe ozone layer was formed which started to filter out harmful ultraviolet rays. This allowed the evolution of new living organisms in the shallow seas.", "the boiling point of oxygen is -183oC.\\n\\nthe freezing point of carbon dioxide at atmospheric pressure is -78oC.\\n\\ntherefore having a mixture of the two in a flask, and cooling with liquid nitrogen (~-170oC) will freeze the CO2 to a solid, and leave the oxygen as a gas. You can then separate the two. If you feel -170oC is too close to the condensing point of oxygen, then add some diethyl ether to your liquid nitrogen and this will raise the temperature of your ice-bath to ~ -100oC.", "The earth's spheres 101:\\n\\nAtmosphere\\nComposition: 78% Nitrogen; 21% Oxygen; the rest (1%) is Argon, Carbon Dioxide, and other gases.\\nStructure: Has 4 layers divided by temperature changes...\\ntroposphere-the layer we live in; most oxygen b/c of gravity; weather occurs here; temp decreases as you go up; atmospheric pressure decreases also\\nstratosphere-contains atmospheric ozone layer; jets fly in this layer; temp increases due to ozone layer; pressure continues to decrease\\nmesosphere-temp decreases again; meteorites burn up as enters our atmosphere here; temp decreases b/c moving away from ozone layer; pressure decreases\\nthermosphere-literally means \"heat sphere\"; is the hottest of all the layers despite the fact it has the least amount of air b/c cosmic radiation is constantly bombarding air particles; satellites put into orbit here\\n\\nLithosphere:\\nComposition of crust-made mostly of silicon, oxygen, & aluminum\\nstructure-crust is divided into lithospheric plates that move due to convection of molten rock in the asthenosphere; there are over a dozen major plates; movement of plates cause earthquakes to occur as well as volcanic activity\\n\\nHydrosphere\\nIncludes all the water in the earth's rivers, lakes, streams, air, oceans, groundwater, & living tissues; 98% of water is stored in the oceans; most of earth's freshwater is locked up in glaciers; groundwater is the most abundant source of usable freshwater\\nmovement of water (water cycle)-water moves in a constant cycle called the water cycle; most of the water that constitutes precipitation comes from the oceans; water is evaporated from oceans, lakes, etc. then rises w/ warm air masses, cools, condenses, becomes clouds, precipitates, then either becomes groundwater, runoff, etc. then makes its way back into the oceans.", "At one atmosphere the alveolar partial pressure of oxygen (Po2) is around 105 mmHg. Ambient air has a Po2 of 152 mmHg.(Alveolar oxygen is about 69% of atmospheric) (Po2 = Patm x 20/100) as oxygen makes up about 20 percent of the dry atmospheric air. Assuming (1) that the concentration of oxygen is the same at 685 mmHg and (2) that the same ratio of oxygen is in the lungs. Then Po2 = 685mmHg x 0.20 x0.69 =94.5mmHg with 3 sig figs.", "Oxygen breathed into the lungs diffuses into the alveoli, and then passes through into the capillary walls. Here it turns into oxyhaemoglobin. Carbon dioxide is carried by blood into the alveoli and is breathed out of the lungs.\\n\\nGases diffuse along pressure gradients. In other words, gases spread from high concentration areas to low-concentration areas.\\n\\nThe blood in the capillaries arriving at the alveoli is low in oxygen and high in carbon dioxide. Air in the alveoli is high in oxygen and low in carbon dioxide. \\n\\nTherefore oxygen diffuses into the blood (attaching itself to the haemoglobin), and carbon dioxide diffuses into the alveoli, where it is breathed out.\\n\\nThe reverse process occurs at the capillaries that surround the muscle fibres", "oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, methane, helium", "Hydrosphere - The part of the Earth composed of water including clouds, oceans, seas, ice caps, glaciers, lakes, rivers, underground water supplies, and atmospheric water vapor.\\n\\nLithosphere - That part of the earth which is composed predominantly of rocks (either coherent or incoherent, and including the disintegrated rock materials known as soils and subsoils), together with everything in this rocky crust. Littoral Zone - The area on, or near the shore of a body water.\\n\\nAtmosphere - The mixture of gases surrounding the Earth. The Earth's atmosphere consists of about 79.1% nitrogen (by volume), 20.9% oxygen, 0.036% carbon dioxide and trace amounts of other gases. The atmosphere can be divided into a number of layers according to its mixing or chemical characteristics, generally determined by its thermal properties (temperature).", "Sorry freak...not nitrogen...frozen carbon dioxide is commonly referred to as \"dry ice\". And no way is it water in any sense.\\n\\nThanks Roscoe.", "Hydrogen and helium, mostly. \\n\\n\\nElement Number %\\n\\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\\n in percent\\nHydrogen 92.0\\nHelium 7.8 \\nCarbon 0.02 \\nNitrogen 0.008\\nOxygen 0.06\\nNeon 0.01 \\nMagnesium 0.003\\nSilicon 0.004\\nSulfur 0.002\\nIron 0.003", "in biology, the exchange of carbon between living organisms and the nonliving environment. Inorganic carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is converted by plants into simple carbohydrates, which are then used to produce more complex substances. Animals eat the plants and are then eaten by other animals. When these life forms die, they decay, breaking down into, among many other things, carbon dioxide, which returns to the atmosphere. Plants and animals also release carbon dioxide during respiration. Animals and some microorganisms require the carbon-containing substances from plants in order to produce energy and as a source of materials for many of their own biochemical reactions; this cycle is vital to them. The process of incorporating carbon dioxide into the molecules of living matter is called fixation. Nearly all carbon dioxide fixation is accomplished by means of photosynthesis, in which green plants form carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water, using the energy of sunlight to drive the chemical reactions involved. Green plants use carbohydrates to build the other organic molecules that make up their cells, such as cellulose, fats, proteins, and nucleic acids. Some of these compounds require the incorporation of nitrogen (see nitrogen cycle). When carbohydrates are oxidized in cells they release the energy stored in their chemical bonds, and some of that energy is also used by the cell to drive other reactions. In the process of oxidation, or respiration, oxygen from the atmosphere (or from water) is combined with portions of the carbohydrate molecule, producing carbon dioxide and water, the compounds from which the carbohydrates were originally formed. However, not all of the carbon atoms incorporated by the plant can be returned to the atmosphere by its own respiration; some remain fixed in the organic materials that make up its cells. When the plant dies, its tissues are consumed by bacteria and other microorganisms, a process called decay. These microorganisms break down the organic molecules of the plant and use them for their own cell-building and energy needs; by their respiration more of the carbon is returned to the atmosphere. The carbon-containing molecules that an animal derives from consuming other organisms are reorganized to build its own cells or oxidized for energy by respiration, releasing carbon dioxide and water. When the animal dies it too is decayed by microorganisms, resulting in the return of more carbon to the atmosphere. Carbon-containing molecules in wood (or other dry, slow-decaying organic materials) may be oxidized by burning, or combustion, also producing carbon dioxide and water. Under conditions prevailing on earth at certain times, green plants have decayed only partially and have been transformed into fossil fuels–coal, peat, and oil. These materials are made of organic compounds formed by the plants; when burned, they too restore carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.", "carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.", "when light radiations enters earths atmosphere then these rays are trapped by carbon dioxide and water molecules present in the atmosphere. moreover earth release absorbed heat radiations at night then carcarbon dioxide and water molecules again absorb the released heat.thus these molecules increase the temperature of earth's atmosphere. this increase in temperature is green house effect.", "Percent composition of\\ndry atmosphere, by volume ppmv: parts per million by volume \\nGas Volume \\nNitrogen (N2) 78.084% \\nOxygen (O2) 20.946% \\nArgon (Ar) 0.9340% \\nCarbon dioxide (CO2) 365 ppmv \\nNeon (Ne) 18.18 ppmv \\nHelium (He) 5.24 ppmv \\nMethane (CH4) 1.745 ppmv \\nKrypton (Kr) 1.14 ppmv \\nHydrogen (H2) 0.55 ppmv \\nNot included in above dry atmosphere: \\nWater vapor (highly variable) typically 1% \\n\\nThis is from Wikipedia See link below:", "Carbondioxide gas, Oxygen gas and Nitrogen gas", "osmosis can occur in the small intestine where water is secreated and absorbed, while diffusion occurs in the lungs where oxygen is diffused into the blood stream and carbon dioxide is excreated from the blood stream to the atmosphere", "weel it depends. humans produse carbon dioxide for oxygen taken into the body. The human Co2 productivity in relevance to the atmosphere is somehow conciderate. We expell the gas ( Co2 ) which makes us part of the contributing factor to its presence. Our surface area to volume ratio limmit us the dirrect impact to the Co2 we produse as a result of respiration.", "Hyperventilation or hyperpnea is the state of breathing faster or deeper than usual. This usually depletes or reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood leading to respiratory alkalosis. This causes various symptoms such as numbness or tingling in the hands, feet and lips, lightheadedness, dizziness, headache, chest pain, slurred speech and sometimes fainting. In normal breathing, both the depth and frequency of breaths is varied by the neural system in order to supply appropriate levels of oxygen to the body's tissues. This is mainly done by measuring the carbon dioxide content of the blood; normally, a high carbon dioxide concentration signals a low oxygen concentration, as we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide at the same time, and the body's cells use oxygen to burn fuel molecules to carbon dioxide.\\n\\nThe gasses in the alveoli of the lungs are nearly in equilibrium with the gasses in the blood. Normally, less than 10% of the gas in the alveoli is replaced each breath. Deeper or quicker breaths exchange more of the alvolar gas with air and have the net effect of drawing more carbon dioxide out of the body, since the carbon dioxide concentration in normal air is very low.\\n\\nThe resulting low concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood is known as hypocapnia. Since carbon dioxide is held in the blood mostly in the form of carbonic acid, hypocapnia results in the blood becoming alkaline, i.e. the blood pH value rises. (In the normal person, this alkalosis would automatically be countered by reduced breathing, but for various reasons this doesn't happen when the causes of hyperventilation mentioned above are present.)\\n\\nIf carbon dioxide levels are high, the body assumes that oxygen levels are low, and accordingly the brain's blood vessels dilate, to assure sufficient blood flow and supply of oxygen. Conversely, low carbon dioxide levels (e.g. from hyperventilation) cause the brain's blood vessels to constrict, resulting in reduced blood flow to the brain and lightheadedness. Doctors sometimes artificially induce hyperventilation after head injury to reduce the pressure in the skull, though the treatment has obvious risks", "Taking the average composition of air(78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen) you get an average weight for air of about 28 amu's. Carbon monoxide has a weight of 30 amu's so it's slightly heavier.\\nLooking at air differently carbon monoxide is heavier than nitrogen gas but lighter than oxygen gas.", "Those space suit the astronauts wear? THey are hooked up to and filled with not pure oxygen, like other answerers said, but the same mix of air as on earth - 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. This is done because pure oxygen is extremely flammable, and the astronauts of Apollo 1 died when a spark went off in their cockpit.", "cyanobacteria...they liked the Carbon and the nitrogen in the primordial atmosphere and they give off oxygen as a product of their metabolism. But yeah, today seaweed gives off the most oxygen...just think of a forest of trees the size of the atlantic...that's a lot of green!" ]

[ "Love this product and the amount is fantastic! I have some every day with my Kefir in the morning! I put 3 tsps. in warm water & then let it set and put 2 tsps of that in my Kefir for breakfast. This Chia is well packaged and excellent quality. It came very quickly after ordering. I have ordered in the past & will order more in the future. Thank you!" ]

[ "Love this. Cardinals do love it. It looks good too. I put safflower seeds in mine rather than the black oil seeds. The squirrels still come but not as often.", "A co-worker introduced me to Chia seeds (an incredibly healthy and nutritious Aztec secret superfood). Not too many books are written on it (so far) so I was happy to find a cookbook focusing on it's use. The recipes are all tasty and easy sounding, but reader beware! This book appears to be self published and before printing I don't think anyone bothered to proof-read it. There are many mis-spellings and one recipe I read looks like it was re-written, but the original text was never deleted. I wouldn't recommend this book for beginners simply because some recipe instructions contradict themselves...if you're not familiar with cooking steps you'll end up rinsing your finished dish down the drain (as instructed :)", "Being gluten free it's difficult to find convenient breakfast options. This tastes great and with a little extra protein powder and chia seeds keeps me full until lunch.", "My wife and I think this is hilarious and are buying it right now as a Yankee Swap gift. Besides, who in their right mind buys a chia pet and be serious about it?", "I'm a big fan of coconut and completely intrigued with chia seeds (did you know if you combine them with any liquid they turn into pudding on their own?). So when I found this granola that combined both elements, of course I had to try it. So I bought a box and used it continuously.\n\nObviously this is what someone thinks of as a breakfast food. Which is what I personally used it for but it really could be used for other things as well. I made a kind of baked dish with yogurt in muffin cups with this, as well as combining it with yogurt and fruit for a parfait type of dish for breakfast. But really, anything involving granola can use this product. Or you can just eat it out of the box as a snack. It's versatile like that. And while it's kind of pricey for a small box, I found that this provided me at least two weeks of breakfast by using it in those types of dishes and portions. The box, however, says that normally this contains six servings if you use the recommended serving size.\n\nAnd the taste is exactly what it says it would be. It tastes like coconut and oats. I find that chia seeds don't really have a taste to me, so while I could see them in this dish, they didn't really make a difference to the taste. And you can pair this granola with anything that tastes good with coconuts. I, myself used cherries and cooked spiced pears mainly and it provided a nice contrast. The oat taste wasn't too over powering, and there weren't any other spices noticeable in the granola itself. I should note that without the stuff I added, it might have been considered a kind of bland granola. And the texture on its own is crunchy, but because of the chia seeds, if you add any kind of moisture, it can get gummy. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but may be surprising to some.\n\nThe ingredients themselves are very good with the majority being organic. There are rolled oats, evaporated cane juice, soy oil, dried coconut, brown rice flour, chia seeds, oat syrup solids, coconut flavor, sea salt, molasses and vanilla. And it should be noted that just because there isn't regular wheat products in here, it is made in a facility that uses wheat and peanuts. Now with all these good for you products there are still a hefty amount of calories in a serving. 270 to be exact with 11 grams of fat. But there is no cholesterol and sodium is nominal. There's quite a bit of carbohydrates and potassium though. And even some vitamins like Iron and Calcium. So it isn't a bad choice for a breakfast for someone looking to go the healthy filling route.\n\nI quite enjoyed this granola/cereal. While on its own it could use a little more flavor, it's a great base to mix with other ingredients. I will probably buy it again.\n\nReview by M. Reynard 2012", "This is probably one of the best, if not THE best, non dairy protein powder that I've ever had. The other ones I've tried had a strong artificial sweetener taste and gave me a slight stomach ache - Bob's did NOT. It blends fairly smooth in with smoothies, not gritty like some others. And I also use it for baking and it doesn't give the baked goods an off flavor like the other non dairy protein powders that I've used. I barely even notice the chia seeds are in there, it just adds a pleasant texture to things.", "First of all, this gravy has chia seeds - which might be fine for dogs but is not great for cats. My cat wouldn't even sniff it, much less eat it. I don't think she recognized it as a food even. Second, this gravy is like grit - which means that it was not good for the purpose I purchased it for - a smooth gravy that would not bother my cat's mouth. She had oral cancer and towards the end I was straining gravy from gravy cat food and feeding her cat milk. If this is why you are thinking about buying this item, don't.", "Mango Apple Chia bars are delicious. Keep an eye on the prices (especially if you subscribe), as sometimes they are way overpriced with dynamic pricing.", "This cacao powder is of excellent quality. It is ground so fine and the chocolate taste is strong. I like the fact that there are no or little sugar in the product. I have used it to make hot chocolate which is my indulgent treat and have also added it to my smoothies and chia pudding.", "I use these bottles in all my other handhelds and decided to try one designed for it. Fits my small hands well and the pocket is big enough for a chia bar, cash, id, and keys. Has a cool strap that keeps keys from bouncing and rattling, big sanity saver without headphones.", "The weight is perfect, and I love the way it stays in place on the table! I know this cloth will last for awhile. The only downside is the length of time it takes to receive it, coming on a slow boat from CHIA!,,,", "Had never tried and knew my local warehouse store had a huge jug for sale, thought I'd start with a little one to try. Very good flavor. I add to my morning oatmeal/chia/yogurt/fruit mix and don't feel so guilty using this powdered variety.", "This is definately a great film. The acting,although dubbed,is pretty good and the movie manages to stay on track. It is mostly serious except a couple silly scenes. The movie highlights chinese legend Huo Yuen Chia. This was the master of Bruce Lee in Chinese Connection,and Jet Li in Fist Of Legend. Although in this movie he's called Fok Yuen Gap(translation error?).Huo's father(Phillip Kao) views him(young Yuen Chia is played by Yuen Yat Chor)as a weakling and will not train him in martial arts,much to his changrin. Instead his father hires an academic teacher(Shoji Kurata) for him. Feeling sorry for the young boy,the teacher decides to teach the boy how to fight. He learns a lot from the teacher and also spies on his father teaching his brothers the family style. The teacher leaves(he was actually a japanese spy,there to learn the Huo family style) and young Huo continues to train. Years later Huo(now played by Leung Kar Yan) is still spying on his father,and actually saves the family name by beating an eagle claw stylist. After that the father names Yuen Chia head of the family. After defeating a karate fighter,the Japanese warrior kills himself. The warrior's father wants revenge and sends Japan's best fighter to china for a duel. The fighter happens to be Yuen Chia's old teacher. During the end fight we see that the Japanese teacher still cares for his student though he pretends not to. There is a very serious tone to the end fight which makes it even better. The fights are great. It is the usual great early 80's choreography and hard hitting fun from the Yuen clan. On a kind of funny side,sometimes when people are yelling Fok Yuen Gap,it doesnt always sound like that.", "I come from Shanghai, Chia. As an Asian, my foot is wider than US people. I follow the recommendation from other people who had experience before to purchase half size small. I think this suggestion is correct but shoe is narrow for me, I'd better choose one in same size but wider.\n\nWhat's make me more disappointed is the colour! It looks too yellow, Totally different from the picture shows on website. From the website, the color looks distressed, dark brown. But what I received is just Tan, no feature at all! I will not choose this type of colour any more :-( :-(", "This is a must have for your health book collection. It is only a little over 100 pages without the recipes, but very readable, informative, and convincing with excellent descriptions of vascular disease and patient cases. It removes the mystery of what happened to my close friends and relatives.\n\nIt is a Whole Food Plant Based diet with very low fat, high carbohydrate, low/moderate protein, which is the standard now. I have always liked fat and oil, but the very low fat diet is the only known treatment to reverse advanced vascular disease, and heart disease and stroke are still the biggest killers besides cancer and medical care. Esselstyn does allow one or two tablespoons of flaxseed (or chia seeds), so you won't have a deficiency of omega 3 and 6 Essential Fatty Acids. This heart disease reversal diet is a big step up from Pritikin and Ornish.\n\nThis is good health advice in general, not just for vascular disease, like heart disease, stroke, and ED. I prefer a nutritional supplement approach as well, but you can find that elsewhere. I am more convinced than ever in the low fat diet, not just for those with advanced vascular disease. I have abandoned my coconut oil and grass fed cow butter, but I will still use a little raw hemp oil, flax, sesame, and pumpkin seeds, and an occasional avocado just because I like it.", "Not totally black out curtains. If you want total darkness, do not get these. They work well enough for our nursery, but a lot of light does come through.", "Reading Chia Booty was a great for me. I've been working out steady for over a year and my main goal has been to achieve a great booty. This book provides 3 great workout plans and even a calendar telling you which days to do which workout. I finally have a guide to follow and I can feel the results already! This book even covers awesome nutrition tips and recovery tips which are both a huge part of working out and achieving your goals. This book is very thorough and detailed, I highly recommend it to any woman trying to achieve that perfect booty! You'll love it!!\nI received this book complimentary for my unbiased review.\nThe author, Mike Danford, certainly knows his stuff!", "I ordered several brand iPhone 6 glass screen protectors. I would give this brand a 5 star for value (you get 3!!!), but 3.5 stars for fit. The protector is by far the smallest of the ones I ordered, and leaves around .5 - 1mm gap on the black area of the screen in terms of width. The other brands were cut wider so less of the black LCD area of the screen were exposed.", "Chia is the new town manager in Charming, Alaska. Her grandparents recently died and she refuses to believe they weren't murdered. While trying to find the guy responsible for the murder of a deer shifter, she meets Hung they bounty hunter looking for the same person. They work together along with Cecil her best friend to find the guy, but other things come out. Even though there is an attraction between them, Hung has to go to another job. Will things work out between them or is this it? Can't wait for the next one to find out. I voluntarily received an advanced copy of this book for a honest review", "These seeds are good, larger than David brand and have a good flavor....but its not bacon. These seeds taste the same as Beef Top Ramen soup mix.", "Everything but the Parris Island is growing! Getting replacement from Aerogarden's CS, can't say enough good about their replacement policy. Haven't had enough time for harvest yet, but I'm sure it'll get there eventually. The Black Seeded Simpson is going crazy.", "Rod appeared as expected but broke on my first fishing trip. I had a 6 ounce pumpkin seed wriggling and it broke like cheap garbage. Unfortunate.", "This was a total disappointment. We have have use other brands in the past without issue. They flew 2-6 ft via Adult skill and 0-5 ft with kid skill. No return policy either.", "I've been a long-time fan of Angela's blog of the same name, and I've been waiting for this book for years. And it was worth the wait! Even if you own a lot of other vegan cookbooks, like I do, this book still needs to be on your cookbook shelf. First off, this book is seriously gorgeous! Most of the recipes are brand new, and about 15% or so are fan favorites from the blog that are worthy of a re-print. The recipes are very healthy and based in whole plant foods (with lots of substitution notes to fit allergies). The recipes manage to be both exciting and easy to pull off for a weeknight meal.\n\nThings I've made:\n- Creamy vanilla almond milk - my go-to almond milk recipe. The best. ever.\n- Creamy avocado pasta - this is THE BEST quick weeknight dinner! So satisfying but easy!\n- Avocado cilantro cream sauce - had this on toast one morning, excellent breakfast\n- Effortless vegan overnight oats - I pretty much have a variation of this every morning. I omit the chia seeds though, because I don't like the yogurt texture that it creates.\n- Crispy almond butter chocolate chip cookies - this cookie dough is seriously the best thing I've ever tasted in my life. And the cookies came out divinely!\n- Eat your greens detox soup - the perfect light dinner after eating a bunch of the aforementioned cookies. Such an easy, hearty, satisfying meal.\n\nCan't wait to try:\n- Loaded savory oatmeal & lentil bowl\n- Life affirming warm nacho dip with spiced toasted pitas\n- Cream of tomato soup with roasted Italian chickpea croutons\n- Lentil-walnut loaf with balsamic-apple glaze\n- Salt & vinegar roasted chickpeas\n\nI want to cook every single recipe in this book. So happy the book is finally here!", "Great scoop. We have them in about 6 different sizes. The Norpro brand is pretty good.", "I received it as a gift a year and a half ago, and it has become my all-time favorite cookbook. Just about every recipe I've made from it has been excellent--no tweaking required. My husband, who is not vegan, has happily eaten many of the items I've made from this cookbook and particularly loves the chia power donuts and the chana masala. Another big fave of ours is the creamy vegetable curry. Angela Liddon has done her recipe testing--she knows what she's doing, does not skimp on seasoning, and isn't including impossible-to-find ingredients. Oh She Glows is also written in an upbeat and engaging way, with just the right amount of info and without superfluous text. I can't wait to buy Liddon's next cookbook. Non-vegan members of my family have also purchased and enjoyed this cookbook.", "Only one of the four bonsai trees seeds actually germinated. I do not recommend this product and would use a different company.", "I'm 6\" 220lbs and barely fit. It's awkward to get into and fogs up like I'm in a sauna, but totally worth it.", "This book is available, brand new, from Seed Savers Exchange, [...] for $16.95. I am looking at the current, paper catalog and was astounded to see the prices being asked on Amazon. Tsk.", "They were all great. But they were all the same plant. I was expecting 3 different types and got 3 of the same. Disappointing.", "These are the best pumpkin seeds other than home made! If you don't like your seeds caked in salt, then get these!!! They are delicious.", "I bought these shoes brand new at the start of a 10 week long high intensity training program. The program consisted of kick boxing, weight training, core training and intense cardiovascular 1 hour per day 5 days (sometimes 6) for 10 weeks. I wore them for a total of 52 hours and the sole is falling apart. That's less than 6 full 8 hour work days and they are falling apart! They've never been worn outside but they are worn out. Looking for new shoes but will look at different brands and other retailers that aren't amazon. Apparently shoes are one thing that need to he bought locally." ]

[ "There are plenty of good resources for this, try this one\n\nBasically, you need to cover:\n\n\nWhat you will do\nHow long it will take\nThe nature of your \"employment\"\nYour fees, and milestones for payment\nThe finality of the product (is it yours or theirs? Who will maintain it after it is done? etc)" ]

[ "I'm not quite sure in your code what's account1 as it's not defined anywhere. Did you mean N(account1)? Also, what does account1::transfer() look like? Are you trying to transfer EOS tokens? You should probably be using eosio.token as the account to which you send the action then.\n\nHere's an example of a contract that manages the transfer of tokens\n\n#include &lt;string&gt;\n#include &lt;eosiolib/eosio.hpp&gt;\n#include &lt;eosiolib/asset.hpp&gt;\n\nusing std::string;\nusing std::make_tuple;\nusing eosio::action;\nusing eosio::contract;\nusing eosio::permission_level;\nusing eosio::asset;\n\nclass passtokens : public contract {\n public:\n passtokens (account_name account) : contract(account) {}\n\n void sendtokens(account_name from, account_name to, asset amount, string memo) { \n action(\n permission_level{from, N(active)},\n N(eosio.token),\n N(transfer),\n make_tuple(from, to, amount, memo)\n ).send();\n }\n};\n\nEOSIO_ABI( passtokens, (sendtokens) )\n\n\nGive permission to the account that uploaded the contract above to use your active authority under their eosio.code authority:\n\n$ cleos set account permission &lt;your-account&gt; active '{\"threshold\": 1,\"keys\": [{\"key\": \"&lt;your-key&gt;\",\"weight\": 1}],\"accounts\": [{\"permission\":{\"actor\":\"passtokens\",\"permission\":\"eosio.code\"},\"weight\":1}]}' owner -p &lt;your-account&gt;\n\n\nthen send a transaction:\n\n$ cleos push action passtokens sendtokens '[\"&lt;your-account&gt;\", \"&lt;account-you-want-to-send-tokens-to&gt;\", \"50.0000 EOS\", \"memo message\"]' -p &lt;your-account&gt;", "What's tester and tester::hello() looking like? Your code may look ok or not depending on how those are implemented. Any small error may result in the whole thing failing with no helpful error message.\n\nHere's a full example of something that works on my machine fine:\n\nsender.cpp\n\n#include&lt;eosiolib/eosio.hpp&gt;\n#include&lt;eosiolib/transaction.hpp&gt;\n#include&lt;string&gt;\n\nclass sender : eosio::contract {\n public:\n sender (account_name account) : eosio::contract(account) {}\n\n void send(account_name account, std::string message) {\n\n eosio::transaction t{};\n t.actions.emplace_back(\n eosio::permission_level(account, N(active)),\n N(recipient),\n N(receive),\n std::make_tuple(message));\n t.delay_sec = 5;\n t.send(N(message), account);\n }\n};\n\nEOSIO_ABI(sender, (send))\n\n\nrecipient.cpp\n\n#include&lt;eosiolib/eosio.hpp&gt;\n#include&lt;string&gt;\n\nclass recipient : eosio::contract {\n public:\n recipient(account_name account) : eosio::contract(account) {}\n\n void receive(std::string message) {\n eosio::print(message);\n }\n};\n\nEOSIO_ABI(recipient, (receive))\n\n\ncleos\n\n$ cleos wallet unlock\n$ cleos wallet keys\n[\n \"EOS6MRyAjQq8ud7hVNYcfnVPJqcVpscN5So8BhtHuGYqET5GDW5CV\"\n]\n$ cleos account create eosio sender EOS6MRyAjQq8ud7hVNYcfnVPJqcVpscN5So8BhtHuGYqET5GDW5CV EOS6MRyAjQq8ud7hVNYcfnVPJqcVpscN5So8BhtHuGYqET5GDW5CV\n$ cleos account create eosio recipient EOS6MRyAjQq8ud7hVNYcfnVPJqcVpscN5So8BhtHuGYqET5GDW5CV EOS6MRyAjQq8ud7hVNYcfnVPJqcVpscN5So8BhtHuGYqET5GDW5CV\n$ cleos account create eosio controller EOS6MRyAjQq8ud7hVNYcfnVPJqcVpscN5So8BhtHuGYqET5GDW5CV EOS6MRyAjQq8ud7hVNYcfnVPJqcVpscN5So8BhtHuGYqET5GDW5CV\n$ cleos set contract sender contracts/sender\n$ cleos set contract recipient contracts/recipient\n$ cleos set account permission controller active '{\"threshold\": 1,\"keys\": [{\"key\": \"EOS6MRyAjQq8ud7hVNYcfnVPJqcVpscN5So8BhtHuGYqET5GDW5CV\",\"weight\": 1}],\"accounts\": [{\"permission\":{\"actor\":\"sender\",\"permission\":\"eosio.code\"},\"weight\":1}]}' owner -p controller\n$ cleos push action sender send '[\"controller\", \"my_message\"]' -p controller\n\n\nThe message should show up in nodeos output assuming it's configured with contracts-console=true", "I don't care to enter the fray of what is a subsidy, etc. but Parabolic Arc recently published a nice summary of what has been spent (or contracted for) by NASA on the commercial contracts to date.\n\n(Note: this is incomplete, it includes NASA spending on commercial crew and cargo only. DOD contracts with Blue Origin, for example, are not listed.)\n\n\n\nFrom this, SpaceX has been paid (or contracted for) 7.24 billion dollars, and Blue Origin has been paid (or contracted for) 25.7 million dollars.", "In response to question 4:\nReuse and modularity\nWe discuss reuse and modularity, of which inheritance is one of many mechanisms:\n\nMichelson has no mechanism for code reuse, except for calling\nexisting &quot;library&quot; contracts directly.\nAs far as I understand, Archetype includes no user-extendable\nmechanisms for code reuse. Actions (akin to methods) cannot be\nshared between different state machines (akin to\ncontracts). Furthermore, actions cannot not call each other, so\ncannot be composed. State machines cannot be extended or\ncomposed. Archetypes contracts are composed of one file. However,\nArchetype contains a set of extensions, that encapsulate commonly\nused patterns such as signed, which requires that one argument of\nan action should be the signature of another argument.\nLIGO contracts, irrespective of the syntax used, are composed of\na set of functions. These functions can be reused, and are in\ngeneral composable as one would expect from functions in any\nlanguage, with exception of recursion. What's more, the Ligo compiler\ncalls the C preprocessor (cpp) on input contracts, which\nenables a certain degree of reuse and composability through the use\nof #include directives. Morally, this is equivalent to\ncopy-pasting the included file: there is no namespacing to save you\nfrom name clashes. Finally, the use of cpp is undocumented and\nsubject to change, as testified to by this message by the following\nmessage on the #ligo channel on the tezos-dev slack:\n\n\nCurrently, LIGO is shipped with the C preprocessor cpp which acts as a\npoor man's module system a la C. There several reasons why we should\nget rid of it, both immediately and in the long term [...]\n\n\nFinally, SmartPy contracts, which are actually Python programs\nthat use the SmartPy library to construct a contract, have access\nto all the Python features on the meta-programming level (in\nother words, the code that generates the contract). That is,\nmodules, classes (with inheritance), functions, high-level\nfunctions, decorators and compositions.\n\nInter-contract communication\n\nMichelson has no specific mechanisms to simplify inter-contract\ncommunication. Calls to other contracts must be crafted manually through the\nTRANSFER_TOKENS instruction. Callbacks must be encoded (again)\nmanually using continuation-passing style (CPS).\nThe same holds for LIGO\nand SmartPy.\nIn the current version, Archetype has little support for inter-contract communication. As\nfar a I can see, there is only the transfer instruction, with which\nit is not possible to specify the argument nor the entry-point of\nthe called contract (presumably, only contracts of type unit are\nsupported targets). No specific helpers for coding CPS style. However, this is amended in future versions of Archetype, as indicated by Benoit's answer below.", "It really depends on what you are going to achieve.\n\nIf you are just trying to reuse the old code in a hurry, I would suggest:\n\nSOLUTION 1\n\nheader.hpp\n\nstruct [[ eosio::table]] test {\n uint64_t prim_key;\n uint64_t timestamp;\n\n auto primary_key() const { return prim_key; }\n};\n\n\none.cpp\n\n#include &lt;eosiolib/asset.hpp&gt;\n#include &lt;eosiolib/eosio.hpp&gt;\n\nusing namespace eosio;\n\nCONTRACT one : public contract {\nprivate:\n #include \"../header.hpp\"\n typedef multi_index&lt;name(\"one\"), test&gt; test_table;\n\npublic:\n using contract::contract;\n ACTION hi(name user) { print_f(\"Hello % from one\", user); }\n};\n\nEOSIO_DISPATCH(one, (hi))\n\n\nIf you think it is ugly and want to spend some effort extract an macro, try:\n\nSOLUTION 2\n\nheader.hpp\n\n#include &lt;eosiolib/eosio.hpp&gt;\n\nstruct [[ eosio::table, eosio::contract(__MY__CONTRACT__)]] test {\n uint64_t prim_key;\n uint64_t timestamp;\n\n auto primary_key() const { return prim_key; }\n};\n\n\none.cpp\n\n#define __MY__CONTRACT__ \"one\"\n#include \"../header.hpp\"\n#include &lt;eosiolib/asset.hpp&gt;\n#include &lt;eosiolib/eosio.hpp&gt;\n\nusing namespace eosio;\n\nCONTRACT one : public contract {\n private:\n typedef multi_index&lt;name(\"one\"), test&gt; test_table;\n\n public:\n using contract::contract;\n ACTION hi(name user) { print_f(\"Hello % from one\", user); }\n};\n\nEOSIO_DISPATCH(one, (hi))\n\n\nThe last solution may not fit your needs as you need the table have same name with contract. However, we use it in our own projects so I would like show it here:\n\nSOLUTION 3\n\nheader.hpp\n\n#include &lt;eosiolib/eosio.hpp&gt;\n\nstruct test {\n uint64_t prim_key;\n uint64_t timestamp;\n\n auto primary_key() const { return prim_key; }\n};\n\n\none.cpp\n\n#include \"../header.hpp\"\n#include &lt;eosiolib/asset.hpp&gt;\n#include &lt;eosiolib/eosio.hpp&gt;\n\nusing namespace eosio;\n\nCONTRACT one : public contract {\n private:\n TABLE tableone : test{};\n typedef multi_index&lt;name(\"one\"), test&gt; test_table;\n\n public:\n using contract::contract;\n ACTION hi(name user) { print_f(\"Hello % from one\", user); }\n};\n\nEOSIO_DISPATCH(one, (hi))\n\n\nConclusion\n\nThis can be also done by many other macro tricks and you can pick which ever you like.", "because I will move to Portugal to begin my ERASMUS mobility.\n\nWhat form of contract for the Erasmus do you have?\nIf you are not being sponsored by a school (where you would then be insured), then you should go now (with your present and Erasmus contracts) to the Job Center to work out the details. There is also a Eurasmus+ program to assist a &quot;Freemover&quot;, that is otherwise not covered.\nThe Job Centre should assist you in getting everything properly prepared (including the unemployment after your return) before you leave. This, however, must be applied for in a timely manner.\n\nSources:\n\nKrankenversicherung für Studenten aus dem EU-Ausland - Krankenkassen.de\nWege ins Ausland im Studium - Bundesagentur für Arbeit\n\nStartseite - Erasmus+", "Truffle has an overwrite flag you can use to select whether an already-deployed contract should be replaced when running migrate --reset\n\nYou can use it by including the following in your migration files:\n\n// Don't deploy this contract if it has already been deployed\ndeployer.deploy(A, {overwrite: false});\n\n\nIn your case you could mark migrations and your first contract as false, then only your third contract will be replaced.\n\nSee here for more info", "If there is only one instance to be created, I agree you should use a singleton for your case instead of a table directly, as this is what singletons are used for.\nFor API, you can check the eosio/singleton.hpp file, and here's a quick example using a singleton:\n\n#include&lt;eosio/eosio.hpp&gt;\n#include&lt;eosio/singleton.hpp&gt;\n\nclass singleton_example : eosio::contract {\n public:\n singleton_example(account_name account) :\n eosio::contract(account),\n singleton_object(_self, _self)\n {}\n\n void store(account_name account, uint64_t value1, uint64_t value2) {\n require_auth(account);\n singleton_object.set(sing{value1, value2}, account);\n }\n\n void get(account_name account) {\n require_auth(account);\n auto results = singleton_object.get();\n eosio::print(results.value1, results.value2);\n }\n\n\n private:\n struct sing {\n uint64_t value1;\n uint64_t value2;\n };\n\n typedef eosio::singleton&lt;&quot;singleton&quot;_n, sing&gt; single;\n\n single singleton_object;\n};\n\nEOSIO_ABI(singleton_example, (store)(get))", "I haven't seen the actual code, so I'm not 100% sure, but I'm pretty sure the smart contract takes advantage of a certain game theoretic idea called a \"War of Attrition.\" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_attrition_(game).\n\nIt's not an exploit. There is nothing wrong with the Ethereum blockchain, nothing wrong with Solidity, nothing wrong with the smart contract. Nothing.\n\nEverything is working exactly the way it should be from a technical perspective including the smart contract itself. In fact, it's working too well. It's the human beings that are being exploited.", "I suspect the core reason is that there is almost no way to come up with a meaningful number. Only Dragon and Cygnus have a chance of having real hard numbers, since they are actual commercial contracts, that are a pay for service.\n\nWhereas ATV, HTV, Progress, and Shuttle are all government/national programs so it is next to impossible to reliably decide what should be included in their costs. In the case of Russia they are fairly opaque on real costs anyway. Consider how hard it was to get a real/meaningful cost for a shuttle launch. \n\nSimplistically, for the initial CRS contract, NASA tendered a request for 20,000K to the station by each of the two bidders. Cygnus at 1.2 billion/20,000K is about 60 thousand dollars a kilo. Dragon at 1.6 billion for 20,000K would be around 80,000 dollars a kilo. But of course, CRS was also meant to pay back for some of the development of the systems. (Even so, 2.8 billion for 40,000K of cargo plus two complete launch systems and cargo vessels is a literal steal. That is probably less than one year of the SLS budget, for nothing real till 2021) \n\nSo the contract AFTER CRS will be the one of interest. Once SpaceX/Orbital have recouped development costs through a lucrative first contract, how much will the second services contract be worth? Presumably a lot less. (One hopes!)", "Unsure what you mean with \"secure\" solution. If you mean \"can someone else read the data\" the answer is definite yes. If you mean whether someone can fake the data, the answer is no - just listen to events from that specific contract and you should be fine.\n\nI'm also a bit unsure what you mean with registry address. There is only one address used in your contract and that is the contract owner. If you need more data in your contract you can just add more parameters - for example registry address (whatever that is).\n\nStoring the data in events is a cheap solution but that way contracts can't access the data. This might be fine for your solution. If you'd need contracts to have access the data you should keep all in one contract - but yes, gas usage will increase.", "There are a couple reasons keystore files may not be showing up in Mist.\n\n\nYou are still syncing and/or watching a heavy contract like The DAO contract, which is making Mist hang or lag and so it hasn't shown them yet.\nThe file names do not include the address of the account. Here is more information, but basically your keystore files should be named UTC--2016-05-13T04-31-42.137297157Z--f367f6e5f828fe85f5d95839ebb3f005f2368182. If you remove the address from the keystore file, it will not display in the Mist UI.\nThe folder that Mist is reading from is not the folder that contains your keystore files. To see where Mist is reading from, go to \"Account\" -> \"Backup\" -> \"Accounts\" and see what folder is opens. Confirm that there are keystore files inside there and the names contain the address of the account.", "Tezbox and Ledger live both use 44'/1729'/0'/0' as default derivation paths. \n\nI'm guessing what happened is your long term holding address was a 'KT' contract account. If it is actually a KT contract account, then you should be able to use tezbox to \"add contract\" and interact with it again. You can also verify this is the case on a block explorer. Punch in your 'tz' account to https://tzstats.com and under the Contracts tab you should see your balance.", "This is a workaround based on @KemmyGuo 's comment:\n\nYou can include the additional .cpp files (which have to be in the same folder) into your contracts .cpp file.\n\nDisclaimer: this is not a good C++ coding style, but it works for the moment.\n\nIn my case inside the test.cpp this did the trick\n\n#include \"test.h\"\n#include \"JSON.cpp\"\n#include \"JSONValue.cpp\"\n\nvoid Test::test(const std::string&amp; pToParse){\n ... \n JSON::Parse(pToParse.c_str());\n}\n\n\nThen you can run as usual\n\neosiocpp -o contracts/test.wast contracts/test.cpp\neosiocpp -g contracts/test.abi contracts/test.cpp", "In short, the only restriction that EOSIO imposes at the moment is that your contracts need to be compiled to WASM, and communicating with nodes is done via HTTP requests sent to the appropriate end-points in the binary format expected by the ABI. The former means that right now your contracts will need to be in C++, and the latter means you'll need to use cleos or some other library to convert JSON or other format into the binary format.\n\n\n\nAs for examples, there are two example projects made by blockone. The more complex one uses the following stack:\n\n\n The DApp consists of four parts. The eosio blockchain, MongoDB database, backend Node.js app, and frontend React app.\n\n\nThe simpler example omits the database and uses a simpler stack:\n\n\n The DApp consists of two parts. eosio blockchain and frontend react app.\n\n\nIf you want more examples regarding what people typically use, this page has several relevant articles.\n\n\n\nIn regards, to your individual questions:\n\n\n It will have to use cleos backend\n\n\ncleos is a CLI tool. The contracts are WASM, and the only recommended language for smart contracts right now is C++.\n\n\n as well as a JavaScript server\n\n\nYou can use any web server you want. B1 uses Node in their examples, but devops should be considered independent of EOS framework.\n\n\n I understand that it has to be developed using JavaScript, but that is all I know regarding the technology stack.\n\n\nBlockOne made a JS library and JS is the de facto language of the web, so you will typically use JS, but there's also a HTTP API available that you can use however you want (e.g. the backend can make requests with a Python wrapper instead of using JS/Node)\n\n\n What IDE should I use ?\n\n\nAgain, this is just your preference as a programmer and depending on your stack. Whatever you use to write C++ and JS should work, including using only an editor without an IDE. Some of the core devs use CLion for C++ if you're interested. There is also a short article in the official docs about configuring IDEs, which hopefully will contain more details in the future.\n\n\n What JavaScript framework should I use ?\n\n\nWhichever you want. B1 uses React, but this is completely up to you. There's no specific support for any front-end framework as far as I know\n\n\n What is the complete stack of installed components I should have ?\n\n\neosio software to communicate with or host nodes and eosio.wasmsdk for compiling contracts. Everything is else just the typical web app stack you'd use otherwise\n\n\n\nEdit: Slide from EOS Hackathons summarizing the tech recommended by B1 at this stage:", "Take the voucher\n\nWhat law applies?\n\nAssuming you booked directly with the hotel then Spanish law applies to this contract. The hotel does not \"do business\" in the UK so you have no protection from UK consumer law.\n\nIf you booked through a traditional travel agent (including an online one) then your contract is with the agent and you should be sorting this out with them; not the hotel. They would be doing business in the UK and UK law would likely apply.\n\nIf you used a collation site like Expedia or Booking.com then things get complicated.\n\nI will presume that you made the booking direct for the rest of this answer.\n\nWhat does the contract say?\n\nSubject to Spanish consumer protection law (which I have no knowledge of) the contract can deal with the hotel's inability to supply in whatever way it wants. I am not going to speculate about what it might say - you have to read it.\n\nForce Majeure\n\nDepending on when you booked, the cancellation due to government response may be a force majeure event which, under Spanish law, excuses the hotel from their contractual obligations.\n\nIt will almost certainly be such an event if, at the time you booked, the closure of the hotel by the pandemic was not reasonably foreseeable. So if you booked in 2019 or even January 2020 it probably wasn't foreseeable, if you booked last week it probably was and if you booked in between it may or may not have been.\n\nIf this is a force majeure event then the hotel owes you nothing - neither refund nor voucher.\n\nCredit card protection\n\nIf there was a force majeure event then the hotel is not in breach of their contract and Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act will not help you. It only kicks in if the retailer made a misrepresentation or breached their contract.\n\nTake the voucher\n\nIf, when all this is over, they are still in business and you are still alive, enjoy your holiday.", "You can not reverse transactions already included in a block. What you could do is to set up a set of rules in the smart contract that allows for this rescission.\n\nFor instance, inside of your system of smart contracts, you can establish that assets can be transferred from one contract to another if some type of proof is provided, then the users are aware that a \"legal\" decision (proof) can execute a transfer of assets from their accounts. This works as long as the users do not move the assets out of the reach of your system. \n\nHope this helps.", "Well, ETH is the way that miners (and in the future, validators) are paid for spending (and in the future, staking) large amounts of money to secure/run the network.\n\nOn top of that, executing smart contracts isn't free. ETH is what we pay \"gas\" in, e.g. it's how we pay miners for processing/including our transactions in blocks, and those transactions can either just send ETH or execute smart contracts.", "The first and main issue you have is that setup is a method of class sp.Contract that is broken when you redefine it in your contract.\nThis should not be the case and must be fixed on the SmartPy side.\nSo rename setup anything else and it will work.\n\nA second issue, entry points take two parameters self and params, not just one.\n\nA third issue, contract=contract() is problematic. Don't call everything contract.\n\nYou should not worry about types at first but if you wish, what you're doing is correct.", "Token transactions have the token's contract address as their \"to\" field, like this:\n\n\"to\": \"0x983f6d60db79ea8ca4eb9968c6aff8cfa04b3c63\"\n\n\nContract address:\nhttps://etherscan.io/token/0x983f6d60db79ea8ca4eb9968c6aff8cfa04b3c63\nTransaction involving the token:\nhttps://etherscan.io/tx/0x391c0b6196295595e9ff1f660eb2dc98570a39d35a99d7d48c266ab6caf2d560\n\nSee that the transaction page on Etherscan shows you the contract address as \"to\". The number of tokens and their target address are figured out from \"input\" field, which incorporates contract method being called and its arguments, if any. For token transfers it should be longer than what your example has, because at the very least it should contain the target address for tokens.", "I have found a solution, but I am unsure if this is the right way to do it.\n\nThe included files were under /usr/opt/eosio.cdt/1.6.1/include/eosiolib/contracts/eosio/\nFrom there, it seems that the file transaction.hpp is included only in permission.hpp, but permission.hpp is not included anywhere:\n\n[***** addressbook]$ grep -HiR \"transaction.hpp\" /usr/opt/eosio.cdt/1.6.1/include/eosiolib/contracts/eosio/\n/usr/opt/eosio.cdt/1.6.1/include/eosiolib/contracts/eosio/permission.hpp:#include \"transaction.hpp\"\n[***** addressbook]$ grep -HiR \"permission.hpp\" /usr/opt/eosio.cdt/1.6.1/include/eosiolib/contracts/eosio/\n[***** addressbook]$\n\n\nThe tutorial's sample files all start with only #include &lt;eosio/eosio.hpp&gt;. Adding a line with #include &lt;eosio/permission.hpp&gt; makes compiling able to succeed, althogh there are now some warnings which were not there before:\n\nIn file included from /tmp/addressbook.cpp:1:\n/usr/opt/eosio.cdt/1.6.1/bin/../include/eosiolib/contracts/eosio/permission.hpp:53:4: warning: control reaches end of non-void function [-Wreturn-type]\n }\n ^\n/usr/opt/eosio.cdt/1.6.1/bin/../include/eosiolib/contracts/eosio/permission.hpp:78:4: warning: control reaches end of non-void function [-Wreturn-type]\n }\n ^", "According to the release notes:\n\n\n A new type to act as a more efficient replacement to std::string has\n been added (#459). eosio::string should be more efficient in memory\n usage and help to reduce the bloat to smart contract WASMs that\n std::string imposes.\n\n\nWhere PR 459 references the following string bloat problem:\n\n\n Given a minimal smart contract (con.cpp) with a no-op action:\n\n#include &lt;eosio/eosio.hpp&gt;\n\nclass [[eosio::contract]] con : public eosio::contract {\npublic:\n using contract::contract;\n [[eosio::action]] void act()\n { }\n};\n\nEOSIO_DISPATCH(con, (act))\n\n \n The size of the said contract comes out out to be:\n\n~/con $ ll\ntotal 1\n-rwxrwxr-x 1 i i 743 2019-03-06 13:37 a.out\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 i i 202 2019-03-06 13:37 con.cpp\n\n \n Given a minimal smart contract whilst introducing a std::string:\n\n#include &lt;eosio/eosio.hpp&gt;\n\nclass [[eosio::contract]] con : public eosio::contract {\npublic:\n using contract::contract;\n [[eosio::action]] void act(const std::string&amp; s)\n { }\n};\n\nEOSIO_DISPATCH(con, (act))\n\n \n The size of the contract is now:\n\n~/con $ ll\ntotal 4\n-rwxrwxr-x 1 i i 3531 2019-03-06 13:46 a.out\n-rw-rw-r-- 1 i i 222 2019-03-06 13:46 con.cpp\n\n \n As is shown, this comes out to an extra 2788 bytes of code-bloat.\n \n This poses to be a problem if a developer were to have many\n trivial/small smart contracts which utilize a std::string. But if the\n smart contract is already larger in nature, then this effect is\n minimal.\n \n Therefore a new string type shall be developed for size optimization.\n This new string class will implement the small string optimization and\n provide the normal interface that is provided by std::string but at a\n fraction of the memory footprint.", "Probably not. It looks like what you said should work, but if it's not, I don't see another flag that would do that.\n\n-w | - Suppress all warnings\n\n\nThey (the warnings) were there at the beginning, then they went away, and now it looks like they're back. \n\nThis is a good thing because it will remind developers to add them. Technically, the current constitution says they should be on all contracts, but that is obviously not being enforced. In the future, it likely will be.\n\n\n\nArticle VII - Open Source\n\n\n Each Member who makes available a smart contract on this blockchain\n shall be a Developer. Each Developer shall offer their smart contracts\n via a free and open source license, and each smart contract shall be\n documented with a Ricardian Contract stating the intent of all parties\n and naming the Arbitration Forum that will resolve disputes arising\n from that contract.\n\n\nLink\n\n\n\nIf there is a way, @tbfleming or @sandw1ch would know in the EOS Developers Telegram", "UPDATE: The authorization for the system contract to do transfers in behalf of the users through inline actions is automatic because it is configured as a privileged account in the blockchain. For normal contracts to be able to send inline actions to other contracts, you would need the user to specify the eosio.code permission for that contract, thus giving explicit authorization for that contract to do a transfer for them, and allowing them to view and sign the specific terms of your contract and its ricardian text, so this might be what you are looking for. More info here: https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/issues/3847#issuecomment-394805728\n\n\n\nI personally think that reacting to require_recipient should be used more for each user automating actions related to their own account in response to certain actions related to it, but not for providing functionality to the users of your smart contract.\n\nFor what you want to do I would recommend making a contract with which users will interact directly, sending a transaction to the specific action of your contract, so they can read the ricardian contract that is specific to that action. Then you can use the permission given by the user in the transaction itself to issue the eosio.token::transfer action from your own contract code. You can use SEND_INLINE_ACTION for this purpose, and you can see an example of it happening in the system contract's bidname action: https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/blob/master/contracts/eosio.system/eosio.system.cpp#L107\n\nHere, the user accepts the terms of the bidname action, which include an automated transfer of funds triggered by that inline action call.\n\nThis approach is actually more secure, since if a user issues a regular transfer to the contract account, but the contract's code is updated before the transfer gets processed by the network, and the update changes the behavior of the contract upon receiving a transfer (maybe the contract doesn't react to transfers at all anymore) then the user's transaction will still go through and the funds will be transferred with no side-effect or a different one than the user expected. The smart contract's account has no \"legal\" obligation to do anything in response to the transfer, since no agreement was made between the two parties, so the user has to trust that the code will be there to respond in a certain way to their transfer.\n\nOn the other hand, if instead the user signs a transaction agains a specific action of a contract, they are signing those contractual terms specifically, and the contract's account has explicit obligation of abiding to those terms. Also if the contract's code was updated just before the user's transfer is processed, the transaction would fail since the signature would be valid for a previous version of the contract, not the current one.\n\nThis and other reasons are why the Block.one team has decided to implemented these important things using inline transactions all around the core functionalities of EOSIO, like when buying/selling RAM, staking and delegating bandwidth, and much more: https://github.com/EOSIO/eos/blob/master/contracts/eosio.system/delegate_bandwidth.cpp", "The Qualifying Offer required to retain a RFA's rights is pretty low, a modest raise over last year's salary. To tank your season, that affects your bargaining power. Now your team thinks they can put the squeeze on you because of your poor season. Other teams would wonder if you lost it and will now question whether to sign you (including your tampering team).\n\nIt should also be noted that teams often put the squeeze anyways on RFAs to accept less (often called bridge contracts) to save money for stars and unrestricted free agents. Because everyone uses other contracts of similar players (comparables would be the industry lingo), you won't see an outlier contract very often.", "Editing for clarity.\nIf by decommission you mean &quot;stop paying the support fees, but keep the software running&quot;,\nAssuming what you intend to do is to continue using the software but stop paying the support &amp; maintenance fee, that's exactly what will happen. Your current version will continue running, and everything will work as is, but:\n\nyou won't be eligible for updates, upgrades or hotfixes (actually not 100% sure on hotfixes, as they could potentially include security fixes - I would ask support to be sure)\nyou won't be entitled to open incidents with support\n\nNormally the on-premise licenses for Tridion are &quot;perpetual&quot;, you have the right to run the software forever (there are exceptions to this, not all licenses are the same, and you should check your contract).", "When you call m.sendCoin() in otherCoin, the msg.sender of that call isn't the purchaser, it's the otherCoin contract itself. That means your contract is trying to send its owner its own MetaCoins, when you want it to send the purchaser's.\n\nIt should do what you expect if you change MetaCoin so that it uses tx.origin instead of msg.sender. In the simple case this will be the purchaser.\n\nHowever, using tx.origin is generally considered bad practice, because it breaks the ability for contracts to control funds. The design to send funds on someone's behalf used in the standard for token contracts, ERC20, is to first have them approve() transfer by the contract up to a certain limit, then to call transferFrom() (instead of the normal transfer() which is the ERC20 equivalent of MetaCoin's sendCoin). This allows the calling contract to specify whose funds should be moved.", "Executive Summary\nFirst I would check with my supervisor to see what (if anything) is happening with the shift to full-time since there was the acquisition. If he doesn't know what the status is, I would send an e-mail to your boss and CC your supervisor to explain the current situation. You should cover the following:\n\nYour contract will expire\nThere were discussions before the acquisition of taking you on full-time\nIf the company is not interested, are they planning to renew your contract\n\nContract Expiration\nYour new boss may not realize that your contract will expire, and may be expecting that your local office is taking care of it. Acquisitions can be busy times, and the impact to you if it expires is much larger than the impact to your boss (who it sounds like you've never even met).\nChanging to Full-time\nBecause of the acquisition, your boss may not know your contract status, let alone that you are interested and had discussions about coming on full time. By letting the boss know what your interests are, you give an additional option for how to deal with the contract expiration.\nDiscussing Renewal\nRegardless of whether they offer you a full time position or not, your contract will expire in just over 3 weeks. You need to make plans for what to do next, be it joining full time, continuing to work as a temp, or finding another job. It would be a good idea to also ask what the plans are for renewal if they cannot find you a full-time position for whatever reason.\nSample E-mail\nI would write something like this:\n\nHey boss, I know things have been hectic with the acquisition. I wanted to let you know that my contract is currently set to expire on October 31st (in 29 days!). Before the acquisition I had been speaking with my supervisor and HR here about joining on full-time, but due to the acquisition, I don't know how I should go about discussing that as a possible choice from November.\nRegardless of whether or not we can work out full time, I would like to know what the company plans are in regards to renewing my contract so that I can start the handover to my successor if it won't be renewed.\n\nJust be sure to check with your supervisor beforehand, because if you send the e-mail while he/she's already working on it, your boss may be upset with him/her for not handling this sooner.\nResources\nHere are some other discussions about contract renewal/renegotiation:\n\nHow close to contract expiring should I expect notification?\nWhat&#39;s the best way to go about renegotiating my contract?\nWhen is the best time to ask about my contract status/extension", "In my experience, clients who I've done contract work for haven't asked for this until the end of the fiscal year, when their accountant starts pressing them to get their taxes in order.\n\nMy experience comes from dealing with small startups, where there's not a lot of process in place. The mutual trust came from the fact that they already paid me hundreds or thousands of dollars in exchange for the work I've done.\n\nWhen they asked for my tax id, I didn't give it a second thought.\n\nNow, if you're doing work for a larger client, they may very well want your tax id in advance. In the United States, you can go to the IRS Website and apply for an EIN Federal Tax ID, which means you don't have to give your personal social security number to clients who contract with you.\n\nIf that's not an option, just do some basic research on the client. If they're well-established, they likely have a website, some reviews, public artifacts on the Internet that verify that they exist and are indeed legitimate. If something doesn't feel right, move on and find another client.\n\nProtecting Yourself:\n\nAs far as what to do if a potential client asks for your tax id before you start work, here are a couple things you can do to protect yourself:\n\n\nIf a representative from the company asks for this information, tell the representative that the EIN (or tax ID) will be included on your first invoice you send to them and that this is your preferred method for transmitting this information. If this satisfies both parties, move on.\nIf the representative prefers that you send this information before you start working, try to include the EIN or tax ID in your contract. In the LegalZoom article titled, \"Hiring Independent Contractors\", LegalZoom suggests businesses note the contractor's business name and tax id in the actual contract:\n\n\n\n \n \n A written contract. Outline the nature of the relationship since merely saying the person is an independent contractor doesn’t make it so. Indicate the project’s expected results, fee and date(s) of completion. The contract should state the worker should use his/her own equipment/tools, is free to hire others without your approval, and that he or she provides liability insurance for his/her workers. Note the contractor’s business and tax I.D. number. Make sure the contract is signed by both parties and create a new contract for each new project. \n \n \n\n\nIncluding it in the contract shows that you attempted to establish a business relationship with the other party, and will leave a paper trail for you to follow in cases of fraud.\n\n\nLastly, keep in mind that one of the purposes of a Federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) is for fraud protection. \n\n\nAccording to the Nolo Legal Encyclopedia, Does a sole proprietor need an EIN?, preventing identity theft is one reason for having an EIN:\n\n\n ...many sole proprietors still elect to use an EIN because it reduces the chances of identity theft and banks often require one to open a business account.\n\n\nAnd according to LoopHoleWy's Tax Basics for Startups, using an EIN protects your personal identity if you pay independent contractors and must issue 1099-MISC forms. However, this works both ways, as someone receiving 1099-MISC forms from employers, using an EIN offers you the very same identity theft protections by not exposing your personal tax ID or social security number.\n\nWhile I'm not familiar with tax laws in other countries, whether or not this applies in this case or not, for anyone interested in such identity theft protections in your own locale, check your local and federal laws to see if there exists business tax ID's which you can use to protect your own personal identity.\n\nHow to tell if a company is legitimate:\n\nOf course, as I mentioned earlier, if the deal doesn't feel right, move on and find another client. Here are some things to look at to help determine whether or not a potential client is legitimate:\n\n\nDo they have an up to date website that looks professional and modern? If not, what industry are they in? If they're in IT and don't have an up to date website, this may be a red flag.\nAre there online reviews of the company from past or current employees, including contractors? If 90% of the reviews aren't positive, this may be a red flag. Specifically, look for negative reviews that indicate employees or contractors were treated poorly when it comes to financial compensation. A few bad reviews may be normal and may just be from people who were rightfully terminated or who simply like to complain, but a significant number of bad reviews is a red flag.\nDoes the business have a good reputation with other vendors and customers? If a business doesn't have a good rapport with its customers, this may also be a bad sign. If they don't treat their customers well, it's possible they don't treat vendors well, including contractors.\n\n\nIn summary, if something doesn't feel right, move on. But if you do move on, be sure to protect your personal information by using information specific to your business, and make sure you maintain a paper trail from the initial contract including all invoices.", "The rewards happen as part of the protocol and it's all on chain. But they are not a \"transaction\" in the normal sense of the word, as usually a transaction requires some user intervention. But there is fundamental movements of funds from the \"freezer\" to the delegates. Conceptually, the freezer temporarily holds all the bonds and rewards for baking and endorsing.\n\nTo find this information on chain, we have to look at the very last block of the cycle we'd expect the reward.\n\nblockNumForRewards = (rewardedCycleNum + 6) * numOfBlocksInCycle\n\nFor example, for cycle 93, the rewards for cycle 93 gets unlocked at the last block of cycle 98, so we need to look at block number (93 + 6) * 4096 = 405,504.\n\nAfter we knowing the block number, We can query for the block with our node by getting the hash from a block explorer like tzscan. In this case, BLdha4dMeWYxYkuP46eCgYwsgBYiKPNFLvgiu5NqgdxPLhkgzUf is our block hash:\n\n/chains/main/blocks/BLdha4dMeWYxYkuP46eCgYwsgBYiKPNFLvgiu5NqgdxPLhkgzUf\n\n\nObviously there is a lot of information in here, but let's focus on the path that handles the balance changes, specifically metadata &gt; balance_updates. Example:\n\n{\n \"protocol\": \"PsddFKi32cMJ2qPjf43Qv5GDWLDPZb3T3bF6fLKiF5HtvHNU7aP\",\n \"chain_id\": \"NetXdQprcVkpaWU\",\n \"hash\": \"BLdha4dMeWYxYkuP46eCgYwsgBYiKPNFLvgiu5NqgdxPLhkgzUf\",\n \"metadata\": {\n ...\n \"balance_updates\": [\n // this is what we care about\n ]\n }\n ...\n}\n\n\nThis portion of the block is the balance updates that retains to what the protocol needs to apply regardless of the user interventions. In a lot of the blocks, this portion will just include the current block baker with its locked rewards and bonds. In the last block of the cycle, balance_updates also includes all the rewards and bonds unlocks for every baker that participated in cycle 93.\n\nAnyhow, let's dig into the specifics of one baker to understand further. For illustration, I've filtered out transactions for one particular baker tz1ivoFE...TD.\n\n \"balance_updates\": [\n ...\n {\n \"kind\": \"freezer\",\n \"category\": \"deposits\",\n \"delegate\": \"tz1ivoFEvbfbUNav5FwLvmxzMGcNXWxY9qTD\",\n \"level\": 93,\n \"change\": \"-10368000000\"\n },\n {\n \"kind\": \"freezer\",\n \"category\": \"fees\",\n \"delegate\": \"tz1ivoFEvbfbUNav5FwLvmxzMGcNXWxY9qTD\",\n \"level\": 93,\n \"change\": \"-9362\"\n },\n {\n \"kind\": \"freezer\",\n \"category\": \"rewards\",\n \"delegate\": \"tz1ivoFEvbfbUNav5FwLvmxzMGcNXWxY9qTD\",\n \"level\": 93,\n \"change\": \"-321000000\"\n },\n {\n \"kind\": \"contract\",\n \"contract\": \"tz1ivoFEvbfbUNav5FwLvmxzMGcNXWxY9qTD\",\n \"change\": \"10689009362\"\n },\n ...\n\n\nInside of balance_updates array, it will include every \"transaction\" that needs to be adjusted for all these addresses including the \"freezer\". Each transaction also gives some clues on what they are for. \n\nThe above is pretty typical what we'll see per baker. There are 3 \"freezer\" related transactions and one \"contract\". The \"freezer\" transaction are different by their category (deposits, fees and rewards). The categories are pretty self explanatory. Just in case you are wonder, deposits and rewards will include both baking and endorsements bonds and rewards. Notice that those freezer operations are negative values and they imply that these balances are subtracted from freezer. \n\nThe \"contract\" transaction is what changes the balance to the baker in question. This is pretty similar to a user initiated transaction. If we add up the 3 freezer category's balances, they would add up to the change balance for the baker.", "I understand where you're coming from: you aren't doing as much work in your opinion, so you don't want to charge your full rate. I'm going to tell you though...\n\nCHARGE YOUR FULL RATE\n\nWhy? Because, as a Freelancer, you are the professional, and companies need to realize that. As I state in other answers, you are being hired for your expertise, not your time. If you are selling just your time, you may as well be at a 9 to 5 job. Just because they don't want to use all your skills does not mean they automatically get a discount.\n\nAn hourly agreement would probably be the best bet in this case, instead of by-project; you don't know exactly how much time will be needed here. And absolutely, get a retainer! Your retainer should be enough to cover you week-to-week, and documented carefully. See the other questions around here about retainers. \n\nNow, what happens when this contract is done? Do they give you 2 weeks notice, or some other notice period? They better! You are putting off other clients to help this one out, and you need to keep food on the table. When making your contract, add information about how either party can terminate the agreement; if they terminate before a deadline date, include a penalty portion of the remaining payment. If you need to terminate the contract, offer to work until the retainer is completely drained, but explaining you will not be allowing them to refill it. This way, both of you have to agree to the end of the contract, or else the other has to deal with a \"consequence\", so to speak.\n\nUntil you are done with this client, you will unlikely be helping other people. You need to be prepared for that, and be compensated accordingly.\n\nNow, what about the student's code? What if they need you later on in life? Can you restart the contract? Absolutely! Can you offer free support? Absolutely! Would I recommend offering free support? Heck no! It's up to the little tyke you're tutoring to ask all the questions they need to get going on their project. If they forget to ask something critical, and you remember, ethics tell us that you should tell them, and you absolutely should! But be aware of scope creep, or being contacted outside of the hours set aside for this client. You need compensated for your time and knowledge, which is what gives you value for your work. Never forget that!", "What you are trying to do will never work, find another way :) see the graph protocol or other resources that work to index the blockchain.\nBack to the Question:\nThere is a difference between from, to, value in the transaction and the from, to, value in the logs included in the transaction receipt\nweb3.eth.getTransaction('0x9fc7641.....').then(console.log);\n\n{\n&quot;hash&quot;: &quot;0x9fc7641...&quot;,\n&quot;nonce&quot;: 2,\n&quot;blockHash&quot;: &quot;0xef95f2...&quot;,\n&quot;blockNumber&quot;: 3,\n&quot;transactionIndex&quot;: 0,\n&quot;from&quot;: &quot;0xa94f5374fce5edbc8e2a8697c15331677e6ebf0b&quot;,\n&quot;to&quot;: &quot;0x6295ee1b4f6dd65047762f924ecd367c17eabf8f&quot;,\n&quot;value&quot;: '123450000000000000',\n&quot;gas&quot;: 314159,\n&quot;gasPrice&quot;: '2000000000000',\n&quot;input&quot;: &quot;0x57cb2fc4&quot;\n}\n\nHere from: is the transaction sender, to: the contract address (could be another contract and not the token contract) and the value is the amount of ether in Wei.\nAnd\nvar receipt = web3.eth.getTransactionReceipt('0x9fc764...').then(console.log);\n\n{\n&quot;status&quot;: true,\n&quot;transactionHash&quot;: &quot;0x9fc7641...&quot;,\n&quot;transactionIndex&quot;: 0,\n&quot;blockHash&quot;: &quot;0xef95f...&quot;,\n&quot;blockNumber&quot;: 3,\n&quot;contractAddress&quot;: &quot;0x11f4d0A3c12e86B4b5F39B213F7E19D048276DAe&quot;,\n&quot;cumulativeGasUsed&quot;: 314159,\n&quot;gasUsed&quot;: 30234,\n&quot;logs&quot;: [{\n// logs where the emitted events are shown\n}, ...]\n}\n\nIf the Token is ERC20 then in the logs you will see a Transfer event which includes from: the old owner of the token, to: the new owner of the token, value/amount: is the amount of token that is transfered. (ignor the &quot;contract address&quot; it is only shown if a contract is deployed in the transaction)\nSo long story short, if the user interacting with the contract directly and not through routers and others contract then you need both. The first one to get the contract address, and the second one to get the from, to, and token amount\nI have no idea how to get the contract address if the sender using a router or somehow other contracts, probably there are other events to track" ]

[ "Kim Raver Kimberly Jayne \"Kim\" Raver (born March 15, 1969) is an American actress. She is best known for television roles as Kim Zambrano on Third Watch, Audrey Raines on 24 and Teddy Altman on ABC's medical drama Grey's Anatomy." ]

[ "Good Mourning (Grey's Anatomy) \"Good Mourning\" is the first episode of the sixth season of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy, and the show's 103rd episode overall. It was written by Krista Vernoff and directed by Ed Ornelas. The episode was originally broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States on September 24, 2009. In \"Good Mourning\", the physicians are seen dealing with the revelation that a dead John Doe is their beloved co-worker Dr. George O'Malley (T.R. Knight), and dealing with the aftermath of Dr. Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl)'s near-death experience. Further storylines include Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) and Stevens trying to decide whether or not to donate O'Malley's organs and Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) being offered Dr. Richard Webber (James Pickens, Jr.)'s chief of surgery job.", "Tessa Ferrer Tessa Rose Ferrer (born March 30, 1986)[3] is an American actress. She is known for playing Dr. Leah Murphy, a surgical intern then resident, in Grey's Anatomy.", "Invasion (Grey's Anatomy) \"Invasion\" is the fifth episode of the 6th season of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy, and the show's 107th episode overall. It was written by Mark Wilding and directed by Tony Phelan. The episode was originally broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States on October 15, 2009. In the episode, the physicians of Seattle Grace Hospital must learn to co-operate with new Mercy West residents, who do not act in a kind manner to them. Other storylines include Dr. Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez)'s father returning to the hospital to condemn her homosexuality, and Dr. Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) putting her career into jeopardy after administering the wrong treatment to a patient.", "Samantha Sloyan Samantha Sloyan (born January 4, 1979) is an American actress. Sloyan is best known for her roles in In the Key of Eli and Scandal. Samantha was also seen playing Sarah in the 2016 film Hush as well as Dr. Penelope Blake in the medical drama Grey's Anatomy in Season 11 and 12.", "Diahann Carroll In 2006, she appeared in the television medical drama Grey's Anatomy as Jane Burke, the demanding mother of Dr. Preston Burke. In December 2008, Carroll was cast in USA Network’s series White Collar as June, the savvy widow who rents out her guest room to Neal Caffrey.[6] In 2010, Carroll was featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docudrama entitled, 1 a Minute, and she appeared as Nana in two Lifetime movies: At Risk and The Front, movie adaptations of two Patricia Cornwell novels.[7]", "Marika Domińczyk Marika Domińczyk (/doʊˈmiːntʃɪk/ doh-MEEN-chik) is a Polish-American actress who became best known in the United States for her role as Dr. Eliza Minnick on Grey's Anatomy, which she originated in its thirteenth season.", "Grey's Anatomy Grey's Anatomy is an American medical drama television series that premiered on American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a mid-season replacement on March 27, 2005. The series focuses on the fictional lives of surgical interns, residents, and attending physicians, as they evolve into seasoned doctors while trying to maintain personal lives and relationships. The title is a play on Gray's Anatomy, a human anatomy textbook by Henry Gray.", "Losing My Religion (Grey's Anatomy) \"Losing My Religion\" is the twenty-seventh and final episode of the second season of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy, and the show's 36th episode overall. Written by Shonda Rhimes and directed by Mark Tinker, the episode was originally broadcast with \"Deterioration of the Fight or Flight Response\", in a two-hour season finale event on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States on May 15, 2006. Grey's Anatomy centers around a group of young doctors in training. In this episode, Dr. Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) and her fellow interns have to plan a prom for Dr. Richard Webber's (James Pickens, Jr.) niece Camille Travis (Tessa Thompson). Further storylines include Dr. Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington) recovering from his gunshot wound and Denny Duquette's (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) death following his seemingly successful heart transplant surgery.", "Curtis Armstrong In the feature film Ray, for preparation for his role as music executive Ahmet Ertegün, he had the top part of his head shaved to simulate male pattern baldness. He guest starred in episode 10 — \"Much Too Much\" — and had a much smaller part in episode 11 — \"Owner of a Lonely Heart\" — in season two of Grey's Anatomy. Armstrong played a deejay named Jerry Thunder on That '70s Show, episode 315, \"Radio Daze.\" In 2006 Armstrong was in an episode of Boston Legal. In 2008, he guest starred on the iCarly episode \"iStakeout\" as a convenience store clerk who was suspected of making unauthorized copies of movies. In 2009 he appeared in Ratko: The Dictator's Son, and Locker 13. He played fictional astronaut Chaz Dalton on an episode of the TV series My Name is Earl. From 2008–2013 he portrayed Dr Parker/Dr Dawson on The Game.", "Gaius Charles Gaius Laban Charles (born May 2, 1983) is an American stage, television and film actor best known for playing Brian \"Smash\" Williams on the NBC sports-drama television series Friday Night Lights. He starred as Dr. Shane Ross on the ABC medical drama series Grey's Anatomy. Charles also had a recurring role on the NBC historical-drama series Aquarius as Black Panther leader Bunchy Carter.[1]", "Embeth Davidtz In Junebug (2005), Davidtz played an outsider art dealer from Chicago brought to North Carolina by her husband (Alessandro Nivola) to meet his family for the first time. Davidtz has also guest-starred on the hit ABC drama series Grey's Anatomy as Dr. Derek Shepherd's sister Nancy in the Season 3 episode \"Let the Angels Commit\". In 2008, she had a regular role on HBO's In Treatment as Amy, part of a fractious couple alongside Josh Charles's Jake.", "One Flight Down (Grey's Anatomy) Alex sticks close to Arizona to make sure that she’s okay, but she finds him more annoying than helpful. Alex tells Arizona that it was he who cut off her leg, not Callie. When asked, Callie tells Arizona that she was the one to make the call anyway, and she wanted her to have Alex and just be mad at her alone.", "Flight (Grey's Anatomy) After their plane crashes in the woods, Dr. Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), Dr. Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh), Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), Dr. Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw), Dr. Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), and Dr. Mark Sloan (Eric Dane) desperately fight to stay alive. Meredith is relatively unscathed, while the rest have serious injuries: the pilot, Jerry (James LeGros), has a major spine injury, and Yang dislocates her arm. Robbins' femur is broken and sticking through the skin, Sloan has serious internal injuries; though initially adrenaline keeps him on his feet. Shepherd is sucked out the side of the plane and awakens alone in the wood; his mangled hand having been pushed through the door of the plane. However, none are in as bad shape as Lexie, who is crushed under a piece of the plane. While Meredith searches for Shepherd, Yang and Sloan try to move the debris off Lexie. Eventually, the two realize that they cannot save her, so Sloan holds her hand while she dies, telling her that he loves her. As Sloan tells her of the life the two were meant to have together, Lexie dies with a smile on her face just as Meredith and Yang are approaching.", "Brooke Smith (actress) Brooke Smith (born May 22, 1967) is an American actress, known for her role as Dr. Erica Hahn on the ABC medical drama series Grey's Anatomy, and for her role as Catherine Martin in the 1991 horror film The Silence of the Lambs. Smith portrayed Sheriff Jane Greene on the A&E horror series Bates Motel.", "Grey's Anatomy Grey's Anatomy is an American medical drama television series that premiered on March 27, 2005, on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as a mid-season replacement. The fictional series focuses on the lives of surgical interns, residents, and attending physicians, as they develop into seasoned doctors while trying to maintain personal lives and relationships. The title is a play on Gray's Anatomy, a classic human anatomy textbook first published in 1858 in London and written by Henry Gray. Shonda Rhimes developed the pilot and continues to write for the series; she is also one of the executive producers, along with Betsy Beers, Mark Gordon, Krista Vernoff, Rob Corn, Mark Wilding, and Allan Heinberg. Although the series is set in Seattle (at the fictional Seattle Grace, later known as the Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital), it is filmed primarily in Los Angeles, California.", "Suicide Is Painless \"Song from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless)\" is a song written by Johnny Mandel (music) and Mike Altman (lyrics), which was the theme song for both the movie and TV series M*A*S*H. Mike Altman is the son of the original film’s director, Robert Altman, and was 14 years old when he wrote the song’s lyrics. During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the 1980s, Robert Altman said that while he only made $70,000 for having directed the movie, his son had earned more than $1 million for having co-written the song.", "Ellen Pompeo Pompeo made her feature film debut in 1999 with the romantic comedy Coming Soon, and went on to play minor roles in films like In the Weeds and Mambo Café but found little success initially. A turning point came in her career in 2002, when she gained wide recognition for her starring role in Brad Silberling's drama Moonlight Mile. Pompeo then starred in ABC's popular medical drama Grey's Anatomy (2005–present), and garnered worldwide recognition for her portrayal of the title character Dr. Meredith Grey. The role on the long running series earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama nomination, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. The character became widely popular, making Pompeo one of the most popular television actresses.", "Death and All His Friends (Grey's Anatomy) \"Death and All His Friends\" is the season finale of the sixth season of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy, and the show's 126th episode overall. It was written by Shonda Rhimes and directed by Rob Corn. The episode was originally broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States on May 20, 2010. The episode was the second part of the two-hour season six finale, the first being Sanctuary, and took place at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital. The original episode broadcast in the United States had an audience of 16.13 million viewers and opened up to universal acclaim. The episode centers a shooting spree at the hospital by a former patient's husband Gary Clark (Michael O'Neill). The episode marked the last appearances for Nora Zehetner and Robert Baker as Dr. Reed Adamson and Dr. Charles Percy respectively as both the characters were killed in the shooting.", "Grey's Anatomy (season 14) On April 20, 2018, ABC officially renewed Grey's Anatomy for a network primetime drama record-setting fifteenth season.[7]", "Lexie Grey Alexandra Caroline \"Lexie\" Grey,[1] M.D. is a fictional character from ABC's medical drama series Grey's Anatomy. Created by series producer Shonda Rhimes, the character was portrayed by actress Chyler Leigh from the third through eighth seasons. She was introduced as a surgical intern in season three. Serving as Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo)'s half-sister, Lexie transferred to the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital after her mother's sudden death, and was eventually named a surgical resident. Leigh was originally contracted to appear for a multi-episode story arc, but received star billing in the fourth season.", "Chyler Leigh Chyler Leigh West (pronounced /ˈkaɪlər/; née Potts; born April 10, 1982), known professionally as Chyler Leigh, is an American actress, singer and model. She is best known for her portrayal of Janey Briggs in the comedy film Not Another Teen Movie (2001), Dr. Alexandra \"Lexie\" Grey in the ABC medical drama series Grey's Anatomy (2007–2012), and Alexandra \"Alex\" Danvers in the CBS/CW superhero series Supergirl (2015–present), subsequently appearing in the other series that make up the Arrowverse.", "The Story (song) \"The Story\" is a song released as a single by American folk rock singer Brandi Carlile, written by Phil Hanseroth, from her 2007 album The Story. It was featured in Grey's Anatomy in 2007 and is on Grey's Anatomy Soundtrack album 3 (released September 11).", "Camilla Luddington Luddington has worked mainly in the United States.[7] In February 2011, the Daily Mail described her as \"on the path to fame and fortune after being cast as Catherine Middleton in William & Kate: The Movie, a TV movie about the relationship between Prince William and Catherine \"Kate\" Middleton.[8] Luddington joined the cast of the Showtime comedy-drama series Californication for its fifth season, playing a nanny.[9] She also joined the cast of season five of the HBO vampire drama True Blood, as Claudette Crane, a faerie.[10] In July 2012, Luddington joined the cast of Grey's Anatomy as Dr. Jo Wilson in a recurring role. In June 2013 it was announced that she would be a series regular from season ten onward.[11] In October 2012, Camilla appeared on a Halloween special of E!'s popular fashion programme, Fashion Police, alongside a panel of Joan Rivers, Kelly Osbourne, George Kotsiopoulos and Kris Jenner.[citation needed]", "Tina Majorino In 2012, she reprised her role as Deb in the animated TV version of Napoleon Dynamite. She was also seen playing the role of the vampire Molly in Season 5 of the HBO television series True Blood, an uncredited role as a pregnant woman in the Fox show, Raising Hope, in an episode titled \"Tarot Cards,\" and the role of intern Dr. Heather Brooks in Season 9 of the ABC series Grey's Anatomy, with her character being killed off in the two-part premiere of Season 10. In 2014 she appeared in the Veronica Mars film as her character Mac, a project financed by fans through Kickstarter.[17]", "Losing My Religion (Grey's Anatomy) News of the death spreads, and the interns hurry to his room to find a shocked Stevens, lying on the bed, clinging to his still form. As they each try to comfort her, the cause of his death is revealed to have been a blood clot that led to a fatal stroke. Stevens says that if she had taken less time to dress, she would have arrived at his room sooner and could have been with him while he died. Dr. Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) then talks to Stevens, picking her up and hugging her. Afterward, Dr. Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), who did not know how to handle Burke's situation, goes to his room and puts her hand on his to show him her support. As the episode ends, Stevens confesses to Webber that she was the one responsible for the LVAD wire cut, and claiming she cannot be a surgeon, quits the program. After everyone begins going their separate ways, Grey remains torn on who she should follow: Shepherd or Dandridge.", "Mare Winningham In 2006, she landed the role of Susan Grey on the ABC drama Grey's Anatomy where she played the stepmother of one of the main characters, Dr. Meredith Grey. Her character was killed off in May 2007.[2] In 2006, Winningham voiced the audio version of Stephen King's Lisey's Story. In 2007, she voiced Alice Hoffman's Skylight Confessions. In 2010, Winningham starred in an episode of Cold Case as main character Lilly Rush's stepmother, Celeste Cooper.[10] In 2011 she appeared in the fourth episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day as character Ellis Hartley Monroe.[11] She also starred in miniseries Mildred Pierce and Hatfields & McCoys and garnered another two Emmy nominations.[1] In 2012, she appeared Off-Broadway as Beth, the mother in an intellectual, though dysfunctional, British family, in the award-winning comic-drama Tribes by Nina Raine.", "Grey's Anatomy On February 10, 2017, ABC renewed Grey's Anatomy for a fourteenth season, which premiered on September 28, 2017.[1] The series' success catapulted such long-running cast members as Pompeo, Dempsey, and Oh to worldwide recognition; they were among the top five highest-earning television actors in 2013.[2][3]", "Grey's Anatomy (season 6) The season follows the story of surgical interns, residents and their competent mentors, as they experience the difficulties of the competitive careers they have chosen. It is set in the surgical wing of the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital, located in Seattle, Washington. A major storyline of the season is the characters adapting to change, as their beloved co-worker Stevens departed following the breakdown of her marriage, O'Malley died in the season premiere—following his being dragged by a bus, and new cardiothoracic surgeon Teddy Altman is given employment at the hospital. Further storylines include Shepherd being promoted to chief of surgery, Seattle Grace Hospital merging with the neighboring Mercy West —introducing several new doctors, and several physicians lives being placed into danger—when a grieving deceased patient's husband embarks on a shooting spree at the hospital, seeking revenge for his wife's death.", "Grey's Anatomy (season 12) The twelfth season of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy was ordered on May 7, 2015, by ABC.[1] It premiered on September 24, 2015, in the United States on ABC. The twelfth season includes the show's 250th episode, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, which is the fifth episode in the season. The season is produced by ABC Studios, in association with Shondaland Production Company and The Mark Gordon Company; the showrunner being Shonda Rhimes. The season commenced airing with the episode \"Sledgehammer\" and concluded with \"Family Affair\".", "Song Beneath the Song \"Song Beneath the Song,\" also known as Grey's Anatomy: \"The Music Event,\" is the eighteenth episode of the seventh season of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy, and the one-hundred forty-fourth episode overall. It was named after a song initially performed by American singer Maria Taylor. Written by series creator Shonda Rhimes and directed by Tony Phelan, it premiered on ABC in the United States on March 31, 2011. It is the series's first musical episode, and features the cast performing songs previously featured within the program. It is accompanied by a soundtrack album, titled Grey's Anatomy: The Music Event, also released on March 31, 2011.", "How to Save a Life The song was first featured on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, after Alexandra Patsavas, the music supervisor for the show, saw the band perform in Los Angeles. Alexandra then incorporated the song into \"Superstition\", an episode of the show's second season (first aired on March 19, 2006). After its usage in the episode, the song became a minor Hot 100 hit. The song became an \"unofficial theme\" for the other members of the Grey's Anatomy production after the episode aired, leading to the decision that the song would be used in the main promotion for the third season in the show. Grey's Anatomy is credited with bringing popularity to the song.[13]", "Grey's Anatomy (season 11) The eleventh season of the American television medical drama Grey's Anatomy premiered on September 25, 2014 in the United States on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) and consists of 25 episodes. The season was produced by ABC Studios, in association with ShondaLand Production Company and The Mark Gordon Company; the showrunner being Shonda Rhimes. The season commenced airing with the episode \"I Must Have Lost it on the Wind\" and concluded with the season finale \"You're My Home\" airing on May 14, 2015. The season was officially released on DVD as a six-disc boxset under the title of Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Eleventh Season – Life Changes on August 18, 2015 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment.[1]" ]

[ "Ryanair has announced a new operations base to open in Málaga in June next year, which will be the low cost airline's 38th base worldwide and its fifth in Spain." ]

[ "Budget airline Ryanair has announced that it will open a base in Valencia, Spain, Inside Ireland reports.", "Ryanair announced it would open its 40th and 1st Central European base at Kaunas, Lithuania's second largest city, in May with 2 based aircraft and 18 routes.", "The Irish low-cost airline Ryanair will begin to operate a new route from Malaga to East Midlands on 2 June 2008, with two flights a week.", "Ryanair said it will operate hand baggage only flights to and from Spain on Wednesday because of a 24-hour strike by Spanish workers.", "Ryanair yesterday announced flights to seven new destinations, a couple of which have already been served by the airline before.", "Ryanair has announced four new sun routes from Manchester to Alicante, Faro, Madrid and Tenerife and increased frequencies on its Dublin route as it announced its Manchester summer 2011 schedule.", "Ryanair, one of the original low-cost airlines, has announced that it is creating more than 1,000 new jobs as part of its expansion plans for 2012.", "Ryanair said it will close its Belfast City base at the end of the current summer schedule Oct. 31, citing the airport's confirmation that a public inquiry into a planned runway extension will be further delayed.", "Ryanair has today announced a new Cork to East Midlands route from 1 Sept, operating three times weekly, which will grow Ryanair's Cork route network to 19, delivering 650,000 passengers pa and sustaining 650 on-site jobs, the company says.", "Ryanair, the world's favourite airline, today announced further cuts to its 2011 German operations which will suffer the loss of 3m passengers and 3,000 jobs at airports in Berlin, Bremen, Dusseldorf Weeze and Frankfurt Hahn due to the German Govt's new €8 tourist tax.", "LOW-COST airline Ryanair has announced that it has suspended its Newquay service to and from Stansted until March.", "Budget airline Ryanair has announced a new takeover bid for Aer Lingus.", "Ryanair has announced it will drop 30% of its flights and nine routes from Hahn Airport near Frankfurt in 2011 due to a new tourist tax approved by the German government this year.", "Ryanair is to take legal action against a number of Spanish unions over wildcat strikes of air traffic controllers earlier this month which caused the cancellation of over 500 Ryanair flights.", "Manchester Airport has announced its new £20 million air traffic control tower is now complete and will be operational: ``later this week.''", "ExecuJet, the Switzerland-based business aviation group, is expanding its operations in Asia with the opening of a new hangar at Singapore's Seletar Aerospace Park.", "UK-based supply chain provider Wincanton has announced that it will introduce 20 new curtain-sided Teardrop trailers into its construction transport operation.", "TAM Airlines, a Group TAM company with headquarters in Asuncion, will consolidate its fleet of aircraft and initiate a new air network starting today.", "Air Arabia Maroc, Morocco's new low cost carrier has become the newest Airbus aircraft operator with the launch of services on May 6th, between its hub at Mohamed V Airport, Casablanca and Stansted Airport, London.", "Low-cost airline Ryanair Plc said Monday it will cut most of its routes out of north England's Manchester Airport with the loss of up to 600 jobs.", "Kenyan operator Safaricom announced it will carry out M-Pesa maintenance work on 11 June from 10 pm.", "On one side of the Atlantic, Canadians are fighting a new CRTC ruling that bans Internet service providers from offering unlimited internet bundles; on the other, UK-based Ryanair and Maxroam have launched the world's first free mobile roaming service, which is live and ready as of Monday, the companies announced at the MWC.", "Newquay Cornwall Airport has welcomed the arrival of Jet2.com and its launch of three times weekly flights to Leeds Bradford Airport in Yorkshire and twice weekly services to Belfast in Northern Ireland.", "Spanish air traffic controllers are beginning to return to work following a wildcat strike, an airports authority spokesman said on Saturday.", "This week Latvian airline airBaltic opened a call centre in Finland that offers its service in the Finnish language.", "European aircraft manufacturer Airbus has opened a logistics centre in Dubai to serve the rapidly growing Middle East carriers, including Dubai-owned Emirates airline.", "South Africa's largest gold-mining company AngloGold Ashanti is devising a new mining model to enable it to operate safely and profitably at depths of 5 000 m and beyond.", "World Cup Soccer helped Ryanair airline to set the new passengers record for an European airline.", "Ryanair, the Irish low-cost carrier, said on Wednesday it was cutting 50 jobs and scrapping 10 summer tourist routes from Liverpool airport because of the weak pound and rising passenger taxes.", "Cruise West, a Seattle-based, small-ship operator with a devoted following and decades in business, will cease most operations as of Saturday, Sept. 18, the company said in a news release Friday.", "During a ceremony held at Hamburg, Germany, Shanghai Airlines has taken delivery of its first Airbus aircraft, an A321, becoming a new operator of Airbus aircraft.", "The GNOME Foundation and the LiMo Foundation, an industry consortium dedicated to creating a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices, have announced a new partnership with the objective of ``collaborating closely on open source innovation''." ]

[ "Pope Benedict, in a decree issued on Saturday, authorized wider use of the old Latin mass and told the world's 1.1 billion Roman Catholics that his nod to Church traditionalists was nothing to be afraid of." ]

[ "Pope John Paul II ushered in the Christmas holiday, lighting a candle for peace in his window Friday before celebrating midnight Mass in a new test of the 84-year-old pontiff's frail health.", "An ailing Pope John Paul II says Mass at Lourdes, the French shrine revered by Roman Catholics.", "In the traditional midnight Christmas Mass, the pope bemoaned an “ill-treated world” in a homily given to thousands of pilgrims.", "In the last open-air mass of his German tour the Pope deplores use of God's name to justify hatred and fanaticism.", "Pope Benedict XVI celebrates Mass for 30,000 people at the 850-year-old shrine of Mariazell in Austria.", "Concerns over AMD's succession plans come at a difficult time for the company, and revive that old tug-of-war between marketing and engineering.", "VATICAN CITY - Pope John Paul II celebrated the traditional midnight mass at the Vatican with special prayers for peace in the region of the Middle East where Jesus Christ was born.", "Pope Benedict XVI leads Mass for almost one million Poles before a symbolic visit to the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz.", "Pope John Paul left hospital on Thursday, ending a 10-day stay for severe breathing problems that revived concern about his health and the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.", "BERLIN - Germany's biggest synagogue, a century-old landmark that was torched by the Nazis and left to deteriorate in communist East Berlin, reopened its doors yesterday in the latest sign of the country's Jewish revival.", "The official Vatican translation of Pope Benedict XVI's remarks, delivered in Italian Sunday about his Sept. 12 speech that sparked anger among Muslims.", "Pope Benedict is due to visit Austria, where he will join Jewish leaders to pay tribute to victims of the Nazis.", "A painting on display in Rome revives the scandal of Pope Alexander VI and his youthful mistress, Giulia Farnese.", "Pope John Paul II encouraged Catholics to rediscover the importance of Sunday Mass during the Advent season.", "MOSCOW: The Vatican returned a much-venerated icon to the Russian Orthodox Church yesterday in a symbolic gesture by Pope John Paul aimed at easing strained Orthodox-Roman Catholic relations.", "Larry Kulik believes the Holy Spirit descended on Chicago 25 years ago--the day Pope John Paul II conducted mass at Five Holy Martyrs Church.", "The chairman of the Yesha Council of Jewish settlements has called on the public to violate the transfer law, en masse, and to be ready to pay the price of mass imprisonment.", "VIENNA - Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged Europe's tragic past and warned of its uncertain future yesterday as he honored Jews killed in the Holocaust and urged the continent to accept its Christian heritage.", "Pope Benedict XVI told Ehud Olmert he would consider the request, which came after an Iranian conference which questioned the Nazi genocide", "The Archbishop of Canterbury hears concerns from the Pope on the future of the Anglican Communion.", "The top Vatican cardinal in charge of relations with Jews on Thursday denied a new prayer for their conversion was offensive and said Catholics had the right to pray as they wish.", "Quit army or face mass rally, President Musharraf warned, as White House demands revival of constitution.", "ROME -- Confronted with continued anger in Latin America, Pope Benedict XVI yesterday acknowledged that the Christian colonization of Indian populations was not as rosy as he portrayed in a major speech earlier this month in Brazil.", "Lithuania's small Jewish community is reviving the Yiddish language, which almost died out in World War II.", "Security concerns dominate Bush's Latin American trip. The view from inside the bubble.", "In a surprising about-face, Pope Benedict has decided to restore power and prestige to the Vatican department that oversees dialogue with Islam a year after he controversially downgraded it.", "The FBI's top counterterrorism official harbors lots of concerns: weapons of mass destruction, undetected homegrown terrorists and the possibility that old-fashioned mobsters will team up with al-Qaida for the right price.", "ROME -- Pope Pius XII ordered the church in France not to return Jewish children to their parents if they had been baptized into the Catholic faith to save them from the Nazis, according to a 1946 letter obtained by a historian.", "Pope John Paul II, seeking to heal rifts with other Christians, on Saturday handed over the relics of two Orthodox saints that were brought to Rome from ancient Constantinople centuries ago.", "VATICAN CITY Pope John Paul is returning centuries-old relics of two Orthodox Christian saints in an effort to bridge the divide between the two churches.", "Medieval Krakow is the spiritual home of Poland's Jewish revival. Today the city is home to only a tiny number of Jews, but it is rich in historical relics, including six synagogues and two Jewish cemeteries.", "ISTANBUL, Sep 17 (IPS) - In another attempt to mollify the Islamic world following apologies from the Vatican earlier, Pope Benedict XVI personally intervened during his Angelus, the traditional Sunday noon blessing, to reject any anti-Islam sentiment, and appeal for dialogue." ]

[ "Secondo il quotidiano iberico 'Marca', il Real Madrid sarebbe disposto ad investire ben 60 milioni d..." ]

[ "Il Real Madrid offre 18 mln per Chivu, e la Roma, in attesa delle decisioni del giocatore, accetta d...", "Si complica l'affare Toldo per il Real Madrid. Secondo \"Marca\", infatti, l'Inter starebbe ostacoland...", "Secondo il quotidiano iberico Marca, con l'arrivo al Real Madrid dell'argentino Gonzalo Higuan, ora ...", "Il Real Madrid fa un pensierino ad Adriano. Secondo il quotidiano spagnolo 'Marca' il direttore spor...", "L'attaccante del Real Madrid, Robinho, afferma alla radio del quotidiano sportivo Marca: \"Kak&agrave...", "Il Real Madrid &egrave; pronto ad investire 80 dei 110 milioni disponibili per il mercato per acquis...", "Risultato operativo lordo +45% a 60 mln di euro", "Secondo il sito del quotidiano spagnolo Marca il laterale destro del Real Madrid Cicinho verr&agrave...", "Giappone offre 4 mln dollari per creazione sistema d'allarme", "Governo versera' 60 mln lire libanesi a ogni proprietario", "Secca sconfitta del Real Madrid nell'anticipo della 22/a giornata della Liga. I 'blancos' hanni pers...", "Banca pronta a versare 60 mln e a garantirne altri 750", "Ripresa di campionato negativa per Real Madrid e Barcellona nella Liga spagnola: all'ottava giornata...", "Le richieste sono ammontate a 60,9 mld", "Newcastle United&#39;s England defender Jonathan Woodgate has arrived in Madrid for a medical prior to signing for Real Madrid, Radio Marca report.", "Sequestrati beni per un valore di oltre 60 milioni", "Marca scrive oggi che il tecnico del Real Madrid, Fabio Capello, starebbe preparando un ritorno in I...", "La Juventus &egrave; pronta ad offrire sei milioni di euro al Real Madrid per riavere Fabio Cannava...", "Cesc Fabregas dice no al Real Madrid. Ai microfoni di Radio Marca, il centrocampista spagnolo ha esp...", "In distribuzione acconto cedola 2006 da 0,60 euro", "Il Real Madrid dovr&agrave; fare a meno per tre settimane di Guti. Il centrocampista si &egrave; inf...", "Real Madrid coach Jose Antonio Camacho has offered to resign, according to reports in Spain. Several sources, including radio station Cadena Ser and Madrid-based newspaper Marca, believe Camacho contacted", "Azionista di Vision Investment Management, per 61 mln euro", "Quotato 60,18 dollari al barile, venerdi' era a 59,60", "\"Se il Real Madrid ha accettato di pagare 18 milioni di euro alla Roma, deve anche accettare le ric...", "Secondo il quotidiano spagnolo Marca, il centrocampista del Villareal, Juan Roman Riquelme, sta per ...", "Secondo il quotidiano sportivo spagnolo 'Marca', l'Atletico Madrid &egrave; sulle tracce di David Al...", "Per 12 mln dollari, e' il secondo produttore tv in Cina", "Iniziativa umanitaria del Real Madrid: le merengues giocaranno un incontro di calcio in favore della...", "Il 60% degli istituti offre servizi al microcredito", "Zinedine Zidane al Real Madrid. Il francese, ritiratosi dal calcio giocato dopo i Mondiali del 2006,...", "Blitz romano di Mijatovic che offre al club di Sensi 18 milioniResta da convincere il romeno: per lui contratto da 5 milioni l'anno Per Chivu c'è l'accordo Roma-Real Decisivo il parere del giocatore E il presidente del Real Madrid mette in vendita Emerson e Cassano" ]

[ "When Gwen Lynch graduated 8th grade from Cuttyhunk Elementary on Monday, she was the only one. Cuttyhunk is a tiny island — the last of a chain of about 10 small islands southeast of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. The school, the only one on the island, is comprised of one room and Lynch was its only student. Lynch says a lot of people might think it would be cool to go to school on an island that's only a mile long. \"I don't think they understand how, like, quiet it is and how boring it is,\" she says. \"It's maybe like a great place to do maybe a month or six weeks. But it's just so, it really is lonely.\" Lynch's dad Duane graduated from Cuttyhunk Elementary school 35 years ago, and her brother Carter was at the school with her last year. There's no other school on the island and he's now at a boarding school in Rhode Island. Gwen's mom, Lexi Lynch, says while her daughter missed out on some social things, like school dances and parties, she also dodged some of the hard middle school transitions. \"I am so glad she missed out on a lot of the drama,\" she says. On Monday, more than 100 neighbors and friends packed into the island's small church to cheer on Lynch's graduation. The commencement speaker was someone Gwen Lynch met just last week. Actress and comedian Jenny Slate, whose boyfriend runs a writing workshop on the island. \"I started to realize that you, who go to school by yourself on an island that is basically empty half the year, are still way cooler and more popular than I was as a teenager, who lived in a town and went to a school with lots of other people,\" Slate said in her speech. Slate also spoke directly to Lynch about her aspirations. The graduate says she wants to be an engineer, and Slate admires her ambition to invent things that change the world. \"I hope you keep saying what you want to achieve and that you want to put your very own name on it,\" Slate said. There is no shame in wanting to be recognized for your good work. Your no-frills confidence is pure and powerful.\" \"You told me that you were good at sailing and that you don't much like being told what to do on the boat because you know what to do.\" she said. \"I told myself that I wish that I spoke so clearly about my own strengths.\" As the school's last full-time student, 13-year-old Gwen Lynch is now preparing for her next adventure. She'll be attending 9th grade in the fall at a boarding school in New Hampshire. In her speech, Slate also said Lynch also told her that she felt her graduation is \"both the start of something big ... and the end of something that is important for the community.\"" ]

[ "Michelle Wolf's path to becoming a comedian may seem unusual, especially considering that her first job after graduating with a kinesiology degree from William and Mary, was in finance on Wall Street. \"Fun fact about Wall Street, is they love people who are just competitive and will do anything to win,\" she told Ophira Eisenberg, host of NPR's Ask Me Another, at the Bell House in Brooklyn. \"So they love athletes... I was an athlete in college, and I got good grades so they were like 'Oh yeah, she'll be great. Don't worry that she's never taken a business class.\" Wolf joined the workforce at a particularly critical time, starting at Bear Stearns in the summer of 2007, less than a year before the firm failed. She recalled that in March 2008, as her employer began to collapse, she and her friends attended a taping of Saturday Night Live, which inspired her to try her hand at comedy. Though she began taking improv classes, Wolf soon moved on to stand up and eventually joined the writer's room at Late Night With Seth Meyers. Though she no longer works on the show, she described the nature of her friendship with Meyers. \"One of my favorite things about Seth Meyers, first of all, very easy to make fun of. But also, is fine with being made fun of, and he'll make fun of me and it's a great relationship...I think he's a little scared of me, and then 98 percent friends with me. Two percent scared, 98 percent friends\" After leaving Late Night, Wolf went on to The Daily Show, released an HBO special, Nice Lady, and, hosted her own Netflix series, The Break. But it was her appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April 2018 that garnered Wolf national attention. Though comedians are traditionally invited to deliver a keynote speech at the dinner, Wolf had planned to forge her own path. \"I knew going in my approach to it was going to be different than most people who have done it,\" she recalled. \"Everyone had told me how bad the room was, they were like 'It's not a good room, y'know, just try to do some inside baseball stuff, that'll keep them laughing.' And I was like I'm not going to do it for the room. I'm going to do it for the people!\" Wolf's comedic roast performance proved to be controversial. \"I think because of what I did, they're always going to have a comedian. They will never stray from that tradition!\" joked Wolf, in reference to the White House Correspondents' Association's decision to invite a historian, rather than a comedian, to deliver remarks next year. While Wolf's material garnered some outrage, she told Eisenberg that the point of the Correspondents' dinner is not just to make jokes about the President and the administration, but also to hold the media accountable. \"I think that the media, they pretend to hate Trump,\" she reflected. \"But they love him because they're selling everything that they are making. They're selling, their books, their TV, their newspapers. He is selling it all for them and they are all getting so rich while we suffer immensely.\" In her free time, Wolf runs ultramarathons, but she was a track and field athlete in high school and college. She and Amber Ruffin compete against each other in a game and guess what Michelle could jump over, based on her high jump personal record. Heard on Michelle Wolf And Amber Ruffin: Late Night Trivia Fight", "Former President Barack Obama delivered a virtual commencement address on Saturday, urging the tens of thousands of graduates from historically black colleges and universities to \"seize the initiative\" amid what he described as a lack of leadership from leaders in the United States to the coronavirus pandemic. \"More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they're doing,\" Obama said in remarks that were streamed online. \"A lot of them aren't even pretending to be in charge. If the world's gonna be better, it's going to be up to you.\" Obama's remarks come as the virus has killed more than 88,000 Americans and crippled the nation's economy. He delivered them as part of \"Show Me Your Walk HBCU Edition,\" a virtual commencement hosted Saturday by the comedian Kevin Hart. The event included a stream of prominent black athletes, politicians and entertainers — many of whom attended HBCUs themselves. While Obama's remarks were billed as a sendoff for graduating seniors — forced by the pandemic to leave campuses across the country and unable to participate in more traditional commencement ceremonies — Obama also appeared to bring the graduates together around a set of shared values. The former president made note of the disproportionate impact that the pandemic has had on black communities. Black Americans account for a disproportionate number of coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. There have also been stark racial disparities in the economic impact of the outbreak. Addressing these disparities, Obama said that coronavirus \"spotlights the underlying inequalities and extra burdens that black communities have historically had to deal with in this country.\" He also made reference to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the 25-year-old black man who was fatally shot in Georgia in February, saying there were disparities evident not just in public health, but \"just as we see it when a black man goes for a jog, and some folks feel like they can stop and question and shoot him if he doesn't submit to their questioning.\" Obama praised the key role that historically black colleges play in the black community, telling graduates that now more than ever, they have the tools they need to seize their power to make change. Obama called on the 2020 class to be \"bold\" and have a \"vision that isn't clouded by cynicism or fear.\" Taylor Harris, 22, who attended Hampton University, said she was glad to see Obama and others taking notice of HBCUs given their key role in educating a large population of low income and first-generation students. \"I feel like we don't get a lot of recognition — they kind of looked at as second tier compared to Ivy League schools or predominately white institutions,\" said Harris. \"So I'm just glad that celebrities are taking the chance to embrace our young African-American graduates. There are so many statistics that we have overcome, just graduating for college.\" Harris left Hampton's campus nine weeks ago, and went home to St. Louis, assuming she'd be back on campus in a matter of weeks. \"At first people were excited, it was like a little break,\" Harris said. \"But as soon as I got back home and I knew that I couldn't return back to campus, now I'm living out of a suitcase.\" Hampton University is planning on holding a commencement ceremony for graduating seniors in September. Harris said that's a long way in the future, but she hopes she gets the opportunity to walk across the stage in front of her family and friends, and professors that she said became like family too. Obama's remarks on Saturday marked the first of three speeches he is scheduled to deliver to graduating students. On Saturday evening, the former president is slated to take part in a prime time special for high school graduates that will air on the major television networks. In June, Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama are also scheduled to speak at a commencement hosted by YouTube. Over the course of his presidency, Obama gave in-person commencement addresses at three historically black colleges: Hampton University, Howard University and Morehouse College. On Saturday, he said that graduates of such institutions are \"inheritors of one of America's proudest traditions\" and that \"no generation has been better positioned to be warriors for justice and remake the world.\" Donethe Cyprien, 22, graduated from Morgan State University in Baltimore on Saturday. Since Morgan State ended in-person classes, she's been with family in Montgomery County, Maryland. \"Honestly, it was sad,\" she said after participating in her virtual commencement. \"Right now I'm supposed to be at school actually doing all of this. Instead, I'm watching my graduation in my bed and texting my friends.\" Cyprien said virtual commencements are a nice gesture, but can't replicate what she and other members of the class of 2020 have lost. \"All those goodbyes, those hugs — all that was supposed", "May is Asian/Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, and NPR is celebrating through special coverage projects, cultural aggregations, and unique audience engagement opportunities. We have compiled these resources which include a Spotify playlist, a reading list, a picture show, a data visualization piece, Tiny Desk compilation and an opportunity for dialogue, all with a focus lens on Asian/Pacific Islander heritages. As a company, we want to honor, uplift and celebrate the Asian/Pacific Islander community and make sure they are represented in our stories. We encourage you all to educate yourself on these topics, join our discussions and continue to be an active participant. For more information on how to achieve this, be sure to join our Twitter Spaces conversation! Engage In Conversation Twitter Spaces Engagement: Thursday, May 27th Join NPR on Twitter Thursday, May 27th for a conversation about what Asian and Pacific Islander journalists and producers think about when they're covering their own communities in news and podcasts. Hear how they approach building a respectful narrative and share with them what Asian and Pacific Islander stories you want to hear from NPR! Stay on top of the latest way to engage with us by following the NPR and NPR Extra Twitters. Special Reporting Projects: Engaging With Asian American And Pacific Islander Heritage Month: A Reading List In the past year, and throughout history, narratives surrounding Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been rife with violence, hardship and grief. Yet they are so much more than their experiences of suffering — beyond tales of war and isolation, there is joy, confusion, anger and relief. NPR has compiled a reading list of works from Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander writers. Through a wide range of fiction, poetry, graphic novels and nonfiction, they examine everything from motherhood and displacement to sexuality. The Picture Show's Photographers Reflect On What It Means To Be Asian American NPR's Visual team invited a group of AAPI photographers to share their reflections on recent anti-Asian violence and on what Asian community, culture and life really looks like. Their thoughts include worries and concerns about their families, desires to end perceptions of Asians as forever foreign, commitment to preserving culture, and love as a form of survival. Explore this photo project that turns the lens back on the photographers themselves, and demonstrates the complexity of embodying one's identity during a stressful time. 6 Charts That Dismantle The Trope Of Asian Americans As A Model Minority This NPR data visualization project seeks to debunk misconceptions around a pernicious stereotype: the Model Minority. Since the end of World War II, this myth about Asian Americans and their perceived collective success has been used as a racial wedge — to minimize the role racism plays in the struggles of other minority groups, such as Black Americans. Characterizing Asian Americans as a \"model minority\" flattens the diverse experiences of the Asian American into a singular, narrow narrative. And it paints a misleading picture about the community that doesn't align with current statistics. Learn more about the inaccurate myths that underpin this concept and all the data disproving them. Collecting Stories, Experiences, and Culture: Podcast Spotify Playlist Celebrate with podcasts from NPR featuring the people, stories and issues at the heart of the Asian American community. This list of sixteen podcast episodes spanning over ten hours just scratches the surfaces of the different and plentiful narratives that surround the Asian American experience. Margaret Cho's 5 Favorite Tiny Desk Concerts; Eddie Huang's Favorite Tiny Desk Concerts In line with their series \"Tiny Desk Playlists,\" NPR Music asks musicians, creators and folks they admire to choose the concerts and performances they've come to love. For the two editions published in May, the Music team asked comedian, podcaster and actress Margaret Cho and writer, director and author Eddie Huang to pick their favorites. NPR AZNs' Tiny Desk Picks For the celebration of Asian/Pacific Islander American Heritage Month, NPR Music invited NPR staff members from the community to curate a playlist of their favorite Tiny Desk concerts featuring artists who trace their ancestry across the Asian continent and the Pacific Islands. Be on the lookout for which Tiny Desk artists resonated with NPR's API staff in this diverse compilation.", "The commencement speech season is underway and recent grads are soaking up the advice and wisdom from speakers across the country. Last weekend, Michelle Obama spoke at Tuskegee University in Alabama, one of the nation's premier historically black universities. She spoke openly about being black in America. \"There will be times ... when you feel like folks look right past you, or they see just a fraction of who you really are,\" she told grads. \"The road ahead is not going to be easy,\" she said. \"It never is, especially for folks like you and me.\" In Chicago, after receiving an honorary doctoral degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Kanye West spoke to grads about asking for forgiveness rather than permission: \" 'I'm sorry' is something that you can use a lot,\" he told the crowd. \"It gives you opportunity to give your opinion, apologize for it, and give your opinion again.\" Mary Karr, a poet and author best known for her memoir, The Liars' Club, delivered the commencement address to Syracuse University graduates. She spoke about fear: \"Getting what you want can often scare you more than not getting it.\" And she offered some advice as an \"expert in fear.\" \"If you can get curious about what scares or infuriates you, especially if it's part of yourself, you can get way less scared,\" she said. \"Being curious and compassionate will take you out of your ego and edge your soul towards wonder ...\" And those three speeches are just the beginning. There are still many, many more to come this graduation season. In the meantime, if you're looking for life advice — like \"Do not pick your nose in public,\" from actress Sandra Bullock, or job advice — such as, \"Try not to get a regular job,\" from show host Jay Leno — you should check out NPR Ed's online commencement database. We sifted through hundreds of grad speeches (dating back to 1774) and compiled our favorites. We Need Your Help! In the next few weeks, we'll be updating the database with the best speeches from the 2014 and 2015 seasons. Here are just a few we're looking forward to: Ken Burns (May 15) — Washington University in St. Louis. Julian Bond (May 16) — Skidmore College. Maya Rudolph (May 16) — Tulane University. Condoleezza Rice (May 16) — College of William and Mary. Bill Nye (May 17) — Rutgers University. Ian McEwan (May 17) — Dickinson College. Samantha Power (May 18) — University of Pennsylvania. Stephen Colbert (May 18) — Wake Forest University. Christopher Nolan (June 1) — Princeton University. You can see a more comprehensive list from the blog Graduation Wisdom here. If you see a great graduation speech this month or next month, let us know and we'll put it in. Tell us about your favorite graduation speeches — We're on Twitter at @npr_ed. Our Facebook page is here or you can drop us an email at NPREd@npr.org.", "Updated at 1:45 p.m. ET Betsy DeVos spoke through waves of boos and shouted protests during her commencement speech at Bethune-Cookman University on Wednesday, delivering a celebratory address with what seemed at times to be grim-faced resolve. In the week and a half since the historically black university announced DeVos would be delivering the address, protest petitions drew thousands of signatures and calls for the school president's resignation have cropped up — as NPR's Anya Kamenetz laid out here. The reaction to the speech itself — which you can watch below — was often no different. As the lightning-rod secretary of education stepped behind the lectern, she was greeted with immediate boos from the students — a deepening roar that had begun in smatters minutes earlier when she received her honorary doctorate from school President Edison O. Jackson. Yet it was also clear DeVos had anticipated this response, opening her speech with a call for understanding. \"One of the hallmarks of higher education and of democracy is the ability to converse with people with whom we disagree,\" DeVos told the crowd, her voice raised slightly to be heard above the boos. \"We can focus on differences that divide us, or we can choose to listen and learn from each other's experiences.\" As Anya explained, much of that anger among students and alumni was inspired by comments DeVos had made earlier this year: \"DeVos called HBCUs \"real pioneers when it comes to school choice,\" a remark she was forced to walk back after protests; in fact, these colleges were founded as the only option for students, when other colleges were still legally segregated. Just this week, DeVos found herself clarifying comments by President Trump that seemed to suggest that a key form of funding for HBCUs might be unconstitutional.\" Within hours of the announcement at the start of this month, the school in Daytona Beach, Fla., began actively defending its decision to invite DeVos. \"One of the lasting hallmarks of higher education is its willingness to engage, explore, and experience that which we deem as 'other,' \" Jackson said in an open letter to the school community the same day as the announcement. \"When we seek to shelter our students and campus communities from views that are diametrically opposed to their own,\" he continued, \"we actually leave our students far less capable of combating those ideas. ... We cannot, and we will not, ever accomplish this if we continue to exist in ideological, social, and racial silos.\" At the ceremony Wednesday, Jackson interrupted DeVos shortly into her address in order to quiet graduates in the crowd, some of whom had risen to their feet to turn their backs on DeVos in protest. \"If this behavior continues, your degrees will be mailed to you,\" Jackson threatened. \"Choose which way you want to go.\" The faculty and staff on stage stood several minutes in silence before the jeers from the crowd had ebbed enough to proceed. Still, some of the graduates made their choice known — loudly. Perhaps no louder than when DeVos promised to go to the grave site of Mary McLeod Bethune later in the day to pay her respects, a promise nearly drowned out by the sounds of shouting. In the end, though, the boos gradually subsided and DeVos concluded her prepared remarks — though not before she delivered a few more pointed comments on difference and understanding. \"We must first listen, then speak, with humility to understand the perspectives of those with whom we disagree.\"", "Good morning. Though health care remains atop the agenda in Washington, financial regulation will be competing for the spotlight today. As this timeline shows, it's the one-year anniversary of Lehman Brothers' collapse. And as NPR's John Ydstie reports, \"a year ago this week the global financial system teetered on the edge of collapse\": President Barack Obama will be on Wall Street today to deliver what the White House is billing as a \"major speech on the financial crisis.\" That happens at noon ET. We'll \"live-blog\" the highlights, and NPR's Neal Conan will be on many NPR member stations anchoring coverage of the president's address. Related story by Bloomberg News -- \"Stiglitz Says Bank Problems Bigger Than Pre-Lehman\": \" Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize- winning economist, said the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.\" Related story by The Wall Street Journal -- \"Government's Trial And Error Helped Stem Financial Panic\": \"It was only a year ago that the world economy was enveloped in a financial panic of such dimensions that, if one believes Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, it threatened to produce a calamity as bad as the Great Depression. Today, the economy is far from vigorous. Unemployment remains high. Huge swaths of the financial system remain on government life-support. But the global recession appears over, and now forecasters are arguing over the pace and sustainability of recovery.\" As for the other stories making headlines this morning, they include: -- The Washington Post -- Poll Signals That \"Reform Opposition Is High But Easing\": \"President Obama continues to face significant public resistance to his drive to initiate far-reaching changes to the country's health-care system, with widespread skepticism about central tenets of his plan, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. But after a summer of angry debate and protests, opposition to the effort has eased somewhat, and there appears to be potential for further softening among critics if Congress abandons the idea of a government-sponsored health insurance option, a proposal that has become a flash point in the debate.\" Related report by CBS News Face the Nation -- Sen. Snowe Says Public Option Blocks Consensus: \"Moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said a public option in the health care bill is 'universally opposed by all Republicans in the Senate' and called it 'a roadblock to building the kind of consensus that we need to move forward,' on Face the Nation Sunday.\" -- Morning Edition -- \"U.S.-China Trade Frictions Escalate\": -- The Associated Press -- \"Bin Laden Reportedly Calls Obama 'Powerless' \": \"In an audio message posted on militant websites, a man thought to be al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden says President Barack Obama is \"powerless\" to stop the war in Afghanistan. The voice also asserts that the new U.S. president is following the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush. The terrorist-monitoring group SITE Intelligence has more on the message here. Related story on Morning Edition -- \"Timeline Of Afghan War's Progress Differs In U.S., Kabul\": -- New Haven Register -- Body Found May Be That Of Missing Graduate Student: \" A body believed to be that of missing Yale graduate student Annie Le was found Sunday hidden inside a wall at 10 Amistad St., the building where she was last seen alive. It was supposed to be the day she would marry her college sweetheart and celebrate at a reception in a tony section of Long Island.\" -- The Associated Press -- Kanye West Disrupts MTV Video Music Awards; Later Apologizes For Interrupting Taylor Swift's Acceptance Speech: Related story on Morning Edition -- \"NBC Gambles Big With Jay Leno In Prime Time\":", "For Tiny Desk Playlists, we ask musicians, creators and folks we admire to choose the Tiny Desk concerts they've come to love. For this edition, we asked comedian, podcaster and actress Margaret Cho to pick her favorites. Margaret Cho does it all. We've always known her as a successful stand-up comedian with a thin filter, but nowadays she's been hosting her own podcast, The Margaret Cho, and starring in TV shows and countless films including Netflix's first major animated film, Over the Moon, which features an entirely Asian cast. So for AAPI Heritage Month, we were excited to hear which Tiny Desk concerts Cho keeps coming back to. —Maia Stern • BTS — I love BTS. They are incredible. I love BTS! And I love their outfits. They're just amazing; the diversity that they're able to bring and the way that they present their music is always incredible. So yes, I am part of the BTS army and I love them. Their Tiny Desk concert was amazing. • Mitski — My very favorite Tiny Desk concert. If I could sound like anybody as a singer, songwriter, whatever, musician — it would be Mitski. Mitski is just amazing. Her Tiny Desk concert is just amazing. When I see her, everything is good in the world. • Boygenius — Phoebe Bridgers is one of my favorite artists, so I love the band Boygenius and I loved their Tiny Desk concert. I love all of their separate bands, but of course Phoebe Bridgers is probably best known with her record Punisher, which is a monster hit. She's just phenomenal and Boygenius is great. • Fantastic Negrito — Another friend of mine and incredible Tiny Desk concert. He's just an amazing artist. He's got his own thing happening and it's so unique and it's also so familiar to my heart. Like, it's my heart music. I was incidentally supposed to be on that record, but we could not make it work. Fantastic Negrito is just phenomenal. • Megan Thee Stallion — Another amazing Tiny Desk concert by a hip-hop artist — really unique, really different. This performance really captured the large and layered sounds but didn't lose anything in the translation — you had a lot of electronic percussive vocal elements that very much reside in the studio, and to bring that into a live performance is really challenging. She's phenomenal. Tiny Desks In This Playlist • Mitski• BTS• Boygenius• Fantastic Negrito• Megan Thee Stallion", "President Obama's speech to the Cuban people, delivered live from the Gran Teatro in Havana, presented both a risk and an opportunity. He did not want to suggest any endorsement of a system that for more than 50 years has been associated with the suppression of democratic freedoms and human rights. On the other hand, with Raul Castro listening intently from his front row seat in the balcony and Cubans across the island watching on their televisions, Obama was in a position to deliver a message no previous U.S. president could have managed, one that could help heal the long break between the countries. It was clearly a moment he has long anticipated. In April 2009, three months after taking office, Obama said he was committed to \"a new beginning\" with Cuba. \"We are not dug into policies that were formulated before I was born,\" he said at the time. He returned to that theme in Havana, noting that the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, when U.S.-trained Cuban exiles attempted to overthrow Fidel Castro's government, took place the year of his birth. He absolved himself by virtue of his youth. \"I know the history, but I refuse to be trapped by it,\" he said. He chose instead to focus on an earlier period, when the Cuban people fought for their independence from Spain, in part from a base of support in the United States. The ambivalence Cuban nationalists have had for the United States dates from that period, as Obama acknowledged when he noted that the American battleships that crossed the Florida Straits in 1898 came \"to liberate, but also to exert control over Cuba.\" The war for Cuban independence, which came to be known in the United States as the Spanish-American War, ended with a U.S. military occupation of the island. Shortly after arriving in Cuba, Obama laid a wreath at a monument to Jose Martí, Cuba's national hero, who gave his life for the cause of Cuban freedom and who is revered by Cuban exiles and Cuban communists alike. Martí was an ardent nationalist who railed against U.S. imperialism, but he also found much to admire in the United States, which makes it easier for both sides to claim him. In his Havana speech, Obama quoted from Martí's famous poem. \"Cultivo una rosa blanca,\" he said. He did not bother to translate the line, but he characterized it as \"an offering of friendship and peace to both his friend and his enemy.\" In English, the poem continues, I cultivate a white rose In January as in July For the true friend Who offers me his frank hand And for the cruel one whose blows Break the heart by which I live. On the tough issues, Obama spoke carefully, attempting to be honest in his assessment of Cuban shortcomings but also offering some conciliatory words. He spoke positively of the 1 million or so Cuban exiles who fled their homeland, though without quite acknowledging the reasons they left. He described Cuban schooling as \"an extraordinary resource — a system of education that values every boy and every girl,\" though those Cuban children are hardly trained to be critical thinkers. Books with ideas considered subversive are banned from the classroom, and schoolchildren are taught to chant, \"Seremos como el Che!\" We will be like Che (Guevara, the legendary guerrilla). He had praise for Cuba's role in the world, saying \"No one should deny the service that thousands of Cuban doctors have delivered for the poor and suffering,\" citing the Cuban effort to help stamp out Ebola in West Africa as an example. He did not mention that the deployment of Cuban doctors on international missions is in part a for-profit venture that brings the Cuban government much needed hard currency. On the other hand, Obama spoke boldly of the importance of political freedom. In what was the strongest section of his speech, Obama pointed out that the progress made in America in race relations and social justice was precisely the result of American democracy. \"The fact that we have open debates within America's own democracy is what allows us to get better,\" he said. \"People organized; they protested; they debated these issues; they challenged government officials.\" Those words certainly must have irritated Raul Castro and his other government hosts and encouraged those Cubans who are working for political change on their island. Finally, Obama appealed directly to Cuban youth, essentially ignoring the island's geriatric leadership. \"There's already an evolution taking place inside of Cuba, a generational change,\" he said. \"Many suggested that I come here and ask the people of Cuba to tear something down. But I'm appealing to the young people of Cuba who will lift something up, build something new. El futuro de Cuba tiene que estar en las manos del pueblo Cubano.\" The future of Cuba has to be in the hands of the Cuban people.", "In the last public event of his three-day visit to the island, Pope Benedict XVI called on Cuba, and the world, to change and choose a path of \"love, reconciliation and brotherhood.\" After the Mass, the pontiff met with Fidel Castro for a half-hour before departing for Rome, wrapping up a weeklong trip to Mexico and Cuba. The pope did not meet with Cuban dissidents during his trip, however, drawing criticism from Castro opponents in Cuba and abroad. The site where the pope delivered Wednesday's Mass — Havana's Plaza of the Revolution — is the same place where Castro, the retired but still influential Communist revolutionary leader, delivered countless speeches over the decades. The scene Wednesday morning felt somewhat like a political rally — though instead of \"Revolution\" or \"Socialism or Death,\" the huge banners draped from government buildings carried messages such as \"Jesus of Mary\" and \"Charity Unites Us.\" The police presence was heavy and seemed to weigh on the event. It was a sign authorities wanted to keep a tight lid on the proceedings and make sure there weren't any protests or other disturbances by government opponents. Benedict arrived at the plaza waving from his white popemobile and split the crowd as he headed to a custom-built stage. Religious Freedom Reading from his homily in Spanish, Benedict urged Cubans to find truth in God and freedom in the path of Jesus Christ. He also encouraged the Cuban government to strengthen protections for religious freedoms on the island, saying it establishes solid foundations for the rights of future generations. \"The right to freedom of religion, both in its private and public dimension, manifests the unity of the human being, who is at once a citizen and a believer,\" Benedict said. If critics of the Castro government were looking for a more direct challenge to Cuba's one-party state and a push for greater political freedoms, Benedict did not deliver. To form a more worthy and free nation, he said, quoting from 19th-century Cuban priest Felix Varela, the island needs a deeper spiritual life. \"Cuba and the world need change,\" Benedict said, \"but this will occur only if each one is in a position to seek the truth and choose the way of love, sowing reconciliation and brotherhood.\" Wednesday's crowd was estimated in the hundreds of thousands but felt small for a typical Cuban mass rally. The government had declared a national holiday and encouraged many workers to attend. For both Cuban President Raul Castro and the Catholic Church, Benedict's visit seemed like a success, finding common ground in a message of anti-consumerism, Cuban unity and gradual reform. Alexander Espinosa, a devout 24-year-old, had traveled from one end of the island to the other to attend all of Benedict's public events. \"To me Benedict's message has been very clear,\" Espinosa said. \"It's for Cuba's youth to carry on Pope John Paul II's legacy, and to lead this society forward.\" Few in the crowd seemed to hear an especially political message in Benedict's visit, and it's unclear if he'll leave the kind of lasting impression with believers and nonbelievers that his predecessor, John Paul II, did in his 1998 visit. Mary Martinez, 60, said for her, Benedict's words were spiritual. \"A message of peace and love,\" Martinez said. \"That's it.\" MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: In Havana today, Cubans gathered in the Plaza of the Revolution for Mass with Pope Benedict. It was the last public event in the pope's three-day visit to the island. He called on Cuba and the world to choose a path of love, reconciliation and brotherhood. Nick Miroff has the story from Havana. NICK MIROFF, BYLINE: The plaza where the pope spoke is the same site where Fidel Castro delivered countless speeches over the years. And the scene this morning felt a bit like a political rally, only the huge banners draped from government buildings didn't say \"revolution\" or \"socialism or death,\" but carried messages like Jesus of Mary and Charity Unites Us. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken) MIROFF: The pope is here, you can hear him, you can feel him, was the message to the crowd. A heavy police presence could also be felt and seemed to weigh on the event. It was a sign authorities wanted to keep a tight lid on things and make sure there weren't any signs of protests or other disturbances by government opponents. Benedict arrived at the plaza waving from his white popemobile and split the crowd as he headed to a custom-built stage. POPE BENEDICT XVI: (Foreign language spoken) CROWD: Amen. POPE BENEDICT: (Foreign language spoken) MIROFF: Reading from his homily in Spanish, Benedict urged Cubans to find truth in God and freedom in the path of Jesus Christ. He also encouraged the Cuban government to strengthen protections for religious freedoms on the island, saying it establishes solid foundations for the rights of future generations. POPE BENEDICT: (Foreign language spoken) MIROFF: The right to freedom of religi", "First lady Michelle Obama is heading to California this weekend to give her only college commencement speech this graduation season. Her destination: the University of California's newest campus, Merced, in the middle of the Central Valley. Obama will give her speech on a temporary stage, surrounded by cow pastures, in the heart of California's conservative farm belt. The area is so rural that UC Merced's glimmering steel and glass research labs seem like a mirage on the horizon, just below the Sierra foothills. The campus is still small — just 2,700 students. But freshman tour guide David Ono says UC Merced has big dreams. \"Merced right now is pretty much the size of a high school,\" he tells a tour group. \"But if you guys look about two miles down, there's a white barn down there. That is where the other end of campus will be by the year 2030.\" The half-built campus didn't faze JoAnne Rodriguez, a member of the inaugural class graduating this year. \"We really didn't look at it as a drawback; we looked at it as an opportunity to make something out of nothing,\" she says. \"That was a lot of what the inaugural class mind-set was, to go for something. That's how we came up with the 'Dear Michelle' campaign.\" Rodriguez and other students tried to convey their pioneering spirit to the first lady. They mailed her more than 900 handwritten valentines, inviting her to speak at their graduation. And they produced a self-promotional video and posted it on YouTube. What makes UC Merced unique, these students say, is that it gives young people from California's poorest region a chance to attend a four-year research university close to home. Many students are immigrants or the first in their family to go to college. Senior Jessica Julian is from the farmworker town of Delano. She says she wants the first lady to see the \"other\" California. \"It's not the first thought that comes to mind in terms of California. You always think of the Bay or the bridge or the beaches,\" she says. \"The Central Valley — it's mostly like farmland. You need areas to provide food for other areas, and sometimes I'm like, 'Why is it so disregarded?' \" Merced County is not just farms; it's the epicenter of California's foreclosure crisis, with empty bank-owned homes on almost every block and unemployment rates as high as 20 percent. The university has come under fire for the expense of hosting the event. It's estimated that setup, security and TV screens to broadcast the address will cost $700,000 — at a time when the UC system is wrestling with a budget crunch. Still, that doesn't dampen the enthusiasm of students like Julian. \"I think at UC Merced, anything's possible. Because it seems like, as long as we work with what we have here, we are capable of doing anything. Her coming here proves that,\" she says. Though there are just 500 students graduating on Saturday, the first lady is expected to address a crowd of 12,000. Sasha Khokha reports for member station KQED. RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Michelle Obama's commencement address is here in California and students campaigned hard for the honor of hosting the first lady. It's her one and only college commencement speech this graduation season and it will be delivered to the first full graduating class at the University of California's newest campus at Merced in the Central Valley. Sasha Khokha of member station KQED reports. SASHA KHOKHA: Mrs. Obama will give her graduation speech on a temporary stage surrounded by cow pastures, in the heart of California's conservative farm belt. It's so rural here that UC Merced's glimmering steel and glass research labs seem like a mirage on the horizon, just below the Sierra foothills. The campus is still small — just 2,700 students. But freshman tour guide David Ono says UC Merced has big dreams. Mr. DAVID ONO (Freshman Tour Guide): Merced right now is pretty much the size of a high school. But if you guys look all the way down, maybe it's about two miles down, there's a white barn all the way down there. That is where the other end of campus will be by the year 2030. KHOKHA: The half-built campus didn't faze JoAnne Rodriguez. She's a member of the inaugural class graduating this year. Ms. JOANNE RODRIGUEZ (University of California): We really didn't look at it as a drawback; we looked at it as like an opportunity to make something out of nothing. And that's a lot of what the inaugural class mind-set was, to go for something. I mean that's how we came up with the Dear Michelle campaign. KHOKHA: Rodriguez and other students tried to convey their pioneering spirit to the first lady. They mailed her over 900 handwritten Valentines, inviting her to speak at their graduation. And they produced a self-promotional video and posted it on YouTube. (Soundbite of video) Unidentified Woman: We are a community comprised of individuals with multiple cultures, lifestyles and beliefs. Unidentified Man: We celebrate this diversity for the breadth of ideas and pers", "Update at 9:33 p.m. Romney Wins All Five Primaries; Delivers Remarks In N.H.: With the GOP nomination all but secured, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney spoke to supporters in Manchester, N.H., Tuesday night after declaring victory in the five primary contests being held. The Associated Press called the races for Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Pennsylvania for Romney quickly after polls closed. New York was also called for Romney shortly after he delivered his speech. \"After 43 primaries and caucuses, many long days and not a few long nights, I can say with confidence — and gratitude — that you have given me a great honor and solemn responsibility,\" Romney told the assembled crowd. \"Tonight is the start of a new campaign to unite every American who knows in their heart that we can do better.\" Romney wasted no time in getting his new campaign started with remarks about his likely opponent in November, President Barack Obama. \"Four years ago Barack Obama dazzled us in front of Greek columns with sweeping promises of hope and change,\" he said. \"But after we came down to earth, after the celebration and parades, what do we have to show for three and a half years of President Obama?\" Despite the losses in Tuesday's contests, the AP is reporting that Newt Gingrich says he plans to finish a week of campaigning in North Carolina, but acknowledged that he needs to look realistically at where he stands. Gingrich trails Mitt Romney in convention delegates and fundraising, yet he has vowed for weeks to campaign until the party's late-summer convention in Florida Update at 9:01 p.m. - Romney Wins Penn.: The Associated Press has called the GOP primary race in Pennsylvania, giving him wins in 4 out of the 5 primary contests Tuesday. Results in New York are still pending. Update at 8:25 p.m. - R.I., Conn., Del.: The Associated Press has called the GOP presidential primary contests in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Delaware for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Our original post continues below: Yes, this primary campaign is all but over. Still, voters in New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island are still casting ballots. And if you have any doubt about how settled this race is, Mitt Romney, the presumtive Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to deliver remarks from New Hampshire, a swing state that is not voting today. One of the things to watch tonight is how Newt Gingrich, who along with Ron Paul are the only challengers Romney has left, performs in Delaware. In an interview with NBC News, Gingrich hinted if he didn't perform well in the state he would \"reassess\" his campaign. But even if Romney loses Delaware, he will still be on track to securing the 1,144 delegates he needs for the nomination. All of the polls close at 8 p.m., except for New York, which closes its polls at 9 p.m. ET. For the record, there are 209 convention delegates at stake tonight. You can find real-time results here: New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.", "A musicians' enclave, a tiny island boasting the highest per capita concentration of pianos in China, is struggling to find its place in an increasingly commercialized nation. The cobbled streets of Gulangyu are narrow and winding, lined with ivy-covered pastel houses and graceful willow trees, home to hundreds of songbirds. Everyone walks — no cars or bikes are allowed. It would be hard not to make beautiful music in such a beautiful place. But there are signs that this little musical utopia is yielding to outside pressures. Gulangyu has preserved its musical traditions for generations, through foreign occupations and political repression – but the latest battle is of another kind – tourism. \"These days I see a lot of people selling things,\" says Yin Chengdian, a musician on the island. \"It's all hustle and bustle.\" Even the island's name, Gulangyu, is musical — it means Drum Wave Island. Locals named it after the sound of the waves that crash into caves along its craggy shore. The tiny island is a quick ferry ride from the coastal metropolis of Xiamen, which used to be a foreign treaty port. Gulangyu's first pianos arrived when the port opened in the mid-1800s — Christian missionaries brought them for the churches they built here. China has exported goods through Xiamen for centuries. If tiny Gulangyu exports anything, it's pianists. Many of China's best were born and raised on this tiny isle. The Yin family, for example, has been called Gulangyu's \"First Family of Music.\" World-renowned pianist Yin Chengzong lives in Manhattan now, but calls Gulangyu home. His brother, Yin Chengdian, founded the Music School in Gulangyu and has lived on the island for almost 70 years. \"This is the Gulangyu song,\" says Yin Chengdian, listening to music. \"It's about how beautiful it is here, how if you stand on the top of the hill you can see forever.\" Yin Chengdian says Gulangyu's natural beauty gives good musicians the creative space to become great musicians. But as tourism takes hold, the atmosphere is changing. Dozens of souvenir shops, new hotels and a McDonald's line the narrow main streets. Visitors from China and beyond crowd onto the island every day. \"In my student days, before I retired, all that wasn't so popular yet,\" Yin Chengdian says. \"There were more family recitals then, and the schools had more performances.\" Those informal family recitals still happen, once in a while. On this particular evening, 23-year-old professional pianist Fang Si Te plays a four-hand duet in her living room with one of her young students. \"Probably while I was still in my mother's stomach I already had special feelings about music,\" says Fang Si Te. \"When I started playing I was just having fun, I tried lots of instruments. Then I just fell in love with the piano.\" When she's not teaching or studying, she works as a guide at the island's piano and organ museums, demonstrating the rare instruments for tourists who pass through. \"These days, with the economy developing, many people aren't as interested in classical music,\" Fang Si Te says. \"If they play, they don't play for music's sake — they play because they think later they can make a lot of money teaching.\" Gulangyu pianist Huang Sanyuan makes his living at the intersection of art and business — he manufactures pianos for export. He has some interesting side projects, too. His latest is a piano-shaped music box to market to Gulangyu tourists, and a rather unique tourist attraction. \"I'm planning an exhibit at my factory on how pianos are made,\" Huang Sanyuan says. \"It'll be like the Underwater World. There's a long glass corridor where people can walk through and look through the glass and watch the pianos being made. Pianos have 300 years of history, but a lot of people still don't understand how they work. I'm hoping this will support the music business here.\" His plan is for another mode of commerce, one of many breaking steadily along this island's shore. STEVE INSKEEP, host: Here's an answer to file away the next time you're trying to win a trivia contest. The question is: Which tiny island boasts China's highest per-capita concentration of pianos? There is an answer. The answer involves a musicians' enclave which is trying to find its place in an increasingly commercialized China. Reporter Lauren Keane went there. (Soundbite of ocean waves) LAUREN KEANE: Gulangyu. Even this island's name is musical. It means drum wave island. Locals named it after the sound of the waves that crash into caves along its craggy shore. The tiny island is a quick ferry ride from the coastal metropolis of Xiamen, which used to be a foreign treaty port known as Amoy. Gulangyu's first pianos arrived when the port opened here in the mid-1800s; Christian missionaries brought them for the churches they built here. China has exported goods through Xiamen for centuries. If tiny Gulangyu exports anything, it's pianists. (Soundbite of piano music) KEANE: Many of China's best were bor", "Hillary Rodham's 1969 commencement address at Wellesley College did not stand out because of what she said. It stood out because of how she said it, and because she said it at all. This is a story not about words, but about context. Before 1969, Wellesley had never had a student speaker at commencement. Administrators spoke and special guests spoke, but students at this women's college didn't have a voice on graduation day. Eldie Acheson, a classmate of Hillary Clinton, then Hillary Rodham, led the effort to have a student speak at their commencement. She says the fact that they had never before had a student speaker seemed crazy. But it wasn't easy. \"We approached the administration and we asked if we could have a student speaker,\" Acheson said. \"The administration said no, so we fell back and regrouped. A Turbulent Time The class of '69 had been through a lot together. When they started college, there was still a hint of the innocence of the early 1960s. By the time they were set to graduate, the Vietnam War and protests against it were in full swing; college campuses had become centers of activism and conflict; and both Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated. Acheson says she and her classmates wanted to mark that and the transition to their adult lives. And eventually, Acheson says, the administration relented. \"The administration switched its position,\" she recalled. \"The president of the college said, 'OK, we will afford that opportunity to the graduating class of '69.' \" Acheson doesn't remember how it came to be that Rodham was chosen to give the speech. But she was the student body president and was well-known by students and faculty alike. Hillary Clinton wrote in her book Living History that she fretted over the remarks, worrying about how she could fit their tumultuous four years into a single speech. She wrote that classmates came by offering her ideas and often conflicting advice. Her professor and adviser at the time, Alan Schechter, says he remembers it clearly. \"Hillary had read the speech to me beforehand. Not for my approval, but to get my reaction to it,\" Schechter said, \"and I thought it was a perfect example of youthful idealism at the time, where young people were dissatisfied with what was happening in our society.\" The Day Of The Speech But the speech Rodham read to Schechter is only part of what she delivered at the commencement ceremony. And it's the part that wasn't planned that drew all the attention. The special guest speaker that day was Sen. Edward Brooke. A moderate Republican from Massachusetts and the first African-American popularly elected to the U.S. Senate. His speech celebrated incremental progress and spent a lot of time arguing against protest. Ultimately, he said, he believed \"the overwhelming majority of Americans will stand firm on one principle: Coercive protest is wrong, and one reason it is wrong is because it is unnecessary.\" After Brooke, it was time for Rodham to speak. The school's president, Ruth Adams, introduced her with praise. \"There was no debate so far as I could ascertain as to who their spokesman was to be, Ms. Hillary Rodham,\" Adams said. She went on to describe Rodham as \"good-humored, good company and a good friend to all of us.\" When she stepped to the lectern, Rodham didn't go directly to her prepared remarks. She spoke extemporaneously instead: \"I'm very glad that Ms. Adams made it clear that what I am speaking for today is all of us. The 400 of us. And I find myself in a familiar position, that of reacting. Something that our generation has been doing for quite a while now. We're not in the positions yet of leadership and power, but we do have that indispensable element of criticizing and constructive protest.\" She broke from her script to react to Sen. Brooke's remarks. \"This has to be very quick because I do have a little speech to give. Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn't do us anything. We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots of sympathy, but we feel that for too long our leaders have viewed politics as the art of the possible. And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.\" Schechter, her adviser, was surprised and impressed with how Rodham ad-libbed and then seamlessly moved back into her prepared remarks. \"She was able to go from one to the other without pausing at all,\" Schechter said. \"I was particularly impressed with the skill, with the articulateness that she demonstrated.\" And when it was over, others were impressed too. She got a standing ovation, from her classmates at least. \"And that was both in support of the speech and in support of her for going up there and taking it on for us,\" her classmate Acheson recalled. The Reaction But Schechter says not everyone was so pleased with Rodham's performance. \"The administration was not happy afterwards, or at least some people were not happy,\" Sche", "It's graduation season. Politicians, philanthropists, philosophers and movie stars fan out for the next few weeks to give commencement speeches: Bill Clinton was at NYU on Wednesday, Stephen Colbert goes to Northwestern in three weeks, Tom Hanks visits Yale tomorrow. I wonder if Mr. Hanks can resist saying, \"Life is like a box of chocolates . . .\" President Obama gave the commencement speech at Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis on Monday. Just three years ago, only half of the school's students graduated. But students and teachers worked hard, and this year's graduation rate is over 80 percent. The president of the United States told the graduating seniors, \"I could not be prouder of what you do.\" Great speech. Last year Al Gore charmingly confided to students at the University of Tennessee that he couldn't remember his own 1969 commencement speaker at Harvard. \"I just remember the weather and the feelings of excitement and relief,\" he told the students to wild applause. \"And the parties.\" Stewart Udall, the former Secretary of the Interior, gave Harvard's commencement speech in 1969. You'd think a man who invented the Internet would know how to Google. Even I get asked to give commencement speeches. It's a privilege. People call you Doctor for the day, and ask you to take a look at something on their neck. You meet smart professors backstage, and you get to hear them talk without paying tuition. And it's gratifying to run into a bright, smiling young person on the street or in an airport who say they remember you as their commencement speaker, and see that they're not being led away by police. A few years ago, I opened a commencement speech with a few jokes about what I thought were plainly graduation clichés: \"Remember, education is a journey, not a destination! Today is the first day of the rest of your life!\" But several students later shook my hand to tell me how much those opening words had meant. And I realized: graduations, like weddings, funerals, and World Series parades, are one of those days that make clichés ring true. If any graduates are up early, let me offer a few thoughts as they step into these arduous and exciting times. Let life change you. You've worked hard and learned a lot. But if you live well, you're going to know love, loss, confusion and failure—life's truest teachers. Real life can shatter certainties like a delicate cup in a tornado. Keep learning. Be inconsistent. Don't have a rich, full life only to wind up at 40 with the same convictions you had when you were 20. Let life in. And remember—today really is the first day of the rest of your life.", "When terrorists attacked a satirical magazine in Paris last month, killing eight journalists, millions took to the streets in support of free speech. They waved pencils and carried signs in solidarity with the magazine Charlie Hebdo. But in the weeks since those attacks, scores have also been arrested for condoning terrorism and inciting racial and religious hatred. Many now wonder if the government's crackdown on hate speech is compromising free speech. One of those arrested in the wake of the attacks was controversial stand-up comedian Dieudonne M'Bala M'bala. Last Wednesday, a judge ordered him to pay the equivalent of a $37,000 fine for condoning terrorism. The comic has faced prosecution many times in the past for his crude, anti-Semitic jokes. This time it was for posting \"I feel like Charlie Coulibaly\" on his Facebook page. The judge said Dieudonne's remark was clear support for Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed a police officer and four people in a kosher grocery store. Dieudonne's lawyer Jacques Verdier says his client is consistently denied the same freedom of expression that magazine Charlie Hebdo is granted. \"Dieudonne is constantly hounded and harassed, which is why he said he feels like a terrorist,\" says Verdier. In France, as in the United States, people are free to express their opinions. But in France that freedom of speech ends at insulting others based on their race, religion or sex. \"Hate speech laws were inspired by the horrors of the Second World War, and in particular the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews,\" says Christopher Mesnooh, an American attorney who practices law in France. Jean-Yves Camus is a specialist on extremist organizations. He says French hate speech laws have evolved over time. They were first enacted in 1939 to fight the enormous amount of anti-Semitic propaganda in the popular press. In the 1970s they were strengthened to protect Muslims. And in the late 1980s the French parliament passed a law making it a crime to deny the Holocaust. This was in response to the realization among the French public of the extent of the crimes committed by the Vichy collaborationist government. \"And then, after 9/11, we saw a huge growth of Islamist fundamentalism, which was very active on the Internet,\" says Camus. \"So lawmakers and anti-racism groups again strengthened hate speech laws to take this into account.\" But for France's nearly 6 million Muslims, Charlie Hebdo being allowed to insult Islam while others are jailed for racist remarks seems hypocritical. Myriam Doudech, 36, says she condemns the attack on the journalists who drew caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. But as a Muslim, she sees a double standard when it comes to free speech. \"You know, in France you cannot attack some religions, but they laugh about Islam,\" she says. \"We all need respect. But the rules have to be the same for everybody.\" Camus says some people are confusing hate speech with blasphemy, which was abolished as a crime after the French Revolution. \"You really can make fun in France of any religion. And this is what the Muslim community has to understand,\" says Camus. \"We have this tradition and we will stand by it.\" People who would have been fined for hate speech before the attacks are now facing jail terms. One defense lawyer denounced what he called a collective hysteria gripping the nation. But Camus says Muslims have also been protected by hate speech laws. He says people must understand the difference between attacking a belief and attacking individuals. \"You can say, for example, that you stand against Islam, but you cannot say anything negative about Muslims as a group,\" he says. Camus says the French won't tolerate a U.S.-style Patriot Act that gives the government surveillance powers over the private lives of citizens. But the French will accept stricter limits on freedom of speech to stop the spread of terrorist ideology, he says. RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: After the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last month, the French government has vowed to toughen its reaction to hate speech. Dozens of people have been arrested for hate speech and defending terrorism, leaving some to wonder if the crackdown on hate speech will compromise free speech. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley has more. (SOUNDBITE OF MARCH) ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Nearly 4 million people took to the streets of France in solidarity after the attacks against the magazine Charlie Hebdo. They carried signs saying, I am Charlie and waved pencils in support of freedom of expression. But since those attacks, nearly a hundred people have been investigated either for condoning terrorism or inciting racial or religious hatred. DIEUDONNE M'BALA M'BALA: (Speaking French). BEARDSLEY: One of them was controversial stand-up comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala who was ordered to pay a $37,000 fine last Wednesday. The comedian has been prosecuted many times in the past for anti-Semitic speech. This time it was for posting, I feel like Charlie Coulibal", "Updated at 2:35 p.m. ET Vernon Jordan, the civil rights lawyer who built a career as a power broker in politics and business, has died at age 85. Jordan \"passed away peacefully last evening surrounded by loved ones,\" his daughter, Vickee Jordan, said in a statement sent to NPR. \"We appreciate all of the outpouring of love and affection.\" A native of Atlanta, Jordan attended DePauw University before earning his law degree at Howard University. Soon after graduating, he devoted himself to ending discrimination against Black Americans in the fight for equal rights. In 1992-93, he chaired President Bill Clinton's transition team, and for decades he remained a friend and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Jordan played an important role in desegregating education in the South, particularly at the college level. In the early 1960s, he became the Georgia field director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and he famously helped escort Charlayne Hunter through a crowd of white protesters at the University of Georgia in 1961. \"An icon to the world and a lifelong friend to the NAACP, his contribution to moving our society toward justice is unparalleled,\" NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said, noting that his organization had honored Jordan for his lifetime of activism. \"His exemplary life will shine as a guiding light for all that seek truth and justice for all people,\" Johnson said. Reflecting on the arc of civil rights in his lifetime, Jordan once compared watching Nelson Mandela walking free from prison in South Africa to seeing Barack Obama being declared president-elect of the U.S. Jordan said he watched both of those major events alone, sitting in front of a television. \"I did not think I would live to see this day,\" he told NPR's Michel Martin in the weeks after Obama's victory in 2008. During his long career, Jordan had stints leading both the National Urban League and the United Negro College Fund. He also worked in voter education and was an attorney consultant for the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity. Jordan has received dozens of honorary degrees – including the University of Pennsylvania, where he delivered the commencement address to his daughter's graduating class. But that speech only happened after Vickee Jordan gave her approval. As Jordan told NPR, his daughter initially told university administrators that she would rather have her father in the stands than on stage during her graduation. Jordan recalled, \"I was not surprised when she told President [Martin] Meyerson, 'Why can't my dad just sit in the audience like other daddies?'\" But then came a change of heart, and the speech went ahead. \"I said, 'Well listen, Vickee, what about all that is ordinary daddy stuff, me sitting like an ordinary dad?' \"And she said, 'Well, I've decided that you're not an ordinary daddy.\" In the business world, Vernon was sought out to join corporate boards and advisory panels. He was a partner emeritus at the Akin Gump law firm and a senior managing director at Lazard Frères & Co., a financial company in New York. \"We have lost a great man today,\" said Kim Koopersmith, chairperson of Akin Gump, calling Jordan \"a wise and trusted mentor and friend who, in all that he did, inspired us to be the best possible version of ourselves.\" \"His generosity was boundless, and his guidance was unassailable and delivered with a purposefulness and moral clarity that will never be equaled,\" Koopersmith said. \"In so many respects, Vernon was one of a kind, and his enormous contributions — to our firm, to our country, and to us as individuals — will be greatly missed.\"", "On Tuesday night, President Obama will give his final State of the Union address. It's the last big speech many Americans will watch him deliver, and he wants to leave a good impression. Here are five things to watch for. 1. How different will this speech be from his past State of the Union addresses? White House aides are promising that this speech will be different. Instead of the usual laundry list of legislative proposals, the speech will be thematic and future-oriented. President Obama described what he wants the speech to focus on in a video the White House sent out previewing the speech. \"Not just the remarkable progress we've made, not just what I want to get done in the year ahead, but what we all need to do together in the years to come, the big things that will guarantee an even stronger, better, more prosperous America for our kids — the America we believe in. That's what's on my mind.\" This makes sense. With attention turning to the race to succeed him, the window for passing major pieces of legislation through an oppositional Congress is closing fast. But there are still things the president wants Congress to do. 2. What are Obama's legislative priorities? The president will probably reiterate his call for a hike in the minimum wage, as well as tax reform that frees up money for infrastructure investment. But those are big reaches. More realistically, the White House is hopeful they can get Congress to approve the big trans-Pacific trade agreement and a bill overhauling the criminal justice system. Expect to hear Obama offer an olive branch to the Republicans on those potentially bipartisan issues. 3. How will the president try to shape his legacy? This is a valedictory speech, and Obama will try to frame his accomplishments in the most positive light. He'll talk about the dramatic recovery of the auto industry, the improving employment situation and the initiatives he's taken on his own to combat climate change, enact tougher gun background checks and reopen relations with Cuba. The White House announced over the weekend the guests who will join first lady Michelle Obama in the House chamber. Those selections nod to the arc of Obama's presidency, and the president will no doubt nod to them on Tuesday night. They include Edith Childs, the South Carolina woman who inspired the \"Fired up! Ready to go!\" chant during Obama's first campaign, one of the first women to graduate from Army Ranger School, a DREAMer, the lead plaintiff in the historic Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, an empty chair for victims of gun violence, a criminal justice reform advocate, an Affordable Care Act \"navigator\" and many others. Of course, the best way for President Obama to cement his legacy is to help elect a successor from his own party. 4. How will Obama use the speech to help Hillary Clinton's campaign? In his last State of the Union address, the president framed the coming election in terms of the economic debate. He talked about widely shared prosperity and focused on inclusive growth, not just redistribution. And that's the frame Hillary Clinton has chosen for her campaign. Expect to hear more about that on Tuesday night. Also listen for how often the president touches on hot-button issues that play well with the Democratic base, like climate change, gun control, immigration reform or gay rights. The White House promises this won't be a \"political\" speech, but the subtext will be clear: We've come a long way. We have a long way to go, so let's not let the Republicans take us backward. 5. What effect will the speech have? Most State of the Union addresses have a very short shelf life. But a well-received SOTU can deliver a political boost. President Obama is hoping this one does. The best way a president can help elect a successor from his own party is to get his approval ratings up — above 50 percent, if possible. Obama has been stuck in the mid-40s for months, below the 50 percent that President Reagan enjoyed at this point in his second term or the 60 percent Bill Clinton had. If he can improve his standing, he could help Hillary Clinton and his own legacy.", "Australia's prime minister has condemned a fringe party lawmaker who called for a return to racially based immigration policies and invoked the term \"final solution\" in a speech before Parliament. Malcolm Turnbull, who faces voters next year, joined all of Australia's major parties in rejecting the remarks by Queensland Sen. Fraser Anning, who is the only member of the federal Senate from the far-right Katter's Australian Party. Anning, in his first speech to Parliament, called for a return to the country's historic \"White Australia\" policy that explicitly favored immigration by Europeans over Asians and Pacific islanders. Those policies were dismantled over decades and the last vestiges disappeared in the 1970s. In the speech, Anning lamented the demise of \"our predominately European identity\" and called for a \"drastic\" cut to immigration and a return to racially discriminatory preferences. \"Diversity should be managed to remain compatible with social cohesion and national identity,\" he said. \"We as a nation are entitled to insist that those who are allowed to come here predominantly reflect the historic European-Christian composition of Australian society.\" The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Anning labeled Muslims criminals and \"welfare-bludgers\" and spoke of \"black African Muslim gangs terrorising Melbourne.\" \"While all Muslims are not terrorists, certainly all terrorists these days are Muslims, so why would anyone want to bring more of them here?\" he asked. \"The final solution to the immigration problem, of course, is a popular vote,\" Anning said, invoking the infamous term used by leaders of Nazi Germany to refer to the Holocaust. Speaking to reporters later, Anning said he had \"always been a big supporter of the Jewish community and they know that.\" Asked if he should apologize for the remark, Anning said: \"No, I don't apologize for anything I say.\" The speech has sparked outrage across the political spectrum. \"We reject, we condemn racism in any form, and the remarks by Sen. Anning are justly condemned and rejected by us all,\" Turnbull told Australia's parliament. In Parliament, Muslim Sen. Anne Aly delivered an emotional response, saying \"I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of having to stand up against hate, against vilification, time and time again.\" Many compared the speech to one given in 1996 by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson in which she declared Australia was \"in danger of being swamped by Asians.\" Anning is a former member of One Nation and won his seat in Parliament after the removal of One Nation Sen. Malcolm Roberts, who was deemed ineligible due to his citizenship status. The two small parties share a similar ideology. Even so, Hanson joined in the chorus of condemnation of Anning's speech. \"We are a multi-racial society and I have always advocated you do not have to be white to be Australian,\" she said.", "The Making of an Activist Finding your passion and devoting your life to it is a gift. Of course, it's a process, it takes time, and it doesn't necessarily show itself from day one. My path is the perfect example of this. I had so many jobs along the way, jobs that at the time seemed completely unconnected to any great master plan, but now, looking back, make total sense. When I graduated college, I only had a vague notion of what I wanted to do, but I knew it had to be something in the entertainment field. My career began in a strange place for someone to accomplish that: Cincinnati, Ohio, as a copywriter for a car dealership. (And how crazy that, years later, I would start my advocacy on global warming by attacking the low-mileage of SUVs and promoting the hybrid car.) Strange also because I knew next to nothing about cars and I didn't even have a driver's license at the time. That was my first lesson- never let knowing next to nothing stop you! And something else I've learned along the way is just because someone says no doesn't mean they are right. I'll give you a perfect example of this: the marketing report NBC did to test Seinfeld for the first time. The conclusion of the \"polling\" was that the characters were completely unlikable and the show had no real appeal. We've proudly framed and hung that report in our guest bathroom. So there I am in Cincinnati, writing pithy lines about the Dodge Dart. Unbeknownst to me, the master plan begins to unfold. I stayed just long enough to actually produce a television spot. All of a sudden, I am in showbiz at a Dodge Dart dealership! Well, that one script gave me enough experience to get me a little closer to a better job with a magazine. That was my second lesson: every job doesn't have to be perfect-it just needs to move you a few inches forward. It will all make sense years later. As an associate editor at Tee-Shirt Weekly (okay, it wasn't exactly Rolling Stone, but it was a magazine), most of my reporting was about cotton versus polyester, but there was also an opportunity to write articles about how rock-band merchandise was being ripped off by bootleggers. Pretty soon, I found myself interviewing music-industry veterans about rock-and-roll shirts and hats-finally, I was on the fringes of the entertainment industry! The little bit of music background helped me land my next job as a reporter for Record World magazine. The very next year, word was out that Late Night with David Letterman was looking for a researcher/ music person — and jackpot! Hanging around comedians was not bad for a day job, and when I left the show four years later, it was like I'd graduated from Comedy U. I started my own management company, representing comedians and developing sitcoms for television. My first client was comedian Chris Elliott, affectionately known then as \"The Guy under the Stairs.\" I began producing my clients' stand-up specials. In fact, eventually, I married a comedian myself. My concerns about global warming began soon after we had our first child. I was a new mom, feeling very overwhelmed with the realization that I was now irreversibly responsible for this tiny creature. There was no turning back. I remember crying every day at five in the afternoon, the witching hour, my stress level at a breaking point. My husband and I would look at each other as if to say, \"What have we done?\" I hated those first few months of motherhood. The baby had colic, Larry was on a soundstage seven days a week, my career was on hold-all of my friends worked-I had no one to talk to. I was isolated and scared. I spent a lot of time walking around the neighborhood, pushing a stroller. I started noticing an enormous amount of SUVs on the street. Everyone was driving them. I frequented a local bookstore and picked up a book called High and Mighty by Keith Bradsher of The New York Times. It was about the proliferation of SUVs and how they were really harming America. It explained that our fuel-economy standards were plunging because of a loophole in the law that classified SUVs as trucks, thereby allowing them to have lower mileage standards than regular cars-fewer miles per gallon and double the carbon-dioxide emissions. So, every time you drove somewhere, to the store, the school, the freeway, you were now all of a sudden doubling your personal CO2 pollution. I panicked, because everyone I knew was driving them. I had had other lightbulb moments in my life-like the first time I tasted good wine and then couldn't drink the cheap stuff any more; or the moment that I learned that bald men make better lovers, and never dated a man with hair again. But this was different. This awareness landed with a thud on my shoulders. And with awareness comes responsibility. Wangari Maathai is a woman who, with limited resources and living in Africa, spent thirty years inspiring the planting of 30 million trees across Kenya and spreading the message that protecting the environment protects democrac", "Separate events held Saturday evening in the nation's capital and a Wisconsin arena painted two divergent pictures of the press. In Washington, the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, an annual comedic event, was light on jokes and replete instead with warnings about the consequences of attacks on the free press. Meanwhile, President Trump rallied supporters in Green Bay, touting economic growth and repeating familiar calls of \"fake news\" to a cheering crowd. He also disparaged special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, mocked Democratic presidential contenders Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and boasted about the media presence at his rally. \"Can you imagine Sleepy Joe, Crazy Bernie. ... Can you imagine any of those people up here doing what I'm doing?\" he said. \"I think, Pocahontas, she's finished, she's out, she's gone,\" he said as well, using his preferred nickname for Warren. The president's decision to skip the glitzy, annual event in favor of a campaign rally came as no surprise. Trump has avoided the dinner every year since he became president, breaking with more than three decades of tradition. And while some White House officials had planned to attend as guests of the various news organizations that the event honors, the administration announced last Tuesday that it would completely boycott the celebration. Olivier Knox, WHCA president, asked attendees of the dinner to turn their attention to journalists who are \"suffering for their craft\" around the world and to advocate for the release of Austin Tice, a freelance journalist kidnapped while reporting in Syria in 2012. \"This is not [Trump's] dinner — it is ours,\" said Knox. \"And it should stay ours.\" In another break with tradition, the evening's keynote address was delivered by historian Ron Chernow. The dinner has typically featured a comedian cracking jokes at the expense of the president, who has also usually offered up his own roast of other politicians and the media. The change in format followed a controversial performance last year by comedian Michelle Wolf, who faced criticism for her remarks — mostly about the Trump administration — which were called \"harsh\" and \"risqué.\" Knox said he had asked Chernow to speak as part of an effort to focus the event more on journalism itself. The WHCA has previously faced criticism of the event, including that it seems extravagant, excessively cozy with the White House and removed from its stated purpose of supporting scholarships, as Politico reports. In his speech on Saturday night, Chernow narrated the history of journalists in the White House — touching on everything from how the press once shielded the private lives of presidents to Eleanor Roosevelt's role in elevating female correspondents — as he made a case for the free press and the First Amendment. \"Relations between presidents and the press are inevitably tough, almost always adversarial, but they don't need to be steeped in venom,\" he said. Chernow also offered a defense of comedians, quoting comedian Will Rogers in saying that the United States has arrived at a point where \"people are taking their comedians seriously and their politicians as a joke.\" In that spirit, he cracked more than a few jokes to varying degrees of success, the subjects of which included the Mueller report, Alexander Hamilton (\"an immigrant who arrived, thank God, before the country was full\") and his own speech (a \"20-minute sedative\" for the evening). Shortly before Chernow and Knox spoke about public mistrust of journalism and a tide of misinformation, a crowd at the president's rally in Wisconsin chanted \"CNN sucks\" as the president joked about the network. \"I'll tell you, you know what sucks? Their ratings suck,\" he said. \"Because people don't believe them.\" Trump spent much of the night promoting the U.S. economy and talking about \"unfair\" trade practices from countries like India and China. He pointed to the 3.2% annualized GDP growth in the first quarter that showed the economy gaining steam — and cited job gains in Wisconsin, a state that served as a tipping point in the 2016 presidential election. He also discussed immigration and the detention of undocumented migrants, telling the crowd that \"illegal immigrants\" arriving at the border have placed \"a massive strain on communities and schools and hospitals and public resources, like nobody's ever seen before.\" At one point he brought press secretary Sarah Sanders on stage and showered her with praise. Sanders told the crowd she was proud to work for the president. \"Last year, this night, I was at a slightly different event, not quite the best welcome, so this is an amazing honor,\" she said, referring to her attendance at the 2018 WHCA dinner, where she was the subject of several of Wolf's controversial cracks. Trump also took time at the start of his rally to offer condolences to the victims of Saturday's synagogue shooting near San Diego and to denounce anti-Semitism. \"Our ent", "Tapping into anger as the tea party movement has done, a coalition of progressive and civil rights groups marched by the thousands Saturday on the Lincoln Memorial and pledged to support Democrats struggling to keep power on Capitol Hill. \"We are together. This march is about the power to the people,\" said Ed Schultz, host of \"The Ed Show\" on MSNBC. \"It is about the people standing up to the corporations. Are you ready to fight back?\" In a fiery speech that opened the \"One Nation Working Together\" rally on the National Mall, Schultz blamed Republicans for shipping jobs overseas and curtailing freedoms. He borrowed some of conservative commentator Glenn Beck's rhetoric and vowed to \"take back our country.\" \"This is a defining moment in America. Are you American?\" Schultz told the raucous crowd. \"This is no time to back down. This is time to fight for America.\" With a month of campaigning to go and voter unhappiness high, the Democratic-leaning organizers hope the four-hour program of speeches and entertainment energizes activists who are crucial if Democrats are to retain their majorities in the House and Senate. The national mood suggests gains for the GOP, and Republicans are hoping to ride voter anger to gain control of the House and possibly the Senate. More than 400 organizations - ranging from labor unions to faith, environmental and gay rights groups - partnered for the event, which comes one month after Beck packed the same space with conservatives and tea party-style activists. Organizers claimed they had as many participants as Beck's rally. But Saturday's crowds were less dense and didn't reach as far to the edges as they did during Beck's rally. The National Park Service stopped providing official crowd estimates in the 1990s. AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka urged participants, including his union's members, to band together. \"There is nothing, and I mean nothing, we can't do when we stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder,\" Trumka said. \"We will stand together. And we will win together. And we won't let anyone - and I mean anyone - stand in our way.\" That starts as soon as the crowds get back to their homes. \"Coming out of here, we've got to go home and ask our friends to vote, ask our neighbors to vote,\" NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said. \"Ever forward, never backwards,\" he led the crowd in a cheer. But even participants recognized the challenge. \"There may be an enthusiasm gap, but we're not going to know until we have an election,\" said Ken Bork, who came from Camas, Wash. \"A lot of the noise from the extreme right-wing stuff, it's been well orchestrated by big money. But it's not as bad as they're making it out.\" Rose Dixon, a health care worker from Pawleys Island, S.C., said she hopes the rally sends a message to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. \"Stop the obstructionism. Work together,\" Dixon said. \"Stop playing politics as usual and to put the American people first. We're tired of the politics and the posturing and the games.\" The Rev. Al Sharpton, addressing the crowd that swelled through the day, warned activists against apathy. \"We've got to go home and we've got to hit the pavement. We've got to knock on doors. We've got to ring those church bells,\" Sharpton said, urging the crowd to go home and volunteer for candidates. Organizers insist the rally is not partisan. They say the message is about job creation, quality education and justice. However, the largest organizations, such as the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, tend to back Democratic candidates. But the speakers hardly shied from criticizing Republicans. \"If Sarah Palin had a bright idea, it'd be beginners' luck,\" comedian Charlie Hill joked from the stage about the 2008 vice presidential nominee. Van Jones, who last year was forced from his job as a White House energy adviser after Beck made public his comments disparaging Republicans, said during his remarks that progressives must stand with Democrats to put America back to work. \"They don't need hateful rhetoric. They need real solutions,\" Jones said. Beck and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gathered near the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s \"I Have a Dream\" speech to urge a vast crowd to embrace traditional values. Though also billed as nonpolitical, the rally was widely viewed as a protest against the policies of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. One Nation organizers said they began planning their event before learning about Beck's rally, and said Saturday's march is not in reaction to that. \"Our strength is your strength,\" SEIU President Mary Kay Henry led a chant from the steps where King delivered one of the nation's most \"We are one nation, coming together.\" Obama was spending the weekend at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.", "The class of 2020 is stepping out into an utterly transformed world. We talk with grads about their hopes and fears as they try to launch their lives and careers. Guests Jonathan Yubi Gomez, he is graduating from Lehman College later this month with a BFA in Fine Arts. (@JonathanYubi) Katharine Brooks, executive director of the career center at Vanderbilt University. She writes the \"Career Transitions\" blog for Psychology Today. Author of \"You Majored in What? Designing Your Path from College to Career.\" Author of the 2021 edition of the classic career book \"What Color is Your Parachute,\" out this fall. (@KatharineBrooks) Candace Jones, graduated from Chattanooga State Community College with a degree in paralegal studies. Alexis Brown, graduated from Wayne State University with a degree in sociology and urban studies. She is returning to Wayne State in the fall to pursue her masters in sociology. We Asked You: 'If You're A College Grad, How Are You Launching Your Career During A Pandemic? 'And Those Who Work With Graduates, What Advice To You Have?' Here's What Some Said: Christine Cruzvergara is the vice president for higher education and student success at Handshake. Handshake is a digital platform used by 900 colleges and universities to connect students and recent graduates with nearly 500,000 employers. She said that in March, employers seemed to be taking a pause on hiring. But since April, Handshake has seen an uptick in activity again. Employers are back on the prowl. Before moving to Handshake, Christine Cruzvergara served in career services at colleges including George Mason University and Wellesley College. She said that graduating into a recession can have a silver lining. Here at \"On Point,\" we had to cancel our internship program mid-semester. One of our fabulous interns Bradley returned to his home in Atlanta — and graduated from Boston University this past weekend. Listener Cody called us from New Orleans. He graduated from high school amid the recession that started in 2008, and went straight to the Navy. After serving, he enrolled in college for engineering. He graduated this month. Hannah called us from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She shared with us how she's trying to find a job. Allison left us a voicemail from Portland, Maine. She says she graduated from college in 2009 amid the Great Recession, and now she's graduating from law school during the coronavirus pandemic. Jein called us from Emerald Isle, North Carolina. She was supposed to head to San Francisco after graduation for an internship in strategic communications through the Multicultural Advertising Internship Program, or MAIP. The internship was canceled, but MAIP is offering online seminars throughout the summer, instead. From The Reading List Pew Research Center: \"On the Cusp of Adulthood and Facing an Uncertain Future: What We Know About Gen Z So Far\" — \"One-in-ten eligible voters in the 2020 electorate will be part of a new generation of Americans – Generation Z. Born after 1996, most members of this generation are not yet old enough to vote, but as the oldest among them turn 23 this year, roughly 24 million will have the opportunity to cast a ballot in November. And their political clout will continue to grow steadily in the coming years, as more and more of them reach voting age.\" St. Louis Public Radio: \"'Kind Of Nerve-Wracking': Next Steps For College Grads Entering A Newly Challenging Job Market\" — \"In a job market characterized by furloughs, layoffs and rescinded internship and job offers, this spring's university graduates face challenges beyond their canceled graduation ceremonies.\" Psychology Today: \"Returning to Normal? Or Not?\" — \"I was reading an interesting blog post today, titled \"Smile, Wave, Be Thankful, Be Kind, Find Peace\" by Dr. Lawrence H. Gerstein, Professor of Psychology at Ball State University. It's a lovely piece written by the Advisory Board of the Ball State Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, which he directs.\" NPR: \"In Virtual Speech To Black Graduates, Obama Says U.S. Lacks Leadership On Coronavirus\" — \"Former President Barack Obama delivered a virtual commencement address on Saturday, urging the tens of thousands of graduates from historically black colleges and universities to 'seize the initiative' amid what he described as a lack of leadership from leaders in the United States to the coronavirus pandemic.\" CNBC: \"New college grad job outlook is more competition and lower pay\" — \"Those armed with a newly minted diploma are facing the worst hiring season for new college graduates since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.\" Fast Company: \"How 2020 college grads can adapt to the COVID-19 job market\" — \"The Class of 2020 is entering a job market that has been turned upside-down by COVID-19. Entry-level jobs often aren't a fit for working from home, and displaced employees with more experience are becoming" ]

[ "JENIN, West Bank - Israeli undercover forces killed an Islamic Jihad commander on Wednesday, a day after a Palestinian suicide bomber he had sent to Israel was apprehended near Tel Aviv." ]

[ "Israeli troops killed a senior leader with Islamic Jihad Wednesday, an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said.", "Israel continued its air attacks Tuesday morning on Islamic Jihad, killing four militants in an airstrike as they left a mosque in the Jabalya refugee camp.", "An Israeli air strike on a car in the Gaza Strip on Saturday killed three senior Islamic Jihad militants long sought by Israel for firing rockets and orchestrating other attacks against Israeli targets.", "A car bomb explosion Friday seriously wounded a leader of the militant Palestinian group Islamic Jihad in southern Lebanon and killed his brother, security officials said.", "An Israeli aircraft fired a missile at armed Palestinians near Gaza City on Tuesday, killing one, a militant group said. The man killed was from the Islamic Jihad group.", "An Israeli air strike killed three Palestinian militants in Gaza on Saturday, including an Islamic Jihad commander long sought by Israel for involvement in rocket shootings at the Jewish state.", "ISRAEL killed two Islamic Jihad militants in the Gaza Strip yesterday as Ariel Sharon and his cabinet finalised a bill to withdraw from Gaza.", "GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israel stepped up air strikes in its Gaza offensive, killing an Islamic Jihad leader, while backtracking on charges that militants used a UN ambulance to haul a rocket.", "Israeli undercover agents kill a commander of the militant Islamic Jihad group in the northern West Bank.", "Israeli troops killed two Islamic Jihad militants on Saturday, including the man the group described as the leader of its militant wing in the West Bank city of Nablus.", "JERUSALEM - Israel was responsible for a car bomb that killed a top Hamas leader in Syria yesterday, Israeli security sources acknowledged, in an escalation in Israel&#39;s battle against the Islamic militant group.", "THE finger of blame for the Egypt blasts was yesterday pointed at the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Israel killed the military chief of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad", "An Israeli air strike in Gaza killed four Palestinians, including a top Islamic Jihad militant, on Saturday, prompting calls of revenge by the armed group to continue targeting Israel in rocket attacks.", "Nine members of Islamic Jihad and a Hamas activist killed in a spate of Israeli air strikes on Gaza", "Hamas and Islamic Jihad say they are not bound by the Palestinian truce agreed with Israel in Egypt.", "Hamas and Islamic Jihad reserve judgement on peace with Israel but agree to refrain from violence.", "Two Islamic Jihad militants are killed in an Israeli air raid in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian officials say.", "The Israeli army has shot dead a member of militant group Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip near a border crossing with Israel, security sources say.", "Israeli troops kill the leader of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, Walid Obeidi, during a raid.", "An Israeli television station has reported that Israel was behind the car bombing that killed a senior member of the Hamas group in Damascus this morning.", "An Israeli missile attack in Gaza City has killed a top official of the Palestinian militant organization, Islamic Jihad, and another member of the group.", "\"In an Internet appearance, the Islamic Jihad Union has taken responsiblity for the foiled attacks in Germany and addresses the arrests of Sept. 4, 2007\" An Islamic militant group designated as a terror organization by the U.S. claimed responsibility for foiled bombings that targeted the American air base at Ramstein, as well as U.S. and Uzbek consulates in Germany, the government said Tuesday.The Interior Ministry, which is responsible for police and internal security, said the Islamic Jihad Union made the announcement on the Internet and that government computer experts viewed it as genuine. Three men were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of planning massive bombings against U.S. and other facilities in Germany. Read more", "Eight militants, including a top Islamic Jihad commander, are killed in successive Israeli air strikes on Gaza.", "Israel killed the top bomb maker of the Hamas Islamic militant group in a Gaza Strip air strike on Thursday, days before a key parliamentary vote on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to quit the occupied territory.", "Israeli occupation soldiers have killed a member of the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad in the north of the West Bank, Palestinian sources said.", "Israel launched three air strikes in the Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least six Palestinians, including three senior Islamic Jihad militants it had long sought for firing rockets and orchestrating other attacks. Two of the attacks occurred at the Maghazi refugee camp, including the bombing of a metalwork facility . The strikes were aimed at tightening Israel's ...", "A powerful blast went off in the house of a senior Islamic Jihad activist Friday, killing him, his wife, three sons and three neighbors, medics and an Islamic Jihad spokesman said.", "Israeli security sources confirmed on Sunday that Israel was behind a car bombing in the Syrian capital of Damascus that killed a senior Hamas official, reported the Israeli website of Ha&#39;aretz.", "Israel killed six Palestinians in a series of air strikes in Gaza on Saturday, including three senior Islamic Jihad militants and a rocket manufacturer for a wing of Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group.", "Israeli aircraft launched an assault on the radical Islamic Jihad organization from the skies over Gaza, killing the group's overall commander and eight other militants in three fiery strikes ending early Tuesday.", "At least one Palestinian is killed in clashes in Gaza between members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.", "Israel launched two air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing six Palestinians, including three senior Islamic Jihad militants it long sought for firing rockets and orchestrating other attacks." ]

[ "woman begging for money" ]

[ "cat sleeps", "A woman is wearing a blue sweater.", "A few Women are begging for Money.", "a woman in a sweater", "A person is begging for money on the highway.", "The woman is blue from lack of money to buy dresses.", "A woman accepts money.", "The woman is receiving money.", "A woman and her son stand on the street begging for money.", "The lady is covering her face with a blue sweater.", "A poor woman juggles in the street, begging for money.", "An Asian woman in a blue sweater.", "A man is begging for money on the street.", "A women in a blue sweater sips her coffee.", "She was looking for money.", "A woman with blue sweater is crying.", "A woman in a blue sweater sits in a car.", "The woman is with her family.", "A woman holding a sign is begging for money near her husband pretending to be a guitar player.", "The woman is impoverished.", "There is a person asking for assistance.", "An old woman wearing a blue sweater is smiling.", "A band begs for money without playing.", "The girl's sweater is blue.", "She offered them up for money.", "The woman is knitting a sweater for her dog", "The woman wants to make money.", "The woman is begging on the corner.", "a woman in blue", "there is a woman sitting on a bench wearing a blue sweater", "A woman is sorting her money.", "A woman is holding money." ]

[ "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The chief executives of Ford and GM joined their Chrysler counterpart Tuesday in agreeing to accept salaries of $1 a year if Congress comes through with a bailout for the automakers. Alan Mulally, chief executive officer of Ford Motor Co., has reversed course and will accept a salary of $1 a year. The statements came as the Big Three automakers turned in financial plans to Congress, hoping to bolster their requests for $25 billion in bridge loans. GM spokesman Steve Harris said CEO Rick Wagoner had agreed to accept a $1 salary. Harris didn't elaborate. Ford Motor Company said the salary of its CEO, Alan Mulally, would be cut to $1 a year if Ford actually borrowed money from the government. When Mulally appeared before the House Financial Services Committee last month, he said he would not agree to a pay cut. In his previous appearance before Congress, Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli said he would accept a $1-per-year salary if it helped Chrysler obtain its share of the rescue package. GM plans to display some of its new high-tech cars on Capitol Hill this week, a GM source told CNN. About two weeks ago, congressional Democrats ordered executives of the three automakers to show that they have viable financial turnaround plans when they return later this week to Capitol Hill. Watch why the Big Three are not all in same situation » . Ford released details of its turnaround plan in a written statement Tuesday. The automaker said that, based on current business planning assumptions, it expects its overall and its North American automotive business pre-tax results to break even or be profitable in 2011. The company also released initial details of an accelerated vehicle electrification plan for a family of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and battery electric vehicles. The plan includes a Ford full-battery electric vehicle (BEV) in a van for commercial fleet use in 2010 and a BEV sedan in 2011, the statement said. Ford said it plans to invest about $14 billion in the United States on advanced technologies and products to improve fuel efficiency during the next seven years. It also said it will sell its corporate aircraft as part of its cash-improvement plan. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said he would not support a bailout package unless the companies could prove that they would be viable after the bailout. Reid did not commit to holding a vote on the bailout package. \"No one is too big to fail,\" Reid said. \"We hope we can work something out with them.\" One of Reid's aides said the senator had not read the Ford plan yet because he was involved in back-to-back meetings. GM, Ford, and Chrysler already have made sizable cuts in production and staffing throughout the year, with additional cuts expected in the next few months. Their plans were being submitted to the Democratic chairmen of the committees that will hear the automakers' requests -- Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, whose Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee convenes Thursday, and Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, whose House Financial Services Committee meets Friday. Lawmakers asked the automakers to describe how they will restructure their businesses to become more competitive. In general, the automakers have been asked to describe how much money they have, and how much they need to stay viable in the long term. Their plans also must address how the companies will meet health care and pension obligations to workers. After being criticized during their last trip for arriving in Washington in corporate jets, Mulally and Wagoner are driving to the nation's capital in hybrid cars -- Mulally in a Ford Escape and Wagoner in a Chevrolet Malibu. A Ford executive told CNN the company's plan, 20 to 30 pages long, was being e-mailed to Congress. He said the plan put a heavy emphasis on advanced technologies. Ford is worried, however, that even after doing a \"bang-up job\" on its report, the company may not receive what it needs, the executive said. The atmosphere in Congress was tense before Thanksgiving, he said, adding that he feels \"automakers have become the whipping boy\" for the industry bailout. Automakers are counting on a rebound in demand by 2010. But that could turn out to be unrealistic because of an \"auto bubble\" the Big Three helped to create during the past few years. Cheap financing, easy credit conditions and attractive pricing on cars due to overcapacity in the U.S. auto market caused record sales earlier this decade. Experts agree those three conditions are going to be missing for years to come, and sales will be weaker than normal at least through 2011 or 2012. CNN's Ted Barrett and Kate Bolduan contributed to this report." ]

[ "Take a larger than life governor who may have designs on the White House and a battleground state crucial in presidential politics, and guess what: 2013 might not be as quiet a political year as you thought. New Jersey and Virginia are the only two states to hold gubernatorial contests in the year after a presidential election, and in both states, the campaign clocks are already ticking. \"Virginia and New Jersey are going to get a lot of attention because they are the only games in town in 2013,\" said Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. \"The eyes of the world are on these two races,\" agrees Colm O'Comartun, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, who adds that \"next year in Virginia and New Jersey we're going to play a significant part.\" And the two races will be a hot topic as the Republican Governors Association begins two days of meetings on Wednesday in Las Vegas. Analysis: It's never too early to talk about 2016 . In the wake of big Democratic victories in the 2008 election, the GOP swept both races in the Old Dominion and the Garden State from Democrats. \"In 2009, the victories in Virginia and New Jersey kick-started the GOP comeback in the 2010 midterm elections,\" said RGA Communications Director Mike Schrimpf, who suggested that Republican victories in 2013 could have a similar impact on the 2014 midterms. He added that \"it's a great opportunity for the Republican Party to get its focus back on results oriented leadership.\" While both races will get tons of attention, New Jersey may steal more of the spotlight thanks to its tough-talking Republican governor, Chris Christie, who may also, down the road, be a contender for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. Christie says his decision on running for re-election has been slowed by Hurricane Sandy's devastation to parts of his state. The governor has spent the past two weeks dealing almost exclusively with the powerful storm and its aftermath. At a news conference earlier this week, he offered no timetable for a decision, but did say he'll soon give the 2013 race some serious consideration. Christie: Romney 'didn't get enough votes' While Christie has yet to make any announcement, some GOP strategists are convinced the first-term governor, who's very popular among Republicans and who served as a key surrogate for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and was seriously considered as Romney's running mate, will run for re-election. \"The governor's race in New Jersey is ultimately going to be decided on the strength of Governor Christie's record,\" Schrimpf said. \"He's shown a tremendous ability to get big things done in a bipartisan fashion, including education reform, pension reform, and most recently with his leadership after Sandy. What voters want in their governor is a leader who can get things done, and there's no doubt that Governor Christie has gotten a lot done in his first term as governor.\" Democrats see it a different way, and highlight the state's 9.8% unemployment rate. \"On the economic front I think he's failed to deliver again and again and again. He's got a huge raft of negatives against him that is sometimes hidden by the rhetoric and theater and side show that is Governor Christie,\" said O'Comartun, who added that \"New Jersey is a state that's brought down big characters before.\" The big question in New Jersey is which Democrat will take on Christie. Much speculation centers on Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a rising star in the Democratic Party. Others considering bids are state Sen. Richard Codey, who served as governor for 14 months following the November 2004 resignation of then-Gov. Jim McGreevey, State Sen. Barbara Buono and Assembly member Lou Greenwald. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted last month indicated that 56% of New Jersey registered voters approved of how Christie was handling his duties, and by a 52%-40% margin thought he deserved re-election next year. In hypothetical matchups, Christie had a 46%-42% edge over Booker and a 47%-41% advantage over Codey, with double-digit leads over Buono and Greenwald. GOP expands majority in governors' mansions, CNN projects . In Virginia, where governors cannot run for consecutive terms, the question right now is whether Mark Warner wants his old job back. A new poll suggests if he does, it may be his for the taking. A Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday indicated the first term U.S. senator would be the favorite candidate as the 2013 Virginia gubernatorial campaign gets under way. Warner, who was elected Virginia governor in 2001 and to the Senate in 2008, has said he'll announce by Thanksgiving if he'll stay in the Senate or make a bid for governor. According to the poll, Warner holds large leads over the two leading Republican candidates in hypothetical showdowns. Among registered Virginia voters, Warner leads Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, 53%-33%, and tops Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, 52%-34%. \"If Senator Mark Warner decides to run, he begins the campaign as the prohibitive favorite,\" says Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. \"He is much better known and much better liked than either of the Republican aspirants and his job approval rating - 60% - is the highest of any statewide elected official.\" McDonnell: GOP must be more inclusive . But the general consensus among some Democratic strategists is that Warner will keep his current job. Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and former top adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, announced last Thursday that he'll make a second run for Virginia governor. McAuliffe came in second to state Sen. Creigh Deeds in a three-candidate battle for the 2009 Democratic nomination. Deeds ended up losing by a landslide in the general election to then-Republican Attorney General Bob McDonnell. If Warner stays in the Senate and McAuliffe is the Democratic nominee for governor, the poll indicates the race is much closer, with McAuliffe at 38% and Bolling at 36%, and McAuliffe at 41% and Cuccinelli at 37%. The battle for the GOP nomination could get very interesting, with Cuccinelli, a conservative tea party favorite, squaring off against Bolling, who is more moderate than his rival. Bolling, the two-term lieutenant governor, has McDonnell's endorsement. But the nomination will be decided next year at a state party convention, often dominated by more conservative activists, which favors Cuccinelli, rather than a primary, which could favor Bolling. While preparing for either outcome, the DGA relishes facing off against Cuccinelli, with O'Comartun saying he's \"the wrong man at the wrong time.\" Virginia has become a battleground state in the past two presidential cycles, with President Barack Obama carrying the state for a second straight election last week. And the Democrats held control of the state's open U.S. Senate seat in last week's elections. But the RGA sees some positives going into next year's contest. \"I think the encouraging thing about Virginia is the Republican brand at the state level and particularly the gubernatorial level is extremely strong thanks to the leadership of Governor McDonnell and no matter who our nominee is, they're going to have a proven ability of getting elected statewide,\" Schrimpf said.", "Some important lessons and grudge matches of the just-concluded government spending battle, and some faces to watch as we move into 2015 and 2016 -- those topics filled our trip around the \"Inside Politics\" table Sunday. John King and other top political reporters empty out their notebooks each Sunday to reveal five things that will be in the headlines in the days, weeks and months ahead. 1. In losing, did Democrats lay down an important 2015 marker? Liberals didn't like the $1.1 trillion spending bill that passed Saturday night for a host of reasons, most notably provisions that eased some restrictions on big banks and allowed big political contributors to give even more money. So they protested -- loudly -- about the details and the process, including venting anger that President Obama was supporting the compromise. House Democratic leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi at one point said members were being \"blackmailed.\" In the end, liberals lost. But Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The New York Times reports Democrats are hoping the president takes notice, and perhaps grows more willing to use his veto pen in battles with the new Republican Congress in 2015. \"They were able to keep together enough Democrats to show that they could sustain a presidential veto, if indeed one is needed,\" explained Hirschfeld Davis. \"That was a big subtext of what they were doing this past week: to show that next year, 'You're gonna need us, so just remember that as you look at what's coming down the pipeline from Republicans, you can't take House Democrats for granted,'\" continued Hirschfeld Davis, adding that Obama will need the Democrats to roll back some of the things the GOP wants to do to with his agenda. 2. Sorry senator, no perks for you . The Senate is a place of time-honored tradition. Well, it used to be. Recent days have been full of accounts about how freshman Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas surprised his Republican leadership with his actions during the spending debate. In the old days, senators would at least give their leaders a heads up when they planned to make a point. Not anymore. And Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post took us inside another example of the changing times. Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, by virtue of his tenure, holds the largely ceremonial post of president pro tempore of the Senate. In the old days, when control shifted to the other party, it was usually the case that some of that position's perks (like a car and driver) would be left in place. But GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has some issues with Leahy, and O'Keefe detailed a bit of inside maneuvering to make a point. \"The reason? Because Pat Leahy has stood in the way as a member of the Appropriations Committee of allowing even more changes to campaign finance laws that McConnell wanted to be added to the bill,\" said O'Keefe. \"So a little bit of petty fighting only over about $200,000 at the most, but it didn't happen -- so Leahy loses all the trappings of the office,\" O'Keefe added. 3. The junior senator from Virginia is worth watching . Tim Kaine is in the middle of some interesting debates these days, and is someone worth watching as both parties deal with the new dynamics of Congress and the run-up to the 2016 presidential campaign. Kaine is the junior senator from Virginia, a former Democratic governor and one-time close ally of Obama. But he is at odds with the administration over its approach to ISIS, and Nia-Malika Henderson of The Washington Post told us that isn't the only big political debate where we should keep an eye on Kaine. \"It'll be interesting to see how he elevates his profile and builds his portfolio over these next months. He was a 'no' vote in terms of Harry Reid returning to leadership ... and in some ways, he's with the party on Keystone, things like that, but he's also been sort of critical of this move to anti-Wall Street,\" explained Henderson, adding that we should look for Kaine in 2016. \"Certainly, if Hillary runs, he might be on that short list for VP as he was for Obama in 2008.\" 4. Off to Iowa, for Costa and a Clinton rival looking to make his mark . Robert Costa of The Washington Post is off to Iowa in the days ahead, and not for some farm state holiday shopping. Or not just for that reason, anyway. He's reporting on the latest visit of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats and is gearing up for the 2016 presidential nominating contest. Most Democrats think Hillary Clinton is the runaway favorite, and many liberals who like Sanders are openly wishing Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will join the race. But Costa smartly notes there is good reason to keep an eye on Sanders. \"I think Sanders looks at what's happening in the party with Sen. Warren, with his own efforts against banks, and he thinks yes, he's a long-shot contender, but because he's out there giving speeches, really engaging with a lot of the core Democratic base voters, it means he thinks he does have a shot,\" said Costa. 5. More signs Jeb Bush is running -- including tensions with Camp Romney . Jeb Bush is sending more signs he is likely to run for president, and they are causing a reaction that has many top Republicans buzzing. The former Florida governor plans to release some 250,000 emails from his two terms in office and to write a book describing how the emails detail his political philosophy. \"He's doing what no other potential candidate is doing -- being completely transparent and accessible,\" a top Bush political adviser tells \"Inside Politics.\" Make no mistake, it's as much a message to Camp Clinton as it is fellow Republicans: The State Department has been slow to release documents from Clinton's days as secretary of state, and Bush is only too happy to draw a contrast. But what has Republicans buzzing more than that is the repeated pot shots between Camps Bush and Romney in the past week or so, in reports about Bush's political maneuvering or about his venture capital work. The question is whether this is genuine tension between the principals -- both GOP establishment favorites -- or whether this is more of a staff feud, as we still see from time to time between the 2008 Obama and Clinton teams. \"I don't think both run, and I think Mitt is the less likely,\" says a leading GOP activist with ties to both the Bush and Romney camps. \"But this back and forth will go on a while.\" Why? \"Remember Stuart and Murphy do not get along.\" As in top Romney adviser Stuart Stevens and top Bush (and onetime Romney) confidant Mike Murphy.", "American soldiers in Afghanistan have been warned they may not be paid after President Obama failed in an 11th-hour attempt to reach a settlement over the U.S. deficit. In a crisis that has potentially devastating consequences for the world economy, the U.S. will run out of money to pay its bills next Wednesday unless squabbling Washington legislators raise the country's $14.3 trillion (£8.7tn) debt ceiling. Troops fighting in Afghanistan have been told that the Obama administration is expected to make their salaries a lower priority than interest payments to foreign bond-holders. Defeated: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Saturday after the House rejected a Democratic proposal to raise the nation's debt ceiling . More than $1.2 trillion of America's vast debt is owned by China and another $328bn is owned by UK private investors and pension funds. The Obama administration is expected to continue to pay them next month, along with pensioners. Other social programmes, including medical care for the poor and help for the country's unemployed, also will be fully funded, according to insiders. But that will leave no money to pay federal employees, including troops. America's top military official, Admiral Mike Mullen, delivered the stunning news to soldiers at a meeting at Kandahar air base in southern Afghanistan. Asked if they will be paid if Mr Obama is unable to resolve the deadlock, he said: 'I honestly can't answer that question. 'I have confidence that at some point in time, whatever compensation you are owed, you will be given.' Troops will be ordered to continue to work, the admiral said. Economists say the U.S. could be plunged into recession if the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic Senate cannot agree on legislation. After weeks of intense partisanship, talks went late into the night at the White House on Saturday as leaders made a desperate, last-minute stab at compromise to avoid a government default. Some reports suggested 'significant progress' was being made. 'There is very little time,' declared President Barack Obama. Mr Obama met with top Democrats at the White House and spoke by phone with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Tension: Even if the U.S. continues to make interest payments to creditors, it will unnerve the markets, said city analysts . Q: When will the U.S. officially run out of money?A: Wednesday. Q: Why is it broke?A: The U.S. government has reached its maximum debt level of $14.3 trillion. Q: Why doesn't it raise the debt ceiling? A: Because Tea Party militants have vetoed it. Q: Why?A: Because they want big spending cuts and refuse to back tax rises. Q: What is the official Republican position?A: Lift the debt limit in return for $1 trillion spending cuts. Q: What is President Obama's position?A: A bigger rise in the debt ceiling to avoid another crisis before the U.S. elections next year. Q: What if the U.S. defaults?A: It could suffer the humiliation of losing its triple A credit rating. Q. What is a triple A rating?A. The highest rate of credit worthiness a government can achieve. Q. What happens if the U.S. loses it?A. The government could have to pay more to borrow money. Q: How will that affect ordinary Americans?A: More firms will go bust, interest rates on credit cards and home loans will rise. 'He needs to indicate what he will sign, and we are in those discussions,' McConnell said of the President. He added he had also spoken with Vice . President Joe Biden, who played a prominent role in earlier attempts to . break the gridlock that has pushed the country to the verge of an . unprecedented default. A day after the Republican-controlled . House of Representatives passed a bill to cut the deficit and raise the . ceiling on government borrowing, the debt saga shifted to the . Democratic-led Senate where lawmakers scrambled for a deal. Senate Democrats pushed ahead with . their own plan, but sought to attract bipartisan support by adding some . elements of a proposal offered by Senate Republican leader Mitch . McConnell. But Senate Republicans appeared to . have the votes to block that bill and the House quickly crushed the . Democrats' proposal before the Senate acted on it, rejecting the measure . 246 to 173 in a fast-tracked vote set by the Republican leadership. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid postponed a closure vote on his debt plan, originally expected to happen at 1am on Sunday to 1pm. 'There are many elements to be finalized.  Many elements to be finalised. There is still a distance to go before any arrangement can be completed. 'But I believe we should give everyone as much room as possible to do their work,' he said. 'No one believes this will really happen,' a City financial expert told The Mail on Sunday, 'so no one has thought through the consequences. Even if the U.S. continues to make interest payments to creditors, it will unnerve markets and probably lead to a lowering of its credit rating. 'That means the value of U.S. bonds held by banks will fall and they will have to raise more capital in order to meet their required asset levels and that in turn could force up interest rates, causing a recession.' Senate Democrats killed a bill passed by the Republican-controlled House late on Friday. Democrats opposed it as 'extremist' while Right-wingers said it did not go far enough. And all 43 Republicans in the Senate have signed a letter, saying they will not vote for a rival Democrat plan to raise the debt limit. Mr Obama pleaded for compromise, saying: 'There is very little time.' As the warring continued, Mr Obama was described by The New York Times, as 'largely a bystander'.", "(CNN)Elizabeth Warren's populist supporters are finding inspiration from an unlikely source: Antonio Weiss. Weiss, the head of investment banking at Lazard and President Barack Obama's pick for a top spot at the Treasury Department, was forced to withdraw his nomination last month after facing an onslaught of public opposition led by Warren, the popular liberal Massachusetts senator. If this was a remarkable defeat for the Obama administration, it was a moment of glowing achievement for some of Warren's fiercest backers, including Wall Street reform advocates and progressive grassroots leaders who aggressively criticized Weiss's work at Lazard. Emboldened by their successful thwarting of his nomination and Warren's growing clout, liberal activists are energized about their role in Washington this year. Despite Democrats being relegated to minority status in the House and Senate, these groups still think they can make a big splash. They're preparing to publicly clash with the administration on future presidential nominees and big-ticket items such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. They're also looking to pressure Obama to take a tougher stance on expansion of overtime pay and developing stricter rules for brokers on Wall Street. By simultaneously mobilizing supporters from the ground up and seizing on Warren's rise in national politics, the Massachusetts senator's backers are determined to make Weiss just the first of many casualties. \"This was a really important part of us building momentum against the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party and really supporting the Warren wing,\" said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America. \"What was exciting about Antonio Weiss is we took our first victim.\" The monthslong crusade against Weiss captured how progressive activists are using Warren's star power to elevate their core issues. Warren is the subject of persistent rumors that she'll run for president in 2016. She insists she's not running for higher office, but her stature among progressives is immense. After Obama nominated Weiss, 48, to be Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance in November, groups such as MoveOn, Democracy for America and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee quickly mobilized. They blasted out emails to supporters, launched online petitions and took to social media to oppose Weiss's nomination. Their single most important tool for mobilizing mass support? Warren. Progressive groups didn't just call on supporters to oppose Weiss; instead, they insisted that protesting his nomination was a way of showing solidarity with Warren. \"Stand with Elizabeth Warren and say no to a Wall Street banker for Treasury undersecretary,\" read a MoveOn petition against Weiss's nomination, which garnered more than 30,000 signatures. Democracy for America urged its members to call the White House and say no to the Weiss nomination -- not just because Weiss was too friendly with Wall Street, but because blocking his nomination was an important mission for Warren. \"Sen. Warren is leading the charge against the nomination of Antonio Weiss,\" the group said. \"She needs your help to stop him.\" It wasn't a complete victory -- when he eventually withdrew his nomination last month, Weiss was offered the role of adviser to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. But for Warren's supporters, sinking Weiss's nomination was validation of the progressive movement's sway in Washington. It was also proof of how much Warren's popularity with voters can help maximize the progressive wing's influence. A Warren spokesperson declined to comment for this story. With the 2016 presidential election looming, liberal activists are eager to piggyback on the continuing buzz about a Warren White House bid and make the senator a mascot for some of their top policy and legislative priorities. For starters, they are prepared to sound the alarm if another presidential nominee doesn't meet their approval. The Federal Reserve's Board of Governors has one vacancy in need of a nomination, and it's unclear when the administration plans to nominate someone new for the undersecretary for domestic finance role. If the administration were to handpick another nominee perceived as being too close to Wall Street, financial reform groups can expect to have a powerful ally on their side: community banks. Cam Fine, the CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America who opposed Weiss's nomination, said his group's view is simple: \"We don't want all the nominees to be straight out of Wall Street.\" \"We're looking for nominees that have experience with midsized and smaller institutions,\" Fine said. \"The litmus test is: How well rounded are those nominees?\" Progressive groups are also taking issue with one of the President's top priorities for his final years in office: the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a huge trade agreement proposal between the United States and 11 countries. Groups such as MoveOn have opposed these talks, taking issue with what they say are \"secret\" negotiations and the unfair advantages that large corporations would reap from the pact. Warren agrees. \"To protect consumers and to address sources of systemic financial risk, Congress must maintain the flexibility to impose restrictions on harmful financial products and on the conduct or structure of financial firms. We would oppose including provisions in the TPP that would limit that flexibility,\" the senator wrote in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman in December. Liberal activists also have their sights set on unilateral actions the Obama administration could take and bypass the GOP-controlled Congress, such as expanding overtime pay and creating stricter oversight of Wall Street brokers. On both of these issues, they also have the support of their favorite Democratic senator. \"Our members love her,\" said Anna Galland, executive director of civic action at MoveOn.org.", "Even if the Senate backs President Barack Obama's call for military action against Syria, a wall of outright opposition or skepticism from Democrats and Republicans in the House makes approval there very difficult. House Speaker John Boehner, who backs Obama on the issue, welcomed news on Friday that the president would deliver a national address on Tuesday to try to sway public opinion, which now opposes such a step. But Boehner's spokesman signaled that the votes aren't in the House for passing a resolution authorizing force against Syria and the GOP is placing the burden squarely on Obama's shoulders. \"Only a president can convince the public that military action is required. We only hope this isn't coming too late to make the difference,\" Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said in a statement. Still, senior House Republican aides find it difficult to see a path for passage. Boehner's top deputy, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, also supports the president and is talking to members and urging them to review classified materials that administration officials say bolsters their case for military action. Cantor penned an editorial in his hometown Richmond paper explaining why he believes military action is needed. \"America has a compelling national security interest to prevent and respond to the use of weapons of mass destruction, especially by a terrorist state, and to prevent further instability in a region of vital interest to the United States,\" he said. 'Constructive' talks but little headway on crisis . But rank and file House GOP members have frequently ignored their leaders and the vote in favor of action is stalled in the single digits, including the support expressed by senior leadership, a CNN tally showed. One senior GOP House aide said prospects for meaningful additional Republican support is \"bad\" and \"momentum is with the 'nay' vote.\" Congress is ending its summer recess and members formally get back to work next week. In a memo to House Republicans outlining the fall schedule, Cantor suggested the timetable for the vote, which Boehner initially planned for next week, could slip a week. \"Members should expect a robust debate and vote on an authorization of use of military force pertaining to Syria in the next two weeks\" Cantor wrote. But House GOP leaders are leaving open the possibility the House will not bring up the resolution if it fails in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid predicted on Friday that the necessary votes were in the Democratic-led chamber to pass a resolution calling for limited force. The House plans to wait to see if something passes the Senate before making final decisions on the language or timing of any House vote, according to multiple Republican sources. One undecided GOP member, Rep Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican, returned for a briefing on Friday. He told CNN that he came back to hear details about the military objectives directly from the administration instead of through the media. Obama to address American people on Tuesday . Although his constituents are \"very opposed\" to military action, Hudson said he would base his vote on what he thought was best for the country and \"let the politics sort itself out later.\" The lack of GOP support places enormous pressure on House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who was one of the chief critics of the Iraq war, and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer. The two will need to persuade well over a majority of the 200 House Democrats to stand behind Obama, also a Democrat. Top House Democratic aides counter that it's too soon to predict defeat because most Democrats are reserving judgment until they hear details in a classified briefing on Monday evening. The administration is dispatching top officials to make a final push before Obama's speech. Secretary of State John Kerry; Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey will conduct the joint House-Senate session in the Capitol. \"We're not going to know until our members get back into town. A lot of people haven't had access to the briefings or the classified documents,\" one of Democratic aide noted. But for many House members who already have attended classified meetings on Syria this week, the sessions seem to raise more questions. Syria's rebels: 20 things you need to know . Hawaii Democratic Rep Tulsi Gabbard, a former Iraq war veteran, told reporters she was undecided and then ticked off remaining questions she had after a two-hour session with top administration officials. \"What are the unintended consequences? What are the outcomes? What are the next moves that could potentially occur that would involve U.S. interests, U.S military, costs - both in human lives, as well as in resources?\" Gabbard asked. A senior administration official told CNN that top officials reached out to more than 125 House members through a variety of conference calls and one-on-one conversations over the past two weeks. But the \"flood the zone\" White House approach hasn't prevented a steady list of members from voicing outright opposition or criticism that the case for military action is thin. The fact that so many members in his own party remain undecided or publicly opposed illustrates that Obama's political capital in Congress is quite low. California Democratic Rep. Judy Chu participated in a conference call with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough on Wednesday and remains undecided. While she said there's no question that the al-Assad government used chemical weapons she outlined a laundry list of outstanding questions. She wants details about contingency plans if Syria retaliates, the lack of international support, reasons why diplomatic efforts can't be explored, and the direct cost to taxpayers. Chu says her constituents \"overwhelmingly ... want me to vote 'no' on this.\" She described House Democrats as \"war weary. We just came from Iraq and Afghanistan wars. We are war skeptical,\" Chu said. Rep Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat who remained undecided, highlighted the stakes for Obama to change minds or persuade Democrats to back him on Syria. He called it \"certainly one of the most important speeches in his career as the president of the United States.\"", "Washington (CNN)Our first 2015 trip around the \"Inside Politics\" table brought fresh insights on President Obama's early moves, key intelligence on Republican congressional shifts, some North Dakota intrigue and a look back that perhaps has a parallel to the angst some liberals have about their 2016 front-runner. 1. The 'big speech' isn't what it once was, so Obama hits the road . A post-State of the Union road trip is a presidential tradition, but Obama is planning a pre-speech swing, perhaps to show the times are changing. Julie Pace of The Associated Press says it's the latest attempt by the White House to maximize its political leverage -- all the more important now that Republicans will control both the House and the Senate. \"The White House says that this is a way to get out there, gain momentum and draw up contrasts with Republicans early on. But it also shows that State of the Unions simply aren't as important as they once were,\" said Pace. \"The President's last State of the Union address drew 33 million viewers. It was the lowest number of viewers since Bill Clinton's last address. You still get a big audience, but I think this is interesting, whether this signals that not only this White House but future White Houses will see an incentive in talking to the American people about State of the Union ideas separate from just that one big night. \" 2. Easy sailing for AG choice Lynch? Attorney General Eric Holder has few, if any, friends among Republicans in Congress, and there were predictions of a rocky road for the woman chosen by Obama to take the reins at Justice now that Holder is stepping down. But The Atlantic's Molly Ball tells us that smooth sailing is now the prediction as Loretta Lynch prepares for her confirmation hearings. Yes, Republicans have some big policy differences with the Obama administration and will use the Lynch hearings to air them. But Ball says her reporting found that Lynch herself has made a very good impression on key GOPers. \"She impressed a lot of Republicans in her meetings on the hill last month,\" said Ball. \"Sen. Grassley, who's the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, hasn't said anything negative about her. Senior Republican sources in the Senate tell me they think there may be a little bit of drama but right now she's looking pretty good for confirmation.\" 3. Chaffetz's plans for Issa's old committee . The new Congress means some new faces leading key congressional committees, and Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah can be certain of this: He will be compared early and often to his combative predecessor, Rep. Darrell Issa of California. Chaffetz is about to take over the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, the panel that for the past couple of years has held high-profile hearings on the IRS, Benghazi, and other flashpoints between the GOP and the Obama White House. Chaffetz has a more easygoing style than Issa but is no less ambitious -- and no fan of the White House. Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post shared his reporting on how the new chairman plans to close down some investigations, but then get busy with a new set of oversight priorities. \"He's putting together a bunch of new subcommittees --one to look at Obama's work on energy and the environment and another focused specifically on administrative rules, or all the regulation-writing that is going on across the administration,\" said O'Keefe. \"He says staffers on that subcommittee are tasked with waking up every morning, scouring the Federal Register and all the other pieces of information that are out there about rule-making going on, and hold hearings about them. \" 4. One big question for 2016 -- will Heitkamp take the plunge? In Washington, the big 2016 debate is over when Hillary Clinton will let us know for certain. But in North Dakota, it's Heidi Heitkamp who has things in a bit of a holding pattern. Heitkamp, a Democratic U.S. senator, is looking hard at heading home and running for governor in 2016. Nia-Malika Henderson of The Washington Post took us inside the chess game that could play out if Heitkamp shakes up state politics with a gubernatorial bid. \"She's not up for Senate until 2018, so if she runs for governor in 2016, she can also keep her Senate seat,\" said Henderson. \"But if she wins, she could actually appoint her successor. And Republicans in North Dakota are nervous about that prospect and making some noise and putting bills forward to prevent that little technicality, so she wouldn't be able to do that.\" 5. Clinton and Warren -- this 2016 dynamic has a 1992 parallel . Another big 2016 debate in Washington is whether liberals can somehow convince Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to challenge Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. I vividly recall a similar debate back in late 1991 and early 1992, when then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was emerging as the Democratic front-runner and annoying some party activists with his argument that Democrats were repeatedly losing presidential elections because the national party was far too liberal. Back then, the liberal at the receiving end of the urgent entreaties was New York Gov. Mario Cuomo. Among those most aggressive on courting Cuomo were the labor unions that Clinton often blamed for pulling Democrats to the left. On deadline day to file for the New Hampshire primary, there was a plane waiting in Albany, New York, to take Cuomo to Concord to declare his candidacy and join the fray. Reporters waited, and a crowd gathered as word spread of the expected drama. I remember sitting in the Concord bureau of The Associated Press and filing the bulletin that Cuomo would NOT run. And on that day and in the days that followed, I recall the relief his decision gave to top lieutenants in the Bill Clinton campaign. The principal reason Clinton survived the roller coaster of character questions in that '92 campaign was his own political skills and tenacity. But it is also fair to note that it turned out to be a relatively weak Democratic field. No offense to Bob Kerrey, Tom Harkin or the late Paul Tsongas, but none emerged as a lasting, serious threat to Clinton. Jerry Brown -- then the former California governor and now back in that job -- held on the longest, but never came close in the delegate chase. Cuomo's decision kept on the sidelines a powerful intellect with proven debate skills -- and earned the New York governor the \"Hamlet on the Hudson\" moniker because of his public debate, largely with himself, over whether to run for president in 1988 and then again in 1992.", "By . Associated Press . The Obama administration only finalized the exchange of Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees one day before the swap took place, a top Democrat has revealed today. Senator Dick Durbin said Tuesday that American officials didn't learn the pickup location for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl until an hour ahead of time. Senator Durbin, the Senate's No. 2-ranked Democrat, presented the timeline as an explanation for why President Barack Obama didn't inform Congress 30 days before the May 31 prisoner trade. Republicans and some Democrats have sharply criticized the president for failing to notify them and contend he broke the law. Obama says he acted legally. Scroll down for video . Released: Top lawmakers have revealed that they were only informed about the deal to exchange Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban detainees one hour before it happened because of safety concerns . 'They knew a day ahead of time the . transfer was going to take place… They knew an hour ahead of time where . it was going to take place,' Durbin told reporters in the Capitol, where . military officials briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee behind . closed doors. Durbin spoke as a House panel overwhelmingly backed a measure barring U.S. funds for the transfer of detainees from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amid the congressional outcry over the swap. Timing: President Obama has stood by his decision to approve the exchange and said that the quick window was necessary to ensure the safety of both Bergdahl and the American soldiers transporting him . ‘The reason for that is simple, this is a secret military mission in which disclosure of the mission could put into jeopardy not just the life of Mr Bergdahl but also the lives of the military,’ incoming White House press secretary John Earnest said Tuesday. On a bipartisan 33-13 vote, the Appropriations Committee added the provision to a $570billion defense spending bill that blocks money if the administration fails to notify Congress within 30 days of a transfer from Guantanamo as required by law. The administration exchanged Bergdahl, who was the last remaining U.S. prisoner of war in Afghanistan held captive by the Taliban since 2009, for five Taliban officials who had been at Guantanamo for more than a decade. The five were sent to Qatar, where they are to remain for a year as part of the deal. Representative . Rodney Frelinghuysen, the Republican chairman of the defense . subcommittee, described the agreement as a 'violation of trust' by the . Obama administration that cannot be overlooked. The . measure also bars 85 per cent of the money in the account for overseas . conflicts until Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reassures Congress that no . funds will be spent to violate current law requiring congressional . notification. House Speaker . John Boehner lamented Tuesday that although he was briefed on the . super-secret mission to take out Osama Bin Laden in 2011, he was kept in . the dark about the prisoner agreement with the Taliban. Although Boehner and other lawmakers voiced concerns when told more than two years ago about the possibility of the trade, the Ohio Republican told reporters he 'was never briefed on any specific negotiation.' In the week since the deal, lawmakers have raised questions about whether Bergdahl was a deserter and whether the United States gave up too much for his freedom. The exchange: The House Armed Services Committee was briefed on the exchange (pictured) today . Many members of Congress have cited intelligence suggesting the high-level Taliban officials could return to the Afghanistan battlefield. Particularly galling for lawmakers was a detail that emerged in a closed-door briefing Monday night with administration officials that 80 to 90 members of the U.S. government knew of the swap but not a single member of Congress. Republican Representative Howard 'Buck' McKeon, who serves as the House Armed Services Committee chairman, announced after the briefing that he'd investigate the deal. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will testify before the panel Wednesday. No such probe is occurring in the Democrat-led Senate, but Republican Representative Jeff Sessions demanded similar open hearings. 'It's got to be demoralizing for our allies. It's got to be demoralizing for our soldiers. It's got to embolden the people we're fighting against. We're at war,' Sessions told reporters. Defending the administration's conduct, Durbin blasted his colleagues in Congress for focusing on the lack of notification, even if one of the loudest critics has been a party colleague: Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee. Defense: Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has said that she agreed that it would be impractical to expect the President to give a month's notice before the exchange . Looking for the next step: Republican Representative Howard 'Buck' McKeon (right), who serves as the House Armed Services Committee chairman, announced after the briefing that he'd investigate the deal . 'Are we saying that once we decided to do the prisoner transfer, we had to notify Congress and wait 30 days?' Durbin asked. 'The president couldn't do that. It was impossible. It could have endangered the man's life by waiting 30 days.' The law on notification 'doesn't square with reality,' he added. Durbin said he expected public doubts to subside as people learn more about Bergdahl's experience. 'As people understand the circumstances of his imprisonment, it will help explain why the president considered this such a threat,' Durbin said. He expected Bergdahl to offer his account publicly as well, although military officials are 'a little bit tentative because of his medical condition' right now and because declassification procedures are under way. 'As soon as he's in good shape and stabilized, he can tell us a little bit more about his experience,' the senator said.", "Washington (CNN)A Florida \"dream ticket,\" two nuggets about leadership questions in Congress and coming tests for Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich filled our final March trip around the \"Inside Politics\" table. 1. Another \"Draft Warren\" movement? If you follow politics, you have heard this one: Liberals say Elizabeth Warren has to run for president because Hillary Clinton is too cozy with Wall Street. And now that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid is planning to retire -- creating an opening in the top Senate Democratic job -- you are about to hear this: Warren has to run for leader because Chuck Schumer is too cozy with Wall Street. The senator from Massachusetts is likely to give the same answer as she did on a presidential run, but Jackie Kucinich of The Daily Beast says the liberal clamoring tells us something about anxiety on the left. \"What this does show is there is a lot of skepticism with the base with Chuck Schumer, because he's so close to Wall Street, and it's an issue they've really been hammering on,\" Kucinich said. \"So watch for more of that, because I have a feeling that they are going to make their voices heard, through Warren or not.\" 2. A good week for Boehner. Yes, you read that right. It has been a rocky year for House Speaker John Boehner, but his allies think they may have just turned a corner. The House of Representatives passed the Republican budget last week as well as a big Medicare change known as the \"doc fix\" because it clarifies reimbursement rates to Medicare providers. NPR's Juana Summers shared reporting on how Team Boehner hopes that ending the month with a little momentum will carry over when other big legislative battles come to the fore. \"Part of (his success) is because of the speaker's willingness to use unconventional tactics, to work with Democrat Nancy Pelosi for that Medicare reform,\" Summers said. \"Congress has a lot of big deadlines when they return. So whether or not he can hold onto that power instead of seeing it slip will be really fascinating.\" 3. Bush-Rubio? Rubio-Bush? Watch the real estate listings! Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio both call Florida home. And both want to be the Republican nominee for president. They also happen to be on friendly terms. So among Florida Republicans who love them both -- there is talk of a \"dream ticket.\" Of course, it won't happen. Can't happen. Rules and all that pertaining to the president and vice president coming from the same state. (Dick Cheney changed his residency from Texas to Wyoming right before joining the George W. Bush ticket.) But Ed O'Keefe of The Washington Post said the obstacles aren't preventing Florida Republicans from doing a little dreaming. \"They say, look, Bush has all this executive experience, he's bilingual, he has a Mexican-American wife,\" O'Keefe said. \"Rubio is young. He has an interest in foreign policy. Why not?\" 4. Ted Cruz wants to \"rock\" the youth vote. Much was made of the fact that Liberty University students had no choice but to attend the campus convocation at which Ted Cruz announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. But it gave Cruz a big crowd -- and Robert Costa of The Washington Post reports that Team Cruz is determined to build a relationship with young conservatives such as those on hand for the announcement. \"He's playing at a lot of happy hours with young conservatives in the coming weeks and months,\" Costa said. \"And he really believes he can ignite those young conservatives, who aren't really familiar with Bush and are looking for someone new.\" 5. Is Kasich waiting for a \"summer wave\"? John Kasich had a well-regarded visit to New Hampshire last week. And he got a decent buzz out of a New York fund-raising stop, too. So is he ready to launch and join the crowded GOP 2016 presidential field? Not so fast. Two New Hampshire Republicans keeping close tabs on GOP visitors say he wouldn't give a firm answer about his intentions -- something they took as a hesitation to run. A national GOP source plugged into to the Kasich operation says the governor hasn't made a firm decision, and is talking about waiting until the summer to make a final call. That, too, is interpreted widely as a reluctance to run. This national source said Kasich is one of two GOP governors who want to wait and see if those in the current field stumble after their official spring rollouts and create an opening for a \"summer wave\" of new entries. The other, according to this source, is GOP Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.", "Republican lawmakers are holding their ground and refusing to fund the proposals President Barack Obama laid out in his State of the Union address. Having already panned his pitches as 'unserious' and 'dead on arrival,' Republicans are now threatening to shred most of Obama's budget, due for release on Tuesday, the moment it lands on their desks. 'He is the most liberal, fiscally irresponsible president we’ve had in history,' Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch told the Washington Post after seeing a preview of the president's spending requests. 'I don’t know why he doesn’t see it.' The White House on Thursday admitted that it doesn't expect the president's budget to pass 'in its current form.' Rather, it considers the document 'a way that we can codify our values and our priorities.' President Barack Obama is pictured here in the East Room of the White House giving a speech today. Yesterday, Obama revealed that his 2016 budget would 'fully reverse the sequestration cuts for domestic priorities' and increase defense spending . Obama told Democrats on Thursday he would ask for a $74 billion in 2015 above the ceiling mandated by a bipartisan agreement. The White House confirmed that Obama will ask Congress to trash the sequester. 'No way,' Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake said in response to the news. 'Initial peak at Pres budget shows same wonderland mentality that Washington can tax and spend its way to prosperity Am ppl can't be fooled,' Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley tweeted. Hatch told the Post the U.S. is 'facing a debt crisis not because Americans are taxed too little but because the government spends too much.' In his State of the Union address Obama presented an ambitious framework of revenue increases that place even higher tax burdens on financial institutions and wealthy Americans and would raise $320 billion over 10 years to pay for his favored programs. But Republicans have firmly dismissed any attempt to increase revenues through those means. 'I don’t know any Republican, myself included, that would support any of that,' Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby told reporters last week, using the 'dead on arrival' refrain. 'I think it's pretty clear that that’s a non-starter, and I think the president knows that,' Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock told Daily Mail Online. 'Those kind of tax increases would just be devastating to the economy. And you know we still have a very fragile economy.' Republican after Republican has slammed the new measures as bad for the same Americans it purports to help - the middle class - since his joint appearance before Congress last week. 'President Obama stayed the course of tax, spend, borrow, regulate, and add to the debt. This policy has hammered working families,' Alabama's other senator, Jeff Sessions, also a Republican, said in a statement. 'Instead of trying to manipulate our tax code to punish success, President Obama should work with Congress to fundamentally reform our tax code in ways that will grow our entire economy and provide relief to all families,' Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz contended that Obama was tone-deaf and did not 'hear' the American peoples' message in November when they ousted his party from power in the upper chamber. 'He intends to do precisely the opposite' of what they voted for, Cruz said. 'He intends to double down on the failed policies of the last six years. He intends to have yet more and more government spending and taxes and debt and all of the policies that are hurting hardworking Americans.' House Speaker John Boehner accused Obama of 'more of the same approach that has failed middle-class families.' 'Unnserious proposals may make for good political theater, he said, but 'they will not distract this new American Congress from our focus on the people's priorities.' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that in digging in his heels Obama 'missed' and opportunity for 'bipartisan, constructive engagement.' 'We know the president may not be wild about the people’s choice of a Congress. But he owes it to the American people to find a serious way to work with the representatives they elected,' the GOP leader said. Moderate Democrats are waiting until Obama's budget is unveiled to determine whether Obama and the White House 'have really gone too far left,' Matt Bennett, co-founder of left-aligned group Third Way indicated to Politico. 'We are big believers in dealing with the long-term mandatory spending crisis and driving economic growth for the middle class,' he said of his organization, 'and we hope to see some of that when the whole budget comes out.' Obama has already had to strike one of his changes to the tax code from his budget in the last week after he faced blow back from Republicans and Democrats alike, including the top Democrat in the House, Nancy Pelosi, and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, Dick Durbin. The president wanted to amend the rules pertaining to popular college savings accounts often referred to as 529s as part of his plan to reform the tax code. Used most often by the wealthy, the White House wanted to begin taxing withdraws from the investment accounts. Democrats argued that too many middle income Americans use the accounts, though, for that to be a smart source of revenue for Obama's free community college tuition plan that's been promoted as a boon for average American families. Building on the State of the Union, Obama offered a preview of his budget on Thursday in an op-ed for the Huffington Post. 'We have to build on the bipartisan budget agreement I signed in 2013 that helped us end some of the arbitrary, across-the-board budget cuts known as \"sequestration,\" ' the president wrote. 'In order to get wages and incomes rising faster, we need to take the next step. That's why my Budget will fully reverse the sequestration cuts for domestic priorities in 2016.' Not only does the president intend to give the Department of Defense back the money it would lose next fiscal year if the sequester were allowed to take effect, he will propose 'equal dollar increases for defense funding.' 'If Congress rejects my plan and refuses to undo these arbitrary cuts, it will threaten our economy and our military,' he said in his op-ed. 'Investments in key areas will fall to their lowest level in ten years, adjusted for inflation, putting American research, education, infrastructure, and national security at risk. 'But if Congress joins me, we can make sure that ending sequestration is fully paid for by cutting inefficient spending and closing tax loopholes.' Yesterday, Obama told Democrats he would ask for a $74 billion in 2015 above the ceiling mandated by a bipartisan agreement in his budget, due out next Tuesday. He is pictured here at their retreat in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania . The White House said Thursday that the president's budget is based on his belief that is possible to 'make our tax code fairer and more simple, and do it all in a way that’s fiscally responsible.' Obama's spokesman, Josh Earnest said, the White House believes 'there is a better way that we could have succeeded in reducing the deficit' than sequestration - and that would have been to raise tax rates on Wall Street. 'But in some ways, those are debates for the past. What we want to talk about now is the future. And I do think that the strategy that the President has laid out - focusing on middle-class families - is one that certainly deserves strong bipartisan support in the Congress,' he said. Earnest contended that 'no President has ever put forward a budget with the expectation that Congress is going to pass it in its current form,' he said, even when the executive and legislative branches of government were controlled by the same party. Still, President Obama's budget is 'important,' he said, because it 'codifies the President’s values and vision for the country.' 'But Republicans in Congress will certainly have their say and we look forward to seeing what they put forward,' he noted. Looming cuts to defense spending is a problem that Obama and Republicans who favor a robust military agree must be resolved. At a Senate Armed Forces hearing on the sequester on Wednesday the committee's chair, Arizona Sen. John McCain, said the U.S. is en route to shaving $1 trillion off of its defense budget by they year 2021. 'If we in Congress do not act,' McCain said, and the sequester goes into effect next year, Congress will be 'setting our military on a far more dangerous course.' 'Why would we do this to ourselves now?' he said, recalling the global crises of late, including Russia's invasion of Ukraine and ISIS' violent rampage across Iraq and Syria. McCain said the Army and Marine Corps won't have enough forces if the sequester kicks in and the Air Force won't have enough planes. The aircraft the Air Force will in many cases 'be too old,' he said. Continuing, he warned, 'Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines will not get the training or equipment they need. And it will become increasingly difficult for them to respond to any number of contingencies that could threaten our national interests around the world.' Quoting retired United States Marine Corps General James Mattis, who spoke to the committee on Tuesday, McCain said: ‘No foe in the field can wreck such havoc on our security that mindless sequestration is achieving.’ McCain ally, Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina told Fox News he'd even consider tax increases to stop sequestration. 'Whatever it takes within reason to get this problem fixed is what I'm willing to do,' he said, adding that he'd do what it takes 'just to get the damn thing done.' Graham's eagerness to raise revenues to save the military is not shared by the entire Republican Party. 'A lot of this gets down to whether or not the president is willing to work through tax reform and entitlement reform, or decide he wants to raise taxes,' Republican Rep. Tom Cole told the Post. 'I don’t believe Republicans are willing to raise taxes.'", "President Barack Obama's aggressive new proposal to dramatically limit carbon pollution is a policy priority that he hopes will help shape his legacy. But a policy step that Obama considers good for the country and his presidency may be bad for certain Democrats in tight election battles this year. Democrats' flight . Some of the toughest fights this campaign season are taking place in red or purple states where jobs and the economy are in a constant tug of war against the environment. They are also the states where Obama's plan to limit carbon emission from power plants will have its greatest impact. Obama's big environmental move: Demanding power plants cut carbon . Obama's proposal aims to reduce carbon pollution by 30% by 2030, but the Chamber of Commerce put out a study last week saying it will cost $50 billion and eliminate nearly 225,000 jobs. Republicans are framing it as a job killer and electricity bill hiker, putting some Democrats in a tough position in an uneven economy. \"As he seeks to secure his legacy, Obama is finally getting his 'war on coal,'\" the Republican National Committee wrote in a statement slamming the proposal. Coal power plants, the greatest polluters, are expected to be the most impacted by the new rules, if they're finalized. Some Democrats from conservative coal-producing states quickly and sharply broke from the President. Kentucky produces the third-most coal in the country but has seen a reduction in coal jobs and production. A high-profile Senate race there has come down to who loves coal more. Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who is running to unseat Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, put out a strong statement opposing Obama's move. \"President Obama's new EPA rule is more proof that Washington isn't working for Kentucky,\" Grimes said in a statement. \"When I'm in the U.S. Senate, I will fiercely oppose the President's attack on Kentucky's coal industry because protecting our jobs will be my number one priority.\" She is also actively attacking the President, running ads worth \"six figures\" in Kentucky newspapers that say \"President Obama and Washington don't get it.\" Her opposition is aggressive but it didn't stop McConnell for connecting Grimes to the President and fellow Democrats. \"Alison Lundergan Grimes was recruited by President Obama, who said he would 'bankrupt' the coal industry, and Harry Reid, who said 'coal makes us sick.' And she is being funded by liberals nationwide who know that a vote for her is a vote to ensure further implementation of their anti-coal agenda in the U.S. Senate,\" McConnell's spokeswoman Allison Moore said in a statement. In West Virginia, which produces the second most coal, Democratic candidate for Senate Natalie Tennant also opposes the new rules. \"I will stand up to President Obama, (EPA Administrator) Gina McCarthy, and anyone else who tries to undermine our coal jobs,\" Tennant said in a statement. West Virginia Rep. Nick Rahall, who is in a tough race to retain his seat, put out a statement announcing that he is introducing legislation to block Obama's proposal. The new effort could also play out in Louisiana, where Sen. Mary Landrieu, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, is in a tough reelection campaign. Landrieu has been a major defender of fossil fuel-based energy industries as oil, natural gas and some coal are integral to her state's economy. She straddled the issue carefully on Monday by saying that carbon emissions should be reduced but with the input of Congress and not through the Environmental Protection Agency. And giving an olive branch to the powerful energy industry, she also praised it for reducing carbon. She did not praise the President. \"Congress should set the terms, goals and time frame. Greater use of natural gas and stronger efficiency measures adopted by the industry have already helped us reduce carbon emissions to their lowest levels in 20 years,\" Landrieu said. Her Republican opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy slammed Landrieu. His spokesperson, John Cummins, said she has done little to stop regulations that \"tie down Louisiana's energy economy in an effort to promote a radical climate change agenda.\" In North Carolina, another red state, Republican Thom Tillis called his opponent, Democratic incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan, \"a rubber-stamp for Obama's anti-energy policies.\" Hagan said in a statement that she would push for changes in the plan, which will be subject to public comment. \"I'm talking to business leaders and energy experts in North Carolina about what this proposed rule will mean for our state and our economy. I want to make sure that the proposal does enough to recognize the progress we've made reducing carbon emissions and promoting renewable energy,\" she said. In Montana, Democratic Sen. John Walsh's statement underscores the difficulty of this issue in conservative states. He issued no position, instead saying he \"will be listening to Montanans\" to determine if the rule is one they can accept. Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas was also noncommittal. He said he had \"concerns\" but would wait to hear what the people of his state thought. The issue is likely to come up in races in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Alaska as well. All produce coal but also lean conservative and have constituencies that are turned off by greater government regulation. But Bill Burton, a former Obama spokesman, said division among Democrats is expected, especially in campaign season. \"You're going to have instances where Democrats are going to not be perfectly aligned with the President's message, but that doesn't mean the President's policy is not the right one,\" he said. The Republican Party is taking advantage, launching robocalls connecting candidates to Obama's \"radical energy plan\" in Virginia, Louisiana, Colorado and Alaska. Obama's fight . Before his administration announced the planned change, Obama held a conference call with members of the House and Senate in an attempt to shore up support and enthusiasm, indicating that this would be a political landmine for some Democrats in tough races. But addressing the issue of climate change has been at the forefront of his legislative wish list. Up until now, he hasn't done much, hitting a number of roadblocks along the way. Since failing to pass cap and trade legislation to limit carbon emissions through the Democratic-led Senate in 2010, Obama has struggled with Congress. He has been saddled with a struggling economy and several foreign policy crises, effectively putting climate change on the back burner. Inaction of his own initiative has also limited Obama's influence on the issue. He has repeatedly put off a decision to kill or approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which is still unresolved and has upset everyone with a stake or position on the issue. The appointment of John Podesta as the President's counselor earlier this year to revive a struggling White House was also a signal that Obama was going to try again to address environmental pollution. Podesta, who was chief of staff for former President Bill Clinton, has focused on progressive energy and environmental issues, authoring a book in 2008 that is heavy on the issues. These proposed rules on power plants are being billed as the most aggressive effort to combat pollution and climate change in decades, and Burton says this is a legacy issue for Obama. \"Nothing has been done on this scale as it relates to combating climate change and it will absolutely be an important part of the President's legacy,\" he said. (Burton also does work for the environmental group the League of Conservation Voters). Democrats' plight . Democrats who support the proposal will be backed by billionaire Tom Steyer, who has pledged to financially assist nearly a dozen candidates who support climate change proposals. Not among those candidates are Democrats who are opposing Obama's new rule, including Grimes, Landrieu and Pryor. Green billionaire prepares to attack 'anti-science' Republicans . Steyer praised the President's initiative and blamed Congress for not addressing the issue. \"This Congress has failed in its most basic responsibility to protect the health and welfare of the American people from this grave threat,\" he said, indicating his support for candidates who will do more to address the issue in the future. And Burton says Republicans will be the ones to suffer politically for being \"saddled by the notion that climate denial is salable in 2014.\"", "Round One is done but this year's electoral fight between the GOP establishment and the tea party movement is far from over. Moderates scored a victory on Tuesday in North Carolina's Republican Senate primary when state House Speaker Thom Tillis topped 40% of the vote, avoiding a runoff in July. 5 takeaways from N.C. primaries . Tillis beat a bunch of more conservative candidates for the chance to face off this November against first-term Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan, who is considered very vulnerable in the general election. Flipping her seat and five others held by Democrats would give Republicans control of the Senate. \"There are plenty of fights still to come, and it's too early to proclaim a winner and a loser. But it's already clear that the pragmatist conservatives have stopped the anti-establishment's electoral momentum,\" writes Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report. Victories by more moderate mainstream candidates improve the GOP's odds of recapturing the Senate. Democrats hold a 55-45 majority but are defending 21 of the 36 seats up this year. Half of those Democratic seats are in red or purple states, like North Carolina. Mainstream strikes back . Since the birth of the tea party movement in 2009, primary challenges from the right have produced major headlines and headaches for the GOP and hurt the party's chances of recapturing the Senate in the past two election cycles. Candidates backed by the tea party and other grass-roots conservatives effectively cost the GOP five winnable Senate elections in 2010 and 2012 in Nevada, Delaware, Colorado, Indiana and Missouri. GOP establishment 1, tea party 0 after early primary test . This time, mainstream Republicans don't want another sequel. In North Carolina, Tillis grabbed last-minute endorsements from two high-profile Republicans: 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a potential 2016 White House hopeful. More importantly, while none of the candidates in the GOP primary, including Tillis, raised or spent a lot of money, the state House speaker won the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads. Those outside groups spent $2.6 million combined to run ads in favor of the candidate. That spending dwarfed money shelled out by outside conservative groups that backed Greg Brannon, a first time candidate endorsed by Sen. Rand Paul, who finished second in the Senate primary. What's at stake in 2014? \"Last night was a victory for Republicans who believe we should nominate the most conservative candidate who can win in November versus the D.C. interest groups who believe the weaker the Republican Party is, the more powerful they are,\" said GOP strategist Brian Walsh, who served as National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director the past two election cycles. Was North Carolina a true test? But some conservative strategists say the showdown in North Carolina was anything but a fair fight. \"When the establishment candidate is the only player on the field actually spending significant money and also runs as conservative, they have an easy path to victory,\" Daniel Horwitz, policy director for the Madison Project, told CNN. \"However, you can only fool the people some of the time and eventually they will have to vouch for their support of amnesty, debt ceiling increases, tweaking Obamacare, and corporate welfare. No degree of cash advantage can sell that pig to primary voters,\" he said. Since a number of influential tea party groups and conservative organizations stayed on the sidelines in North Carolina, some strategists say the contest was not a true indicator in the fight between the establishment and the grassroots movement. \"The breathless declarations on the death of the Tea Party are so premature it's laughable. The tea party was split in NC (or stayed out entirely). Any one pointing to these elections as indicative doesn't understand the indicators of a true tea party versus establishment contest,\" wrote conservative pollster Chris Wilson. More battles ahead . There are primary elections virtually every Tuesday over the next five weeks, so there are more skirmishes to come. Key races to watch in 2014 . May 13: Next Tuesday, the tea party could score what could end up being its only win in Senate primary showdowns this year. Conservative Ben Sasse of Nebraska, president of Midland University, has been showered with support and endorsements recently from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee, and Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as the backing of FreedomWorks, the Senate Conservatives Fund and Club for Growth. Some polling suggests that Sasse is tied with Shane Osborn, the former state treasurer who's considered the establishment favorite. But on the same day, seven-term Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is expected to easily win the GOP Senate nomination in West Virginia, where the party hopes to snatch the seat long held by retiring Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller. Capito is considered a moderate, and while some conservative groups criticized her early in her bid, she's faced no serious opposition from the right for the nomination. But a tea party-backed candidate might win the GOP nomination in West Virginia's 2nd Congressional District, the House seat that Capito has held for seven terms. May 20: A week later, the action moves to Kentucky, where Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell faces a challenge, and Georgia, where there's a wide open fight to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. McConnell is challenged by businessman Matt Bevin, who enjoys strong support from many tea party groups and influential conservative organizations. While the race has seen big spending by the campaigns and outside groups, the five-term McConnell is expected to cruise to renomination. But he faces a serious challenge in November from rising Democratic star Alison Lundergan Grimes. Big-name Democrats are already campaigning for her. In Georgia, Republican Reps. Phil Gingrey, Paul Broun and Jack Kingston, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, and businessman David Perdue are the major candidates in the race. Kingston, Perdue and Handel, rather than the more conservative Broun and Gingrey, are considered frontrunners in the contentious Republican primary. The winner will face Michelle Nunn, the all-but-certain Democratic nominee and daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn, a household name in Georgia. On the same day in Oregon, Portland pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby is considered the frontrunner over more conservative state Rep. Jason Conger in the race for the GOP Senate nomination. The winner of that contest will run in November against first-term Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, who Republicans think might be vulnerable if 2014 turns into a wave year for the GOP. And in Idaho, there's a high-profile incumbent-vs.-tea party showdown in the House, where eight-term Rep. Mike Simpson faces a serious primary challenge from conservative favorite Bryan Smith. June 3: Two weeks later, the establishment-vs.-tea party contest shifts to Mississippi, which is among eight states holding primaries that day. Six-term Sen. Thad Cochran is facing a serious challenge from state lawmaker Chris McDaniel in Mississippi. Private polling shows Cochran with a comfortable lead, but outside establishment groups are taking nothing for granted. Fight is far from over . The Chamber of Commerce, which represents business interests, says it's going up on television starting Wednesday with a very large ad buy in two Senate contests and 11 House races, which include some key establishment vs. tea party primary showdowns. While mainstream candidates appear to have the upper hand in most of these upcoming showdowns, tea party leaders say don't count them out. In the days ahead, we're supporting some great candidates in competitive primaries,\" Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund spokesman Kevin Broughton told CNN. \"In my home state of Mississippi, there's a war going on; Chris McDaniel is poised to take down a six-term incumbent U.S. senator. I haven't seen such a hotly contested primary in 20 years,\" he said. Even if the establishment rolls to victory after victory in this year's primaries, a top analyst says this battle is far from over. \"No matter the wins and losses in the GOP 'civil war' this year, don't expect this to be the end of that fight. The party remains deeply divided, and both sides have the resources and commitment needed to take the fight into 2015 and 2016. The war is likely to get messier and the division more consequential before the two sides look for ways to bridge their differences. That should please Democrats,\" Rothenberg wrote.", "Hillary Clinton did not comment on the Keystone XL pipeline Monday while speaking before a conservation group that is strongly opposed to the plan. During a 15-minute speech, Clinton spoke about the importance of green technology, the problems surrounding natural gas drilling and the fact that climate change exists and needs to be addressed more forcefully. But at no point did Clinton address the 1,179-mile-long project that would move oil from Canada to refineries in the United States at the League of Conservation Voters' New York dinner. \"There is no getting around the fact that the kind of ambitious response to effectively combat climate change is going to be a tough sell at home and around the world at a time when so many counties ... are grappling with slow growth and stretched budgets,\" Clinton said at the dinner. \"Our economy still runs primarily on fossil fuels and trying to change that will take strong leadership.\" Clinton also went after climate change deniers during the speech by noting sea levels are rising, ice caps are melting and storms are getting stronger. \"We do not have to choose between a healthy environment and a healthy economy,\" she added. Clinton's refusal to comment on the pipeline is not new. The former secretary of state has repeatedly dodged the Keystone question and gave the issue zero mentions in her 2014 memoir. Clinton usually tells interested audiences -- usually groups in Canada or at environmental events -- that she doesn't want to comment on an issue currently in the hands of her successor, Secretary of State John Kerry. But Keystone appears to be one of the only issues where Clinton follows that rule. The former first lady regularly comments on other issues currently on Kerry's plate, like Syria, the ongoing conflict with ISIS and talk over nuclear weapons with Iran. Both Republicans and Democrats have faulted Clinton for not commenting on the issue. America Rising, an anti-Clinton super PAC, has made the issue one of their most used recent attacks on Clinton, while liberal groups have pushed Clinton for specifics on her pipeline position. Gene Karpinski, president of the conservation group, said he wasn't disappointed that Clinton didn't mention Keystone, primarily because he knows she doesn't comment. \"She has already been asked about that. That is not her decision right now,\" Karpinski said. \"You heard her praise President Obama many, many times for his leadership on climate change and leaving a legacy. That is a decision left to him and the current secretary of state. That is where it should be.\" The League of Conservation Voters has been pointedly against the pipeline for years and regularly urges supporters to call members of Congress and petition their government to kill the pipeline. That said, Karpinski would not rule out backing a candidate who supports the pipeline and points to a few pro-pipeline senators the league backed in 2014. RELATED: Senate rejects GOP measure to build oil pipeline . Clinton's silence on Keystone was made more interesting given the fact that before her speech, the former senator from New York stumped for Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana at a New York fundraiser. Landrieu, a moderate Democrat who has been one of the pipeline's most outspoken proponents, is currently behind in a runoff race for her Senate seat. In a way to win voters, Landrieu forced a vote on the pipeline in the Senate earlier this month. Though Landrieu voted in favor, many from her party did not and the bill failed by one vote. Karpinski said he did not find it odd that Clinton stumped for Landrieu - a candidate the league did not back - before speaking to his group. \"There is nothing surprising about that at all,\" he said. \"Many of our best friends in the Senate have done similar things. ... It is just what people do.\" After Clinton's speech, she sat with a number of top environmental activists, including Tom Steyer, a Keystone opponent and big Democratic donor. Questions about Clinton's position on Keystone are not likely to abate soon. Earlier on Monday, organizers announced Clinton would speak at two events in Canada on January 21 where Keystone is likely going to be addressed.", "Just months after President Obama was described by his own advisers as a \"bear\" on the loose, there are few midterm sightings of the man once dubbed the \"campaigner in chief\" by his Republican adversaries. The President has spent much of the 2014 cycle behind closed doors, either cloistered inside the White House cocoon dealing with a seemingly endless series of crises and scandals, or at private fundraisers, urging donors to write checks to top Democratic Party campaign and political action committees. Tough road for Democrats to keep the Senate . That political calendar will evolve somewhat as Election Day draws near, a White House official told CNN. For starters, the President will appear at events with Democratic candidates in the coming weeks, the official said. Obama will make the argument for policies aimed at middle class voters, just as he did in last week's speech on the economy in Chicago. \"The President has already succeeded in making a pretty aggressive case about why that's important for the country, and I would anticipate that in the context of the upcoming elections you'll hear the President make that case again,\" White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. Carter criticizes Obama on ISIS: 'We waited too long' Even though the White House is not quite ready to announce Obama's upcoming campaign stops, there are a few states that can be crossed off the map. Races in Louisiana, Arkansas, Alaska, where incumbent Democratic senators face uphill battles to win reelection, remain at the top of the Obama no-go list. \"There are definitely deeply red states in play this cycle where it won't make sense to send the President,\" a White House official said. Democratic senator can't judge Obama's Ebola handling . So far, Obama is also avoiding crucial Senate races in states where he won decisive victories in the past. The White House has yet to signal any plans to send the President to Iowa, a critical battleground he captured twice: in 2008 and 2012. Instead, first lady Michelle Obama will travel to Iowa Friday to appear with Democratic congressman Bruce Braley, who remains locked in a close race with state Sen. Joni Ernst for the seat vacated by liberal stalwart Tom Harkin. \"We defer to the campaigns who know their states best how to win,\" a White House official said. Can lame ducks fly? Advice for Obama on his last two years . Another sign of Obama's drag on his party's midterm hopes can be found in North Carolina, a critical Obama victory in 2008 that he and his party failed to translate into a more lasting Democratic incursion into southern red states in the years that followed. Despite North Carolina's potentially strong base of Democratic support from African-Americans and countless college-aged voters, Obama has become a major obstacle for the state's endangered incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan. Her opponent, state House Speaker Tom Tillis, repeatedly tried to link Hagan to the President during a debate Tuesday in the state's prosperous Research Triangle area. \"I think it's fair to make this election about his policies,\" Tillis said in the debate. Bill Clinton plays savior for Arkansas Democrats . That remark was a reminder of a comment made by Obama at a speech on the economy last week in Chicago: \"These policies are on the ballot -- every single one of them,\" the President said. His long-time adviser, David Axelrod, called that part of the speech a \"mistake.\" Michael Steel, a spokesman for U.S. House Speaker John Boehner and a midterm strategist for the North Carolina Republican Party, described the Obama factor as \"huge\" in Tuesday's debate. \"Her worst moments in the debate were when she refused to distance herself from the President,\" Steel said of Hagan. Poll: In North Carolina Senate race, libertarian could be spoiler . A key Democratic Party operative, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity, said inserting Obama into crucial campaign contests carries some risk. Not only does the President's unpopularity drive up enthusiasm among conservatives, the strategist said. It may encourage some moderate Democrats to stay home. \"Even Obama supporters, they're disappointed in him,\" the strategist said. \"We can't find a way to motivate them.\" The first lady, Vice President Joe Biden, and Bill and Hillary Clinton are seen as better alternatives. Will same-sex marriage become a 2014 issue? Even though Biden has spent the last several days calling leaders in the Middle East to clarify his comments that appeared to suggest Arab nations were partly responsible for the rise of ISIS, the vice president appears to be in demand among Democrats. \"So what if he f***ed up?\" one Democratic strategist said, noting the party's base is attracted to the vice president's \"Uncle Joe\" shoot-from-the-lip style. Biden just wrapped up an event on Tuesday with Amanda Renteria, a congressional candidate in California. He is scheduled to appear with Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon on Wednesday. Six times Joe Biden aimed for the truth and caused a headache . The one campaign setting where the president appears to thrive are fundraisers. A White House official provided a list of approximately 50 fundraisers where Obama has spoken to Democratic donors this year. His events this week in New York, Connecticut, Washington and Chicago generated between $2-3 million, Democratic sources said." ]

[ "(CNN) -- A 19-year-old woman charged with killing a Pennsylvania man she met through Craigslist has given a second jailhouse interview and provided specific details about other killings she claims to have committed. Miranda Barbour told the Daily Item newspaper of Sunbury, Pennsylvania, that she killed men in Big Lake, Alaska; Mexico Beach, Florida; and Raleigh, North Carolina. In her first jailhouse interview in mid-February, she told the Daily Item reporter she had killed at least 22 men over six years across the country but didn't provide any specific locations. Sunbury Police Chief Chief Steve Mazzeo told CNN he passed along the information to other jurisdictions. \"I'm not saying I do or don't believe it,\" Mazzeo said Sunday. CNN is seeking a response from law enforcement authorities in those three cities. Sunbury police have charged Miranda Barbour and her husband, Elytte Barbour, 22, in one death, the November 2013 stabbing and strangling of Troy LaFerrara, 42, in their car. They connected with him through a Craigslist companionship ad, police said. Investigators tracked the couple through phone numbers in LaFerrara's phone. Police said the couple just wanted to kill someone together for the thrill. They had been married for only three weeks at the time of the slaying and had moved from North Carolina to Pennsylvania after tying the knot. After Barbour's first interview, authorities said they had not corroborated any of her claims, including statements that she was involved in Satanism. \"They are looking for full bodies,\" Barbour told the Daily Item in the second interview. \"They won't find any. But they will find body parts\" of runaways and individuals she described as bad people in Big Lake and Mexico Beach. She told the paper she dumped a body off Interstate 95 in Raleigh but gave no other details. Her lawyer, Edward Greco, told CNN on Sunday he had no comment. In the recent interview, Barbour told the Daily Item that two other men responded to her ad for companionship but never showed up to meet her. \"I tried it a few times, but it never worked out,\" Miranda Barbour told the Daily Item, referring to the couple's plan to kill someone together. \"I knew we were going to do this since the day we met, and we tried, but the others just didn't show up.\" Jailed husband of self-professed serial killer to CNN: 'I still love her' Desperate for answers, some cling to Barbour killing claims . CNN's Elizabeth Landers contributed to this report." ]

[ "Which states strike fear in the heart of every motorist for having the least skilled, most distracted drivers on the road?New data from CarInsuranceComparison.com used statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Motorists Association and Mothers Against Drink Driving to rank America's drivers, state by state.And the winner of the dubious honor of America's worst drivers? State by state: Louisiana, in red, ranked the worst state for driving and Vermont in green was the best. The lighter the state, the better the drivers . For the second year running, Louisiana took out the title, finishing in the top five for three of the five categories used as scoring criteria. The categories are: fatality rates per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, failure to obey traffic signals and seatbelt laws, drunk driving, tickets issued for speeding and careless driving. States were ranked for each category, then the rankings added up to one total score - the higher the score, the worse the driving. Worst drivers: Louisiana's drivers scored in the top five for failure to obey, tickets issued, and careless driving . Louisiana scored in the top five for failure to obey, tickets issued, and careless driving and came in with a total of 220. South Carolina was the second-worst state for drivers, followed by Mississippi, Texas, Alabama and Florida. Missouri and North Carolina tied for seventh place and Montana then North Dakota rounded out the top 10. The country's best driving occurs in the state of Vermont, which finished with a total of 48. Staying alive: Montana received the highest score for drink driving in the country . Jeffrey Crews, vice president of CarInsuranceComparison.com, says the ranking generates lots of debate. 'There are several reasons for that,' he told USA Today. 'One, it's the holiday season. People are traveling, and that comes into play. Plus, this is something that always comes up. Somebody is always saying, \"This is a horrible state to drive in.\"And they can take this and say 'I told you so.'\" 'Plus, people use it as a little prod to kind of jab at each other,' he said. 1. Louisiana . 2. South Carolina . 3. Mississippi . 4. Texas . 5. Alabama . 6. Florida . 7. Missouri . 8. North Carolina . 9. Montana . 10. North Dakota . 11. Oklahoma . 12. Nevada . 13. Tennessee . 14. Georgia . 15. Pennsylvania . 16. Arizona . 17. Arkansas . 18. Maryland . 19. California . 20. Ohio . 21. Illinois . 22. New York . 23. Wisconsin . 24. Kentucky . 25. Hawaii . 26. Colorado . 27. Wyoming . 28. Delaware . 29. Indiana . 30. New Mexico . 31. South Dakota . 32. New Jersey . 33. Nebraska . 34. West Virginia . 35. Michigan . 36. Virginia . 37. Idaho . 38. Kansas . 39. Washington . 40. Rhode Island . 41. Alaska . 42. Massachusetts . 43. Iowa . 44. District of Columbia . 45. Connecticut . 46. Maine . 47. Oregon . 48. Minnesota . 49. New Hampshire . 50. Utah . 51. Vermont .", "The number of Americans living in poor neighborhoods has skyrocketed in the last decade - and nowhere is the trend more prominent than in the South, where more than 30percent of the population is concentrated in an area with high poverty. A grim new report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows a solid band of high poverty neighborhoods - running from Arizona east to North Carolina. Only Florida and Virginia are spared from the trend. The data show that poverty in the United States isn't just growing, it's becoming more concentrated - which can exacerbate social problems and lower the chances of social mobility. The Census report points out that the number of people living under the federal poverty line - less than $24,000 a year for a family of four - has increased between 2000 and 2010. The number of Americans living in poverty climbed 45percent to 45million. A band of poverty: More than 30percent of Americans living from Arizona to North Carolina live in neighborhoods with at least 20percent poverty . North Carolina and Tennessee had the biggest increase in the number of residents living in poor neighborhoods. Louisiana, West Virginia, Hawaii and Alaska were the only states where the figure decreased . However, the number of Americans living in 'poverty areas' - neighborhoods where more than 20percent of residents are impoverished - has increased even more dramatically. A quarter of the U.S. population, 77million Americans, lived in poverty areas in 2010 - a shocking 56percent jump from the 2000 census. In the South, the trend is eve n more dramatic. Nearly 31percent of Southerners live in poor neighborhoods - an increase of 62percent from 2000. The Census report says that people who live in high poverty neighborhoods face an array of problems - even for those are earning decent wages. 'Problems associated with living in poverty areas, such as, higher crime rates, poor housing conditions, and fewer job opportunities are exacerbated when poor families live clustered in high-poverty neighborhoods,' the authors write. The percentage of residents living in poverty areas increased in every state except Louisiana, Hawaii and Alaska. The rapidly-gentrifying District of Columbia saw a decline of 6.7 percentage points. North Carolina, Tennessee and Oregon as the biggest jump in percentage of residents in poor neighborhoods. The figure grew 18 percentage points, 16 percentage points and 16 percentage points, respectively. In some counties of Texas, the Deep South and Kentucky more than 80percent of residents live in poverty area. In many states in the Northeast, there are no counties with more than half the population in poor neighborhoods .", "The FBI have recovered one of the gold bars stolen in a $5 million armored truck robbery in North Carolina last month. Investigators say the location the bar was found - somewhere in South Florida - has provided them with a big break in the case. 'This confirms that there is a South Florida nexus to this,' Justin E. Fleck, supervisory special agent of the squad leading the investigation, told ABC News. 'We believe that additional gold bars from the robbery may still be in South Florida and we continue to need the public’s help in solving this crime.' The highway heist occurred on March 1 in Wilson County, almost halfway into the truck's journey from Miami to Boston. Police have previously said they suspected it was an inside job because the 18-wheeler truck - owned by transport company TransValue - pulled over when one of the two armed guards on board 'felt sick'. Big break: The FBI say they recovered this 26-pound gold bar - worth up to $500,000 - somewhere in South Florida, which has provided a big break in their investigation into last month's highway heist in North Carolina . The guards said that after the vehicle stopped they were approached by three armed men driving a white van who ordered them to lay on the ground. The men spoke in Spanish and said they were 'policia.' The trio tied the guards' hands behind their backs and marched them into nearby woods before taking 275lbs of gold. The gold totaled $4.8 million, but the truck was carrying about $10 million worth of metal, so the thieves left half the load - mostly silver - behind. Suspects: Police previously shared sketches of the suspects thought to be male and possibly Hispanic who allegedly bound the hands of the driver and the passenger. There are three suspects altogether . White van: Two security guards working for Transvalue Inc of Miami were reportedly approached by three armed men driving a white van, pictured here, after pulling over on the interstate . Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard Jr. admitted last month the story was suspicious. 'There is suspicion at this time that this could be an inside job due to the circumstances of the robbery,' a Wilson County Sheriff's Office detective wrote in a search warrant obtained by ABC. 'The fact that the truck was robbed immediately upon it pulling over at an unannounced stop is suspicious in and of itself,' the document added. 'It is also suspicious because there are no markings on the side of the truck that would indicate the type of cargo contained therein. 'The suspects also went directly to the trailer and found the gold which was in unmarked five gallon buckets. It is not believed that this is a random act due to the nature and facts of this robbery.' Police are now seeking a search warrant for the phones of the armed guard who felt sick because of the suspicious nature of the case. Search: Armed robbers are suspected of stealing $5 million in gold from an 18-wheeler taking the precious from Florida to Massachusetts on Interstate 95. Above, deputies investigate a wooded area near the road . Location: The men 'ordered the guards to lie on the ground, tied their hands behind their backs and marched them into nearby woods, before taking 275lbs gold' Cone: This photo is of a traffic cone that was positioned behind the truck as suspects allegedly removed gold from the vehicle after breaking a lock on the back . Investigation: Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard Jr, pictured, said that differing stories from the guards about the armed robbery had led to suspicions over their accounts of the heist . Woodard shared sketches of the three suspects who allegedly bound the hands of the driver and the passenger. Meanwhile, a photo was shown of a traffic cone that was positioned behind the truck as suspects allegedly removed gold from the vehicle after breaking a lock on the back. The traffic cone had the marking of a company that only does work in Florida, according to ABC. Woodard said the driver and the passenger, who speak little English, are not suspects, but both men have been interviewed separately several times by police. He added that the driver and the passenger did violate their company’s policies by exiting the vehicle without their firearms and leaving the firearms inside the truck. Wilson County Sheriff's Deputies investigate an area near Interstate 95 in Wilson, North Carolina, on Monday . Investigation: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has joined in the search for the robbers, thought to be male and possibly Hispanic. Neither of the guards was injured during the 'very rare incident', TransValue said . A reported 275lbs of gold were stolen and silver was also being carried in the truck, which was stopped near mile marker 114 on the highway. Locks on the back of the truck were sawed off, according to WITN. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has joined in the search for the robbers, thought to be male and possibly Hispanic. The metal was owned by Republic Metals Corporation in Opalocka, Florida, according to a search warrant. TransValue, which specializes in transporting valuable goods and money between financial centers, keeps goods they move insured for up to $100 million. A $50,000 reward is on offer for information leading to an arrest. Shortly after the heist confused drivers told 911 dispatchers that they saw uniformed drivers run into the North Carolina highway with their hands bound, motioning for help, according to recordings.", "The man accused of killing a gay community college worker said the motorcycle he used to get away broke down along Interstate 95 and he walked 30 miles before a woman headed to Florida gave him a ride, according to a police report released on Wednesday. The woman picked up the 20-year-old Kenneth Morgan Stancil III, whose face and neck are covered in dark, self-administered tattoos, some with neo-Nazi symbolism. The woman didn't know he was armed with a knife and had almost $500, the report by Volusia County Beach Safety officers said. Scroll down for video . Would you slow down for this man? Kenneth Morgan Stancil III, 20, managed to hitch a ride from a woman to Florida after his motorbike broke down, police said on Wednesday. Among his self-administered tattoos are the word 'brotherhood' on his neck and the number '88' on his left cheek which is linked to neo-Nazis . Stancil pictured with his mother Debbie at his graduation. She said he is 'rattled and confused and needs mental help'. The mother also claimed that the victim had made sexually laced comments to her son . The driver was headed to Key West, Florida, but dropped Stancil off in Daytona Beach, where he was found sleeping on the beach on Tuesday morning. When officers approached him, he pulled the knife but dropped it when an officer drew his gun. He was arrested without incident, the police report said. Stancil is awaiting extradition back to North Carolina, where he is accused of fatally shooting 44-year-old Ron Lane, a print shop director at Wayne Community College. On Tuesday, he appeared relaxed in the courtroom and, despite the judge advising him he had the right to remain silent, he admitted to the killing, WRAL reported. He confessed to the shooting in an obscenity-laced statement, saying he 'ridded one last child molester from the Earth', according to the station. He said Lane, who had been his supervisor at the college's print shop until Stancil was fired last month, had been 'messing with' one of Stancil's family members. Lane was gay, and authorities said they are investigating a possible hate crime. They haven't released a motive for the shooting, but Stancil was dismissed from a work study program at the print shop last month. An extradition hearing was scheduled for Wednesday to send him back to North Carolina to face a charge of open murder. The police report said Stancil voluntarily gave police a statement, which authorities did not release. During his first court appearance on Tuesday in Daytona Beach, Florida, Stancil indicated he killed Lane because his former supervisor molested a relative. Nothing in police records substantiated the allegations. The suspect's mother, Debbie Stancil, said she knows the relative was not sexually abused by Lane, as Kenneth Stancil claimed in court, because the relative and Lane had never met. She believes Kenneth Stancil is making the accusations because he is 'rattled and confused'. Stancil, left, shot dead his former work-study supervisor Ron Lane (pictured) 'He just snapped. That is not my son,' Debbie Stancil, said. 'He's probably out of his mind. I think he needs mental help.' Debbie Stancil said her son was angry over being dismissed from his work-study job for excessive absenteeism. She also said Lane made sexually laced comments to her son. 'He was verbally inappropriate with Morgan at school. Very much verbally inappropriate,' she said. 'He would tell him to stop and he kept on.' Lane's brother and sister declined to comment. College spokeswoman Tara Humphries said she did not know whether any complaints had been lodged against Lane. Lane and Stancil started working together in August. Stancil was dismissed in early March. He had been enrolled in a three-semester welding course. Lane and Stancil were linked - whether they knew it or not - by the suicides of people very close to them. Lane's partner of 12 years killed himself last year. Stancil's mother says her son never recovered after finding his father in the backyard after he had killed himself in 2009. Stancil gave himself a facial tattoo last weekend that included the number '88' on his left cheek. Experts who track hate groups said the number is a neo-Nazi code for praising Adolf Hitler. Neo-Nazis have often been accused of attacking gays, said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Police have not said whether Stancil held white supremacist beliefs or what hate crime they are investigating. Stancil's mother said the tattoo marked a wannabe rather than someone with neo-Nazi beliefs. Stancil, pictured in court on Tuesday, is awaiting extradition back to North Carolina, where he is accused of fatally shooting 44-year-old Ron Lane, a print shop director at Wayne Community College .", "Some of America’s most significant landmarks are under threat from climate change, and could be fundamentally damaged in the near future, according to a new study. Sites as celebrated as the Statue of Liberty in New York and Kennedy Space Center in Florida are among the places identified as being in danger from unpredictable weather patterns. Great icons, but for how long? The Statue of Liberty and Kennedy Space Center are at risk from rising waters . The survey, ‘National Landmarks At Risk’, has been conducted by Massachusetts-based research group the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). It lists 30 'endangered' historic attractions in 15 US different states. The 30 locations have been included because, according to the report’s authors, ‘the science behind the risks they face is robust, and because together they shine a spotlight on the different kinds of climate impacts affecting the United States’ cultural heritage.’ New York's most famous monument, the Statue of Liberty, is, the study suggests, under threat from rising sea levels. The report points to the example of Hurricane Sandy, which, in 2012, caused Liberty Island (where the Statue stands) to be swamped with water – resulting in considerable damage and the closing of the site for several months. Ellis Island was similarly hit. At the sea's edge: Kennedy Space Center's location so near to the Atlantic could be a source of problems . The report worries that Sandy was not an isolated incident, but the start of a trend. ‘There is evidence that Sandy gained strength from unusually warm upper-ocean temperatures in the North Atlantic,’ it states. ‘These temperatures are expected to continue rising with global warming.’ The Kennedy Space Center, at Cape Canaveral on the east coast of Florida, is also deemed to be in the path of troublesome tides. ‘The launch pad is very close to the ocean and is vulnerable to the dangers of rapidly rising seas and storm surge,’ the survey argues. The same situation could spark problems a little to the north on Florida’s Atlantic flank – where St Augustine is America’s oldest city, dating back to Spanish settlement in 1565. A slice of Spanish heritage: The Castillo de San Marcos in St Augustine is under threat from rising sea levels . Here, the Castillo de San Marcos, a 17th century fort, perches right on the waterline. Alaska: Cape Krusenstern National Monument and Kivalina; Bering Land Bridge National Monument and ShishmarefCalifornia: Groveland; César E. Chávez National Monument; NASA Ames Research CenterColorado: Mesa Verde National ParkFlorida: Castillo de San Marcos and St Augustine's historic downtown; Prehistoric shell structures at Ten Thousand Islands and Canaveral National Seashore; NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape CanaveralHawaii: Kaloko-Honokōhau and Pu'uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historic ParksLouisiana: NASA Michoud Assembly FacilityMaryland: Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument; Historic Annapolis and U.S. Naval AcademyMassachusetts: Boston's Faneuil Hall and the Blackstone Block Historic DistrictMississippi: NASA Stennis Space CenterNew Mexico: Bandelier National Monument and Santa Clara PuebloNew York: Statue of Liberty and Ellis IslandNorth Carolina: Cape Hatteras LighthouseSouth Carolina: Charleston's Historic DistrictTexas: Johnson Space CenterVirginia: Historic Jamestown; Fort Monroe National Monument; NASA Wallops Flight Facility and Langley Research Center . ‘Sea-level rise could significantly compromise the future of St. Augustine’s unique cultural heritage,’ the report warns. ‘For . example, a rise of three feet – which is well within current . projections – could permanently inundate portions of the city’s historic . districts.’ Elsewhere in the south-east of the country, South Carolina’s heritage could face similar difficulties – not least Charleston. Founded in 1670, and situated on the edge of the ocean, the city is home to numerous historic structures of irreplaceable value. The report advises that ‘the city’s longtime struggle with flooding is expected to worsen over the coming decades as global warming continues to increase the pace of sea level rise, and causes the heaviest rainfall events to dump more water than in decades past.’ And the danger from climate change is not restricted to the eastern seaboard, according to the authors of the study. The high terrain of Colorado may be immune to sea surges – but other factors could reputedly wreak havoc in the mountainous state. For . example, Mesa Verde National Park – a hotspot of indigenous heritage . near Durango, where a cluster of cliff dwellings dates back 4500 years – . is at risk from wild fires. Two . such blazes caused enormous damage in 2000, destroying 52,000 acres of . the national park – and the likelihood of further conflagrations is . considered high. Charleston has been a fixture in South Carolina since 1670 - but its coastal location is a cause for concern . ‘For the past 50 years,’ the report says, ‘the temperatures in the Mesa Verde area have been rising, particularly during the summer, at a much faster rate than they did over the preceding century. ‘In the Southwest overall, it has been warmer since 1950 than any period of comparable length in at least 600 years. ‘Rising temperatures add to the region’s natural wildfire risk and increase the likelihood that when fires do occur, they will be larger and even more devastating.’ And even remote Alaska is not out of the reach of damaging weather patterns. On fire: The structures at Mesa Verde National Park date back 4500 years - but fire damaged the area in 2000 . Cape Krusenstern National Monument – where archaeological sites pinned to the history of the Inupiat, the native Alaskans, date back over 4,000 years – is singled out as a cause for concern due to the fragmentation of this pristine section of shoreline. ‘Coastal erosion is washing away irreplaceable archaeological artefacts at particularly vulnerable coastal locations,’ the report posits.", "(CNN)Gold bars. Each weighed between 25 and 27 pounds, together about 275 pounds. The bars' total weight in gold is worth about $4.8 million. That much adds up. But what about the story of how they got swiped on Sunday from a truck alongside Interstate 95 in North Carolina? Investigators are trying to figure that out, including how two armed security guards could have been so quickly pounced upon, bound and then robbed so soon after pulling over in Wilson County, as they've told authorities. \"There's suspicion about everything going on in this case,\" Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard Jr. said Wednesday in a news conference about the case. He also released composite sketches of two of the three suspects, one of whom he described as a heavyset Hispanic male with a Cuban accent and the other as a dark-skinned Hispanic male with a white mustache and goatee who was dressed in black. He showed reporters a photo of the white van they allegedly got away in, as well as an image of the traffic cones they used -- which came from a Florida company that doesn't do business in North Carolina. What he couldn't say definitively was whether these men had some help. There are a lot of questions, in fact, that can't be answered. Authorities say the initial statements from the two guards who work for TransValue Inc., a Florida-based company that transports valuables, were a bit confusing due to the guards' spotty English, though Woodward said police now have a clearer picture after bringing in Spanish-speakers to translate. These two men, both of whom have worked for TransValue for several years, set off early Sunday morning from Miami with a truck full of gold protected by a padlock and presumably their firearms. They were headed for Bridgewater, Massachusetts, \"to a place ... where they handled such things,\" Woodard explained. They stopped to get gas in Dillon, South Carolina, then hit the interstate once again. The guards later told police they smelled gas, with one of them getting sick. So they pulled over. That leads to the first big question about the men's story: Did something happen to their vehicle to cause the gas smell? Not according to a Wilson County mechanic, who \"did not determine any type of issues\" with the truck, according to Woodard. So the sicker guard gets out of the vehicle. He says he's quickly met by two suspects, who yell out, \"Policia, policia.\" They ask him to go to the ground then tie him up with three zip ties, according to Woodard. After this, the other guard gets out of the vehicle. He encounters the same men -- one of them wearing a red traffic vest -- who repeat that they are police. He says that he, too, eventually gets to the ground and is bound with duck tape. But weren't these armed guards? Yes and no. Neither man had a gun on them when they exited their vehicle, violating their company's protocol, the sheriff said. And did anyone see them get bound and led into the nearby woods? No, at least no one who has contacted police. But people called authorities around 6:49 p.m. Sunday after they spotted the men, still bound, coming out of the woods, according to Woodard. By then, the $4.8 million in gold and the three men suspected of taking it were gone. That's left authorities trying to track those valuables down and piece together exactly what happened. Investigators have already gone to South Carolina, and they're getting help from the FBI. They're all working to get information out of places between Florida and North Carolina, to try to corroborate the guards' stories and uncover any evidence that might identify the suspected thieves. Woodard says TransValue has been \"very cooperative\" in the investigation, as have the company's two guards. Neither was injured beyond some scratches on their legs from going into the woods. \"Right now, (the guards) are still considered victims,\" Woodard said, declining to answer whether or not authorities believe this was an inside job. \"... But we're investigating every avenue.\"", "(CNN) -- Claudene Christian dreamed of living a seafaring life like the historic HMS Bounty naval officer who shared her name centuries ago. She'd secured a spot as a crew member on a replica of the Bounty and had announced it proudly on her Facebook page. But less than six months after joining the ship, her dream was cut short. As Hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast, its powerful winds swirled up waves that crippled the three-masted, 180-foot Bounty off North Carolina's coast, forcing the 16-member crew to abandon ship. That's when the waves swept Christian overboard, along with the Bounty's captain and another crew member early Monday, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Robert Parker told CNN. That crew member made it to a lifeboat; Christian's body was found on Monday evening. Capt. Robin Waldridge remains missing. Christian, 42, often said she was related to Fletcher Christian, the 18th-century sailor blamed for leading the infamous mutiny on the real HMS Bounty. Grueling recovery begins . In May, Christian won a deckhand job on the Bounty replica, which was built for \"Mutiny on the Bounty,\" a 1962 film starring Marlon Brando. The tall ship also appeared in several other movies, including Disney's \"Pirates of the Caribbean\" films. \"I wasn't sure if they'd take me because I didn't have a sailing background,\" she told a Canadian newspaper in August, \"although I've been totally interested in it all my life.\" She boasted about the Bounty and her new assignment to her friends and family, describing the ship as a \"sailing museum\" on her Facebook page. On Twitter, Christian announced \"I am in love with my ship ... BOUNTY\" Seeing it as an opportunity to share \"our ship and our history,\" she posted, \"I'm sure my ancestor would be proud...\" The ship, she hoped, would begin more efforts toward educating schoolchildren, she told reporters. \"Claudene had a huge caring heart,\" Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, Sheriff Ron Lockhart told CNN affiliate KFSM. Christian once lived in Vian, Oklahoma. \"She will be missed.\" Sandy changes lives forever . Christian may have been a sailing novice, but she was no stranger to adventure. A former Miss Teen Alaska, she decided to start her own business at 17 and headed to California, as she describes on her Cheerleader Doll Company website, \"fresh out of Alaska and on my own in the Big City of LA.\" Once there, she attended the University of Southern California where friends tweeted that she performed as a \"USC Song Girl.\" \"She was always staying busy and active at things,\" her aunt, Patricia Saulsberry, told KFSM. Photos: Aftermath of Superstorm Sandy . Christian's interest in the Bounty began after she toured a replica of Christopher Columbus' Nina on the Arkansas River last year, Saulsberry said. The Bounty tragedy began when the ship, which was sailing from Connecticut to St. Petersburg, Florida, reported Monday that it had lost power and was taking on water about 125 miles off North Carolina. Water poured in through the hull of the 50-year-old wooden ship, the Bounty's owner, Bob Hansen, told CNN affiliate KUSA. \"They just couldn't stay afloat anymore,\" he said. Early Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard staged a daring helicopter rescue: They flew into the hurricane's outer bands and plucked 14 of the surviving crew members from two lifeboats. A short distance away, the HMS Bounty sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, as Hurricane Sandy marched north. All of the crew members were wearing orange survival suits with strobe lights designed to keep them afloat, warm and easy to find. Coast Guard ships continue to search a 1,300-mile area around the site of the shipwreck for Waldridge, 63. On Tuesday, the Coast Guard reported the water temperature was 77 degrees with 15-foot waves and 42-mph winds. Even with a survival suit, \"it's very problematic\" to stay in position in heavy winds and rough seas, Parker said. Sandy's impact state by state . The Bounty set sail Thursday, as Hurricane Sandy pummeled Cuba with an uncertain path after that. Nevertheless, people have posted pointed questions on the Bounty's Facebook page suggesting Waldridge shouldn't have been sailing through such a violent storm. Hansen noted that the captain took the ship \"way out east,\" trying to steer around Sandy. \"He knows the ship, he's been captain of her for over 20 years and nobody knows her better,\" Hansen said. \"I totally trusted his judgment.\" Waldridge is a good-natured, mild-mannered captain who has a special bond with the Bounty, according to Susan Robertson, who has known him since 2001. \"Other than his wife, he acts like it's his first love,\" said Robertson, who works at The Pier in St. Petersburg, where the Bounty is often docked. The ship's crew, she said \"are like members of your own family.\" \"I hope they find him,\" she said. Get the latest information on the storm on CNN.com's Just In blog .", "By . Associated Press . The mother of a Fort Bragg soldier who disappeared more than two years ago said police were led to her daughter's grave by the suspect charged in her killing. Johnna Henson of St Cloud, Florida, said today she was told by Fayetteville police that Nicholas Holbert led authorities to the remains of her daughter Pfc. Kelli Bordeaux. Holbert, 27, was charged with killing Bordeaux. Police say Holbert went with Bordeaux to the Fayetteville bar where she was last seen in April 2012. He was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping on Thursday afternoon. Prosecutors will review evidence to see if the charges . warrant the death penalty. Scroll down for video . Pfc. Kelli Bordeaux, pictured in an undated handout photo. Police in North Carolina say the remains of Bordeaux, who disappeared more than two years ago, may have been found on Wednesday. Nicholas Holbert has been charged with her murder . Ms Henson says Holbert led investigators to Bordeaux's shallow grave in a densely-wooded area about four miles from the bar. Detectives . went on Wednesday to an area near the Interstate 295 corridor on the . northern side of Fayetteville after receiving the information. The . search turned up remains believed to be those of  Bordeaux. Kelli Bordeaux's mother said today that her daughter's alleged killer led police to her body in dense woodland . The remains will be sent to the chief medical examiner's office to confirm the identity. Fayetteville Police Chief Harold Medlock said that Holbert had been a person of interest in the case since Bordeaux disappeared. Bordeaux was 23 when she was last seen on the early morning of April 14, 2012, at Froggy Bottoms bar in Fayetteville, where she had gone to sing karaoke. At the time, police believed she left the bar with a man she met there the week before, a person identified as a registered sex offender. She was reported missing two days later when she didn't report to work. Arrest warrants obtained on Wednesday by The Fayetteville Observer . say that Holbert and Bordeaux arrived together at the now-closed bar . and were there for several hours before getting into a fight in the . parking lot. Holbert allegedly knocked the 23-year-old woman unconscious, and then brought her to his home behind the bar. He then beat her around the head until she died, according to warrants. Pfc. Bordeaux was reported missing when she didn't report for duty at Fort Bragg where she served in a medical unit. Remains found by the interstate close to Fayetteville, North Carolina are being sent to the medical examiner to confirm it is the young soldier . Convicted sex offender Nicholas Holbert said he drove Bordeaux home but denies any further involvement. He was arrested on Wednesday and will be charged with first-degree murder, police said . The man, who Lt. Joyce identified as . Holbert, said he dropped off Bordeaux at the entrance to the apartment . complex where she lived with her husband Mike, who was in Florida visiting . family that weekend. Holbert . was jailed because he did not live at the address he gave authorities, . as a registered sex offender is required to do, but he said at the time . he had nothing to do with her disappearance. According to The Fayetteville Observer, police learned two text messages were sent from Bordeaux's phone after she left the bar, including one that said she had arrived home. Police said early in the investigation that they didn't believe Bordeaux sent that one. Volunteers gathered repeatedly in the weeks and months following Bordeaux's disappearance to conduct searches. Fort Bragg and Fayetteville officials had offered a $25,000 reward for information regarding her whereabouts. It was nearly a year ago this month that the U.S. Army declared Bordeaux dead. That move allowed her family to receive military death benefits. Bordeaux, a Florida native, was assigned to the 601st Area Support Medical Company, 44th Medical Brigade and served as a combat medic. 'She and her family have remained close in our hearts since Kelli last stood in our formation in April 2012,' said Lt. Col. Heather A. Kness, commander of the 261st Multifunctional Medical Battalion in which Bordeaux's served. 'We honor her memory and will always remember her vibrant spirit, her love of life and her loyal and dedicated service to our Army and nation as a combat medic.' Kelli Bordeaux's husband Mike was in Florida visiting family when she disappeared in the early hours of April 14, 2012 after leaving a Fayetteville bar with another man . Kelli Bordeaux, 23, was last seen in the early hours of April 14, 2012, at Froggy Bottoms bar in Fayetteville where she had gone to sing karaoke .", "(CNN) -- Violence marred Black Friday shopping in at least seven states, including California, where police say a woman doused fellow shoppers with pepper spray in a bid to snag a discounted video game console. The incident happened Thursday night at a Walmart in the Porter Ranch area of Los Angeles, said Officer Robert Chavira, a police spokesman. Ten people were exposed to the spray. Los Angeles firefighters treated them at the scene and no one required hospitalization, Chavira said. The woman sprayed the crowd as people were grabbing for Xbox video game consoles, Los Angeles Police Detective Gus Villanueva said. The suspect was able to pay for her purchases and leave the store before police arrived, Chavira said. Villanueva described the suspect as a Hispanic woman, 32 to 38 years of age, 5-foot-3, 140 pounds and wearing black pants and a black sweater. Authorities haven't identified the suspect and will be looking at available video, Villanueva said. He said charges such as spraying a caustic compound would be determined later, but the action doesn't appear to have been self-defense. One witness to the incident, Juan Castro, said he and other shoppers were hunting for \"deals,\" when a woman began using pepper spray. He was trying to buy a Wii video game at $20, marked down from a typical $60, he said. \"I don't know if she felt threatened or she felt she had to do that to get what she wanted,\" Castro told CNN. \"I didn't see her personally, but I sure got the scent of the mace. I got it in my throat. It was burning. I saw people around me, they got it really bad. As you see in the video, some woman was crying 'my eyes, my eyes,'\" Castro said. \"I tried to get away as quickly as possible because I didn't think it was worth it. No deal's worth that,\" he said. Incidents also occurred in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, New York, Alabama and Connecticut, with most of the reported incidents happening at or near Walmart stores. Despite the reports, Walmart said the day's shopping frenzy had been remarkably safe for shoppers at its thousands of stores nationwide. \"There were a few unfortunate incidents but overall we have received very positive feedback from our customers,\" Walmart spokesman Greg Rossiter said. In 2008, crowds of frantic Black Friday shoppers trampled a Walmart employee in New York as he and other workers tried to unlock the door at 5 a.m. While no deaths were reported in this year's shopping, authorities said they handled fights, shootings and other incidents through the morning. Psychologist Jeff Gardere, in an appearance Friday on CNN, put some of the blame on retailers for staging sales that encourage hyper-competitive behavior among shoppers who may be desperate because of the poor economy. \"They shouldn't be psyching them up so much and using all sorts of psychological tactics to get them to feed into this desperation and competitive spirit,\" he said. \"I think people are whipped into a frenzy, physically, psychologically,\" he said. In San Leandro, California, police had one man in custody and another was hospitalized after a 1:45 a.m. shooting in a Walmart parking lot. \"It was a robbery gone bad,\" police Sgt. Mike Sobek told reporters. \"The victim's family fought with the robbers. They were able to detain one suspect. We are not sure if that suspect is the shooter, but we do have one person in custody right now.\" In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, police said two people suffered injuries in an apparent armed robbery attempt after they left a Walmart store around 1 a.m. Friday, CNN affiliate WMBF reported. Would-be robbers struck a man on the head and shot a woman in the leg before another shopper displayed a gun and the assailants fled, the station said, citing Myrtle Beach Police Capt. Kevin Heins. The woman was taken to a hospital for treatment, he said. Sheriff's deputies in Fayetteville, North Carolina, were looking for two men after shots were fired about 2 a.m. at a shopping mall. And in Kinston, North Carolina, an off-duty officer working security at a Walmart sprayed shoppers with pepper spray in an effort to stop a disturbance there, WITN reported, citing police Sgt. Roland Davis. Customer Angel Bunting told the station it happened while people were waiting to buy discount cell phones and a man fell into a display. She said she thought security believed there was a fight, according to WITN. Police arrested a man in a Kissimmee, Florida, Walmart on a resisting arrest charge after an early morning altercation at the jewelry counter, according to the police department. In Rome, New York, a brawl broke out in the electronics department at a Walmart moments after midnight, CNN affiliate WSTM reported, citing the Oneida County Sheriff's Office. Two people were taken to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries, the station reported. Police in Florence, Alabama, said they had to use a stun gun -- twice -- on a Walmart customer, CNN affiliate WAFF reported. The 22-year-old man was charged with public intoxication, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest around 11 p.m. Thursday, an hour after the store opened its doors for Black Friday, WAFF reported, citing police. A picture of the incident distributed on Twitter shows the man lying face down in an aisle, the officer atop him with a knee on his back. And in Southington, Connecticut, iReporter Ryan Casale said he witnessed police using a stun gun on a man at the Walmart store where he was shopping. He said he wasn't sure what was happening or why, but said the event left an impression on him. \"This was my first Black Friday shopping experience, and I'll never forget what I saw,\" he said. \"You see sides of people that they, themselves didn't even know existed.\" CNN's Vivian Kuo, Michael Saba, Sandra Endo, Michael Cary and Michael Martinez contributed to this report .", "(CNN) -- November 27 may be Turkey Day in America, but in the world of politics, every day is turkey day. Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer earned his Turkey of the Year recognition for his involvement in a prostitution ring. Turkeys are foolish creatures -- overstuffed, noisy and self-important. A lot like the politicians on our list of Turkeys of the Year. Turkey No. 10: Rudy Giuliani puts all his eggs in one basket -- Florida. \"We are going to win in Florida, and then we will be talking about exactly who made the right decisions,\" Giuliani says on CNN's \"The Situation Room\" a week before the primary. Giuliani ends up third in Florida, with 15 percent of the vote. The former New York City mayor was relying on the many former New Yorkers who have moved or retired to Florida. There's just one problem: most of them are Democrats, and Democrats can't vote in Florida's Republican primaries. Watch what made these turkeys memorable » . Turkey No. 9: In 2006, Tim Mahoney defeated Florida Rep. Mark Foley after it was revealed that Foley had sent sexually suggestive messages to congressional pages. Mahoney's campaign demanded an investigation. This year, Rep. Mahoney again called for an investigation -- this time by the House ethics committee into his own behavior, after it was reported that he had paid off a staffer to avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit. Mahoney later admitted to \"multiple affairs,\" including one with a local government official who had business with his office. Mahoney lost his bid for re-election. But not everything was lost. \"The irony is not lost on any of us,'\" a senior Democratic operative observed. Turkey No. 8: In June, Barack Obama addresses a meeting of Democratic governors in Chicago. His rostrum bears ... what is this? A presidential seal? Not quite. The eagle looks familiar, but instead of a shield, there's the letter \"O.'' The seal says,\"Obama for America.'' And that Latin phrase, \"Vero Possumus''? It means, \"Yes, we can.\" A little presumptuous, perhaps, four months before the election? \"That was a one-time thing for a one-time event,'' Obama's campaign spokesman tells CNN. Turkey No. 7: Sen. Elizabeth Dole runs a TV ad accusing her Democratic opponent of taking \"godless money.'' The ad refers to \"a secret fundraiser in Kay Hagan's honor'' co-hosted by an adviser to an atheist advocacy group. The ad shows a picture of Hagan while a woman's voice declares, \"There is no God.'' The voice is not Hagan's. \"I am a Sunday school teacher,'' Hagan tells reporters in a conference call. \"I am an elder at First Presbyterian Church in Greensboro. My family has been going to this church for over 100 years.'' Hagan files a lawsuit against Dole for defamation and libel. She subsequently defeats Dole in the North Carolina Senate race. And drops the lawsuit. Turkey No. 6: Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, the king of pork, turns into a turkey. The longest serving Republican senator in history is convicted on seven felony charges of corruption for failing to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts and free services. John McCain, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell call on Stevens to step down. Stevens' response: \"I am innocent.'' He tells Alaska voters that he \"has not been convicted of anything.'' In a close race, Stevens narrowly loses his bid for re-election and becomes a symbol of corruption and arrogance in Washington. Turkey No. 5: Not politicians this time, but arrogant auto executives who come to Washington looking for a bailout. In their private jets. \"I'm going to ask the three executives here to raise their hands if they flew here commercial,\" said Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, adding \"let the record show that no hand went up.\" The AIG insurance company does get an $85 billion federal bailout. Whereupon 70 of their executives reward themselves with a weeklong spa retreat. The cost? A cool $440,000. Turkey No. 4: After videos surface of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons, Barack Obama delivers a major speech distancing himself from his pastor's sensational comments. Then Wright appears at the National Press Club to give his side of the story. He claims Obama \"didn't denounce him'' but \"did what politicians do.'' \"I said to Barack Obama last year, 'If you get elected, November 5th, I'm coming after you because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people,\" Wright said. Obama does get elected, and Wright keeps his word. \"As long as you are presiding over policies that grind God's people into the earth, I'm coming after you,\" Wright threatens in a radio interview after the election. Turkey No. 3: The financial crisis hits in mid-September, and John McCain declares, \"The fundamentals of our economy are strong.\" The Republican nominee makes a startling announcement a few days before the first debate. McCain says, \"Tomorrow morning I'll suspend my campaign and return to Washington.\" Why? To rescue a federal bailout package for the financial industry. McCain goes to Washington and what happens? His own party kills the rescue package. Men can really be turkeys. Want proof? Turkey No. 2: \"I have responded consistently to these tabloid allegations by saying I don't respond to these lies.\" That was John Edwards in July. But they were not all lies. The next month, the former Democratic presidential candidate responds with a public confession of an extramarital affair. He explains his behavior as \"a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism, that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. You're invincible. And there will be no consequences.\" Want another example of men being turkeys? Turkey No. 1: New York governor -- make that, former governor -- Eliot Spitzer, who had to resign because of his involvement with a high-priced call-girl service. \"Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself. For this reason, I am resigning from the office of governor,\" Spitzer said. \"To every New Yorker and to all those who believed in what I tried to stand for, I sincerely apologize,'' said the hard-charging, suddenly humbled ex-governor. And with that, the turkey is served. More turkey? We invite you to add turkeys of your own.", "By . Daily Mail Reporter . A grief stricken husband has forgiven the drunk driver who allegedly killed his wife, a mother of seven, as she took photos on a Florida beach two days ago. Elizabeth Braly, 45, died when Shawn Doolan allegedly crashed through a toll booth, sped onto Daytona Beach and struck her in front of her son and daughter-in-law on Tuesday night. But rather than condemn the intoxicated motorist, the victim's Christian husband pities him. 'He's . got to live through it, too. And I feel bad, especially if he . has family, too, because they're the innocent party,' Mark Braly, who celebrated his 24th wedding anniversary last week, told WFTV. 'I'm a firm believer when the good Lord calls your number, you're out of here.' Heartbreaking: Elizabeth Braly, 45 (pictured) was killed when a drunk driver plowed into her on a Florida beach on Tuesday. Her family members posted this heartfelt tribute on Facebook . Heartbreaking: Elizabeth Braly (left) pictured with her husband Mark and an unknown child. Mark Braly said he forgives his wife's killer . Devastating: Elizabeth Braly's son Jonathan (left) and his wife (right) watched in horror as the North Carolina mom was fatally hit by a car on a Florida beach on Tuesday . Mark Braly's compassion is all the more extraordinary because his wife was killed on the last day of a family vacation. Blue Ridge Now reported Braly, an aspiring photographer, wanted to enjoy once more day at Daytona Beach to take pictures. Mark Braly took the couple's youngest children back to their North Carolina home, while his wife stayed behind with her son Jonathan, 20, his wife and two of their friends. The group, who managed to jump out of the way, watched in horror as Braly, a missionary, was mowed down. 'There was no blood on the sand at all,' Robin Braly, a sister-in-law of Braly's husband, told Blue Ridge Now. 'I don't think she ever knew what hit her.' Mark Braly said his son Jonathan is scarred by the collision. 'The son that was with my wife when the accident occurred isn't doing well,' he told WFTV. Another sister-in-law, Debra Braly added: 'Jonathan . feels very guilty. He feels . that he should have saved his mother. He said he should have been hit . instead and he would have survived because he's younger.' Compassionate: Mark Braly (left) said he forgives Shawn Doolan (right) who is accused of killing Braly's wife Elizabeth on Tuesday night . Witnesses told police appeared to be driving 60mph when he hit Braly, with another observing the motorist speeding over the Dunlawton bridge before the crash. News of the tragic death has rocked the Bralys home town of Hendersonville, where they regularly attended church. 'It's just tragic. They're just good people, hardworking people,' David MacEachern, pastor of Bat Cave Baptist Church, said. 'My wife would say to me often, 'Mark Braly is the sweetest man I think I've ever met',' he said. 'He was always willing to help others.' The pastor said Elizabeth Braly, a grandmother of four, was planning to join church members on a mission trip to Freeport, Pennsylvania, on July 11. Police arrested Doolan on DUI manslaughter and DUI property damage changes. He was released from jail the next day after posted 10 percent of his $12,000 bond. Scene: Shawn Doolan is accused of driving his car onto Daytona Beach, Florida and fatally hitting Elizabeth Braly in front of her son and daughter-in-law . Memorial: Mourners have left flowers on Daytona Beach, Florida where mother-of-seven Elizabeth Braly was fatally struck by a car on Tuesday night .", "By . Louise Boyle and Daniel Bates . PUBLISHED: . 17:54 EST, 17 September 2012 . | . UPDATED: . 12:17 EST, 18 September 2012 . Back in jail: Joseph Green Brown, 62, is being held over the murder of his wife Mamie in North Carolina last week after he was released from death row in 1987 . A former death row inmate who became a spokesman against the death penalty has been arrested again over the alleged murder of his wife. Joseph Brown was held after Mamie, his wife of 20 years, was found dead in her apartment on Thursday. He now faces the death penalty for the second time if convicted of the crime which has left both their families in shock. Officers found the 71-year-old woman lying on the floor suffering from apparent trauma. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Brown was released from death row in 1987 for a wrongful rape and murder conviction and spent his life campaigning for reform of the penal system. He found God, took the name Shabaka and frequently spoke out against the finality of the death penalty, including a passionate speech to a Congressional Judiciary subcommittee. Prominent lawyers involved in his case also changed their minds about capital punishment due to his pleas. In one interview Brown said: ‘I’m against killing, period, whether the violence is by individuals, the state, or armies in warfare. All life is sacred.’ The body of Mrs Brown, 71, was discovered after police were asked to check on her. Her husband was arrested late on Friday at a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. Back on death row: Joseph Green Brown, right, is again on death row for the alleged murder of his wife of 20 years, 71-year-old Mamie Caldwell Brown, left, was found dead last week . Discovery: Mamie Brown, 71, was found dead at her apartment in North Carolina after having suffered trauma, according to police . During his first court appearance in . Charlotte, North Carolina, he was escorted into a courtroom in . handcuffs. Wearing an orange prison jump suit, he glimpsed at his wife’s . family in the courtroom, but quickly turned away. A daughter of the victim could be heard saying: ‘Oh my god!’ Marcus Williams, Mrs Brown’s cousin, . said: ‘We thought they were happy. He didn’t seem like a threat. He was . upfront about everything. He was always smiling and trying to help . people.' Mr Williams added: ‘He was a motivational speaker. He liked to warn people what could happen in the legal system’. Brown’s 1974 conviction and death . sentence by a Florida jury was for raping and murdering Earlene Treva . Barksdale, the owner of a clothing store. He was scheduled for execution October  17, 1983, but a federal judge ordered a stay 15 hours before he was to be put to death. Mrs Barksdale, 34, a mother of five, . was found shot in the head at the children's clothing store she owned on . July 7, 1973 by her husband Fred, according to an article by Cltampa.com . Her . husband was considered the prime suspect for around five days before he . passed a lie detector test and attention shifted to Joseph Brown. Brown, at the time a 23-year-old . drifter from South Carolina, had just confessed to a motel robbery where . he sexually abused a female guest near Tampa airport on the same . day. He denied knowing anything about Mrs Barksdale's death. Brown was convicted of her murder the . following year and spent 13 years on death row before charges were . dropped just 15 hours before his execution. He was released on March 5, 1987 after an appeals court found that prosecution had allowed testimony at trial they knew to be false. One witness had struck a deal with the prosecution and falsely told the court that he and Brown had committed a robbery together. Grisly: Joseph Green Brown had been convicted of the rape and murder of Earlene Barksdale in 1973 but was released from death row . In a 1997 interview with America magazine about his experiences on death row, Brown said: 'Overall, it took me almost five years to decompress from the experience on death row. 'Some people couldn't believe I was still alive.' Among those who campaigned for Brown the first time around was Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut based lawyer who is now a Senator for the state. He worked the case pro bono and even put in $40,000 of his own money - despite supporting the death penalty. He declined to comment on Brown’s latest arrest. Some $400,000 of money for Brown’s defence was also provided by black rights campaigners the NAACP because they believed it was a racially-linked injustice. North Carolina, where Brown will face justice this time, has the death penalty for capitol felonies, of which first degree murder is one. The last execution in the state was Samuel Flippen in 2006 who beat his two-year-old stepdaughter to death.", "The annual list showing the richest person in each of the U.S. states has been compiled and 35 of the 50 individuals on the list are entrepreneurs who made their own fortunes, demonstrating the importance of hard work and entrepreneurship in attaining the ‘American Dream’. One such self-made entrepreneur is Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates who leads the Wealth-X list and maintains his status as the wealthiest person in America with a fortune of $81.5 billion, up from $70.8 billion last year. Other self-made entrepreneurs on the list include legendary investor Warren Buffett of Nebraska, the country’s second richest person; and media tycoon Michael Bloomberg from New York. Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates remains the wealthiest person in America with a fortune of $81.5 billion, up from $70.8 billion last year . Buddy can you spare a dime? Warren Buffett, right, with a fortune of $66.9 billion is the richest man in Nebraska and Larry Ellison, left, who is worth $47.3 billion is the richest Californian . Other have inherited their wealth and subsequently grown it themselves, such as Forest Mars Jr. of Virginia, whose grandfather founded food processing company Mars Incorporated, and Micky Arison of Florida, who is the son of Ted Arison, co-founder of the world’s largest cruise operator, Carnival Corporation. Only six women made it on the list. With a net worth of $37.9 billion, Christy Walton of Arkansas has the distinction of being the richest woman in America – and the world. She is the widow of John T. Walton, one of the sons of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart. Anita Zucker, of South Carolina, has a net worth of $2.7 billion. She is chairwoman and chief executive of the InterTech Group, assuming both positions in 2008 after the death of her husband, Jerry Zucker, the Group’s founder. Of the 50 individuals, 41 are billionaires and their combined wealth of US$594.1 billion accounts for 26 percent of the total billionaire wealth in America.​​ . Utah, New Mexico, Mississippi, Maine, Delaware, Hawaii, South Dakota, Alaska and Wyoming are the only states whose wealthiest residents are not billionaires. Casino boss Sheldon Adelson, left, is Nevada's richest man with a $29 billion fortune while David Koch, right, tops the rish list for Kansas with a $42 billion fortune . Rich people are everywhere, from the more prosperous states like New York - home to New York City's former mayor Michael Bloomberg and his $33.7 billion - to the poorer states like Arkansas, which Walmart heiress Christy Walton - the world's richest woman - and her $3 billion calls home. Washington Bill Gates: $81.5 billion . Microsoft CEO . Nebraska Warren Buffett: $66.9 billion . Berkshire Hathaway CEO . California Larry Ellison: $47.3 billion . Oracle Corp CEO . Kansas David Koch: $42 billion . Executive VP Koch Indistries . Arkansas Christy Walton: $37.9 billion . Walmart heiress . New York Michael Bloomberg: $33.7 billion . Bloomberg LP owner . Nevada Sheldon Adelson: $29 billion . Las Vegas Sands CEO . Virginia Forrest Mars Jr: $25.9 billion . Part-owner Mars Candy . Oregon Philip Knight: $19 billion . Nike Chairman . Texas Michael Dell: $17.9 billion . Dell CEO . Oklahoma Harold Hamm $17.6 billion . Continental Resources CEO . Colorado Charles Ergen: $16.7 billion . DISH Network founder and chairman . Massachusetts Abigail Johnson: $16.2 billion . President of Fidelity Financial . Connecticut Raymond Dalio: $14.3 billion . Bridgewater Associates Founder . Georgia Anne Cox Chambers: $12.1 billion . Atlanta Newspapers Chairwoman/Cox Enterprises Board of Directors . North Carolina James Goodnight: $11.1 billion . CEO of SAS . New Hampshire Richard Cohen: $10.1 billion . C&S Grovers Chairman . New Jersey David Tepper: $10 billion . Appaloosa Management President and founder . Wisconsin John Menard, Jr: $9.2 billion . Menard Inc. Founder . Missouri Jack Taylor: $7.4 billion . Founder Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company . Florida Micky Arison: $6.5 billion . Carnival Chairman and CEO . Michigan Kenneth Dart: $5.8 billion . Dart Container Corp chairman . Montana Dennis Washington: $5.8 billion . Founder of The Washington Companies and co-founder of the Denis and Phyllis Washington Foundation . Illinois Kenneth C. Griffin $5.3 billion . Founder and CEO of Citadel LLC . Indiana Gayle Cook: $ 5.1 billion . Board of directors of medical device firm Cook Group . Ohio Leslie Wexner: $5.1 billion . Chairman and CEO of Limited Brands . Arizona Bruce Halle Sr: $4.7 billion . Founder of Discount Tires . Tennessee Thomas Frist Jr: $4.3 billion . Founder of HCA, the Hospital Corporation of America . Minnesota Whitney MacMillan: $3.8 billion . CEO of Cargill . Maryland Theodore Lerner $3.7 billion . Founder of Lerner Enterprises . South Carolina Anita Zucker: $2.7 billion . Chairwoman and CEO of chemical manufacturer InterTech Group . Kentucky Brad M. Kelley: $2 billion . Former owner of Commonwealth Brands . Alabama Marguerite Harbert: $1.8 billion . Widow of construction and energy mogul John Murdoch Harbert III . Pennsylvania John S Middleton $1.8 billion . Former owner of John Middleton Inc. Rhode Island Jonathan Nelson $1.6 billion . CEO of Providence Equity Partner . Vermont Robert Stiller $1.6 billion . Founder of Green Mountain Coffee . West Virginia James Justice II: $1.6 billion . Owner of Southern Coal Corp. Louisiana Thomas Benson: $1.5 billion . Owner of New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Hornets . Iowa Dennis Albaugh $1.4 billion . Founder of Albaugh Inc. Idaho Frank Vandersloot: $1.2 billion . CEO of Melaleuca . North Dakota Gary Tharaldson $1 billion . Founder of Tharaldson Companies . Utah Jon M Huntsman Sr $950 million . Founder of Huntsman Chemical Corp . New Mexico Mack C Chase: $910 million . Founder of Mack Energy Corporation . Mississippi David H Nutt $880 million . Founder of Nutt & Associates . Maine Leon Gorman $840 million . Chairman of L.L. Bean . Delaware Robert Gore $830 million . Chairman of Gore & Associates . Hawaii Jay Shidler: $700 million . Founder of the real estate company The Shidler Group . South Dakota T. Denny Sanford $580 million . Chairman of United National Corp . Alaska Robert Gillam: $480 million . President and CEO of McKinley Capital Management LLC . Wyoming John Martin: $340 million . Chairman and CEO of Gilead Sciences .", "(CNN) -- Wildfires burning across some 1.4 million acres in 12 states have forced the evacuation of 1,800 homes and businesses in one Texas county and claimed the lives of two firefighters in Florida, authorities said Tuesday. The two Florida Division of Forestry firefighters died Monday while fighting a wildfire in north-central Florida that had been declared contained but suddenly burst out of control, Amanda Bevis, a division spokeswoman, said Tuesday. \"They were both in tractors, and the fire literally just caught up with them,\" she said. The firefighters were identified as Josh Burch, 31, and Brett Fulton, 52. Both were rangers with the forestry division working the Blue Ribbon Fire in Hamilton County. \"The wildfires have ravaged our state, burning more than 200,000 acres, and now, they have taken the lives of two of our very own men,\" Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam said in a statement. Two other firefighters were injured trying to rescue their colleagues, Bevis said. They were treated and released Monday and will make full recoveries, she said. In Texas, a fast-moving fire near Grimes County destroyed at least 26 homes as it burned across more than 4,000 acres. The fire was caused by homeowners grilling near Stoneham, Texas, CNN affiliate KHOU-TV reported. Grimes County Sheriff Don Sowell said officials have identified a person of interest who is believed to have built the barbecue pit that started the fire, but as of now authorities do not believe there was any intent of arson. The speed of the fire forced evacuations of whole subdivisions throughout the area. Jerome Seeberger, who owns 40 acres of land in Grimes County, said there's just one word to describe the scene. \"Apocalypse,\" he told KHOU against a backdrop of charred trees. \"I've never seen anything like this. Such a beautiful forest two days ago and now look at it.\" The fires in Florida and Texas were just two of 53 large uncontained wildfires burning in 11 U.S. states, from Alaska to Florida, according to the National Interagency Coordination Center. All told, the fires have burned 2,166 square miles -- nearly the size of Delaware. About 10,400 firefighters are involved in efforts to contain the fires, with more than 7,000 of them in Arizona and New Mexico, where fires have burned 853,518 acres, according to the center. The largest of the fires continues to be the Wallow Fire in east central Arizona and west central New Mexico. That fire has burned 527,774 acres so far, the fire's incident command team announced Tuesday, and is about 56% contained. While residents of Greer, Arizona, are being allowed to return home, evacuation orders remain in effect in other parts of Arizona and in Luna, New Mexico. Residents in parts of Apache County, Arizona, also have been told to be prepared to evacuate should the need arise. Power has been fully restored in Alpine and Nutrioso, Arizona, but remains out in areas north of Blue River, fire officials said. In North Carolina, Forest Service officials said they are closely monitoring a fire in Pender County, which has burned more than 4,000 acres. Though evacuations have not been ordered, residents of Pender County said they are worried. Diane Kuzina's voice broke as she described the fire's path. Kuzina owns land near the Pender County line. \"I don't want to lose my home,\" she said. \"It's just scary.\" Critical fire weather was forecast Tuesday for parts of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, with a combination of low humidity and high winds in many locations raising the threat from wildfires. The weather service also warned that scattered storms forecast in southeast Texas could bring welcome rain but also lightning that could spark new fires. The number of wildfires so far this year is below the 10-year average for the United States, according to the U.S. Forest Service. But the number of acres burned is three times that 10-year average, according to the agency. While some state and local authorities have reported stretched resources from the widespread fires, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told Congress last week that there's plenty of capacity to continue fighting fires. The U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior have about 16,000 trained firefighters available nationwide, Tidwell said. The agency also has left-over funds from previous years to pay higher-than-usual firefighting costs. CNN's Craig Bell contributed to this report.", "Tropical Storm Arthur is the first storm of the hurricane season - and it's roaring up the eastern seaboard just in time to ruin Fourth of July cookouts and fireworks for most of the Northeast. The squall, which is currently about 95 miles off Cape Canaveral, Florida, was upgraded to a tropical storm late this morning and has the potential to strength into a hurricane as it approaches the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Arthur will bring coastal flooding, rough surf, thunderstorms and heavy downpours from the Carolinas to New England later on Friday, with the worst of the weather expected to hit the Outer Banks of North Carolina early on Independence Day. Rains are expected to drench most of the Interstate 95 corridor during the holiday commute on Thursday, as well. The tropical storm could hit Friday night in the New York City area - turning fireworks shows in a damp squib . Tropical Storm Arthur was centered about 95 miles southeast of Cape Canaveral, Florida, early Tuesday. It was upgraded from a tropical depression on Tuesday morning . 'Right now it’s predicted to be a strong tropical storm, possibly a hurricane as it moves through the Outer Banks. And that’s going to cause a lot of problems for people to get out onto some of those roads and beaches out there,' AccuWeather senior meteorologist Paul Walker told MailOnline Tuesday. Most of the East Coast will also experience rough, possibly dangerous, conditions on the beaches as the storm passes by. 'All along the Eastern Seaboard, there is going to be rough surf and rip currents. It's going to be a threat for swimmers,' Mr Walker said. Forecasters hope the storm will break for the Mid-Atlantic on Friday night in time for some fireworks displays. However, it's remains possible that Arthur will turn the Fourth of July into a damp squib. The tropical storm will also likely rub up against a storm front that's rolling eastward from the Midwest, resulting in even more rain and thunderstorms. Tropical Depression One has since been upgraded to Tropical Storm Arthur. It is expected to batter the Outer Banks on Friday . The storm could cause havoc from North Carolina to New England, through it appears the heaviest rain and strongest winds will hit North Carolina and Virginia . 'As tropical moisture interacts with the front, very heavy downpours may erupt along the I-95 corridor late in the week,' AccuWeather Long-Range Expert Paul Pastelok said. There's still hope for a break in the weather just in time for Friday night's Fourth of July celebrations for much of the northeast corridor. 'If the tropical system takes a northeastward turn late in the week, as we suspect, rain and thunderstorms will begin to shift eastward and out to sea Friday afternoon and evening so that the weather improves for fireworks Friday night from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia and New York City,' Pastelok said. The tropical storm is expected to push out to sea on Saturday - leaving the rest of the holiday weekend sunny and pleasantly warm. A rainy Thursday commute will greet many East Coast travelers who are hoping to make it to their holiday destinations . Rain is expected across much of the East Coast, Southeast and in the Rocky Mountains on Friday - though it could clear up in time for fireworks . Beautiful weekend: The tropical storm is expected to clear away by Saturday, leaving nearly all the country to sunny skies . A tropical storm watch is in effect for Florida's east coast from Fort Pierce to Flagler Beach. The depression is centered about 95 miles southeast of Cape Canaveral, Florida. It's been nearly stationary over the last few hours but a northwestward motion is expected to begin later in the day. Elsewhere in the country, scattered thunderstorms are predicted on Friday for parts of the Rocky Mountains and Texas and Oklahoma, Mr Walker said. Meanwhile in the Pacific, Tropical Storm Elida is meandering off Mexico's southwestern coast. Elida's maximum sustained winds are near 50 mph with some weakening forecast. A tropical storm warning is effect for Mexico's coast from Lazaro Cardenas to Cabo Corrientes.", "Los Angeles (CNN) -- \"Teflon Don\" rapper Rick Ross crashed his silver Rolls Royce into an apartment building after he heard gunfire along a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, street Monday morning, police said. \"The driver of the Rolls Royce attempted to drive away from the direction of the shots being fired and lost control of the vehicle, striking a nearby apartment building,\" Fort Lauderdale Police Detective DeAnna Garcia said. Ross and a female passenger were not hurt by the wreck or the gunshots, Garcia said. \"The suspects fled from the area prior to police arrival,\" she said. The incident, however, called attention to threats against the artist's life made in a street gang's videos and posted online in recent months. \"We're pulling up on you,\" a man who identified himself as a member of the Gangster Disciples warned in one of the videos. \"Whatever city, whatever state, the pressure on.\" Several videos purporting to be from Gangster Disciple members in several states -- including Georgia, North Carolina and Florida -- appeared on YouTube late last year demanding that Ross pay a fee to them for his use of the Star of David, which they claim as a gang symbol, and a reference to one of their founders in his music and marketing. \"You got to cut the check,\" one video said. \"Tell your boss man he got to get that check, or all you in trouble.\" \"We need that cash right now,\" another said. Ross, 37, whose albums include \"Teflon Don\" in 2010 and \"Deeper Than Rap\" a year earlier, told south Florida radio station 99 Jamz last month that he was not intimidated by the threats. \"Ain't never no checks getting cut,\" he said. \"I don't play those games. I consider that extortion.\" Is Nas hip-hop's finest MC? Ross did cancel his North Carolina shows last month just days after a video appeared online threatening his life if he performed there. \"Never was it due to any threats,\" he told the radio station. Instead, he canceled because \"the promoter wasn't really handling his business.\" Ross wanted to make certain that listeners understood he was not frightened. \"Don't ever get it twisted, Ricky Ross is the boss,\" he said. The death threats are not the only challenge to Ross. A former drug lord and gang leader is suing in a Los Angeles court, accusing him of stealing his name and reputation. \"The reality is I want justice done,\" the original Ross wrote in an e-mail to CNN. \"I know that he took his name and image from my life and believe he is unfairly profiting off my story.\" Ricky \"Freeway\" Ross was serving a prison sentence a decade ago when rapper William Roberts, who previously worked as a Florida correctional officer, adopted \"Rick Ross\" as his stage name, according to the lawsuit. \"This rapper and his labels clearly knew of my name and story, and have tried to suck out the lifeblood without license,\" the former drug lord said. \"I have my own use for my intellectual property and did not need this confusion created.\" More recently, the rapper has been using the name \"Ricky Rozay.\" The rapper and his record label have not responded to CNN's request for comment. Despite the death threats and legal issues, his music is doing well. Ross is nominated for a best rap album Grammy for his latest release, \"God Forgives, I Don't.\" CNN's Marlena Baldacci contributed to this report.", "From building-crushing hurricanes to killer sinkholes, Gulf Coast residents have seen a lot. But even these battle-tested veterans of the weather wars are marveling at torrential rains that washed out bridges and roads, sent chest-high water into homes and forced major military bases to shut down Wednesday. \"We've seen flooding before, but never flooding that washes the back of a house away,\" said CNN iReporter Matt Raybourn of Pensacola, Florida. \"There are no words for what we are seeing here.\" The rushing waters reduced some streets to rubble, gouged huge gashes in others and left stretches of many others submerged, including parts U.S. 98, the main east-west route along the coast. It was closed in several places between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City. Abandoned cars sat half-submerged along the highway. Along the coast, water pushed ashore by wind-driven waves and unusually high tides lapped at sand dunes as red flags warned swimmers to stay out of the water. There was one drowning death tied to the flooding, Florida officials said. The victim, a 67-year-old woman, drove or was swept into a drainage ditch Tuesday night, Escambia County spokeswoman Kathleen Castro said. In Alabama, waters rushed in so fast that residents climbed on top of furniture and waited on rooftops to be rescued, said Reggie Chitwood, deputy director of emergency management in Baldwin County. \"The waters rose at a historical level. ... People had to scramble,\" Chitwood told CNN's \"The Lead with Jake Tapper.\" In a neighborhood north of Pensacola, a creek overran its banks, inundating homes and forcing residents to retreat to their attics to await rescue, Escambia County spokesman Bill Pearson said. Rescuers were reaching the residents on state Fish and Wildlife boats and personal watercraft normally used to patrol the county's beaches, he said. The National Guard was also on the way. Florida Gov. Rick Scott said that crews had rescued 300 people. 'People have lost everything' \"It's unbelievable the amount of flooding we've had. We've have roads torn up, water clear through homes. I went to one home where the foundation was gone. ... You saw cars just thrown down a road, pushed down upside down,\" Scott told \"The Lead.\" \"People have lost everything, and they didn't buy flood insurance because they didn't think they were in a flood area.\" Scott declared a state of emergency and warned residents to expect more rain and flooding. As much as 18.9 inches of rain fell over 24 hours in Alabama and Florida, according to the National Weather Service. At Pensacola's airport, an estimated 15.55 inches of rain fell on Tuesday -- the largest amount to fall in a single calendar day since officials started tracking rainfall in 1880, the National Weather Service said. It was all the result of a slow-moving and massive storm system that sucked up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico for days before dumping it back onto land in a series of thunderstorms, said CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray. Satellites captured an image of the water vapor held aloft by the storm tracing a huge sideways 'S' shape across much of the country. As the storm crept up the eastern seaboard Wednesday afternoon, heavy rains caused flooding in the Washington area. In Baltimore, the edge of a street buckled in a landslide that sent cars tumbling into a ravine. No one was injured, the city's transportation department said. In Perdido Key, Florida, iReporter Steve Olensky described the storm as a \"hurricane and tornado all in one.\" \"It was blowing and blowing, the rain was coming. It was just incredible,\" said Olensky, whose 22-foot boat vanished in the storm. \"We've been through (hurricanes) Ivan and Katrina, and we've never seen anything like this.\" There's one major difference between this week's storms and a hurricane, Pensacola resident Cindi Bonner told CNN. \"You have time to prepare for a hurricane,\" she said. \"This was not something that anyone had prepared for.\" Damage to bridges, disruption to military bases . Many roads in the city of Gulf Shores, Alabama, were \"totally flooded,\" the city said on Twitter. At least three heavily used bridges in Escambia County, Florida, had been badly damaged or destroyed, said Pearson, the county spokesman. Naval Air Station Pensacola, Eglin Air Force Base and Hurlburt Field, another Air Force installation, were closed to all but essential personnel, the installations said on their Twitter and Facebook accounts. In nearby Baldwin County, Alabama, the Fish River reached historic flooding levels, according to the National Weather Service. Most government offices in the Florida Panhandle were closed Wednesday, as were many schools. Pearson said emergency officials were urging businesses to stay closed as well and were asking motorists to stay off the roads. Tides up to 2 feet higher than normal were causing minor coastal flooding and dangerous rip currents, the National Weather Service said. CNN iReporter Randy Hamilton said the scene felt like the aftermath of a hurricane with \"abandoned and flooded cars just littering the streets.\" \"Debris from trees everywhere. Standing water all around, gray skies, and wind gusts that make you fear something will blow down on you,\" he said. Arkansas tornado was EF-4 . The storms were part of the same system that has spawned tornadoes and other severe storms since Sunday, claiming at least 36 lives in Oklahoma, Iowa, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and now Florida. Tens of thousands remained without power in the South, where suspected tornadoes tore through homes and businesses late Monday. Officials revealed new details Wednesday about the powerful tornado that struck the Arkansas towns of Mayflower and Vilonia. The twister was rated an EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita Tornado Damage scale, with an estimated peak wind speed between 180 and 190 mph, the National Weather Service said. It was on the ground for 41.3 miles on Sunday and was responsible for 15 deaths, officials said. In addition to the Florida flooding death, police in Athens, Georgia, said a driver was killed Wednesday when storm winds toppled a tree onto a car. Authorities in Mississippi confirmed another death from storms that struck Monday. At least 38 people have been killed since Sunday in storm-related deaths in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Florida and Georgia, according to a CNN tally of state reports. The storm could bring heavy rains and possibly thunderstorms to Jacksonville, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Atlanta, the National Weather Service said. Heavy rain will be the norm. Flooding could be a concern in the New York City area on Thursday. Forecasters say rainfall could total up to four inches, with heavier amounts in some areas.", "(CNN) -- Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin vowed on Tuesday to use her executive experience to tackle government reform and energy independence if she and Sen. John McCain win this year's presidential election. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks with CNN's Drew Griffin Tuesday. \"It's going to be government reform because that, that is what I've been able to do as a mayor and as a governor, you, you take on the special interests and the self-dealings. Yep, you ruffle feathers and you have the scars to prove it,\" Palin said Tuesday in an interview with CNN's Drew Griffin. \"You have to take that on to give the American people that faith back in their own government. This is their government and we've got to put it back on their side,\" she said. Palin said she and McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, discussed the possibility of her working on the issue of energy independence if she becomes vice president. Watch Palin talk about potential plans for the vice-presidency » . \"That's been my forte as the governor of an energy producing state and as a former chair of the, of the energy regulator -- entity up there in Alaska,\" she said. \"[I] look forward to that and that's a matter of national security and, and our economic prosperity opportunities.\" Palin also said helping families with special needs children and cleaning up Wall Street were among the other \"missions\" she and McCain had discussed. Palin emphasized her executive credentials as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and governor of Alaska, contrasting them with what she said was Sen. Barack Obama's lack of leadership experience. \"We don't like to toot our own horn so we don't,\" Palin said. \"But, I have, I do have more experience than Barack Obama does. You know, he had served for his 300 days before he became a presidential candidate and that wasn't in, in executive office.\" Watch Palin say she has more experience than Obama » . Palin also apologized Tuesday for any misunderstanding caused when she referred last week to the patriotic values of \"the real America\" and \"pro-America areas of this great nation.\" Democrats and others criticized Palin for seeming to imply that some parts of the country are more patriotic than others. Palin denied that was her intention in an interview with CNN on Tuesday. \"I don't want that misunderstood,\" Palin said. \"If that's the way it came across, I apologize.\" The Alaska governor made the remarks at a fundraising event in North Carolina last week. \"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation,\" she told the crowd. On Tuesday, Palin also addressed Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joe Biden's comment that Sen. Barack Obama would be tested from the very beginning of his time in office. At a fundraiser Sunday night, Biden said that after taking office, \"it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. ... We're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.\" Palin told Griffin that the comment points to the dangers of electing a relatively inexperienced person . \"We need to thank Joe [Biden] for the warning,\" Palin said. Watch Palin say the media gave Biden a pass » . Biden's point, according to a statement issued later, was that \"we need steady leadership in tumultuous times, not ... the stubborn ideology of John McCain.\" Palin stopped short of labeling Obama a socialist Tuesday, although she and others have previously called his tax policies socialist. \"I'm not going to call him a socialist, but as 'Joe the Plumber' has said, it looks like socialism to him,\" she said of Joe \"the plumber\" Wurzelbacher. The GOP ticket and their supporters have invoked Joe the Plumber numerous times ever since the Ohio man confronted Obama about his tax policy in an impromptu campaign moment. Palin said Wurzelbacher is representative of \"Jane the engineer and Molly the dental hygienist and Chuck the teacher.\" Obama defended his decision to raise taxes on couples earning more than $250,000 a year while cutting taxes for people with lower incomes, telling Wurzelbacher that \"when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.\" Palin said the policy was \"not good for the entrepreneurial spirit that has built this great country,\" the economy or small businesses. Watch the entire interview with Gov. Sarah Palin » . Obama brushed off McCain and Palin's characterization on Sunday in Fayetteville, North Carolina. \"John McCain thinks that giving these Americans a break is socialism,\" Obama said. \"Well, I call it opportunity, and there is nothing more American than that.\"", "As thousands of people start to flee their homes to escape the destructive path of Irene, thrillseeking hurricane surfers have been flocking to beaches to take advantage of the supersized waves. Hurricane swells - the waves created outside the direct area of the hurricane - are reaching up to 30 feet along the East Coast. But as beachgoers started to enjoy the surf, New Jersey governor Chris Christie warned: 'Get the hell off the beach.' A surfer braves the wind and waves at The Washout at Folly Beach created by Hurricane Irene Friday Aug. 26, 2011 in Folly Beach, S.C . Thrillseekers: CJ Macias rides his surf board as he takes advantage of the waves created by Hurricane Irene in Fort Lauderdale, Florida . In the air: A man is seen parachute surfing at the beach in Kill Devil Hills in the North Carolina Outerbanks on Friday ahead of the expected landfall in the area of Hurricane Irene . One of the biggest surfing . competitions in the world, the 49th annual East Coast Surfing . Championships, is underway on Virginia Beach, Virginia. 'The risk, the excitement factor… getting really good waves is addicting,' said hurricane surfer Shea Lopez who is competing. 'It's something that's uncommon. I couldn't be any more excited for any day of the year.' Mr Lopez, 37, said he is monitoring the East Coast to see where to go next. 'It's our only chance as East Coast surfers to get large, powerful waves like in other places in the world,' he told ABC News. Surf's up: People surf on Friday at Rockaway Beach in New York . Waves: A surfer takes a dip at Rockaway Beach in New York . Clear skies: People were told not to be fooled by the sunny weather . 'It's exciting being around the hurricane. You can't help but get caught up in the drama.' The competition's rounds are being rushed through so the contest is over before conditions become too dangerous. 'The primary concern is for the safety of the competitors and spectators,' Kevin Gaydosh, spokesman for the competition , told ABC News. 'There's nobody that has a healthier respect for the water than surfers.' Ride: Leif Overturf enjoys the large surf near the Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier in Emerald Isle, North Carolina . Spray: Connor Murray near the Ocean Crest Pier in Oak Island, North Carolina . Surfing USA: Ed Rolen, 40, of Panama City Beach, takes advantage of high winds and surf from the effects of Hurricane Irene at Cocoa Beach, Florida . Waiting game: Beach goers watch the surf near a beachside fishing pier a day before the expected landfall of Hurricane Irene in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina .", "Utah officials will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a lower-court ruling allowing same-sex marriage in the state, the state attorney general's office said Thursday. Newly appointed Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes will seek a stay of the federal judge's ruling after state officials consult first with outside attorneys over the next few days. \"It is the intent of the Attorney General's Office to file with the Supreme Court as soon as possible,\" the attorney general's office said in a statement. The emergency appeal, when filed, would go to Justice Sonia Sotomayor because she has jurisdiction over appeals from Utah and nearby states. She could rule on the state's application herself or ask the entire nine-member court to weigh in. Sotomayor is likely to refer the Utah request to the entire court, as is tradition with high-profile traditional cases, said Carl Tobias, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Richmond. The Utah announcement comes two days after state officials lost their case in a federal appeals court, which said the state's request for a stay wasn't warranted and ordered the appeal process be expedited. The appeals court's ruling allows same-sex marriages to continue in Utah while appeals continue. Last week, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby struck down Utah's ban on same-sex marriage, saying the law \"conflicts with the United States Constitution's guarantees of equal protection and due process under the law.\" Utah voters approved a law banning same-sex marriage in 2004. Judge Shelby's ruling drew national attention partly because Utah is viewed as among the more conservative states and because the U.S. Supreme Court just ruled this summer on same-sex marriage. In June, the nation's highest court cleared the way for same-sex marriages in California to resume after it ruled private parties did not have \"standing\" to defend California's voter-approved ballot measure barring gay and lesbian couples from state-sanctioned wedlock. The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected parts of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in a 5-4 decision, dismissing an appeal over same-sex marriage on jurisdictional grounds and ruling same-sex spouses legally married in a state may receive federal benefits. In the Utah case, the state argues that the \"federal district court's ruling that same-sex marriage is a fundamental right has never been established in any previous case in the 10th Circuit\" Court of Appeals, the attorney general's office said. The federal judge's ruling, nonetheless, prompted a rush of same-sex couples to courthouses in Utah where they obtained marriage licenses, despite the state's ongoing legal challenge. Some jurisdictions such as Piute and San Juan Counties are issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but there haven't been requests for them there, officials said. Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert has criticized Judge Shelby's ruling of last week, calling him \"an activist federal judge.\" Shelby said the state's \"current laws deny its gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry and, in so doing, demean the dignity of these same-sex couples for no rational reason. \"Accordingly, the court finds that these laws are unconstitutional,\" the judge said. Same-sex marriage is banned by constitutional amendment or state law in: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. It is legal in 17 other U.S states and the District of Columbia: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.", "Suspect: Police say Eh Lar Doh Htoo, 18, stabbed three young brothers to death with a machete . Three young brothers aged 1, 5 and 12 were stabbed to death and two other family members were hurt in an attack at a home in eastern North Carolina. Officers were called to a report of a person with a 'machete-like' knife around 11pm Tuesday and took a suspect into custody, New Bern Police Lt. Ronda Allen said. The officers entered the home and found two dead boys along with one still-breathing brother. They then subdued and arrested 18-year-old neighbor 18-year-old Eh Lar Doh Htoo, who they found still at the scene. The third boy was taken to a North Carolina East hospital, where he died. Their mother and 14-year-old sister were also injured in the stabbing. Allen said they had been treated and released. The father was at work when the horrific attack occurred, police said. 'He's crazy,' neighbor Ner Wah said Wednesday. 'I told my wife: 'Be careful. Don't answer the door.'' The victims were Burmese and had entered the United States via Thailand, according to New Bern Police Chief Toussaint Summers, Jr. New Bern is a coastal town and home to about 1,900 Burmese refugees, who resettled in the area after fleeing persecution from the country once called Burma. 'Anytime this happens in any community, any part of town, it's surprising,' the police chief said. The stabbings happened on a street of about 10 row-like homes that face a railroad track and several dilapidated commercial buildings. The mother jumped out the second-floor window of her home after she was attacked, according to neighbor A Lay, who was awakened when she knocked on his door. Her back was bloody. 'She said she needed help and she needed the police,' said A Lay's wife, A Bu. Police did not release the victims' names. Triple homicide: Police arrived to the home around 11pm Tuesday to find two of the boys dead. A third died at a hospital while their sister and mother survived the gruesome attack and were released from the hospital . Investigators work, Wednesday in the backyard of a home where a triple homicide took place late Tuesday, in New Bern, North Carolina. Neighbors say the mother leaped from a bedroom window, her back covered in blood, to get away from the killer . Wah said that like him, Htoo was a member of the Karen ethnic group, an oppressed people whose language has been banned back home. Htoo once came to Wah's house during the day to ask him to help translate documents, but Wah said they weren't friends. 'We felt very scared of him,' Wah said. Susan Husson, executive director of the Interfaith Refugee Ministry in New Bern, said the victims' family and the suspect's family likely came through her office before settling in New Bern, but she didn't know them personally. She said the first Burmese refugee came to New Bern around 1999. 'It's just really hard right now,' she said. 'It's been really horrific.' A neighbor who lives about five houses away said he heard sirens late Tuesday night and decided to stay inside. Horrific: Three brothers who lived in of these New Bern, North Carolina homes were slashed to death with a machete Tuesday night by their 18-year-old neighbor Eh Lar Doh Htoo . 'We were scared. We just locked the door,' said 23-year-old Yyoch Rmah, who moved to the U.S. from Vietnam in 2006. He said there were a lot of Burmese refugees in the neighborhood, and people from other countries. Htoo's first court appearance was scheduled for Friday. Chief Summers told WITN the Htoo is now charged with assault with a deadly weapon and intent to kill inflicting serious injury. The suspect and the victims knew each other, although the suspect was not a member of the victims' family, Allen said. Allen did not release any potential motive in the stabbings. She said police planned to release more information about the stabbing later Wednesday. But, Chief Summers said, 'This wasn't a random event.' Other charges were also pending against Htoo. He was being held Wednesday on $1 million bond. He was slated to first appear before a judge the morning of March 19. The State Bureau of Investigation was assisting New Bern police. New Bern is a coastal town and home to about 1,900 Burmese refugees, who resettled in the area after fleeing persecution from the country once called Burma .", "An elderly couple have been found dead after a father and son broke into their house in an apparent random home invasion, set the place on fire and abducted them. Jerome Faulkner, 73, and his wife Dora, 62, were killed after being taken from their home in Oak Hill, North Carolina, at 7am on New Year's Day by two men who also stole their SUV. Police in Lewisburg, West Virginia found the couple's bodies around 4pm following a shootout with the suspects when officers pulled over the stolen white Chevrolet SUV being driven by 21-year-old Eric Alexander Campbell. Scroll down for videos . Jerome Faulkner, 73, and his wife Dora, 62, were killed after being taken from their home in Oak Hill, North Carolina, at 7am on New Year's Day . Jerome Faulkner, 73, and his wife Dora, 62, were taken from their home in Oak Hill, North Carolina by two men who then burned the property to the ground . Eric Alexander Campbell, 21, (left) was in custody following a shootout with police in West Virginia. He and his father, Edward Campbell, (right) had allegedly abducted and killed an elderly couple following a home invasion in North Carolina . As police were talking to the suspect, his father, 54-year-old Edward Campbell, allegedly pulled alongside in a red SUV and opened fire on the officers, ABC11 reported. The father fled in his truck but was captured 90 minutes later in the woods. A search of his truck revealed two dead bodies under a mattress on the flatbed, according to WRAL. A spokesman from the Greenbrier County Sheriff's Department told Daily Mail Online on Friday that two officers were shot by the suspects and had been hospitalized but were going to be fine. He said that the two quick-thinking cops had relatively new information as to the license plate of the stolen SUV when they apprehended the vehicle. Sheriff Brindell Wilkins, of Granville County, North Carolina, said he believed the couple were killed at their home and their bodies loaded into the truck before the suspects fled for more than 200 miles into West Virginia. Crime spree: The suspects allegedly abducted and killed the elderly couple in Oak Hill, North Carolina at 7am on January 1. Hours later, the suspects were involved in a shootout with police in West Virginia where the bodies were found . The sheriff said that he believed the couple were targeted in a random home invasion and that the motive was robbery . The sheriff said that he believed that the motive was robbery and that the couple were randomly targeted, according to WRAL. Mr and Mrs Faulkner's pastor told Daily Mail Online today that the couple were 'quiet, solid people' who were faithful in their attendance to the church and well-loved. Johnny Richard, pastor of the Mountain's Creek Baptist Church in Oxford, said that the Faulkners 'seemed to have no enemies and were good friends to everyone'. Mr Richard, who knew the couple for ten years, said that they were very good friends to him personally. Mr Faulkner was a retired fire chief with the Cornwall Volunteer Fire Department and one of his two sons, Jerome Jr, had also joined the fire service in Raleigh. He and the couple's other son, Ricky, were at the scene helping investigators. The pastor said that he was first alerted to the fire at the elderly couple's home on Thursday morning and went down there. Amid the busy scene, he could only stand and watch as their home burned to the ground. Mr Richard said that he only found out the full extent of the tragedy when reports emerged on Thursday night. He said that the church congregation planned to come together on Friday night to share their feelings and pray. 'We have seen death before,' he said. 'But this is something so brutal and vicious. We are going to get through this by coming together.' Sheriff deputies at the white SUV in Greenbrier County, West Virginia which was pulled over because it was reported as stolen. The driver and the driver of another SUV engaged police in a shootout . Two West Virginia police officers were injured in a New Year's Day shootout that ended with two suspects in custody and the discovery of two dead bodies in the back of their truck . According to reports, the sheriff said that first responders initially though that it was just a house fire and that the couple had left for a motel after a power cut but quickly realized that . MailOnline was awaiting a response from the Granville County sheriff's department. Lt. Michael Baylous, of the West Virginia State Police, said the driver of the white SUV fled the scene and hid but later turned himself in without incident. He drove behind a guardrail on the interstate and hid but then eventually came out and handed himself in to police, according to WV Gazette. Two male officers were injured in the shootout. One was grazed by the bullet and the other had impact injuries to his rib cage after a bullet struck his protective vest. Edward Campbell was shot in the leg during the exchange of gunfire and was being treated at Charleston Area Medical Center. He would be arrested on release, police said. Eric Campbell was being held without bail. Investigators were today trying to discover if there is a connection between the couple and the father and son. The son has spoken to investigators but the father has not. Officials from North Carolina and West Virginia were working with authorities in Texas, where it is believed that the suspects are from. The two men are facing charges of malicious assault and attempted murder of a police officer in Greenbrier County, West Virginia. More charges were expected. Two men were in custody after police officers were involved shooting in Greenbrier County in West Virginia . One of the officers was grazed by a bullet while the other was wearing a protective vest which saved him from serious injury in West Virginia .", "This United States may have been made for you and me, but America's diamond deserts and redwood forests could net a sizable amount of cash if we ever decided to sell it, according to a new study. All the land in the lower 48 states was worth a combined $23trillion in 2009, combination of tax and real estate data in a paper published by the Commerce Department as revealed. Researchers estimated that land in the country, minus all the buildings, roads and trees on top of it, achieved its peak value of $26.2 trillion in in 2006 before sliding down three trillion dollars in three years. A map of the US by county shows areas with land values from $73,000 to $3.35million per acre in dark blue and land less than $2,000 per acre in white. The entire country is worth $23trillion, according to new study . Prices may have rebounded since the end of the economic recession, but the study from William Larson paints the widest ever picture of how much the ground beneath our feet is actually worth. The research used land prices combined with Census data to tabulate values for all of the federal, agricultural and developed land in the country, excluding Alaska, Hawaii and bodies of water. Washington DC had the greatest land value, with a staggering $1,050,000 per acre. It was followed by New Jersey, where the average acre cost of $196,000 led a foursome of smaller Northeastern states with acre values above $100,000 with Rhode Island's $133,730, Connecticut's $128,820 and Massachusetts $102,210. Land in Washington DC had the highest price in the entire country, with land costing more than $1million per acre . Northeastern states including New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts all have per acre values above $100,000. Above, a home in Cape May, New Jersey . California was the most valuable state overall at $3.9trillion while Vermont was worth only $44billion. Wyoming, with $1,560 per acre, is the cheapest place in the country to buy land, followed by New Mexico at $1,930 and Nevada at $2,120, according to the Wall Street Journal. Land in large urban areas was the most valuable, with cities of more than 1million people worth $64,844 per acre. Despite only being 5.8 per cent of the country's 1.89billion acres, developed land had a slim majority of the country's value. Besides Washington DC, New Jersey and Rhode Island had the highest percentages of developed land, both more than 30 per cent. Wyoming, which like many Western states is majority-owned by the federal government, had the lowest per acre price at $1,560. Above, the High Plains Desert in Wyoming . The federal government, the largest landowner in the US and the fourth largest in the world, owns 24 per cent of the country and majorities of six states including California, Nevada and Oregon. However, the land is almost entirely undeveloped and is only worth $1.8trillion, which is about 10 percent of the federal debt. The government owns almost none of Connecticut, just 0.1 per cent. True to its reputation for having golden waves of grain, forty-seven per cent of the land in the US is farmland, with the highest state percentage for agriculture being Nebraska's 92.7 per cent. Mr Larson estimated that his figures were within a 10 per cent margin of error. He said he did the study because 'Despite its fundamental role in nearly all economic activity, there is no current and complete estimate of the value of the land area of the United States'. Alabama . Alaska . Arizona . Arkansas . California . Colorado . Connecticut . Delaware . Florida . Georgia . Hawaii . Idaho . Illinois . Indiana . Iowa . Kansas . Kentucky . Louisiana . Maine . Maryland . Massachusetts . Michigan . Minnesota . Mississippi . Missouri . Montana . Nebraska . Nevada . New Hampshire . New Jersey . New Mexico . New York . North Carolina . North Dakota . Ohio . Oklahoma . Oregon . Pennsylvania . Rhode Island . South Carolina . South Dakota . Tennessee . Texas . Utah . Vermont . Virginia . Washington . West Virginia . Wisconsin . Wyoming . $12,355 . N/A . $4,328 . $6,739 . $39,091 . $6,462 . $128,824 . $57,692 . $28,961 . $14,241 . N/A . $3,434 . $23,491 . $16,902 . $6,589 . $4,220 . $7,208 . $12,908 . $6,142 . $75,429 . $102,214 . $23,765 . $8,190 . $5,564 . $7,232 . $2,282 . $2,935 . $2,115 . $19,839 . $196,409 . $1,931 . $41,314 . $16,230 . $2,517 . $32,076 . $7,363 . $6,502 . $31,923 . $133,729 . $17,610 . $2,135 . $14,411 . $7,542 . $4,663 . $7,438 . $21,921 . $16,751 . $10,536 . $9,924 . $1,557 .", "An armed robbery of an 18-wheeler truck transporting bars of gold from Florida to Massachusetts was most likely an inside job, according to police. The $4.8 million gold heist by three armed robbers unfolded after one of the two armed guards said that he felt sick and prompted the driver to pull over. But Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard Jr. said Wednesday that different stories have emerged about the trip from Bridgewater, Massachusetts on I-95. Scroll down for video . Investigation: Wilson County Sheriff Calvin Woodard Jr, pictured, said that differing stories from the guards about the armed robbery had led to suspicions over their accounts of heist . Suspects: Woodard shared sketches of the suspects thought to be male and possibly Hispanic who allegedly bound the hands of the driver and the passenger - there are three suspects altogether . White van: Two security guards working for Transvalue Inc of Miami were reportedly approached by three armed men driving a white van, pictured here, after pulling over on the interstate . In the latest account of events, one of the two armed guards said that he felt sick and this is why the driver pulled over. However, in an earlier description the guards,  employed by Miami-based company, TransValue Inc. said a mechanical issue had caused the driver to stop. The guards said that after the vehicle stopped they were approached by three armed men driving a white van who ordered them to lie on the ground. They then tied their hands behind their backs and marched them into nearby woods before taking 275lbs of gold. Woodward told reporters that these differing accounts have led to further investigations. 'There is suspicion at this time that this could be an inside job due to the circumstances of the robbery,' a Wilson County Sheriff's Office detective wrote in a search warrant obtained by ABC. 'The fact that the truck was robbed immediately upon it pulling over at an unannounced stop is suspicious in and of itself,' the document added. Search: Armed robbers are suspected of stealing $4million in gold from an 18-wheeler taking the precious from Florida to Massachusetts on Interstate 95. Above, deputies investigate a wooded area near the road . Location: The men 'ordered the guards to lie on the ground, tied their hands behind their backs and marched them into nearby woods, before taking 275lbs gold' Cone: This photo is of a traffic cone that was positioned behind the truck as suspects allegedly removed gold from the vehicle after breaking a lock on the back . 'It is also suspicious because there are no markings on the side of the truck that would indicate the type of cargo contained therein. 'The suspects also went directly to the trailer and found the gold which was in unmarked five gallon buckets. It is not believed that this is a random act due to the nature and facts of this robbery.' Police are now seeking a search warrant for the phones of the armed guard who felt sick because of the suspicious nature of the case. Woodard shared sketches of the three suspects who allegedly bound the hands of the driver and the passenger. Meanwhile, a photo was shown of a traffic cone that was positioned behind the truck as suspects allegedly removed gold from the vehicle after breaking a lock on the back. The traffic cone had the marking of a company that only does work in Florida, according to ABC. Woodard said the driver and the passenger, who speak little English, are not suspects, but both men have been interviewed separately several times by police. He added that the driver and the passenger did violate their company’s policies by exiting the vehicle without their firearms and leaving the firearms inside the truck. Wilson County Sheriff's Deputies investigate an area near Interstate 95 in Wilson, North Carolina, on Monday . Investigation: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has joined in the search for the robbers, thought to be male and possibly Hispanic. Neither of the guards was injured during the 'very rare incident', TransValue said . A reported 275lbs of gold were stolen and silver was also being carried in the truck, which was stopped near mile marker 114 on the highway. Locks on the back of the truck were sawed off, according to WITN. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has joined in the search for the robbers, thought to be male and possibly Hispanic. A reported 275lbs of gold were stolen, though it is not known which form the truck's precious metal took (file photo) The metal was owned by Republic Metals Corporation in Opalocka, Florida, according to a search warrant. TransValue, which specializes in transporting valuable goods and money between financial centers, keeps goods they move insured for up to $100million. A $50,000 reward is on offer for information leading to an arrest. Shortly after the heist confused drivers told 911 dispatchers that they saw uniformed drivers run into the North Carolina highway with their hands bound, motioning for help, according to recordings.", "With an increasing number of families and unaccompanied children pouring across the border, it has become one of America's most pressing issues. Now, a survey has revealed the town which plays host to the most immigrants in every U.S. state. The research, based on figures from the Census Bureau, shows that a staggering 74 per cent of the locals in Sweetwater, Florida, were born in another country. Scroll down for video . Highest rate: According to a survey that reveals the towns which play host to the most immigrants in every U.S. state, a staggering 74 per cent of the locals in Sweetwater (pictured) in Florida were born in another country . Immigration: Meanwhile, more than 67 per cent of the residents in Langley Park (pictured), Maryland, 66.9 per cent in Palisades Park, New Jersey and 62.6 per cent in Toughkenamon, Pennsylvania, are immigrants . Meanwhile, more than 67 per cent of the residents in Langley Park, Maryland, 66.9 per cent in Palisades Park, New Jersey and 62.6 per cent in Toughkenamon, Pennsylvania, are immigrants. In New York, a fewer 47.1 per cent of locals in Spring Valley are foreign-born - the highest number in the state. But at the other end of the spectrum, only 4.7 per cent of people in Bigfork, Montana, are immigrants. The research, carried out by Business Insider, looked at towns, cities and villages with at least 1,000-strong populations using estimates from the 2008-2012 American Community Survey. Fewer: In New York, 47.1 per cent of locals in Spring Valley (pictured) are foreign-born - the highest in the state . But at the other end of the spectrum, only 4.7 per cent of people in Bigfork (pictured), Montana, are immigrants . Unsurprisingly, Latin America was found to be the most common birthplace among immigrants. It comes just days after it emerged that President Barack Obama is on pace to deport the fewest number of immigrants since at least 2007. According to an analysis of Homeland Security Department figures by The Associated Press, the federal agency responsible for deportations sent home 258,608 immigrants between the start of the budget year last October and July 28 this summer. During the same period a year earlier, it removed 320,167 people — meaning this year saw a decrease in deportations by nearly 20 percent. Reduced numbers: It comes just days after it emerged that President Barack Obama (pictured) is on pace to deport the fewest number of immigrants since at least 2007 . The figures, contained in weekly internal reports marked 'Official Use Only,' reflect the marked decline in deportations, while Mr Obama has delayed announcing what changes he will make to U.S. immigration policies through executive action. The President said he would act before the end of the summer, but White House officials said last weekend that he would postpone his decision until after November's elections. The announcement came much to the chagrin of Latino leaders; many of whom believe Mr Obama's deported too many immigrants . Since taking office, Mr Obama's administration has removed more than 2.1 million immigrants from the country. Springwater, Florida - 74.4 . Langley Park, Maryland - 67.6 . Palisades Park, New Jersey - 66.9 . Toughkenamon, Pennsylvania - 62.6 . Oasis, California - 62.5 . Cactus, Texas - 60.7 . Mattawa, Washington - 56 . Sand Point, Alaska - 55.5 . Oak Grove, Virginia - 54.1 . Doraville, Georgia - 53.4 . Pirtleville, Arizona - 47.4 . Spring Valley, New York - 47.1 . Monterey Park, New Mexico - 47 . Stone Park, Illinois - 46.5 . Wendover, Utah - 45.6 . Chelsea, Massachusetts - 44.8 . Danville, Arkansas - 44.4 . Hamtramck, Michigan - 43.1 . Central Falls, Rhode Island - 41.3 . Jackpot, Nevada - 40 . Waipahu, Hawaii - 38.4 . Boardman, Orgeon - 37.9 . City View, South Carolina - 37.9 . Lexington, Nebraska - 37.5 . Wilder, Idaho - 37.2 . Siler City, North Carolina - 36.5 . Stamford, Connecticut - 36.3 . Rodney Village, Delaware - 33.5 . Liberal, Kansas - 32.4 . Collinsville, Alabama - 31.5 . El Jebel, Colorado - 31.2 . Storm Lake, Iowa - 28.3 . La Monte, Missouri - 27.9 . Guymon, Oklahoma - 27.6 . Lauderdale, Minnesota - 26.9 . Urbancrest, Ohio - 25.1 . Ligonier, Indiana - 24.3 . West Buechel, Kentucky - 23.7 . Vardaman, Mississippi - 22.3 . Amelia, Louisiana - 19.2 . Jackson, Wyoming - 19 . Monterey, Tennessee - 18.4 . Walworth, Wisconsin - 17.9 . Madawaska, Maine - 16.8 . Hanover, New Hampshire - 14.6 . Wilder, Vermont - 11.5 . Star City, West Virginia - 11.2 . Huron, South Dakota - 9.4 . Fargo, North Dakota - 5.8 . Bigfork, Montana - 4.6 .", "Police are hunting for a killer who gunned down a popular hairdresser as she headed to a car after dinner with friends. A passerby called 911 after finding the body of Karen Pearce, 44, in a street in Decatur, Georgia at 11pm on Saturday. Police have not said whether Pearce was targeted or was the victim of a random attack, but her parents, who live in Kinsland, North Carolina, said she was killed in a robbery. 'She was murdered in Atlanta, Georgia to a bad robbery,' Larry Pearce told WITN. Scroll down for video . Gunned down: Karen Pearce, 44, was found shot dead in a street in Decatur, Georgia over the weekend after she had dinner with friends. Police are hunting for her killer but have no suspects . Pearce, who was single, enjoyed dinner with friends at Leon's Full Service, which is behind Decatur Square, which is lined with bars and restaurants. She left the restaurant and headed to an area where he car was parked, police said. Witnesses reported hearing a gunshot nearby just before her body was found by a person exiting a parking lot behind shops and restaurants on East Ponce de Leon Avenue. Authorities have said they do not have any suspects in the case and the exact cause of her death has not been released. Scene: She was shot dead on a road close to restaurants and bars in the Atlanta suburb on Saturday . She had enjoyed dinner at Leon's (left) which is close to other restaurants but backs up on to quieter streets . Sergeant Jennifer S. Ross told WSB that investigators are following up on every potential lead to try and find a suspect and a motive. Her heartbroken family said they had been looking forward to seeing her at Christmas. 'We have enjoyed her for 44 years and that's all I can say,' her father said. Pearce, who moved to Atlanta a decade ago and lived in Smyrna, was a hairstylist at True Hair Salon & Spa in Marietta and was also taking classes to be a nurse, WITN reported. 'It is with profound sadness that we can confirm Karen Pearce, a talented and popular stylist at true Salon/Spa, was killed Saturday evening,' the owner of the salon said in a statement. Loved: Pearce (right) was a popular hair stylist in Marietta and was taking classes to be a nurse . Devastated: Her parents, who live in North Carolina, said they had been expecting her home for Christmas . 'While we are all in shock and grasping to understand how something so tragic could happen to a woman with such a beautiful heart, we must believe justice will prevail.' Investigators are asking if anyone has any information to contact the Decatur Police Department at 404-373-6551 or Crimestoppers at 404/577-TIPS. See below for video .", "(CNN)The Supreme Court gave proponents of same-sex marriage two major victories in 2013 -- striking down parts of the Defense of Marriage Act that denied the same benefits provided to heterosexual spouses to legally married same-sex couples, and allowing same-sex marriages to resume in California. Since then, a lot has has happened, legally, for supporters. Here's a look at same-sex marriage in the United States, by the numbers: . 37 -- U.S. states which allow same-sex marriage, plus the District of Columbia: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 13 -- The number of U.S. states with \"laws or constitutional amendments that deny the freedom to marry to same-sex couples.\" 4 -- States involved in the challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court involving state bans on same-sex marriage. At issue is a lower court opinion that upheld same-sex marriage bans in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee. 1 -- U.S. territory where same-sex partners can get married: Guam. Almost 72% -- Percentage of people in the United States who live in a state where same-sex marriage is legal. 9 million - LGBT adults in the United States. 251,695 -- Same-sex married couples in the United States in 2013, according to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. 60% - Percentage of Americans who support same-sex marriage, according to a May 2015 Gallup Poll. 2001 -- The year the Netherlands made same-sex marriage legal. It was the first country in the world to so. 2003 -- The year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to criminalize sodomy. 2004 -- The year that same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to do so. 19 -- Countries worldwide where same-sex marriage has been approved in the entire country: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales), and Uruguay. 2 -- The number of countries where same-sex marriage is legal in some areas: Mexico and the United States. 4 -- U.S. states that allow civil unions: Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois and New Jersey. 22% -- Same-sex couples in the United States raising adopted or foster children, as of March 2015 research by the Williams Institute at UCLA.", "MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina (CNN) -- After earning a reputation as a killer in Haiti, Tropical Storm Hanna amounted to little more than a windy rainstorm along the Atlantic Coast on Saturday. Water almost covers the dock at the Marine Corps Air Station marina near the New River in North Carolina. No states have \"expressed any damage that they couldn't handle,\" said Glenn Cannon, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's assistant administrator for disaster operations. He said there were some concerns about flooding near rivers and in low-lying areas. \"We're monitoring Hanna, but it seems to be a heavy rain event,\" he said. According to the Associated Press, Hanna did cause one death in a traffic accident on Interstate 95 in Maryland. Many people in Huntington, Virginia, about 8 miles northwest of Virginia Beach, voluntarily evacuated Saturday afternoon because of concerns about flooding, Fairfax County public information officer Merni Fitzgerald said. The area, which has flooded in the past, was receiving heavy rain, she said. She could not provide an exact number of people who had evacuated. The storm drenched the Carolinas and Virginia with heavy rain pushed by 55-mph winds as it zipped northward near 30 mph (48 kph), the National Hurricane Center reported at 11 p.m. ET Saturday. At that hour, the center of the storm was 90 miles (145 kilometers) west-southwest of Long Island, New York, and about 135 miles (220 kilometers) southwest of Providence, Rhode Island. Hanna would travel the coast all the way up to Canada's Maritime Provinces by Sunday night, forecasters said. Hanna came ashore at 3:20 a.m. ET near the North Carolina-South Carolina state line. It caused a surge of 1 to 2 feet of water along the shore and was expected to deliver 4 to 6 inches of rain, with some areas getting more. Flooding, wind damage and power outages were minor across the Carolinas, according to emergency officials. View a map of Hanna's projected path » . \"It's actually going fairly well, with some reports of minor flooding,\" said South Carolina Emergency Management spokesman Derrec Becker. About 10,000 South Carolina homes were without power Saturday morning, mostly in the Myrtle Beach area, Becker said. He also said 444 South Carolina residents were staying in 15 shelters. In North Carolina, nearly 12,000 homes had no electricity, mostly in the counties near where Hanna came in, said State Emergency Management spokesman Mark Van Sciver. See what impact Hanna had on Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina » . No deaths were reported, flooding was limited, and no highways were closed, Van Sciver said. Nearly 1,500 residents sought refuge Saturday in 49 emergency shelters in North Carolina, Van Sciver said. The storm snarled some travel plans. It triggered delays for arrivals to Philadelphia International Airport in Pennsylvania and departures from Newark International Airport in New Jersey and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Delays at JFK airport averaged about four hours, the FAA said. Hanna's eye made landfall near Little River Inlet at the South Carolina-North Carolina line, according to CNN meteorologists. Watch wind whip a South Carolina beach » . Pounding waves flattened some sand dunes on the beaches at Oak Island, North Carolina, just east of the storm's landfall. The island's Ocean Crest pier, rebuilt after Hurricane Floyd destroyed it nine years ago, held up under Hanna, but the American flag flying above it was in tatters and barely attached to its pole by sunrise. By Saturday afternoon, the hurricane center had discontinued a tropical storm warning southward from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. A tropical storm warning covered much of the East Coast from Cape Hatteras to Merrimack River, Massachusetts, about 31 miles north of Boston. The warning included all of Chesapeake Bay, Washington, New York Harbor and Long Island Sound, as well as popular vacation islands Martha's Vineyard, Block Island and Nantucket. The warning means tropical storm conditions are expected within the warning area within the next 24 hours. iReport.com: Are you getting soaked? Hanna caused severe flooding and killed at least 137 as it lingered for several days over and just off the coast of Haiti. U.N. relief supplies started arriving in the beleaguered country Friday, even as Hurricane Ike threatens to do even more damage. Ike will pass near or over the Turks and Caicos Islands, just north of Haiti, and the southeastern Bahamas in the next day, the hurricane center said. Ike's impact on the United States is less certain, but it could brush South Florida and hit the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane next week. iReport.com: \"There's now a pond in my car\"", "By . Jessica Jerreat . A grandmother was barred from boarding a flight to Florida so she could see her family at Easter because of her oxygen tank. When Jane Graham-Bailey arrived at Asheville airport in North Carolina airline staff told her because she didn't have a doctor's note for her tank she would be unable to fly. The 78-year-old, who has asthma, says she was not asked for paperwork for the tank when she flew to Asheville earlier in the year, but on her return Allegiant Air said she was unable to fly. Trapped: Jane Graham-Bailey has been forced to stay in North Carolina for another week after an airline refused to let her take an oxygen tank on a plane . The grandmother had been trying to return home from extended visit with her daughter-in-law over the holiday weekend. Doctor's note: Jane Graham-Bailey has asthma but didn't know she needed a medical pass for her tank . Instead, she has been forced to stay in North Carolina while the paperwork arrives. Ms Graham-Bailey told the Ashville Citizen-Times: 'I didn’t deserve this. I deserved to sit down with my family and enjoy Easter dinner. 'I’m 78. I don’t have that many Easters left. I feel like [the airline] took something away from me and my family.' Jessica Wheeler, a spokeswoman for the airline, said Ms Graham-Bailey was not allowed to board the flight because she needed a physician consent form for the oxygen tank. She added that the airline's regulations were based on those set by the FAA. 'Oxygen tanks are highly flammable. We need to ensure, for everyone’s safety, that an oxygen tank has been recently inspected and that it is medically safe for the passenger to fly,' she said. Ms Graham-Bailey had offered to leave the tank behind but the airline rejected that offer over concerns that she may need the oxygen on the flight. She said she didn't fly often and was not aware that she needed paperwork to take an oxygen tank on a flight. The airline agreed to refund the cost of her ticket but, because Ms Graham-Bailey's son can only collect her from the airport on Sundays, she has had to wait a week before flying home. He explained that his mother's health had deteriorated in the . past two years and she was recently hospitalized with COPD (chronic . obstructive pulmonary disease) and asthma. Doctors . told her she would need to be on increasing amounts of medication, and . the bill for her care had caused Ms Graham-Bailey to fall into debt. Rules: Allegiant Air says it was following FAA guidelines when it refused to allow Ms Graham-Bailey to board with her oxygen tank . Stuck: Jane Graham-Bailey was trying to fly from Asheville airport in North Carolina to her home in Florida . In October last year, Ms Graham-Bailey's . family set up a Go Fund Me page to help her repay some of the debt . caused by her medical expenses. She is 'one of the most intelligent, fun, caring people I have ever known,' her son, Jay McCampbell, said, adding that she had been suffering with the worry at the cost of her medical bills. With the economy faltering, and two adult children in college, he was unable to fully pay her bills himself so reached out to the wider community. As her health improved a little, the grandmother had traveled to North Carolina to visit relatives but, after the confrontation at the airport, Ms Graham-Bailey says she will catch a flight from Tennessee when she finally goes home.", "The teenage sweethearts in the midst of a dramatic crime spree across five southern states have been spotted begging on the streets in Florida, police said. Dalton Hayes, 18, and his 13-year-old girlfriend Cheyenne Phillips, fled their Kentucky home two weeks ago and have evaded the law to apparently make it at least 600 miles south. Along the way they have allegedly stolen three pickup trucks and two handguns - and police now say they have lost patience with the pair. Scroll down for video . On the run: Dalton Hayes, right, was seen with his 13-year-old girlfriend Cheyenne Phillips, left, at a South Carolina Walmart last week. They have since been spotted in Florida . 'Crime spree': Dalton Hayes, 18, and Cheyenne Phillips, 13, are seen on surveillance footage inside a Walmart in Manning, South Carolina on Monday. The young couple has been missing from Kentucky for two weeks . Speaking Friday, the sheriff in their home of Grayson County, Kentucky, described their behavior as 'increasingly brazen and dangerous', and told them to surrender immediately. Norman Chaffins said: 'There's going to come a time when we're not going to see him as an 18-year-old kid. 'We're going to see him as someone who's stolen three vehicles with two handguns in them, and the outcome is not going to be good for either one of them if they don't turn themselves in.' It came after police in Florida told NBC News that the two had made their way into the state, after blazing a trail through Kentucky, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. They did not say which town they had been seen in - reportedly to avoid tipping the runaways off. Hayes's mother said the pair have not been dating long, but are in love. She has also said Phillips portrayed herself as being 19 years old, and that everybody, including her son, believed her. Runaways: Phillips, left, and Hayes, 18, were last seen in Kentucky on January 4 after his mother confronted the girl about her age. Before then, she thought the girl was 19, she said . Rebels: Hayes' mother said her son also believed that 13-year-old Cheyenne was 19 . Spree: The couple has made it from Kentucky down to Florida - a distance of at least 600 miles . Describing the girl's behavior, Tammy Martin said she 'would go in and write checks, and she would come out with cigarettes and stuff, so I didn't have any reason not to believe she wasn't 19.' Speaking Friday, she urged her son to give up and 'face the consequences'. She said: 'I pretty much cry myself to sleep every night worrying about where they are and if a police officer or any random individual tries to pull them over and isn't so nice and hurts them,'. When he hit the road, Hayes was running away from trouble back home. He faces burglary and theft charges in his home county, stemming from an arrest late last year. Their crimes, which authorities say include the alleged vehicle thefts, trespassing and forging checks to get cash, are increasingly worrying. 'Victims': Kathy and Jim McGrew said they arrived home on Sunday to find the teens stealing their truck . Damage: After taking chase with the help of police, they found the damaged truck, pictured, in nearby woods . Chaffins said: 'They're going on people's property, they're forging checks to get money. ... They could have stopped in Kentucky, but they didn't.\" Since they have no source of money, he added, 'they're going to get desperate.' Before they left Kentucky, the teens dodged officers there twice. Police said they crashed the first truck they stole and hid in the woods, then later stole another truck nearby. The two were spotted Monday at a Walmart in South Carolina, where the teens are thought to have passed two stolen checks. According to police there, they were driving a car stolen from Kentucky. 'Plot': The teenagers allegedly used two forged checks to get cash back from the cashier at Walmart . Escape: The couple left in this 2006 Toyota Tacoma, which was later found dumped in Georgia . Authorities believe they then headed to Georgia and stole a pickup truck from the driveway of a man's home in Henry County, 30 miles southeast of Atlanta. He awoke Wednesday to find his vehicle was gone, along with two handguns he kept inside, Henry County police said Friday. Hours later, another truck the couple is suspected of having stolen in another state was found nearby. It had been crashed through a fence and abandoned behind a vacant building on neighboring property. Have you seen them? The young couple continue to elude authorities; if you see them, call 911 . Martin said her son texted her a few days after their disappearance to say the couple was in Mississippi. They were spotted soon after that in Kentucky, she said. 'He was just trying to throw me off,' she said. 'I'm sure he thought that I would call the police and tell them where he was.' Chaffins said the situation is getting more serious as time passes. He said: 'This is not a game to us. Our biggest fear is that Dalton is not going to stop for the police. He's going to run every time they approach him.' Moms: Phillips's mother Sherry Peters, left, and Dalton's mother Tammy Martin, right, have both begged their children to give themselves up and come home .", "Philadelphia (CNN) -- A fourth person was arrested in in the case of four mentally disabled people who were found locked in the boiler room of a Philadelphia apartment building over the weekend, police said Wednesday. The daughter of Linda Ann Weston, 51, who previously was arrested in the case, was brought in for questioning Tuesday night and was arrested early Wednesday, said Philadelphia police spokesman Officer Christine O'Brien. The woman, whose name was not given, likely will face the same charges as her mother and two other suspects, which include criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault, kidnapping, criminal trespass, unlawful restraint and false imprisonment, O'Brien said. More information will be released later Wednesday, she said. No bail had been set. On Tuesday, Philadelphia police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said a woman rescued from the boiler room claims she had two children while being held against her will, and that authorities have located 10 other potential victims. The four people, three men and a woman ranging in age from 29 to 41, were found locked in the room with no food and only a bucket for a toilet, police said. The pitch-black, 15-foot-by-6-foot space houses what police described as a boiler used to heat the building. A penetrating stench of urine and feces still hung in the chamber days after the discovery. One of the four, identified as Derwin McLemire, had been chained to the boiler, police said. While police have not released the names of the four alleged victims, they confirmed the accuracy of media reports identifying them as McLemire, Herbert Knowles, Edwin Sanabria and Tamara Breeden. Weston; Gregory Thomas, 47; and Eddie Wright, 49, were previously arrested. Authorities were investigating whether the victims' Social Security checks had been stolen, as well as several other leads. Six of the 10 new alleged victims are children, Ramsey said. Two of them, ages 2 and 5, are believed to be the children born to Breeden, police said. Authorities did not divulge how Breeden became pregnant. Another is a 19-year-old niece of Weston, Ramsey said. \"The 19-year-old has visible injuries, she may have been beaten, and she has scars all over her body,\" Ramsey said. Breeden said while she was with Weston, \"she says she gave birth to two children and we have no reason to doubt it,\" he said. Weston had identification documents for about 50 people with her when she was arrested, Ramsey said. They included Social Security cards and court documents giving power of attorney, among others. Ramsey said police must track down all of those individuals and find out what happened to them and whether they were victims. It is possible that Weston has been involved in similar activity dating back to the late 1990s, he said. \"We don't know the extent of this,\" Ramsey told CNN Tuesday. \"We do know it goes beyond the borders of Pennsylvania -- at least Texas, Florida and Virginia, and we suspect other locations as well.\" Three of the four alleged victims spoke to the media about their harrowing experience on Monday. \"That was real dirty of you. That was wrong,\" a tearful McLemire told CNN affiliate KYW , talking about his alleged captors. The alleged victims said they were beaten and were afraid of the suspects in the case. Breeden told KYW Weston hit her in the head, \"and all this was bleeding and everything.\" McLemire, Breeden and a third man, Herbert Knowles, told KYW their Social Security information was taken from them. McLemire, who said he is from North Carolina, said he met Weston on an online dating site, according to KYW. He said once he attempted to escape from a home of Weston's, \"and I didn't get away, so they got me.\" Bond for each of the three suspects was set at $2.5 million, according to the Philadelphia district attorney's office. The FBI joined the probe after detectives discovered one of the accused had traveled to at least two other states with the people found in the basement of the northeast Philadelphia apartment building, police spokesman Evers said. Weston served eight years in prison for killing her sister's boyfriend in the early 1980s, Ramsey said earlier. In that case, the victim \"was held captive for an extended period of time, locked in a closet and he literally starved to death,\" he said. \"That concerns us because obviously, she's capable of quite a bit of a lot of different things,\" he said. Asked why Weston is not still behind bars, Ramsey said Tuesday, \"That's a good question. Our legal system is what it is, but you would think that someone who's committed a crime that horrific would still be in jail. But she wasn't, and obviously she wasn't fully rehabilitated, either.\" Ramsey said he has a team of detectives working the case, and is likely to put a task force together for long-term investigation, because \"this is not one that's going to end very quickly.\" Weston is believed to have been in McLean, Texas, with some or all of the alleged captives. They then traveled to Florida and Philadelphia, Evers said. All seven had been traveling together, he said, but he did not know for how long. A preliminary hearing for the suspects on the charges and evidence in the Philadelphia case was set for October 24. No pleas were entered on Monday, with that to happen at a formal arraignment at a date yet to be set. CNN's Melanie Whitley, Tom Faust, Ross Levitt and Kyra Phillips contributed to this report.", "Karla Washington worries how she will afford new school uniforms for her five-year-old daughter. Washington, an undergraduate student, earns less than $11,000 a year from a part-time university job. The salary must cover food, rent, health care, child care and the occasional splurge on a Blue's Clues item for her only child. 'My biggest fear is not providing my daughter with everything that she needs to be a balanced child, to be independent, to be safe, to feel like she is of value,' said Washington, 41. One in five in poverty: 14.7million - or 20 per cent - of children in the U.S. live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level . Washington's economic woes are seen throughout Nevada, where the nation's highest unemployment and foreclosure rates have combined to devastate families and empty neighbourhoods and construction yards. A national study on child well-being published today found Nevada had the highest rate of children whose parents are unemployed and underemployed. The state is also home to the most children affected by foreclosures — 13 percent of all Silver State babies, toddlers and teenagers have been kicked out of their homes because of an unpaid mortgage, the study found. Across the nation, the research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that child poverty increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009. As a result, 14.7 million children, 20 per cent, were poor in 2009. That represents a 2.5million increase from 2000, when 17 per cent of the nation's youth lived in low-income homes. In the foundation's first examination of the impact of the recession on the nation's children, the researchers concluded that low-income children will likely suffer academically, economically and socially long after their parents have recovered. 'People who grew up in a financially secure situation find it easier to succeed in life, they are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to graduate from college and these are things that will lead to greater success in life,' said Stephen Brown, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 'What we are looking at is a cohort of kids who as they become adults may be less able to contribute to the growth of the economy. It could go on for multiple generations.' Poverty: Karla Washington, 41, an undergraduate student, has a five-year-old daughter but earns less than $11,000 from her part-time job . The annual survey monitored by policy makers across the nation concludes that children from low-income families are more likely to be raised in unstable environments and change schools than their wealthier peers. As a result, they are less likely to be gainfully employed as adults. There are other social costs. Economically disadvantaged children can result in reduced economic output, higher health expenditures and increased criminal justice costs for society, the survey concludes. MISSISSIPPI - 31 PER CENT . ARKANSAS - 27 PER CENT . KENTUCKY - 26 PER CENT . NEW MEXICO - 25 PER CENT . ALABAMA - 25 PER CENT . LOUISIANA - 24 PER CENT . TENNESSEE - 24 PER CENT . TEXAS - 24 PER CENT . SOUTH CAROLINA - 24 PER CENT . WEST VIRGINIA - 24 PER CENT . NORTH CAROLINA - 23 PER CENT . ARIZONA - 23 PER CENT . MICHIGAN - 23 PER CENT . OKLAHOMA - 22 PER CENT . GEORGIA - 22 PER CENT . OHIO - 22 PER CENT . MONTANA - 21 PER CENT . FLORIDA - 21 PER CENT . MISSOURI - 21 PER CENT . INDIANA - 20 PER CENT . NEW YORK - 20 PER CENT . CALIFORNIA - 20 PER CENT . SOUTH DAKOTA - 19 PER CENT . OREGON - 19 PER CENT . ILLINOIS - 19 PER CENT . KANSAS - 18 PER CENT . IDAHO - 18 PER CENT . NEVADA - 18 PER CENT . COLORADO - 17 PER CENT . MAINE - 17 PER CENT . RHODE ISLAND - 17 PER CENT . PENNSYLVANIA - 17 PER CENT . WISCONSIN - 17 PER CENT . DELAWARE - 16 PER CENT . WASHINGTON - 16 PER CENT . IOWA - 16 PER CENT . NEBRASKA - 15 PER CENT . MINNESOTA - 14 PER CENT . VIRGINIA - 14 PER CENT . HAWAII - 14 PER CENT . ALASKA - 13 PER CENT . MASSACHUSETTS - 13 PER CENT . NEW JERSEY - 13 PER CENT . VERMONT - 13 PER CENT . WYOMING - 13 PER CENT . NORTH DAKOTA - 13 PER CENT . CONNECTICUT - 12 PER CENT . UTAH - 12 PER CENT . MARYLAND - 12 PER CENT . NEW HAMPSHIRE - 11 PER CENT . The research is based on data from many sources, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Delinquency Survey and U.S. Census Bureau. 'Even if you don't care about kids and all you care about is your own well-being, then you ought to be concerned,' said Patrick McCarthy, president of the Baltimore-based charity. 'We've got to think about what kind of state, what kind of country we can expect to have if we are not investing in the success of our children.' The report found some bright spots. In the two decades since researchers began compiling the annual report, infant mortalities, child and teen deaths and high school drop-out rates have declined. But the number of unhealthy babies have increased, and there were far more children living in low-income families. Programmes such as food stamps, unemployment insurance and foreclosure meditation have acted like a dam against the flood of poverty, McCarthy said, but that assistance has been threatened by federal and state government budget cuts. Mississippi kept its overall last place ranking in child welfare for the 10th consecutive year, according to the survey. It was closely trailed by neighbouring Louisiana and Alabama, a nod to the poverty that plagues southern states. Nevada ranked 40th overall, its worst ranking in 10 years, largely because of its economic decline. The rankings are determined by a state's achievement in 10 indicators that reflect child poverty, such as undernourished infants, infant mortalities, teen births and children in single-parent families. The top state for children was New Hampshire, ahead of Minnesota, Massachusetts and Vermont. In Mississippi, 31 per cent of children were living in poverty — the highest level in the U.S. New Hampshire had the smallest population of low-income children at 11 per cent. The federal poverty level this year is $22,350 a year for a family of four, but child advocates claim that figure should be higher. Nevada, Florida, Arizona and California and other states grappling with high foreclosures rates also were home to the largest populations of children affected by the mortgage crisis. North Dakota had the fewest, followed by South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska. In all, more than 5.3million children have been affected by foreclosure, the study found. Mississippi's rankings were least affected by the recession, only because it long ago secured its worst-case standing. Overall, Mississippi ranked last in seven of the survey's child well-being indicators. 'We are really tired of being in 50th place,' said Linda Southward, a social science research professor at Mississippi State University. Less than $21,756: Karla Washington is parent to one of the 14.7million children in poverty, as defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget . She said state policy makers have closely followed the rankings and have strived to promote early education as part of its strategy to reduce overall poverty. 'We are just extremely challenged given the economic hardships that we have,' she said. Nevada, meanwhile, has long had a difficult record on child issues because of its historically low-performing schools. The Kids Count survey found 11 per cent of Nevada teens were not in school and had not graduated from high school in 2009, the worst rate in the nation. New Hampshire was best at three per cent. At least 34 per cent of Nevada's children were living in families with both parents not working full-time in 2009, the largest increase in the nation, according to the survey." ]

[ "Caitlin Owens: “Moderate Republican House members have had a much tougher recess than conservatives when it comes to Trumpcare. Members from purple districts have had to weather angry liberals and disappointed conservatives, while conservatives have largely emerged as heroes.”\n“With different factions of the GOP pointing fingers at one another, the blame game is only effective if members’ constituents are angry with their representative. Right now, it seems like the Freedom Caucus is actually being celebrated for blocking Trumpcare, which was extremely unpopular nationally.”" ]

[ "There were many reasons why Trump/Ryan Care failed beside the fact that it was a terribly naïve piece of legislation that would have pushed 24 million people off of their health insurance, but would have accomplished Paul Ryan’s main objective of cutting the tax on the very wealthy that is part of Obamacare. One can also blame the Freedom Caucus that seems unable to govern and only able to oppose everything. There was one major reason that their plan failed that has gotten very little attention: people organized and made their voices heard. Now, you can organize demonstrations to make your voice heard and turn out large numbers of people and see few results, but when it is strategically done, it can have a very major impact; that’s what happened with the health care fight.\nTrump tried to negotiate with the Freedom Caucus, which essentially consisted of Trump making a series of concessions to the extreme right wing of the Republican Congressional Caucus to try to pick off about 15 or 20 of their members. Trump was not concerned about the content of the Trump/Ryan bill and barely understood it. The bill actually failed at what Trump promised he would do with health care during the campaign. He said that he would create a great piece of legislation that would provide insurance to more Americans, provide better coverage and do so at a lower cost. The Trump/Ryan bill failed on all three counts.\nWhat Trump really wanted was the victory of repealing Obamacare and replacing it almost anything, even Ryan’s naïve bill. Hence, it was not hard for him to make a series of concessions to the far right. The problem that he had was when he made all of these concessions, he began to lose the mainstream Republicans, primarily from the suburban communities. The news outlets covered this fact, but said little about why the Republican leadership could not control the moderate wing of their caucus.\nThe Lesser Covered Story\nThe facts are finally coming out, one story at a time or one Congress member at a time. While Trump was bargaining with the Freedom Caucus, the voters back home in the districts of moderate Republicans were getting organized and getting much more assertive. Concerned citizens slowly became much better organized and made their voices heard in a very strategic way by overwhelming town hall meetings and other gatherings in the districts of moderate Republicans and some conservative Democrats. They often didn’t quit until they forced their Congress member to pledge not to support this bill that would have repealed Obamacare and eliminated insurance for 24 million people currently getting insurance.\nAs Trump made the concessions to try to buy off some of the Freedom Caucus, the folks back home were educating their neighbors and holding their Congress member’s feet to the fire. Despite Trump and Ryan’s efforts, we are still a democracy and the voters are still the bosses. Without this pressure back home on one Congress member at a time, Trump could probably have continued to make concessions and pick up votes from the Freedom Caucus with few moderate members defecting.\nOrganizing works if it is done in a smart and strategic way. This victory to preserve Obamacare belongs in large part to those average citizens who pressured their local Congress member back home and, hopefully, this is just the first victory against the Trump/Bannon/Ryan agenda. American citizens should be proud that they fought strategically and won.", "You could almost hear the collective sigh from Southington Republicans when the hearing officer released her recommendations to the Freedom of Information Commission in Hartford on Jan. 19. The local GOP, in the midst of a mass exodus, probably needed a bit of good news.\nThe FOI complaint centered around a meeting of Town Councilors that took place before the last election. A well-known local Democrat charged that a GOP election campaign caucus turned into an “illegal meeting” when a Democrat councilor was telephoned about the Columbus statue controversy. It didn’t help that all the people involved were also at the center of a highly-charged, politically controversial promotion/appointment of a high-level town official.\nClick here for copy of the report: FOI Report – FIC 2017-0469\nThe hearing officer found, after looking at the evidence, that the “illegal” meeting allegations were unproven. She determined that the Democrat was not physically at the caucus and discounted charges about the phone call to the Democrat. The proof of the call was an article in a local newspaper (not The Observer) that claimed she was called in about the “the Christopher Columbus statue over which there was some dispute in the minds of some people in the town.”\nThe “meeting” was determined to be a “caucus” based on the facts and proof presented, and that recommendation was forwarded to the FOI Commission. This was a big win for town Republicans, who really needed a big win.\nThere is definitely some truth in Mike Riccio’s assessment of the situation. Riccio, one of the Republicans named in the complaint, said the charges were politically-motivated before a town election. He called it “dirty politics” and pointed at local Democrats because the last ethics and FOI complaints were lodged during election cycles. On the other hand, ethics complaints are always politically motivated because nobody likes to point fingers at their own party until things devolve into a crisis, impasse, or mass exodus.\nWe think that, lost in this whole discussion, is a bigger issue about ethics, openness, and expectations that residents should expect from town officials. It’s between the lines in the FOI complaint. Why was it believable that Republicans called a Democrat at the caucus meeting when talk turned to the Columbus statue? Because the Democrat (along with a Republican at the caucus) were the ones spearheading the Columbus statue controversy even though they were members of the group that was proposing the project.\nSo much of the rumor, innuendo, and complaints could have been avoided if these councilors distanced themselves from any discussions about the Columbus controversy rather than leading the talks. It’s an important lesson for everyone.\nSouthington’s code of ethics says that any town official that has a “private financial or personal interest” in an issue must disclose the true nature and extent of such interest on the written record. Then they must refrain from any comment or vote on the matter and physically remove themselves from the panel until the matter has been dispensed. It would be great if ethics were considered before, not after, a discussion or vote.\nWe are in an era when town officials will have to make a lot of tough decisions. The town’s already discussing budget cuts and opening hard discussions that could lead to cutting teachers or municipal jobs. Because of the nature of these discussions, they will polarize people on both sides. It becomes even more important that officials think carefully before they vote—or even enter conversations—about staffing or anything else if they have skin in the game.\nAs long as they disclose, abstain, and leave the discussions, there will be no fuel for finger pointers after the fact.\nTo read Southington’s Code of Ethics, visit: www.ecode360.com/27540774\nTo comment on this story or to contact Southington Observer editor John Goralski, email him at JGoralski@SouthingtonObserver.com.", "Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Mark Sanford have joined forces on dismantling Obamacare and will introduce a bill Wednesday that would lift restrictions on insurers and give Americans more tax breaks for buying and using health care.\nCNN obtained a summary of the legislation Tuesday afternoon.\nThe bill is likely to garner broad support among Sanford's colleagues in the conservative House Freedom Caucus and puts considerable pressure on party leaders to move quickly on overhauling Obamacare, as they have yet to unveil a blueprint for an alternative. The Sanford-Paul legislation is intended to send a clear signal that there is no excuse for delaying a vote to roll back the health care law.\nSanford told CNN in an interview to preview the bill that it is simply not tenable for Republicans to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan.\n\"I tell my boys all the time: It's not good to enough to say what you're against. Tell me what you're for,\" Sanford said. \"It's not enough for us as Republicans to say we are against Obamacare. I think everybody's got that. The real cause for anxiety is people who (are) concerned about what comes next.\"\nPointing to the pro-Obamacare protestors and constituents who have targeted Republican lawmakers' town halls in recent weeks, Sanford said the GOP has reached an \"inflection point.\"\n\"Our simple message is we don't want to have 'Obamacare light.' That would be a mistake,\" the South Carolina congressman said. \"We've all seen the crowds in different town hall meetings. We've all gotten the emails and phone calls, and there will be a real temptation to do that based on political forces and based on political fear.\"\nSanford and fellow members on the Freedom Caucus have grown increasingly vocal in requesting that GOP leaders move swiftly to repeal Obamacare.\nOn Monday night, the group voted to urge leadership to bring to the House floor an Obamacare repeal bill that Republicans approved in 2015. That legislation called for repealing the law's taxes immediately while giving Congress two years to come up with a replacement plan. At that time, the Obamacare mandates would end funding for subsidies, and Medicaid expansion would be eliminated. (Sanford said he would oppose any Obamacare repeal bill that is less aggressive than what Republicans sent to President Barack Obama's desk in 2015).\nThe Sanford-Paul legislation is designed to work in conjunction with the repeal reconciliation bill and contains many popular Republican health care provisions.\nThe measure would allow insurers to sell a wider array of policies, including those with more limited benefits and lower premiums. It would let Americans sock away $5,000 in health savings accounts (HSA) tax free, up from $3,400 this year, while also enabling those who buy their own coverage to deduct the premiums from their incomes. It would protect those with pre-existing conditions as long as they had continuous coverage.\nThe bill would also allow people and small business owners to band together through professional associations to purchase insurance, with the goal of decreasing the cost through greater numbers. And it would permit insurers to sell policies across state lines.\nThe legislation also proposes restricting the use of taxpayer funds for abortion by banning people from using HSA funds for elective abortions.\nOne of the biggest obstacles for Sanford and Paul will be garnering bipartisan support for their bill in the Senate, where 60 votes will be required to approve Obamacare replacement measures.\n\"I'm going to focus on the House and Rand will focus on the Senate,\" Sanford said. \"We'll take one step at a time.\"\nDespite the mounting pressure from colleagues, House GOP leaders insisted Tuesday that they were taking a measured approach to overhauling Obamacare.\nHouse Speaker Paul Ryan said at a press conference that leaders are taking a \"step-by-step\" strategy on repeal and replace.\n\"We want to get it right, and we've been taking our time to do that,\" said Republican Rep. Greg Walden, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. \"You're going to see us come forward with a replacement bill after we repeal that makes sure that people have access to affordable care health for the first time.\"", "Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., speaks to residents during a town hall meeting at the Southside Community Center in Ithaca, N.Y., on March 11. (Photo: Andrew Thayer, USA TODAY Network)\nWASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of House members is working on a proposal to address the most urgent issue facing Congress when it returns in September: how to keep the government open and avoid the first-ever default on the nation’s debt.\nMembers of the Problem Solvers Caucus are drafting proposals to present to the entire 43-member caucus when Congress returns after Labor Day, said caucus co-chairman Tom Reed, R-N.Y.\nTreasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has warned congressional leaders that the government will run out of money to pay its bills by Sept. 29 unless lawmakers vote to raise the debt limit. Funding to keep the government open is set to expire two days later, on Oct. 1, unless Congress can agree on a spending deal during the approximately three weeks it will be in session in September.\n“I’m very optimistic that the caucus can come together on a consensus basis to put a proposal out in order to get through the shutdown, debt ceiling debate in a way that keeps the government open and we honor our debts,” Reed said in an interview.\nReps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., and Tom O'Halleran, D-Ariz., are working on ideas for the caucus, according to Reed's office. Reed said he expects the proposal to be fiscally motivated and call for avoiding ideological debate.\n“There’s going to have to be some type of negotiation,” he said, but members are considering a proposal that includes “good government” reforms and spending cap relief that’s acceptable to both parties.\nMore: Bipartisan House group: Stabilize health care markets with funding, less regulation\nBackground: Congress faces urgent deadlines to fund government, avert debt default\nLast month, the caucus made a breakthrough on health care, releasing principles to help address uncertainty in the individual market that’s causing insurers to hike rates and leave Obamacare’s insurance exchanges.\nReed, one of President Trump’s earliest supporters in Congress, said he is discussing the health care proposal with the Trump administration and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will begin holding health care hearings in September.\nContributing: Erin Kelly\nRead or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2wY5dgD", "It's been one year since Hurricane Matthew devastated the tiny town of Princeville. The mighty storm forced millions of gallons of water to swell past a levee along the Tar River, flooding most of the historic African-American community.\nWhen you drive up and down the streets of Princeville today, there are many signs of Hurricane Matthew’s aftermath. The fire station remains empty except for some old, soiled uniforms. The museum next door is closed. So is the only elementary school and the Town Hall.\nPrinceville Mayor Bobbie Jones often stops by the Town Hall, even though he hasn't officiated business there in a year. Outside the building is a sign that reads, “Princeville is Coming Back.” Jones looks a little thinner and grayer since Matthew hit.\n\"I wonder why?\" laughs Jones. \"I'm trying to get my people home. And it’s a long, tedious process. But progress is being made so we’re hopeful they’ll be home soon.”\nPrinceville’s mostly black population is usually around 2,200 people, but many residents have not returned yet. It is believed nearly half of the town’s residents were initially displaced by Matthew’s floodwaters.\nLeoneda Inge reports on the Town of Princeville, one year after it was flooded by Hurricane Matthew.\nLast weekend, town leaders organized what looked like a welcome home celebration to let residents know they’re still here. They even sang a song called the \"Princeville Anthem,\" that went like this:\n“Oh Freedom, Freedom Hill, we built thee round by round. From thy bosom Princeville came, birthed from your hallowed ground.”\nThe brand new \"Princeville Anthem\" and a new Princeville flag, waving outside the condemned Town Hall, were born after Matthew’s wrath.\n“Today we just want to do something to lift your spirits and just to say 'Join hands, and pull through this together',\" said Town Commissioner Linda Joyner. \"Because this is the only way we will make it back, by doing this together.”\nThe Town of Princeville has some big decisions to make. When Hurricane Floyd destroyed the town 18 years ago, officials voted not to accept a buy-out and move to higher ground.\nThis time, post Matthew, the state of North Carolina is planning to purchase 52 acres to extend Princeville’s boundaries and encourage development on higher ground. It is two miles from the town’s historic Freedom Hill, where former slaves sought refuge after the Civil War.\n“So it means a lot to me, I do not want to have to move off of that land, you know,\" said Princeville native Jeanell Person.\nPerson was born and raised in Princeville, a couple of blocks from Freedom Hill. She left for several years but moved back after her father died. After Matthew, her family was displaced for almost seven months. Still, Person wants to stay put.\n“My father, he had like a ninth grade education and he couldn’t read and write and so him and my mom struggled to keep that land there and I don’t want to move from where I am,” said Person.\nA group of well-seasoned landscape architects and planners from across the country, along with graduate students and other experts, have come up with drawings and design-options to be considered for the 52-acre site.\nKofi Boone is a professor of Landscape Architecture at N.C. State and was a part of the Princeville workshop. Boone says Princeville residents expected work by the Army Corps of Engineers would have minimized flooding.\n“We are Americans as well. We deserve that level of safety and protection just like everybody else. So that tendency to say, 'No, we don’t want to relocate, you all need to do your job,' is a reasonable response by a community,” said Boone.\nBut Princeville has flooded twice in nearly 20 years.\nGavin Smith, professor of City and Regional Planning at UNC Chapel Hill, is leading the design project. He and Boone say moving critical facilities like the fire department, to less vulnerable land is a real option. Smith says he understands the need to link that site to Princeville’s history.\n“There is unbelievable history and culture in the town but if you were to drive through it without really knowing, you might just drive through and see the one sign that says Freedom Hill,” said Smith.\nAnd with the 52 acres being adjacent to Highway 64, business options could open up, helping a tax base that is mostly reliant on home owners.\nMayor Bobbie Jones can see businesses and a new housing development constructed on the 52 acres. But not the Town Hall.\n“It does not make sense for us to move the Town Hall and ask the citizens to come back but we’re not coming back. What message are we sending?\" said Jones. \"If we move the Town Hall, but tell the citizens to come back, are we saying that the town is not safe?”\nThe design options have not been approved yet. Maybe one plan will include an elevated Town Hall, overlooking Freedom Hill.", "Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan has confirmed that he is looking to run for House speaker when current Speaker Paul Ryan departs at the end of the year.\nThis puts Jordan up alongside the other principal candidates, current Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., whom Ryan has endorsed as his successor, and Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La.\nJordan co-founded the House Freedom Caucus in 2015 with eight other conservative Republicans. He explained then that the motivation for founding the caucus was to give “a voice to countless Americans who feel that Washington does not represent them. We support open, accountable and limited government, the Constitution, and the rule of law and policies that promote liberty, safety, and prosperity for all Americans.”\nThe caucus now has more than 30 members and has dug in as a unified bloc fighting for exactly those principles Jordan articulated at its founding. Most recently, the caucus opposed the $1.3 trillion spending bill passed by Congress and urged President Trump to veto it.\nIn addition to being a fiscal and constitutional conservative, Jordan is also a stalwart pro-life Republican and has been on the front lines fighting to defund Planned Parenthood.\nIn other words, he stands for what I call the three C’s that have been the pillars of American success and greatness.\nChristianity, Capitalism and the Constitution.\nFor this reason, I find the prospect of Jordan running for House speaker of great interest.\nIn a recent Fox radio interview, Jordan put it best by saying that in order to win, Republicans “have to fight for things. All too often Republicans want to forfeit even before the referee blows the whistle to start the game. … Let’s not forfeit, let’s go have the debate.”\nBut it’s not just a matter of the fight. It’s what the fight is about.\nCertainly, in 2015, when the House Freedom Caucus was formed, few would have predicted that Donald Trump would be sitting in the White House today.\nTrump’s appeal to make America great again spoke to the frustration among many Americans that we’ve lost touch with our American “exceptionalism.” This is the sense that we are not like other nations – that something special and vitally important is going on here. And that this “something” is what has given the nation strength, prosperity and leadership.\nUnlike other nations, American identity is about aspiration, not fate. Geography, ethnicity or circumstances of birth do not define America – ideals and principles do.\nThese ideals define the struggle that is taking place today.\nMany want to drag us down to the lowest common denominator when we should be fighting for our highest aspirations.\nAs we teeter on fiscal and moral bankruptcy, it’s the three C’s – Christianity, Capitalism and the Constitution – that shine like a lighthouse in the night to guide our ship of state in the direction we need to be headed.\nThose who founded the nation, fired up by those ideals, appealed, in the Declaration of Independence, to the “Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions (and) with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”\nOf course, Jim Jordan faces an uphill struggle to achieve the 218 votes necessary to achieve the House speakership.\nBut when Jordan says he’s ready to fight for it, and that we shouldn’t forfeit the game before it starts, he’s not just tapping into the dissatisfaction of the nation. He’s tapping into what defines the nation and its spirit.\nThe possibility of bringing the spirit of the Freedom Caucus to lead the House, as Jordan will do, is an exciting development.", "Republicans have reached a gut check moment: After spending more than six years vowing to fix the flagging patient that is Obamacare, it’s the GOP’s own repeal effort that’s on life support.\nUndoing the health care law despised by conservatives seemed to be a straightforward proposition for the party after it won the White House and kept both chambers of Congress. Instead, Republicans are sniping over how much of the law to scrap, what to replace it with and when. At this moment, it's far from a sure thing any plan could get through Congress.\nStory Continued Below\nConsider Paul Ryan's feel-good meeting with Senate Republicans on Tuesday. The House speaker trekked across the Capitol to reassure senators that lawmakers are making more progress toward repealing the health care law than the media is reporting.\nBut not everyone was buying it. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) left before it was over, having heard enough about keeping Obamacare's Medicaid expansion intact and creating tax credits that he called a \"new entitlement program.\"\n“I hear things that are unacceptable to me,” Paul said in an interview afterward. “If they don’t seem to care what conservatives think about complete repeal of Obamacare, they’re going to be shocked when they count the votes.”\nRyan’s efforts precede Wednesday’s visit by newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who will attend lunch with Senate Republicans, ostensibly to articulate President Donald Trump’s position. In addition, Republicans are pressing Price to do as much as he can through executive action to buy them time to come to a consensus this spring.\nIt may take a direct intervention from Trump to get the party's warring factions in line.\n“It’s hard to see how this gets done unless the president says, ‘OK, let’s do it this way,’” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a key committee chairman on Obamacare.\nBut it's been awhile since Republicans have heard something substantive from Trump on Obamacare. When the president last weighed in constructively, he was prompted by Paul's appearance on a cable news show, during which he railed against efforts to repeal the law without a replacement. Trump called up Paul to offer his support.\nAt first, Trump’s call to repeal and replace simultaneously disrupted the party — which at the time was intent on repealing now and figuring out the rest later. But eventually, they came around to Trump's apparent position and stopped sniping for a few weeks. Now that the party is back in disarray, no one is quite sure what Trump wants. They're straining to read the tea leaves from a president whose latest statements about Obamacare have confused the timeline and offered no clear direction.\n“Right now, I would say it's not that easy to repeal it. I don't know if it's a guarantee,” said Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). “I don't know where the White House is. The president has said he's not going to be kicking people off the program, off the rolls. He's not going to do that.”\nSpeaking at the White House alongside Ryan, Trump said simply: “We're working on Obamacare. It will be very soon.\" That did nothing to clear up the ambiguity.\nThe main dividing line is between centrist-minded lawmakers urging caution and deliberation — Alexander is a leader of that faction — and conservatives demanding action now.\nIt appeared that the take-it-slow camp was winning out just last weekend. Republicans increasingly gravitated toward an approach that would stuff as many replacement provisions into a repeal bill as possible, taking advantage of a parliamentary tool that allows them to avoid a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. But that approach takes time — for one, to figure out whether the proposal complies with Senate rules — and the House Freedom Caucus grew antsy.\nNow the Freedom Caucus — in tandem with Paul, who's been meeting with the rowdy band of conservatives regularly — are pushing for another vote on a 2015 repeal bill vetoed by President Barack Obama. That was originally the starting point for Republicans after the election. But now some Republican senators are wary, because there's no guarantee it would be replaced with something satisfactory to millions of their constituents.\nThe divide has put Republican leaders in a serious jam.\n“It’s hard,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “If it were just up to me, I’d have the plan tomorrow.”\nRyan tried to offer a soothing message to Senate Republicans on Tuesday afternoon. He laid out a timeline that would have the House GOP start the repeal process by the end of February and pass a bill by the end of March, attendees said. Vice President Mike Pence also attended the meeting but said nothing about Obamacare, senators said.\nBut Ryan’s reassurances only served to paper over real differences of opinion among Republicans. The party has little room to maneuver, with a narrow 52-48 majority in the Senate and a bloc of Freedom Caucus members in the House that could, in theory, block the GOP’s repeal efforts.\nStill, senior House Republicans believe they still have the upper hand, if for no other reason that it will be extremely difficult for any GOP member to oppose Obamacare repeal legislation, even if it's not entirely to their liking.\n“It’s very hard to vote against repeal of Obamacare in any form no matter who you are or where you are on the Republican spectrum,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.).\nIf Republicans took the Paul-Freedom Caucus approach, there’s little chance that senators from states that have expanded Medicaid under Obamacare would go for it. The conservatives' plan would allow for two-year transition time away from Medicaid. But 20 GOP senators are from expansion states and they want more time and stability for hundreds of thousands of constituents that rely on Medicaid now for insurance.\n‘There are certain aspects of a repeal mechanism that are extremely important to me. And that Medicaid expansion piece is one,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).\nWhile Trump could conceivably whip the competing GOP factions into line, some GOP officials privately say they've been tuning him out. The president's shifting public statements sometimes don't match what aides are saying behind the scenes. Trump has called Ryan to discuss about health care on a number of occasions, and Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, has expressed interest in the subject, said several people familiar with the matter.\nAt one recent meeting, Trump referred questions about Obamacare to Ryan \"for the details,\" according to a person present.\nAt a recent Congressional retreat, Andrew Bremberg, a senior policy adviser in the White House, gave remarks to aides and members. But several people who attended the briefing said it was clear the White House didn't have most of the specifics figured out.\nGOP leaders may be able to arrive at a bill without Trump. But selling it to congressional Republicans and the public requires a microphone that only Trump has. Congress is about to head home to more town halls filled with constituents who are worried about their healthcare.\n“Statements from the White House about it, frankly, would be helpful,” said Rep. Carlos Curbelo, a moderate Florida Republican.\nRepublicans said that Price's word is as good as Trump's on Obamacare, giving him an important assignment on Wednesday. But when Price addresses Senate Republicans on Wednesday, Paul, for one, won’t be there. He’s scheduled to give a press conference at that time with Freedom Caucus members about his bare-bones Obamacare replacement.", "FIL PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump talks to journalists at the Oval Office of the White House after the AHCA health care bill was pulled before a vote in Washington, U.S. March 24, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo\nWASHINGTON President Donald Trump declared war on members of his own party on Thursday by threatening the political careers of conservative Republicans who helped torpedo healthcare legislation he backed, but was quickly told the lawmakers will not bow to \"bullying.\"\nIn a Twitter post, Trump took aim at the Freedom Caucus, a bloc of the most conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, indicating he would try to defeat them in next year's congressional elections if they continued to defy him.\n\"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!\" Trump said on Twitter.\nBecause Trump faces unified opposition by Democratic lawmakers, he cannot afford to lose many Republicans as he tries to get his legislative agenda through Congress, including healthcare, tax cuts and infrastructure spending. But keeping Freedom Caucus members happy without losing the votes of Republican moderates has proven tough.\nRepresentative Justin Amash, a Freedom Caucus member from Michigan, shot back immediately at Trump in remarks outside the U.S. Capitol.\n\"Most people don't take well to being bullied,\" Amash told reporters. Asked if Trump's comments were constructive, Amash added: \"It's constructive in fifth grade. It may allow a child to get his way, but that's not how our government works.\"\nSince launching his presidential bid in 2015, Trump has shown little reluctance to assail fellow Republican political adversaries as well as Democrats, often in scathing terms.\nTrump, a real estate magnate who touted his skills as a dealmaker in his White House campaign, previously accused Freedom Caucus lawmakers of snatching \"defeat from the jaws of victory\" with their opposition to Republican healthcare legislation he supported to replace Democratic former President Barack Obama's 2010 Affordable Care Act.\nTrump went farther on Thursday. He equated members of his own party with the opposition Democrats, reflecting the extent to which he felt betrayed by the conservative lawmakers after the collapse of his first major legislative initiative.\nRepublican House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters, \"I understand the president's frustration,\" adding that he shared the frustration. Ryan said he was encouraging Republican lawmakers \"to keep talking to one another.\"\nThe mistrust between the White House and hardline conservatives in Congress has called into question the next big item on Trump's agenda, sweeping tax cuts.\n'BIG THINGS COMING'\nOhio Representative Jim Jordan, a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, offered a more measured response to Trump's remarks and avoided direct criticism of the president. Jordan said Republicans need to figure out how to work together to confront looming battles including the federal budget, appropriations and raising the U.S. debt ceiling.\n\"Look, I'm not here to assign blame to anyone,\" Jordan told the \"Fox & Friends\" program. \"I actually think we better get this right because there are a lot of big things coming.\"\n\"We better get it right now, figure out how we're going to work together to do what we told the American people we were going to do, and not just pass a bill that no one supports.\"\nRepublicans presented a unified front against Obama but have struggled to come together and support specific legislative proposals since Trump took office in January.\nFreedom Caucus members opposed the Trump-backed healthcare legislation in part because they said parts were too similar to the Obamacare law it was supposed to replace. The called age-based tax credits in the bill intended to help people buy medical insurance an unwise new federal entitlement.\nRyan said in an interview aired earlier on Thursday he feared the Republican Party is pushing the president toward the Democrats so Trump can make good on campaign promises on an overhaul of the healthcare system.\n\"I don't want that to happen,\" Ryan told the CBS program \"This Morning\" program, referring to Trump's offer to work with Democrats.\nSome conservatives outside the Freedom Caucus bristled at Trump's remarks about the bloc.\n\"I think he's still just negotiating,\" said Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky conservative who is not in the Freedom Caucus but close to some of its members.\nAsked if this was a productive strategy by Trump to get Freedom Caucus members on board, Massie said, \"We're on his side. We just feel like he's been misled on Swampcare,\" referring to the healthcare legislation championed by Ryan.\nAmash depicted Trump as now beholden to the Washington establishment.\n“It didn't take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump,” Amash wrote on Twitter. \"No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment.\"\nOn Tuesday, Trump expressed optimism about getting healthcare legislation through Congress despite the failure of the House bill last Friday, telling a gathering of senators \"that's such an easy one\" and that he expected lawmakers to reach a deal \"very quickly.\" Trump did not offer specifics, and White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Wednesday said Trump's comments came during a \"light-hearted\" moment.\n(Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Susan Cornwell Tim Ahmann, Amanda Becker, David Alexander; Editing by Will Dunham)", "Conservatives in Congress looking to extract some spending cuts in exchange for supporting an increase in the statutory debt ceiling may soon enough find themselves out of luck.\nWhy? Because at least for the moment, cooler heads are prevailing, and those who understand the implications of playing a game of chicken with the federal fisc are winning the day.\nThankfully.\nFailing to raise the debt ceiling would likely be catastrophic, causing financial markets across the globe to melt down, and plunging the world into a prolonged recession.\nWhen Congress returns to Washington next month following its summer recess, there'll be a mere dozen working days on the legislative calendar before the Treasury Department is expected to run up against the federal borrowing limit. Twelve working days to disaster.\nAs we've explained in this space before, a vote to increase the debt ceiling is a vote to pay the bills. Nothing more, and nothing less.\nThere are some who tend mistakenly to believe that the vote, which comes around now and again as part of routine business, is a vote to spend more taxpayer money. Nope. Those decisions were made already.\nWe'd like to think that everyone in Congress understands this. Some, however, seem to act as though they don't. Perhaps they are endeavoring to appeal to those who are confused about the process. Maybe they are just playing dumb in an effort to try to get some of what they want.\nWhen Congress votes to boost the debt ceiling, it is merely doing what it needs to do to make good on its financial obligations. That's it. When it does so without attaching that vote to something else, it's referred to as a \"clean\" increase. All debt-ceiling increases should be in that category.\nWith Republicans in the majority in both houses of Congress and with a nominal Republican in the White House, there really should be no problem in raising the debt ceiling this time around. (There really ought not be a problem even when government is divided, but that's wishing too much in our current era of rampant dysfunction on Capitol Hill.)\nIn recent years, when Democratic President Barack Obama was in the White House, the so-called Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives would sometimes vow not to vote for a debt-ceiling increase unless they got all sorts of concessions. This group of Republicans, of course, some three dozen strong, is made up mostly of those who don't want the government to do much of anything at all - except to cut spending, that is.\nBut, one could hope, with some wiser heads in key positions in the administration, the strength of the Freedom Caucus ought to be greatly diminished.\nBut there's a sour note for those who tend to look for potential clouds, even on the sunniest of days: Back when he was a representative from South Carolina, Mick Mulvaney, now director of the Office of Management and Budget, was one of the founding members of the radical Freedom Caucus.\nAt the moment, he seems to have been largely silenced by those who understand fully that playing with the debt ceiling is playing with fire. But there remain not a few in our government's legislative branch who share his wrongheaded beliefs about the federal debt.\nTo these folk, toying with the full faith and credit of the United States can seem a game. A game they can win. It most decidedly isn't.\nWhen Congress is back on the job, it should vote to increase the debt limit - quickly, cleanly, without drama - putting any potential foolishness about failing to raise the ceiling in the rearview mirror.", "(Adds Schweikert comment)\nBy Roberta Rampton, Richard Cowan and Amanda Becker\nWASHINGTON, March 29 Raw feelings and mistrust could pose an obstacle to President Donald Trump and hard-line conservative lawmakers in his Republican Party as they seek to rebound from defeat on healthcare legislation by launching into an overhaul of the U.S. tax code.\nTrump has accused the Freedom Caucus lawmakers of snatching a \"defeat from the jaws of victory\" with their rejection of the White House-backed healthcare bill to replace President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare reform bill.\nIn interviews with 10 of the roughly three dozen House Freedom Caucus members, the lawmakers said they were eager to put aside tensions over the healthcare debacle and seek common ground on tax reform.\nBut there is no consensus, even within the conservative faction, on details of a tax-reform bill, with some members open to discussing ideas such as the border tax plan supported by House leaders and others opposed to it.\nRepresentative Warren Davidson, a Freedom Caucus member from Ohio, said Republicans should leave aside the blame game and work through their policy differences before launching tax reform legislation.\n\"Some people are still in that hurt-feelings and frustration\" stage, Davidson said. \"I do think it's smart to take the time to get it right.\"\nRepublican Representative David Schweikert of Arizona, a Freedom Caucus lawmaker who sits on the tax-writing House of Representative Ways and Means Committee, could emerge as a bridge between the conservative faction and House leaders. The panel will work closely with House leadership on the tax bill.\nSchweikert said he planned to consult with rank-and-file members to discuss plans and listen to their priorities.\nHe said giving companies incentives to invest in plants and equipment was one of the items on his own wish list.\n“My personal fixation is very simple: What maximizes economic growth?” Schweikert said.\nCUTS, CUTS AND MORE CUTS\nRepresentative Mark Meadows, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said the group has \"no formal position\" on the structure of tax reform legislation.\nBut Meadows listed the top priorities on his own wish list: \"Lower taxes, lower taxes and lower taxes.\"\nA 35-page blueprint developed by House Republican leaders, known as a \"Better Way,\" will serve as a starting point for the tax-reform discussions.\nThe plan calls for streamlining the income tax system and cutting the corporate income tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. It would exclude export revenue from taxable income and impose a 20 percent tax on imports.\nThe border tax proposal has divided the business community and is a top flashpoint for lawmakers. Big exporters such as General Electric Co say the tax would boost manufacturing and jobs. But retailers like Target Corp have said the border tax would hike consumer prices and hurt the economy.\nTrump, a businessman who had never been in public office until he took over at the White House on Jan. 20, has at times praised the border tax idea but at other times has been noncommittal.\nVirginia Congressman Dave Brat said he would insist that the tax bill not add to the deficit, while Meadows said he would not necessarily insist on that.\nOther conservatives said they needed more information about the tax bill to form an opinion - and some space from the contentious health care debate.\n“We just had a major battle on a Republican welfare plan and that has consumed to a large degree my time and mental effort,\" said Alabama Representative Mo Brooks.\n\"When we have a tax reform bill I can evaluate, that's when I'll start voting on it,\" Brooks said.\nAs a sign of tensions that have lingered after the collapse of the healthcare bill, Freedom Caucus lawmakers faced tough questioning from their colleagues during a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, said Representative Randy Weber of Texas.\nBut Weber said some of the friction eased by the end of the meeting, prompting House Speaker Paul Ryan to say that more give and take might have been useful in the healthcare effort.\n\"Ryan said: 'This is what we should have been doing,'\" Weber told Reuters.\nRepublican Representative Ken Buck of Colorado, a member of the Freedom Caucus, said he thinks lawmakers learned lessons from the healthcare defeat that could apply to tax reform.\n\"I think people are going to work harder to get to 'yes' this next piece of legislation,\" Buck said.\nA Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Wednesday showed Republicans mostly blame Congress, and not Trump or party leaders, for failing to pass the healthcare overhaul.\n(Editing by Caren Bohan and Alistair Bell)", "Who’s the biggest loser crawling out of the smoldering wreckage of the Republican replacement for the Affordable Care Act—Donald Trump or Paul Ryan? Who cares?\nThe important part is that 24 million Americans whose health insurance Republicans targeted for destruction and millions more who would have faced soaring premiums for much worse insurance have won.\nPerhaps even more important, Trump, who ran for president pretending to be a brilliant corporate dealmaker, and Ryan, chosen as House Speaker for glibly making right-wing extremism sound palatable, both were exposed as complete frauds.\nTrump made a show of coming in as the celebrated “closer” to convince Republicans to risk their political careers to support a plan being angrily denounced by their shouting constituents in packed town halls. It quickly became obvious to skeptical Republicans Trump had little idea what was really in the bill he once falsely claimed would cover everybody in the country at a fraction of the cost of so-called Obamacare.\nRyan, Trump’s partner-in-crime who actually wrote the bill, knew exactly what was in it. He gushed publicly it was the beginning of the extreme right-wing restructuring of government he’d been dreaming about for his entire career.\nWith Republicans controlling the presidency and both houses of Congress, everyone looked a lot more closely at Ryan’s health care plan than his previous destructive proposals for Social Security and Medicare, which never had any chance of passing. They saw a terrible bill widely described even by rational Republicans as one of the worst pieces of legislation ever to be introduced in Congress. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the Republican plan would result in even more Americans without health insurance than in the bad old days before the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.\nThen, unbelievably, Trump and Ryan, attempting to win votes from the irrational right-wing Freedom Caucus, made their bill even worse. They removed a section of the bill requiring insurers to cover 10 “essential health services” including care for pregnant women and newborns and treatment for drug addiction and mental illness.\nBy the time Trump and Ryan finally gave up in defeat and withdrew the bill without a vote, only 17% of Americans supported the Republican plan in the most recent public poll.\nGOP Incompetence Good News for America\nThe crushing defeat was a resounding victory for tens of millions of Americans. Republicans, who claimed for seven years that replacing the Affordable Care Act was their first priority, had no idea how to do it. Trump, who promised a “terrific” magical plan to replace it on Day One, didn’t have a clue.\nThe total incompetence of Trump, Ryan and other Republican leaders in passing their destructive legislation was the best news for America since November. Trump showed he’d learned absolutely nothing from the legislative disaster, saying he would simply move on to tax reform because it was easier.\nIt’s not. It’s harder. Trump and Republicans are certainly eager to cut taxes for the wealthy, but there’s a very good reason why reform of tax rates hasn’t been attempted since Ronald Reagan’s presidency in 1986. The only way to lower tax rates without bankrupting the nation is to replace the enormous amount of lost revenue by closing those tricky loopholes major corporations and individual billionaires like Trump use to avoid paying any taxes at all for many years. That’s why tax reform brings every special interest group on the planet out of the woodwork to fight against losing their favorite loopholes.\nThe whole point of the Republican health care plan wasn’t to provide health care — obviously. It was to slash nearly a trillion in taxes over the next 10 years for wealthy individuals and corporations that provide the subsidies to help Americans buy insurance. And it failed miserably.\nAnti-government Republicans are just as hostile to Trump’s other publicly proclaimed legislative priorities—spending tens of billions of dollars on a worthless Mexican wall and nearly a trillion dollars to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.\nThere’s no reason to believe Ryan will be any more successful in getting the “Just Vote No” Freedom Caucus to support that legislation. That’s why Trump is suddenly talking about working with Democrats to pass bipartisan legislation on health care and other issues.\nSince he’s a pathological liar with a limited attention span, Trump has never been terribly reliable at predicting what Trump might do next. But Democrats should immediately introduce bipartisan legislation with moderate Republicans to improve the Affordable Care Act, including a public option to increase competition with private companies to lower costs.\nMore than anything else, Trump wants to be a winner. If he sticks with Ryan trying to get right-wing extremists and more moderate Republicans to agree on anything, health care could be just the beginning, in a twist on one of his own campaign clichés, of losing so much that Trump is going to get tired of losing.", "I have to confess that I am really steaming today! And it is not from a yummy cup of hot chocolate!\nI have been trying to get to the bottom of the embarrassing refusal of the highest ranking US Senator of Veterans Affairs Committee, US Senator Bernie Sanders from holding a town hall meeting in a WV National Armory!!!\nThere are a number of things that are out of compliance but it isn't Senator Sanders proposed use of the Armory.\n1. The cancellation took place Friday---too late to find a new venue for a Monday Morning town hall meeting in McDowell.\nThere are few places left in McDowell where such a meeting could be held other than the Armory---perhaps the High School but school is in session on Monday Mornings!\n2. The reason given for cancelling the Town Hall Meeting was a \"guidance policy\" NOT a LAW not even a REGULATION but a \"guidance policy\" that supposedly existed at the DOD which suggested that political events even a Town Hall Meeting (which is actually one of the few times citizens get a chance to participate in democracy because it is a question and answer session on the issues)if it is political should not be held in Armories.\nIn discussion with General Gilliam at the WV National Guard he stated that when someone from MSNBC asked what party affiliation the attendees were that made it political. Asking questions about the audience is actually called getting the demographics of the audience. It is done to make certain that you are not getting a skewed response. That the attendees are a broad based representation of the population of McDowell!\nIt is common for focus groups or reporters to get the demographics of a group (the make-up of the audience). The entire world is curious about the people of WV because of their voting overwhelmingly for Bernie in the primary and then Trump in the general.\n3. Even if this \"guidance policy\" which obviously is discretionary ( meaning that the WV National Guard could choose to follow it or not because it was reported that Trump the candidate had a fundraiser in a New Jersey Armory during the election cycle of 2016!!!) were in place, to call a Town Hall meeting after the election political because the hosting agency wants a cross section of McDowell residents or wants to know the demographics of the audience is not only ludicrous but insulting to the intelligence of our citizens!\n4. When I spoke with General Gilliam spokesperson for the WV National Guard on this issue, I asked him to email a copy of the \"guidance policy\" because as a former law maker I know that legally there is a world of difference in the legality of an action depending on the language of the \"guidance policy.\" He refused! He told me that I would have to FOIA it!! To get a freedom of information act (FOIA) costs money!\n5. My question to General Hoyer and the WV National Guard is this: If the guidance policy is clear proof that you took appropriate action why would you not simply email the \"guidance policy\" to enquiring citizens?\n6. I give the WV National Guard A+++ for their handling of the flood disaster in WV and I know that General Hoyer and I feel certain that General Gilliam are honorable men but their taking away the free speech of McDowell Co. Citizens and the free speech of the ranking Senator on US Veterans Affairs Committee strikes at the very heart of a democratic republic! The basic tenet of any democracy is freedom of speech!!!\nThis politically motivated silencing of United States of American Citizens and the citizens of WV should not be tolerated!!!\nThe hypocrisy of fighting wars for democracy abroad and stopping democracy at home should be cause for alarm for any freedom loving American!\nGovernor Justice and the WV National Guard owe the people of WV, US Senator Bernie Sanders, and the people of America a public apology for their assault on democracy and its basic tenet---freedom of speech!", "The military says it foiled an attempt of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters to occupy the town hall of Datu Paglas town after a 9-hour operation that included air strikes on Tuesday, July 3\nPublished 3:57 PM, July 04, 2018\nMANILA, Philippines – Clashes between government troops and the separatist Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) reached a town center in Maguindanao on Tuesday, July 3, as the military continues aggressive operations to hunt down groups linked with the Islamic State (ISIS).\nThe military said it foiled an attempt to occupy the town hall of Datu Paglas town after a 9-hour operation on Tuesday, July 3, that deployed air force assets for air strikes.\nThree soldiers were “slightly wounded” due to shrapnel and bullet wounds, the military said.\n“Combined Army and police forces had blocked the attempt of ISIS-inspired terrorist group in occupying the seat of the municipal government here on Tuesday,” said Lieutenant Colonel Harold M Cabunoc, commanding officer of the 33rd Infantry Battalion that led the operation.\nCabunoc said clashes with the group of BIFF sub-leader Sulaiman Tudon erupted at 5 am on Tuesday.\n“The troops attacked the enemy-held cluster of concrete houses in Sitio Mopac of Barangay Poblacion, an area that is about 500 meters from the municipal hall. Supported by armored vehicles and infantry mortars, the house-to-house close quarter battle lasted about 9 hours in an area that is located in the middle of a rice field,” Cabunoc said.\n“We confronted enemy snipers and improvised bombs as we seized the areas that are previously occupied by the terrorists. We also wanted to contain the fighting outside of the highly populated area some 500 meters away,” Cabunoc said.\nLeaders of the BIFF, a breakaway faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), have pledged allegiance to ISIS, based on their video releases.\nThe group is one of the threats that the government cited when it asked Congress to extend martial law in Mindanao until the end of 2018. (READ: End martial law? Lorenzana warns vs another Marawi) – Rappler.com", "Voters head to the polls in Alabama on Tuesday for the state's Republican U.S. Senate primary.\nThe race to fill Attorney General Jeff Sessions' former seat has featured an endorsement from President Donald Trump and attacks on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. In Alabama, a deep-red state that overwhelmingly backed Trump, the Republican who emerges from the field will most likely win the special election.\nSeveral Republicans vie for the seat, but only three are considered serious contenders: Luther Strange, Roy Moore and Mo Brooks. Strange, the incumbent, was appointed to fill the Senate seat in February after Sessions became the top U.S. law enforcement official.\nAn average of recent polls shows Moore, a controversial former judge, with about 32 percent of support; followed by Strange, with roughly 27 percent; and Brooks, a congressman from Alabama and member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, with about 18 percent, according to RealClearPolitics. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, the top two go to a runoff next month.", "Multiple members of Congress said that there was an uptick of threats coming into their offices both before and after Wednesday morning’s shooting at a US House Republican baseball practice.\nA gunman allegedly opened fire on the practice in Virginia Wednesday morning, forcing Republican members of Congress to take cover. Rep. Steve Scalise, the number three Republican in House leadership, was shot along with two Capitol Police officers and congressional aide and a lobbyist, according to law enforcement. President Trump said the assailant had died from his wounds.\nMultiple Democratic members said during a members-only security briefing that they had gotten calls following the shooting saying, \"You guys are next,” California Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragan told BuzzFeed News.\nBarragan said more than one of her Democratic colleagues said during the briefing that they had received those and other threatening calls on their personal phones following the shooting. Barragan did not receive one herself, and would not name those who did, citing their safety.\nOne of the calls went to “a member who was not on the [Democratic baseball] team,” Barragan said, “and other Democratic members expressed concern that they were getting calls saying, ‘You Democrats, you Democrats.’”\nBarragan added that the police told members they will follow up on all of the “leads.” The Capitol Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.\nOne Republican members said that he received multiple threats before Wednesday morning’s shooting as well, and that he had reported them to authorities.\nArizona Rep. David Schweikert, a Republican who is not on the baseball team, told reporters that his office had filed four threat assessments on Tuesday, the day before the shooting, based on people emailing and calling his office. He said one of those threats was “wishing my little girl is dead.”\n“In the past we’ve always sort of just sucked it up, we’ve sucked it up and just, ‘oh that’s not real.’ But you’ve got to understand, there’s something wrong,” Schweikert told reporters.\nSome members raised concerns about security in a House briefing Wednesday, after the shooting, according to North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker, the team’s starting pitcher who was present for the shooting Wednesday. \"There were some concerns about the potential of upgrading members of Congress's security where you can have some funding to be able to take care of protection,” Walker said.\nRep. Charlie Crist added that members raised the possibility of something like the security for the federal judiciary. “When a federal judge gets nominated and approved by the Senate, then like immediately there are surveillance and equipment that are dispatched to protect their well-being and their family's well-being. That's just one idea that was thrown out this morning,” he told reporters.\nNew York Rep. Joe Crowley, the chair of the Democratic Caucus, told BuzzFeed News that he supports an increase in security, and has discussed it for his New York office, but the threat of violence is something members of Congress \"have been dealing with for quite some time.”\n\"We are public officials part of our shtick is to draw attention to ourselves so we will always be mindful of [the danger of that],” Crowley said, “but I am more concerned about the safety of my staff.\"\nCrowley added that though he will not change his behavior because of the shooting, he thinks he and his fellow members of government have a lesson to learn from today about the importance of their rhetoric.\n\"I think overall there should be more of a sense of the importance of what we say and how it is interpreted from the top down,\" Crowley said. \"We have a responsibility and the President has a responsibility to understand the rhetoric and what we say has consequences.\"\nPennsylvania Rep. Lou Barletta, a Republican, said security is always something members of Congress think about — especially when they're out in public at town halls and other meetings.\n\"You have to worry about doing town hall meetings, not only for your own safety but for the safety of people that go,” Barletta said. “And your staff, I worry about my staff who take a lot of the abuse from people. I just think nationally the rhetoric has gotten too hateful.\"\nHouse Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Mark Meadows said the House will “look at additional protocols on security in the future,\" he said.\n\"I think basically whenever you have a number of members high-profile targets out there, having some type of security will be key.\"\nDespite Wednesday’s shooting and alleged threats, the annual Congressional Baseball Game will go on Thursday night, with heightened security. The more than 100-year-old event pits Democrats against Republicans in a friendly match for charity at Nationals Park.", "The White House has made raising the debt ceiling this fall seem like a simple task, but a looming conservative uprising will likely make it a highly contentious and complicated effort.\nTrump administration officials have made their request to Congress crystal clear: Pass the \"cleanest possible\" debt limit increase despite calls from conservatives who demand spending cuts to go along with it. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney delivered that message at a briefing with reporters earlier this month once the House had already left Capitol Hill for a month-long recess.\nThe hike, Mulvaney said, should be tied to a continuing resolution (CR) that would keep the government funded past Sept. 30 and would prevent a shutdown. This would likely extend the debt limit and government funding battle into December.\nThat proposal won't fly with the conservative Freedom Caucus in the House.\n\"We just don't think that's the right approach,\" a Freedom Caucus source told CBS News. \"Why when we have Republicans in the House, the Senate and the White House are we doing what we criticized Democrats for doing for eight years, which is just clean raising of the debt ceiling without big structural reforms?\"\nRep. Mark Walker, R-North Carolina, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee, has echoed that position in an op-ed in the Washington Examiner, arguing against a \"clean\" increase. Walker says that any legislation should reflect the Republicans' support for a smaller federal government.\n\"It is what our voters expected when they brought this historic party unity, and it is how they will measure our success. The buck stops with us,\" he wrote.\nTreasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has been calling on lawmakers for months to raise the debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on the nation's debt. Congress will likely have to pass an increase by the end of September because the beginning to middle of October has been eyed as the drop-dead deadline. The government has been relying on so-called extraordinary measures to continue borrowing and have sufficient cash to make its usual payments since mid-March, when the suspension of the debt ceiling expired.\nMnuchin huddled with Republican and Democratic leaders -- Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer -- at the beginning of August to discuss the plan to lift the debt ceiling when Congress returns to Washington in September.\n\"We are going to be looking for a way forward to do that together to make sure America continues to never, ever default,\" McConnell told reporters.\nThe bipartisan nature of the initial discussions so far is unusual considering the fact that Republicans have always put up a fight over the debt ceiling when President Obama was in office, and now they are in control of the White House and Congress. But they may have come to terms with two issues: the Senate's 60-vote procedural hurdle and the fact that they are way behind on their legislative agenda. The GOP Congress hasn't passed a budget resolution or tax reform, they've failed to pass a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, and they haven't passed an infrastructure package or border wall funding.\nJim Dyer, principal at Podesta Group who specializes in budget and appropriations, suspects that GOP leaders will have to make a sales pitch on the debt ceiling to conservative members that could sound along the lines of, \"'Look, if you really believe that tax reform may be the key to your political survival, then you have got to be with us and you have got to support us, keeping the levers of power going until we can accomplish these things.'\"\nStill, conservatives are going to make their frustration heard when they return to Capitol Hill.\nHeritage Action Vice President Dan Holler said that a debt ceiling hike should be paired with \"serious spending reforms\" that begin to reduce federal spending, adding that \"Congress cannot simply kick the can down the road.\"\nHowever, Bill Hoagland, senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, thinks that kicking the can down the road is inevitable. This partly stems from the fact that the House is only scheduled to be in session 12 days in September.\n\"I'm beginning to think that we're looking at a suspension of the debt limit for a period of time as we continue to negotiate,\" he said. \"I just don't think 12 or 17 days in September is going to be enough time to work out all these angles.\"\nLawmakers last lifted the debt ceiling almost two years ago as part of a bipartisan budget agreement that also lifted spending levels for two years for both defense and non-defense domestic programs. Those spending caps will expire at the end of September and more serious limits on spending set by a 2011 law will return in 2018 unless Congress passes a similar deal.\nThere may be an appetite for another budget agreement -- after all, Congress has twice approved a budget deal of this kind since 2013. In fact, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, negotiated the first one with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, when they chaired the Budget Committees.\nThe support among President Trump and congressional Republicans for an increase in military spending could also justify one. Democrats, however, have always made clear that they wouldn't agree to an increase in defense spending unless it's coupled with a boost to nondefense programs, which cover the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Veterans Affairs, for example.\nTying a \"clean\" debt ceiling increase to a budget deal that lifts spending caps likely would not be supported by the Freedom Caucus, which plans to continue exert pressure on the White House and leadership in September.\n\"I do think that the base cares about [the debt limit] so I'm guessing the White House is going to hear a bit of pushback and maybe that will change things,\" the Freedom Caucus source said.\nThe Freedom Caucus came out against a \"clean\" debt ceiling hike in May, and has proposed a menu of options that could get its members to back an increase. The group, for instance, would support measures that would pay interest on the debt and put structural reforms in place.\nAnother idea that's being circulated is codifying into law one of the president's executive orders on regulations. This would open up the possibility of the Freedom Caucus supporting a debt ceiling increase if it were tied to a measure that would require the elimination of two former regulations for every new regulation.\nNothing is set in stone: \"House Republicans discussing [the plan] with the Senate and the administration, and we will act before the deadline,\" said AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for Speaker Ryan.\nIn the last two debt limit debates, leadership eventually ignored the Freedom Caucus and turned to Democrats to pass an increase.\n\"I think you get to a point around here where you're not going to let these people run the place,\" Dyer said. \"It's going to be run by the leadership and they're going to do what they have to do to get these things done because their agenda is not going anywhere without some government continuity here.\"", "A chance for Independents to unite\nDo you want to have a voice in America's political future? Are you extremely frustrated with the current political establishment? If the answer is YES, then join us for an Independent Voter Town Hall/Caucus Meeting on Thursday, March 22, at 1 p.m. at the Glenwood Springs Library in downtown Glenwood Springs, Colorado.\nAll registered Independent/unaffiliated voters from Garfield, Pitkin, Eagle, Summit, Mesa and all other surrounding counties are encouraged to attend this historic event. This caucus could be the first of its kind in the nation.\nIndependents no longer have to sit on the sidelines and watch the Democratic and Republican Parties dictate the future of the American people. Join the Independent movement sweeping the nation.\nRemember, Independents represent 47 percent of the registered voters in America. We have the power to make positive changes in America's broken political system that has been ruled by the Democratic and Republican Parties far too long.\nWe will discuss the impacts that a loose coalition of democratic free-thinking Independents could have on the 2018 and 2020 elections. We will also discuss how Independents can get on the ballot in the 2018 election. Bring an open mind and a bunch of your Independent voter friends to this historic meeting.\nRecommended Stories For You\nIt is now up to Independents to bring democracy back to America!\nRandy Fricke\nNew Castle\nVote YES on 2B\nI have lived in Frisco for most of my adult life live in Frisco, Colorado and was asked to serve as the Chairman of the Frisco Housing Task Force. I am writing today in order to strongly advocate voter approval of ballot measure 2B. We need to, and speaking for the task force, move the effort to deliver workforce housing forward as quickly as we can. And we can do that with a YES vote in support of 2B.\nThere are a number of common threads that characterized the conversations we shared over the time as members of the task force. They include the following:\n1. What a community chooses to provide to the workforce is largely how and what that community says about itself.\n2. Housing is community and the community interest is truly defined by the housing it provides.\n3. The challenge is real and the need to deliver housing is NOW!\n4. The Town is prepared to develop and build a smart project at the corner of 3rd and Granite Street, placing an attractive array of much needed housing into an incredibly tight market right now.\nThis ALL makes perfect sense to me and makes sense to the Housing Task Force, as well.\nTime is of the essence. We have but a short window to obtain approvals and commence with a project at the corner of 3rd Avenue and Granite Street in the core of Town.\nIf we sharpen our pencils, perhaps this project will establish a precedent, a template of sorts that will set a standard for the provision of workforce housing in the resort environment. VOTE YES on 2B!\nMark Sabatini\nFrisco", "MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine army commander says government forces have foiled an attempt by a few dozen Muslim militants aligned with the Islamic State group to attack a small southern town in fighting that left four gunmen dead.\nArmy Lt. Col. Harold Cabunoc says troops clashed with 30 to 40 militants Tuesday and drove them away from the small farming community of Mopac where they planned to launch an attack on the town hall of Datu Paglas town about a half kilometer (quarter mile) away.\nCabunoc said Wednesday the militants from the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters led by Solaiman Tudon occupied several abandoned houses in Mopac, where he used to live, over the weekend but his family and other villagers asked the gunmen to leave.\nTroops later clashed with the militants.", "Cadets from 42F King’s Lynn Air Training Corps went on parade in Tuesday Market Place on Saturday, exercising their Freedom of the Borough.\nThe squadron were granted the honorary title Freedom of the Borough in 2015, with this year’s parade marking the second time exercising their right.\nKing's Lynn 42F ATC freedom parade Tuesday market Place.\nInspected by Borough Mayor Carol Bower, who gave permission for the Freedom of the Borough to be exercised, 30 cadets performed drill manoeuvres in front of crowds in Tuesday Market Place.\nCarol Bower said she was delighted to see members of the public join her in celebrating with 42F King’s Lynn ATC as they exercised their rights under their Freedom of the Borough.\nShe added: “It is a very significant event, and the young people involved deserve the support of us all, as they do so much for the community, much of which is unseen.”\nThe squadron, followed by the civic party, proceeded up High Street to King’s Lynn Town Hall, where the Air Training Corps received a civic reception.\nKing's Lynn 42F ATC freedom parade Tuesday market Place.Pictured centre King's Lynn Mayor Carol Bower.\nThe 42F King’s Lynn ATC parade follows last year’s Freedom of the Borough parade by RAF Marham to mark the station’s centenary, which attracted hundreds of spectators.\nFor more information about 42F King’s Lynn ATC or to submit your interest in joining the squadron, visit www.42fkingslynnatc.org.uk", "U.S. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) departs a health care meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer\nFILE PHOTO: U.S. Representative Chris Collins is interviewed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. January 25, 2017. REUTERS/Mark Makela\nU.S. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) departs a health care meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S. April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer\nWASHINGTON Deep divisions cut short Republican hopes for a quick revival of Obamacare replacement legislation on Wednesday, as Congress prepared to leave town for a two-week recess without a deal to end party infighting.\n\"We are going to go home tomorrow without a deal,\" Congressman Chris Collins, a Republican moderate in the U.S. House of Representatives, told reporters.\nA White House ally, Collins said days of negotiations have broken down over conservative demands to allow states to waive popular Obamacare policies that protect sick people from price discrimination and allow young adults to stay on their parents' healthcare plans until age 26.\nHe said the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus was \"moving the goal posts\" for negotiations, risking potential support from moderate Republicans.\nBoth sides of the debate have warned that the Republican push for healthcare reform, one of President Donald Trump's top campaign promises, could lose momentum if lawmakers left this week without a deal to bridge fissures that led to the legislation's failure on March 24, when House Speaker Paul Ryan canceled a vote.\nEarlier on Wednesday, Heritage Action Chief Executive Mike Needham told reporters his conservative group was looking at ways to target House moderates known as the Tuesday Group, with attack ads in their districts and other tactics.\nBut Ryan told a forum that the discussions had been \"very productive\" and emphasized that Republican leaders have not set a deadline for agreement.\n\"We can keep working this for weeks now,\" Ryan said. \"We've got time to figure this out.\"\nRepublicans have been railing against President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act since its enactment in 2010. On Tuesday, some Republican lawmakers expressed hope the Trump White House would unveil a healthcare bill. Some conservatives said a vote by the House was possible this week.\nThe legislation has not yet emerged, despite talks with Republican lawmakers led by Vice President Mike Pence. A House Republican leadership aide said on Wednesday that plans remained on track for the divided chamber to begin a more than two-week recess by mid-afternoon on Thursday.\nRepresentative Mark Meadows, chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, late on Tuesday said, \"There’s a concern on my part that if we’re making real progress, that going home sends the wrong message.\"\nMeadows told reporters on Wednesday he had not yet heard from the White House about timing of the next negotiation session.\nStill, the negotiations will allow lawmakers to return to their home districts and tell voters they are trying to deliver on a campaign promise that helped them win election.\nIn an interview with Axios and NBC television, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Republicans will produce a healthcare bill, but did not provide a timetable.\nLate on Tuesday, following a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, Pence told reporters there was \"good talk, good progress\" toward a bill. He did not elaborate.\nRepublican lawmakers have said efforts are focused on maintaining Obamacare's essential health benefits, such as mental health coverage and maternity care. But states could apply for waivers if they could improve coverage and reduce costs.\nIf major portions of Obamacare are repealed, there were discussions of creating a \"backstop\" so premiums do not spike for people with chronic illnesses in high-risk insurance pools.\n(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker; Editing by David Gregorio and Nick Zieminski)", "The Democratic Alliance's Cape Town caucus is expected to debate an internal motion of no confidence in embattled Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille on Wednesday.\nThe one-and-a-half-year saga between De Lille and her party will finally come to a head on Wednesday afternoon when DA councillors convene for the next step in the party's new \"recall clause\" process.\nThey will caucus after the City of Cape Town council concludes its business for the day, to debate, discuss and ultimately vote on the future of the former Independent Democrats leader.\nREAD: DA looking for shortcut to get rid of me - De Lille\nDeputy caucus leader JP Smith - who is acting as leader while De Lille is suspended - told News24 on Tuesday that it was likely to take two to three hours to get through the issue.\nAn outcome was therefore only expected late in the evening, if the unlikely option of consensus was not reached, and if voting took place through a secret ballot process.\nSmith also said the caucus might not issue a media statement immediately because the outcome must first be communicated to the DA's federal executive.\nThe caucus will also decide whether to alert the public once that happens, or whether to allow the federal executive to do it.\nEnd of the road for De Lille?\nThe DA caucus needs 50% of its councillors to appear for the meeting to form a quorum, and 50% plus one of those present is needed to pass the motion against De Lille.\nIt's expected that De Lille has hit the end of the road with her party, after almost two-thirds of those present at the last caucus meeting voted to ask for permission to hold the internal motion.\nIn the event of a successful motion, De Lille will not be automatically removed as mayor.\nAccording to the DA's new \"recall clause\", once the federal executive receives the outcome of the caucus's vote, it has to invite the subject to make representations on why he or she should not be removed.\nThe federal executive will sit again to decide the person's future, only once the person submits representations.\nIf the federal executive ratifies the caucus' decision, De Lille will be given 48 hours to resign.\nIf she does not resign, the federal executive can initiate proceedings to terminate her membership of the party.\nIf she resigns, she keeps her position as a DA councillor.\nIf her membership is terminated, she loses her position, and the mayoral committee appointed by her will dissolve.\nThe council must then elect a new mayor within 14 days, according to the Municipal Structures Act.\nDeputy Mayor Ian Neilson - as the only other official elected to his position by the council - will exercise De Lille's powers and perform her duties in the interim.", "Embattled United Conservative Party MLA Derek Fildebrandt is under fire for double-claiming taxpayer-funded meals.\nThe Speaker's office is yet to make a call on a full investigation, but is looking into the discrepancy alongside the UCP caucus.\n\"These expense claims are concerning and appear to be part of a larger pattern of behaviour that is unacceptable for a member of the (UCP) caucus,\" United Conservative Party interim leader Nathan Cooper said in a statement Monday night.\nAlberta Party Leader Greg Clark said the double meal-claims, along with the recent controversy over Fildebrandt renting out his taxpayer-subsidized apartment, proves the need for a full expense audit.\n\"(The Speaker's office) needs to pick a period of time, say Jan. 1 to the current ... and do an audit and release the findings,\" Clark told the Journal Monday.\n\"That's the only way we're going to get through this.\"\nClark is worried more MLAs have claimed multiple reimbursements or double-dipped, either intentionally or unintentionally.\nUnder expense rules, MLA can either claim a per diem or provide a receipt for meals when travelling on business. On nine occasions since May 2015, Fildebrandt claimed a per diem, which is an allowance for daily meals, and submitted meal receipts for reimbursement.\nHe's not alone.\nJason Nixon, UCP member for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, has done so three times, and the NDP MLA for Calgary-Shaw, Graham Sucha, once.\nIn Nixon's case, he twice picked up $45 lunch tabs alongside per diems. His explanation was he had lunch meetings with constituents after eating lunch on his own.\nOn the other occasion, his constituency assistant paid the $50 bill for a local stakeholder lunch. Nixon was in Edmonton at the time.\nAs for Sucha, he met a business operator in his riding for dinner on April 5 at White Spot in Leduc.\nThe NDP caucus put it down to a simple mistake and said Sucha would be happy to pay back the $35.67.\nIn a statement sent by the UPC caucus late Monday night, Fildebrandt put the double claims down to “administrative errors” and said he takes full responsibility.\n\"I am thankful that this has been brought to my attention,” he said.\n\"I will fully reimburse any discrepancy and take immediate action to ensure that errors like this do not happen again.\"\nMeals on your dime\nA brief search through publicly available expenses submitted by all MLAs reveals snacks for town hall meetings, Popsicles for summer pool parties, cookie decorating supplies for Christmas open houses, and reams of claims for coffee and doughnuts.\nThe meal Sucha claimed alongside his per diem comprised of two salads, while Nixon's primarily took in burgers and an order of deep-fried pickles.\nOn April 28, Fildebrandt claimed a dinner per diem and was reimbursed for a $156.92 evening meal at Montana's Cookhouse in Brooks for a volunteer and stakeholder meeting.\nFood on the table that night included steak fajitas with guacamole, two orders of kapow shrimp, two seven-ounce hand-carved steaks, a large pork nachos with guacamole, and chorizo mac 'n' cheese.\nOn Jan. 25, Fildebrandt also claimed a per diem and a constituency lunch at Wendy's \"to discuss local issues\" over two bacon-deluxe burgers (hold the onion) and an order of chicken strips.\negraney@postmedia.com\ntwitter.com/EmmaLGraney", "Paul charged the US government with jeopardizing Israel's security and even initiating a potential arms race in the Mideast by signing the arms deal, described by Trump as \"tremendous.\" US Senator Rand Paul and other members of the House Freedom Caucus hold a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. March 7, 2017..\nStart the conversation, or Read more at Jerusalem Post.", "WASHINGTON May 2 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Tuesday they were closer to agreeing on a reworked bill to overhaul the nation's healthcare system but still lacked the votes to pass it, as President Donald Trump pressed lawmakers for a vote.\nThe White House has been pressuring House Republicans to push ahead with legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, after a first effort failed in March in a major setback for the Trump administration.\n\"I think it's time now\" for a healthcare vote, Trump told lawmakers at the White House on Tuesday.\nBut Republican leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, are once again struggling to balance the concerns of moderates, who want to protect Americans with pre-existing medical conditions, with the reluctance of conservatives to make changes.\nRepresentative Mark Meadows of North Carolina, who heads the staunchly conservative House Freedom Caucus that helped block passage of the first bill, said Republicans were still \"a handful of votes away.\"\nRepresentative Tom MacArthur of New Jersey, a Republican moderate who brokered a deal that revived the healthcare legislation, said there were still some moderates in the party sitting on the fence.\n\"It's close. It's close. We're getting there,\" MacArthur said.\nLawmakers are considering a bill that would allow states to opt out of Obamacare protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions - provisions that force insurers to charge sick people and healthy people the same rates.\nThat is seen as a concession to the Freedom Caucus, which has endorsed the new measure. In an interview earlier this week, Trump, however, insisted the new bill would maintain protections for those with pre-existing conditions.\nRepublicans have long vowed to repeal Democratic former President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare restructuring, arguing that the law, which allowed some 20 million Americans to gain healthcare insurance, was too intrusive and expensive.\nDuring his 2016 campaign, Trump also vowed to get rid of it.\nRepublicans, however, remain divided over key provisions of the bill, with some lawmakers expressing worries of a spike in the number of people without coverage, or sharp increases in insurance premiums.\n\"They're still talking about possible changes. If they don't have the votes, then they'll have to make changes,\" Representative Peter King of New York, a Republican moderate, told reporters, indicating he would likely vote for the bill.\nBut any tack to the center to shore up moderates' support threatens to spur defections on the Republican right flank.\n\"They change it one iota, I'm out,\" Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, a Freedom Caucus member, told reporters.\nOPPOSITION\nAdding to the pressure on Republicans is the unified opposition of Democrats, many of whom view the 2010 healthcare law as the defining domestic achievement of Obama's presidency, as do healthcare advocates.\nTen major patient advocacy groups, including the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association, have said they opposed the reworked healthcare bill.\nOther major medical groups such as the American Medical Association have also expressed concerns over coverage losses and unaffordable insurance for those with pre-existing conditions.\nIf a plan passes the House, it is expected to face a tough fight in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrower majority and where some party senators have expressed misgivings about the House bill. (Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan, Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Dan Grebler)", "South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford is taking the lead on new legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare.\nContinue Reading Below\nIn an interview on FOX Business Network’s After the Bell, the House Freedom Caucus member said he hopes to get a new plan passed before the end of the year.\n“This is the companion bill to what Sen. Rand Paul has introduced on the Senate side,” Rep. Sanford said.\nSen. Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, has introduced an Obamacare replacement plan that eliminates the mandate and provides a tax credit of up to $5,000 per person to be used as part of a health savings account.\nSanford said having people spend their own money can impact healthcare pricing and under Obamacare, people were not paying ahead of time based on anticipated risk.\n“We are fundamentally changing the way you prepare for the notion of a preexisting condition and pay for it,” he said.\nContinue Reading Below ADVERTISEMENT\nSanford said the current system doesn’t offer “true insurance,” which doesn’t provide money into a plan that prepares you for an unwarranted health risk.\n“Instead of people paying it [insurance] for years and then sadly, tragically they get cancer, it’s the ‘wait until they get cancer’ to go on insurance so you don’t have the power of compounding,” he said.\nThe House Freedom Caucus members are pushing for a swift repeal of the Affordable Care Act with almost no support from Democrats. Sanford said there is no incentive for Democrats to help the GOP come up with a suitable plan, and allowing Obamacare to fail will hurt a lot of people in the process.\n“I think Republicans are right to say ‘let’s come up with a plan that begins to address this,’ though it may be painful politically,” Sanford said.", "In the 70 years since India and Pakistan were created from the former British Empire, there has never been a venue focused on the stories and memorabilia of those who survived that chaotic and bloody chapter in history — until now.\nA new museum on the Partition of the Indian subcontinent opens this week, as the two South Asian giants mark seven decades as independent nations.\nThe exhibitions are housed in the red-brick Town Hall building in the north Indian border city of Amritsar. They include photographs, newspaper clippings and donated personal items meant to tell the story of how the region's struggle for freedom from colonial rule turned into one of its most violent episodes.", "BARABOO (WKOW) -- Millions of people may be wondering what they'll do for health insurance next year if the new health care proposal is passed. Under the American Health Care proposal some 14-million people would lose coverage next year, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.\nThat number would go up to 24-million people by 2026. However, the report does show the GOP plan would lower the federal deficit by $337-billion from 2017 through 2026.\nThe plan and report was the most asked about topic at a town hall in Baraboo held by democratic Congressman Mark Pocan.\n\"We were promised by our president that he was going to present something that made sure everyone's covered. This doesn't get close to that,\" Pocan told his constituents.\nHowever, Speaker Paul Ryan was quick to respond to the CBO's report on Fox News.\n\"'I'm excited about this analysis and, yea, I think they sort of overestimated the uninsured number just like they overestimated who would be insured by Obamacare,\" Ryan said.\nBut not everyone is buying it, including Bill Dagnon of Baraboo.\n\"This bill is an abomination. It's unamerican. It's immoral. It's going kill people,\" Dagnon said. \"We need to put people above profits.\"\nAlthough the backlash from democrats, Pocan said there is a silver lining.\n\"One, is if you have a precondition you now have access to healthcare,\" he said.\nBut Speaker Ryan is still promising more, citing the benefit the new bill would bring to the federal deficit.\n\"Just this they say, lowers premiums, stabilizes the market, gives people more choice and freedom,\" Ryan said.\nFreedom that Dagnon and so many at the town hall want, but in a different form.\n\"We're all created equal. Well, if that's the case, and we all have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, well let's get to it man. And let's support people's lives,\" said Dagnon.", "YOUNGSTOWN\nThe Youngstown City Council Committee of the Whole will meet at 5 p.m. today. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the 2018 departmental budgets for finance, Mayor’s office and economic development. The meeting will take place in the council caucus room on the sixth floor of city hall, 26 S. Phelps St.", "Last week the Plattekill Democratic Party held their caucus to select candidates for town offices for the fall 2017 election. In quick succession and without challenge, the party faithful chose Juan Figueroa for the office of Town Supervisor and Gladys Figueroa (no relation) and incumbent Cindy Delgado for Town Council and Jamie Pagan for Highway Superintendent. Pagan was unable to attend the caucus.\nChairwoman Rose Ann Guerrieri invited the candidates to address the caucus.\nJuan Figueroa said he moved to Plattekill with his parents in 1979 “and I’ve been here ever since.” He served 22 years in the U. S. Marine Corps, retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer 3. He said he was promoted 10 times from Private to Master Sargent. He also ran the units budget and was the Operations Officer, sending personnel overseas and bringing them back home. Figueroa is a Veteran himself, having served in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He was was a NYS Trooper and retired after 25 years on the job.\n“I could have moved years ago but I refused to move. Why, because I love this town and I love the people in it and that is why I am running for Town Supervisor,” he said.\nFigueroa asked what has happened to the Master Plan that hasn’t seen the light of day in years. “There’s no infrastructure in this town, there’s no business in this town, there’s no downtown in this town. You go anywhere else around here, and I’ve been here for 38 years, and there’s a downtown. There is nothing in this town, why is that?”\nFigueroa said he respects the job of those who are in office “but I think it’s time for a new revival in this town. A lot of people call Plattekill the doormat of Ulster County; its not the doormat, it’s the front door of Ulster County.”\nFigueroa said residents are leaving Plattekill in large numbers “and the people who are in office aren’t doing anything about it and that’s why I am running.”\nFigueroa said it is important for people to work together regardless of party affiliation if Plattekill is ever going to move forward.\n“I will not talk down to anybody. I will have an open door policy [and] I will not play favoritism among the fire departments,” he said. “I will tell you now that I will be for the people. This should be a government for the people and by the people.”\nFigueroa said he does not want to see over-development in Plattekill but instead he wants to create a small town atmosphere that will attract business that will keep the youth from leaving when they come of age.\n“We need to think of the future of this town and the status quo just isn’t working,” he said.\nFigueroa pointed out that Democrats are not allowed in to the Republican caucus but the Democrats welcomed the Republicans, with most of the present Republican majority Town Board in attendance. He highlighted this to show that “we are all in the same boat together. As long as we do what’s right for the people, that is what we need to do and if we have to do it together then lets do it together. If we keep fighting each other we’re not going to get anything done…So I am running to give people a choice because they need a choice.”\nGladys Figueroa thanked the caucus for nominating her for Town Council, saying that when she came of age she registered as a Democrat. She served as a police officer in New York City.\n“If I am elected I will continue the policies of my former job and that is to treat all the residents of Plattekill with courtesy, professionalism and respect,” she concluded.\nCindy Delgado is the sole Democrat on the Town Board and is running for a fourth term.\n“I do a good job, I do know what I am doing and I am experienced,” she said. “I do put Plattekill above politics first and foremost and I work really well with a bipartisan board.”\nDelgado said she is very proud of her accomplishments on the Town Board.\n“I really do come prepared. I really do read everything and I put the people of this town first and whoever sits on this board, their first priority is this town and how it should be run and what gets done,” she said. “Yes we do keep a good budget and yes we do make sure that everybody can live in the Town of Plattekill…I will continue to do the best job I can humanly do.”\nGuerrieri invited Pam Krimsky, who is running for the Ulster County Legislature in District 9, to address the caucus.\n“I’m in your district and that’s why I’m here,” she said. “Plattekill as part of the larger community is important to me and I believe the people are not being well represented.”\nKrimsky favors development but not strip malls in style.\n“We need jobs and training so badly in southern Ulster County, not minimum wage jobs [but] living wage jobs,” she said. “We have the money, we have the facilities, we need to make work a priority. There is no reason why we’re lagging behind the rest of the world, not at all.”\nSue Sullivan is running for Congress in New York’s 19th District, which comprises all of Columbia, Delaware, Ostego, Greene, Schoharie, Sullivan, and Ulster counties and parts of Broome, Dutchess, Montgomery and Rensselaer counties. She graduated from Cooperstown High School in Ostego and is currently a resident of the Town of Plattekill.\nSullivan has served the community for 30 years, as an executive at St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital, has developed the communications program at the Mohonk Preserve “and I am a small business owner that really works to retain and expand job creation in the Hudson Valley.”\nSullivan stressed the importance of health care.\n“I believe in a single payer but I am also pragmatic enough to know we’re not going to get there in a straight line,” she said. “We need to fix the ACA and we need to move toward a public option.” She said she receives her own health insurance through the New York Health Exchange, saying as a politician she knows what the present system is all about.\nSullivan said she is running for Congress for three reasons “One; because I have credible, measurable experience and a track record of working hard and accomplishing things by bringing people together rather than polarizing folks. Two; this is my home, this crazy district is actually where I grew up. I understand what it is to live here and I understand what it is to try and raise a family here; Third is not a reason to support me but I want more women sitting in that House of Representatives.”\nAs Sullivan mulled over a run for Congress, a comment from her 20 year-old son stopped her in her tracks. He said “nothing good can come from you being involved in politics, its bad.” She responded by saying “if you believe that, you’re the future, there’s no hope and I cannot live without hope. I cannot live with the thought that what’s happening in this world is going to continue and I must stand up. I want to restore dignity to this office. I want to deliver, I want to be held accountable and I want to work with all of you.”\nBy Mark Reynolds\nmreynolds@tcnewspapers.com", "WASHINGTON (AP) — For Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a passionate, liberal Democrat of Puerto Rican descent, there is no more important issue in the year-end budget showdown than protecting from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally as children — and who have only known America as their home.\nThe fate of these \"Dreamers,\" as they are commonly known, is one of the trickiest issues to resolve as the White House and Congress seek to avert a Christmas government shutdown that nobody says they want. House Democrats, and their leader, Nancy Pelosi, insist that the Dreamers be dealt with as part of a broader package that combines unfinished legislative business, including military spending, disaster aid and low-cost health care for children.\n\"You want a bipartisan budget and you want my vote? Then make it an American budget, one that includes a pathway to freedom for our Dreamers,\" Gutierrez said. \"It's the right thing to do.\"\nTop Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer cares about Dreamers, too, but he isn't playing hardball over immigration. At the top of his list of political concerns are the re-election bids next year of 10 Senate Democrats running in states that President Donald Trump won in 2016. Many of them want nothing to do with shutting down the government over immigration.\n\"I understand the passion on that. I'm not in favor of voting to shut down the government,\" said Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, where Trump won almost 70 percent of the vote. \"There are a lot of things I feel passionate about. But I'm not going to make 300 million people suffer because I can't get the process working the way it should.\"\nHouse and Senate Democrats stand divided as leaders look to wrap up a sweeping spending deal by Dec. 22 and avoid a debilitating shutdown.\nAt issue is Trump's decision to rescind Barack Obama's executive order creating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gave protected status to about 800,000 young immigrants in the country illegally. In scrapping the DACA order, Trump gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative solution.\nIn September, the president told Pelosi and Schumer he would support the DREAM Act — Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors — which offers childhood immigrants a pathway to citizenship, as part of a broader immigration agreement.\nBut this fall, progress stalled. That led liberals such as Gutierrez to pressure leadership to use Democratic leverage — their votes are needed to pass legislation such as the budget or next year's increase in the government borrowing — to ensure that Trump lives up to his promise.\nRepublicans want to separate immigration from the year-end agenda, in part to avoid the appearance of getting muscled by Democrats like Pelosi and in part to try to get a better deal.\n\"We are certainly willing to enter into those good-faith negotiations, but they do not belong in an end-of-the-year spending appropriations debate,\" said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. \"We do want to resolve this, but it's not going to be before the end of this year.\"\nFor her part, Pelosi won't commit to helping Republicans keep the government open unless the DACA issue is dealt with.\n\"We will not leave here without a DACA fix,\" she told reporters last week.\nIndeed, just 14 Democrats joined House Republicans in voting for a two-week stopgap spending bill last week.\nBut in the Senate, the dynamic among Democrats was wholly different, with Democrats voting for the stopgap measure by a 5-to-1 margin.\nAides to lawmakers in both parties say the DACA issue was discussed only briefly at a White House meeting between Trump and top congressional leaders.\n\"There was no disagreement that it should be done. The question was when, where, how and why, and those discussions are continuing,\" Schumer told reporters Friday. \"We hope to get it done before the end of the year.\"\nSchumer spokesman Matt House says Schumer is genuinely optimistic that Senate negotiations over a hybrid package blending the DREAM Act with additional border security measures are going well. House talks, meanwhile, appear stalled.\nThe differing perspectives, at their core, seem rooted in the different dynamics facing House and Senate Democrats.\nSchumer's red-state Democrats must win re-election by appealing to independents, and they hope to win at least some crossover support from Republicans.\nBut many House Democrats represent congressional districts with large populations of minorities. Others represent solidly Democratic suburbs with constituencies that are sympathetic to immigrants. Their re-election bids are dependent on cementing the Democratic nomination from a primary electorate rather than winning independents or GOP crossovers.\nPelosi faces her own constituency, too. With 31 members, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus represents 16 percent of the House Democratic Caucus — a base that Pelosi is loath to cross.\n\"It's her belief, of course, but it's the caucus she represents as well,\" said Nadeam Elshami, Pelosi's former chief of staff. \"The caucus wants this.\"", "For the first time since 2010, Washington will be a one-party town and the Republicans on the cusp of controlling the presidency and both houses of Congress are already preparing an ambitious agenda.\nAfter six years of partisan gridlock, GOP leaders of the 115th Congress begin a new session Tuesday eager to roll back much of President Barack Obama's crowning achievements, including the Affordable Care Act, as well as advance their own policies, like tax reform, that have been mothballed for years. And they will be navigating the new terrain with a mix of familiar faces and new names on the scene.\nPlay Facebook\nTwitter\nGoogle Plus\nEmbed Ryan Sees 'Nothing But Enthusiasm' From Trump on Addressing Economy 1:01 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog\nIn the leadership, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will continue to be instrumental players who will guide their members, negotiate with incoming President Donald Trump and dictate the agenda. They will continue to be two of the most powerful people in Washington.\nBut while their goals are likely to be the same, the challenges they face will be different. Ryan will have to keep his diverse caucus united to pass legislation and McConnell, with a majority of 52 senators, will likely need the support of eight Democrats to pass anything controversial or significant. That means legislation coming out of the Senate must have at least some bipartisan appeal, and in order for it to pass the House, the legislation will have to be conservative enough to appease Ryan's most right-leaning members.\nThe most critical figure in the opposition is a familiar face in a new role — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. He replaces retired Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada who kept Senate Democrats in line, defended his members and put up fierce opposition to any Republican proposal or tactic he thought was unpalatable. Schumer has indicated a more conciliatory approach, vowing to work with Trump on areas where he thinks they could agree like on jobs and infrastructure.\nPlay Facebook\nTwitter\nGoogle Plus\nEmbed Schumer: Dems Will Go 'Toe-to-Toe' Against Trump When Necessary 0:36 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog\nBecause senators have expanded the use of the filibuster, it often takes the support of 60 senators to pass legislation. Schumer's 48-member caucus can easily block bills, but it's going to be up to Schumer to try and keep his caucus from defecting to vote with Republican measures if they are going to truly block the GOP agenda.\nRegardless of his style, his success will be measured on the results. Schumer will drive the Democrats' messaging to voters, which will largely dictate how effective Democrats are over the next two years.\nOutside of leadership, these lawmakers are expected to be critical players on Capitol Hill over the next two years:\nREPUBLICANS:\nSen. Susan Collins, R-Maine: Collins is a moderate Republican who Democrats could turn to for help in blocking some components of the Republican agenda. While Democrats won't dictate the agenda on the Senate floor, they could offer amendments to alter legislation, and getting the support of Collins could help Democrats win small victories.\nSen. Dean Heller, R-Nevada: Of all the 33 senate seats up in 2018, Heller is the only Republican up for re-election in a state that Trump lost. Heller will have to spend the next two years navigating Trump, his Republican leadership, and his prospects for re-election. If Trump is unpopular, especially in Nevada, Heller could become a critical swing vote for Senate Democrats.\nRep. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina: Meadows is the new leader of the conservative Freedom Caucus, which consists of about 40 Republicans who demand a limited government and prefer a uncompromising approach. As their leader, Meadows will be one of the most influential members of the House. Speaker Ryan will have to ensure that he has the support of Meadows and his fellow Freedom Caucus members if he is to pass any legislation without having to gain the support of Democrats.\nAs chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jason Chaffetz will be tasked with deciding how to handle potential legal or ethical conflicts of the incoming administration. Cliff Owen / AP\nRep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah: The head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been bullish on investigating the Obama administration, including Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The question is if he will give the same due diligence to oversight during a Trump administration. If he decides to conduct a thorough vetting of Trump and his appointees, he could become one of the most interesting and closely watched members to determine the areas where Republicans are not pleased with their president.\nRep. Tom Price, R-Georgia: Price has been tapped as Trump's secretary of health and human services, but until he is confirmed by the Senate, he will play a central role in the first few weeks of Congress in January. As head of the Budget Committee, he will oversee the budget that includes repeals of many aspects of the Affordable Care Act. He wrote the legislation, called Reconciliation, passed in 2015 to repeal much of Obamacare and it is likely to be the blueprint for repeal in 2017. As HHS secretary, he is expected to work very closely with members on a replacement of the health care law.\nSen. John McCain, R-Arizona: McCain is an old name in the Senate, but the moniker \"maverick\" he adopted during his 2008 presidential run is likely to make a comeback. He is no fan of Trump, and as head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he and his committee could cause problems for Trump's foreign policy, including Trump's forgiving stance toward Russia.\nDEMOCRATS\nSen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont: Fresh off a presidential bid where he amassed a large and passionate following, his new role in Democratic leadership is outreach liaison. Sanders will be instrumental in determining if Democrats can effectively message to white working class voters — voters Trump won overwhelmingly. This fiercely independent senator will now be responsible for seeing if Democrats can make any gains with these voters in two years.\nSen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia: Manchin is up for re-election in 2018 in one of the ten states Trump won that Democrats must now defend. Manchin, who describes himself as fiscally conservative and socially compassionate, could defect from Democrats on some issues and play a critical role in Republicans' strategy to pass their agenda.\nSen. Joe Donnelly, D-Indiana: Donnelly is another senator, like Manchin, who is up for re-election in a Trump-won state. The difference between Manchin and Donnelly, however, is that Donnelly is considered the most endangered incumbent. Indiana voted for Trump by 19 points, which means Donnelly, who is serving his first term, will have to make some very tough decisions on how he votes on the Senate floor. All eyes will be on him to see if Republicans can pass a bill or Democrats will be able to block it.\nSen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri: Also from a Trump-won state and up for re-election in 2018, McCaskill is a solid Democrat, but she has been known to exert her independence at times. If her re-election is looking more difficult as 2018 nears, McCaskill could be a good place to look when Republicans need to reach across the aisle.\nRep. Joe Crowley, D-New York: Crowley was elected to House leadership as chair of the Democratic caucus. While he's been in office since 1999, Crowley is seen as the bridge between Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team, which came under pressure to step down by some members, including younger and newer members. He's ambitious but well-liked, and he could help to steer Democratic policy in a direction that younger members would prefer.", "Article Tools Font size – + Share This\nChris Kelly\nNobody likes an absentee landlord. You know the type — expects the rent paid on time but uses distance to deflect complaints from angry tenants.\nA dozen or so Americans turned out Tuesday at U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey’s Scranton office on Spruce Street, part of a statewide grass-roots movement called “Tuesdays with Toomey.” This is a misnomer, because the senator has never met with any of them.\nHundreds of constituents have rallied outside Toomey’s Philadelphia and Pittsburgh offices, demanding he answer questions immediately or at a town hall meeting. His choice. Evasion is not an acceptable option. Considering that he’s 55 and fresh from election to a second six-year term, it’s hard to guess what Toomey has to lose while interacting with common folk. Maybe he just doesn’t want to face the music he’s been dancing to.\nToomey provided an indelible profile in cowardice by refusing to take a public stand on the candidacy of Donald Trump, declining to own up to his support until just before the polls closed on election night. He also went underground during the public debate over the appointment of billionaire Republican donor Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.\nThe beneficiary of nearly $60,000 in DeVos campaign cash, Toomey voted to entrust the future of public education to a proud know-nothing who doesn’t believe in public education but sees grizzly bears as an existential threat to classroom safety.\nBecause it was Valentine’s Day, the topic Tuesday was civil rights for the LGBTQ community, which is understandably uneasy with Republicans in total control of the government. Local participants included nuns, teachers and other professionals. They insisted they were not protesters, but citizens seeking accountability in government.\nSister Margaret Gannon, I.H.M., said discriminatory laws dressed up as protections of religious freedom are anti-American and anti-Christian.\n“Protecting rights is something we all do every day,” she said, as senatorial aides Frank Mazza and Lauren Lobell scribbled notes. Call them Toomey’s Scranton property managers. They are nice people who listen intently but have zero power to do much else.\n“Please pass along (to Toomey) that his employers would like to have a meeting,” Sister Margaret said.\nI’m sure Frank and Lauren will deliver the message, but I doubt it will bring the desired response. In fact, Sen. Toomey has never held a town hall meeting in Scranton. Or Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or any other major population center.\nThe senator has appeared at 14 town hall meetings since 2011, all in reliably red counties. Toomey has visited all 67 Pennsylvania counties at least twice over the past six years, spokesman Steve Kelly told me Tuesday. The senator has no town hall meetings on his schedule now, but Kelly said that does not mean he is unresponsive to the concerns of constituents.\nToomey has seven offices across the state, with 25 total employees, Kelly said. Staffers are “doing their best” to answer all calls and emails, and the senator has been unable to meet with “Tuesdays with Toomey” groups largely because they visit when he is in Washington, D.C. “conducting official\nbusiness.”\nAlso, constituents “have every right to continue their protests.”\nYes, they do, and I’m sure they will — right up until Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. The absentee landlord may choose to stand for re-election, but shouldn’t be surprised to get an eviction notice instead.\nCHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, cordially invites Sen. Pat Toomey to visit Scranton and meet his employers. Contact the writer: kellys\nworld@timesshamrock.com,\n@cjkink on Twitter. Read his award-winning blog at blogs.\nthetimes-tribune.com/kelly." ]

[ "In this paper, we present a framework for range flow estimation from Microsoft's multi-modal imaging device Kinect. We address all essential stages of the flow computation process, starting from the calibration of the Kinect, over the alignment of the range and color channels, to the introduction of a novel multi-modal range flow algorithm which is robust against typical (technology dependent) range estimation artifacts." ]

[ "We compute the range flow field, i.e. the 3D velocity field, of a moving deformable surface from a sequence of range data. This is done in a differential framework for which we derive a new constraint equation that can be evaluated directly on the sensor data grid. It is shown how 3D structure and intensity information can be used together in the estimation process. We then introduce a method to compute surface expansion rates from the now available velocity field. The accuracy of the proposed scheme is assessed on a synthetic data set. Finally we apply the algorithm to study 3D leaf motion and growth on a real range sequence.", "This paper deals with visual evaluation of object distances using Soft-Computing based approaches and pseudo-3D standard low-cost sensor, namely the Kinect. The investigated technique points toward robots' vision and visual metrology of the robot's surrounding environment. The objective is providing the robot the ability of evaluating distances between objects in its surrounding environment. In fact, although presenting appealing advantages, the Kinect has not been designed for metrological aims. The investigated approach offers the possibility to use this low-cost pseudo-3D sensor for distance evaluation avoiding 3D feature extraction and thus exploiting the simplicity of only 2D image' processing. Experimental results show the viability of the proposed approach and provide comparison between different machine learning techniques as Adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference (ANFIS), Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP), Support vector regression (SVR), Bilinear interpolation.", "As a part of a feasibility analysis, this paper reports that gait analysis of orthopedic-surgically treated patients is possible by using a Kinect v2 sensor as a low cost depth camera instead of applying a conventional marker-based multi-camera system in a gait laboratory. Being aware of the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, our concept expands the potential of gait analysis from diagnostic use only toward the use for documented and actively corrective self-training of patients. The paper analyzes which gait parameters are needed for synthetic, but effective gait evaluation, and if it is possible to obtain them from the Kinect SDK skeleton in terms of exact and stable values compared to parameters obtained by a multi-camera system in a gait laboratory. The main contributions of this paper are the analysis of the usability of the Kinect v2 for mobile gait analysis.", "Hand tracking has been focused over years in the field of human-computer interaction. But there are still some challenges such as reliability and accuracy due to the highly articulated and deformable of hand. In this paper we propose a real time hand tracking method with the depth information of the Kinect sensor. In this method, we preprocessed the depth information with a pixel filter to deal with the noise. Then we isolated the hand region from the depth image by using the KCF (Kernelized Correlation Filters) to the confined minimum depth area, which can release the limitation of hand movement range. Then the forearm region is segmented with assistance of PCA (Principle Component Analysis). And, to accurately locate the fingertip position, we integrate the maximum geodesic distance to hand centroid into EIC (Extended Inscribed Circle). And by labelling each finger to avoid mistaken fingertip determination. Experimental results verify the accuracy and reliability of our solution.", "We present a method to compute the relative depth of moving objects in video sequences. The method relies on the fact that the boundary between two moving objects follows the movement of the object which is closest to the camera. Thus, the input of the method is a segmentation (to know the boundaries of objects) and an optical flow (to know the movement of the objects). The output of the method is a relative ordering of the neighboring segments. In fact, this output only provides a cue of the desired relative ordering, just like T-junctions typically provide a cue of the relative ordering of the objects around them. These cues can be used later as heuristics or as starting points for higher-level algorithms for image and video-processing.", "In this paper we introduce a novel platform that utilises multi-modal low-cost motion capture technology for the delivery of real-time visual feedback for sports performance. This platform supports the expansion to multi-modal interfaces that utilise haptic and audio feedback, which scales effectively with motor task complexity. We demonstrate an implementation of our platform within the field of sports performance. The platform includes low-cost motion capture through a fusion technique, combining a Microsoft Kinect V2 with two wrist inertial sensors, which make use of the accelerometer and gyroscope sensors, alongside a game-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) for instruction, visual feedback and gamified score tracking.", "This paper presents an approach of automated architecture synthesis for a wide class of parallel multi-mode data-flow embedded computing systems. This approach is based on the method of automated synthesis of multi-mode architectures. This method allows finding the best correspondence between a multi-mode data-flow application (task) and its parallel processing architecture. This method has been implemented in an architecture-to-task optimization system (ATOS) based on a partially reconfigurable computing platform (PRCP). It was estimated that ATOS could synthesize a complete architecture for an application presented in the form of a data-flow graph within a few seconds including emulation and performance measurements on the PRCP. The proposed approach can dramatically decrease the cost of the R&D design stage and time-to-market for a wide range of parallel multi-mode embedded computing systems.", "This paper proposes a novel assistive system for the visually impaired. The system is composed of a Microsoft Kinect sensor, keypad-type controller, tactile device, laptop computer and so on. The system can recognize three-dimensional objects from depth data generated by the Kinect sensor, and inform visually impaired users not only about the existence of objects, but also about their classes such as chairs and upward stairs. Ordinarily, the system works as a conventional white cane. When a user instructs the system to find the object of a particular class, the system executes the recognition scheme that is designed to find the instructed object. If the object is found in the field of view of the Kinect sensor, the tactile device provides vibration feedback. The recognition schemes are applied to actual scenes. The experimental results indicate that the system is promising as means of helping the visually impaired find the desired objects.", "This paper presents approach for an automated surveillance system which performs human detection and tracking across multiple non-overlapping cameras. At single camera level, motion based segmentation is achieved using an accurate optical flow estimation technique. Feature matching and region-based shape descriptors are used for object tracking and classification. The proposed approach extends these features across fields of view (FOV) of multiple non-overlapping cameras in order to obtain correct inter-camera correspondences. Performance evaluation of the system was done in different scenarios which verify that the proposed method can efficiently tackle the complexity of video motion tracking with high processing speed.", "For constructing a tri-dimensional model from range images, they must be registered, i.e., it must be put together into the same coordinate system. There are good algorithms available to perform this, but only after the range images have been brought into positions that are close to the true ones with respect to an arbitrarily chosen reference system. These initial estimates are often provided manually. This paper deals with a technique to compute them automatically. We present a way to determine parameter values that are necessary to control the control flow of a simplified mesh based crude registration, which is characterized by two novel features: drastic data reduction and an expressive shape descriptor.", "Optical flow is a valuable tool for motion analysis in medical imaging sequences. A reliable application requires determining the accuracy of the computed optical flow. This is a main challenge given the absence of ground truth in medical sequences. This paper presents an error analysis of Lucas-Kanade schemes in terms of intrinsic design errors and numerical stability of the algorithm. Our analysis provides a confidence measure that is naturally correlated to the accuracy of the flow field. Our experiments show the higher predictive value of our confidence measure compared to existing measures.", "The bearing was the key part of asynchronous motors, and the bearings would be damaged with multi-degree modal from slightly to badly if they were used for a long time. This paper proposed a method for multi-degree damage modal identification of motors based on wavelet and neural networks. the vibration signals of asynchronous motor were considered to be researched, and the feature vectors were extracted by wavelet-packet transform, and the feature vectors were computed as the form of energy spectrum of the wavelet-packet coefficient, and combined with the classifying tool RBF neural networks for identification of many damaged modals of bearings for motors. The experiment results had proofed its' rationality and validity, and provided a new method for fault analysis and system identification of asynchronous motors.", "A new computational approach is presented for the estimation of displacement fields along contours of moving regions in image sequences. The proposed scheme uses frame differences to determine moving edges, which are then expressed as straight line tokens. Finally, an edge propagation algorithm is used to determine the distance between these moving edge tokens and the frame difference region boundaries to approximate the displacement fields. The performance of the system is evaluated with a real video image sequence. >", "A multi-scale optical flow motion estimation based algorithm is developed for algebraic nonuniformity correction. First, ::: the algorithm use time domain low pass filter filtering the random image frames noise. Then, use multi-scale optical flow ::: estimation of the next frame. With these scene estimates and record frame, we can carry out nonuniformity correction. ::: The strength of the algorithm lies in its good noise immunity, simple calculation and ability of real time processing. The ::: fundamental and the flow of the proposed technique are described and the performance is demonstrated with infrared ::: camera developed.", "Smart, multi-modal transportation concepts are a key component towards smart sustainable cities. Such systems usually involve combinations of various modes of individual mobility (private cars, bicycles, walking), public transportation, and shared mobility (e.g. car sharing, car pooling). In this paper, we introduce a large-scale multi-agent simulation tool for simulating adaptive, personalized, multi-modal mobility. It is calibrated using various sources of real-world data and can be quickly adapted to new scenarios. The tool is highly modular and flexible and can be used to examine a variety of questions ranging from collective adaptation over collaborative learning to emergence and emergent behaviour. We present the design concept and architecture, showcase the adaptation to a real scenario (the city of Trento, Italy) and demonstrate an example of collaborative learning.", "This paper deals with the temporal analysis of stereo image sequences taken from a road vehicle in a busy traffic environment. The images are first processed to extract contours of significant intensity change. Points lying on these contours are used as primitives for stereo matching and optic flow computation, which yield the 3-D trajectories of the salient points in the scene. These point, trajectories are processed by a Kalman filter to determine the relative motion of the points with respect to the vehicle. The 3-D output of the stereo algorithm is grouped by a segmentation algorithm into different objects. A statistical analysis of the motion parameters is performed for each object. Experimental results with a real stereo sequence are presented.", "From 30.07.06 to 04.08.06, the Dagstuhl Seminar 06311 ``Sensor Data and Information Fusion in Computer Vision and Medicine'' was held ::: in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), ::: Schloss Dagstuhl. ::: Sensor data fusion is of increasing importance for many ::: research fields and applications. Multi-modal imaging ::: is routine in medicine, and in robitics it is ::: common to use multi-sensor data fusion. ::: During the seminar, researchers and application experts ::: working in the field of sensor data ::: fusion presented their current ::: research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. ::: Abstracts of the presentations given during ::: the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar ::: results and ideas are put together in this paper. ::: The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. ::: The second part briefly summarizes the contributions.", "This paper investigates a human hand motion capture based on back projection of human hand's silhouette images extracted from multi-camera images. The multi-camera system consists of a server-client system to run the motion capture in real time, and small USB cameras are utilized to make the system compact and low cost. To achieve robust extraction of the hand's silhouette that is used in silhouette volume intersection for 3D reconstruction, the skin colour subtraction algorithm that combines two skin colour models in RGB colour space is proposed. One model is based on brightness and chromaticity, and the other model utilizes the normalized RG plane. To evaluate the proposed hand motion capture system, 3D reconstruction experiments of human hand posture are carried out. The experimental results show both the feasibility and effectiveness of the skin colour subtraction method and confirm that the 3D human hand posture reconstruction runs in real time.", "The segmentation of optical ow elds is an important stage in real-time object tracking. The multi-point optical ow approach is a means to achieve this, but the approach is limited by uncertainty. This paper presents a segmentation scheme which incorporates multiresolution classi cation and the multi-point method to overcome the uncertainty. The classi er involves a spatio-featural focusing and a xing process. The segmentation scheme produces a multiresolution segmentation map, where the central region of a physical object is represented using coarse resolutions so as to achieve a better estimation of the optical ow, and the border region is represented using ne resolutions so as to achieve a better estimation of the object boundaries.", "The purpose of this study was to quantify the repeatability and reliability of the upper limb joint angles from eight subjects simultaneously measured by the Kinect and Vicon during wheelchair transfer. Shoulder, elbow, wrist joint, and trunk angles were calculated. The Kinect showed excellent correlation with the Vicon on the time series angle curve (r > 0.61). The shoulder abduction-adduction angle of leading arm and trunk angles were satisfied with ICC values over 0.81. Except for the maximum and minimum angles of leading arm\"s elbow joint and those of trunk angles, all other variables had larger ICC differences than 0.1 between two systems. Good correlation of the Kinect with the Vicon and good reliability and validity of the Kinect seemed to indicate a potential application of the Kinect system for practical use at home or in clinics as a low-cost virtual coaching system for upper body motion correction during transfer.", "A temporal segmentation procedure that considers facial expression variations is presented in this paper. It is examined whether it is possible to use the Kinect sensor for improving temporal video segmentation by using information on scene depth in addition to color information. The presented video segmentation procedure that considers the information on scene depth makes it possible to secure invariance with respect to angle and lighting.", "We present a simple algorithm for computing a high-quality personalized avatar from a single color image and the corresponding depth map which have been captured by Microsoft's Kinect sensor. Due to the low market price of our hardware setup, 3D face scanning becomes feasible for home use. The proposed algorithm combines the advantages of robust non-rigid registration and fitting of a morphable face model. We obtain a high-quality reconstruction of the facial geometry and texture along with one-to-one correspondences with our generic face model. This representation allows for a wide range of further applications such as facial animation or manipulation. Our algorithm has proven to be very robust. Since it does not require any user interaction, even non-expert users can easily create their own personalized avatars. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.", "We present a method for morphing between smooth spectral magnitude envelopes of speech. An important element of our method is the notion of audio flow, which is inspired by similar notions of optical flow computed between images in computer vision applications. Audio flow defines the correspondence between two smooth spectral magnitude envelopes, and encodes the formant shifting that occurs from one sound to another. We present several algorithms for the automatic computation of audio flow from a small 20 second corpus of speech. In addition, we present an algorithm for morphing smoothly between any two spectral magnitude envelopes, given the computed audio flow between them.", "Abstract This paper reports an experimental research of single and two-phase gas/liquid flow in packed porous beds composed of multi-sizes spheres and irregular particles. A test facility named DEBECO-LT is designed and constructed to investigate the friction laws of adiabatic single and two-phase flows in a porous bed. The results show that the effective diameter of multi-sizes non-spherical or irregular particles bed can be derived on the basis of bed consisted of spheres as long as they have a wide range of grain sizes and the similar size distribution. Given the effective particle diameter obtained from single-phase flow through the packed bed with multi-size spheres or irregular particles, the pressure drop of two-phase flow through the bed can be predicted by the Reed model. The experimental data provide insights for the flow characteristic of porous bed, as well as high-quality data for validation of the coolability analysis models and codes.", "With the great popularity and extensive application of Kinect, the Internet is sharing more and more depth data. To effectively use plenty of depth data would make great sense. In this paper, we propose a generalized dynamic depth data matching framework for action retrieval. Firstly we focus on single depth image matching utilizing both depth and shape feature. The depth feature used in our method is straightforward but proved to be very effective and robust for distinguishing various human actions. Then, we adopt shape context, which is widely used in shape matching, in order to strengthen the robustness of our matching strategy. Finally, we utilize Dynamic Time Warping to measure temporal similarity between two depth video sequences. Experiments based on a dataset of 17 classes of actions from 10 different individuals demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our proposed matching strategy.", "The automated measurement of breast volume has applications both in facilitating the decisions made by surgeons prior to breast reconstruction and in improving density estimation. We describe a novel approach to volume measurement for surgical planning, using a games console input device - the Microsoft Kinect. We have explored the ability of the device to measure surface depth for a range of distances and angles, demonstrating a mean depth error of below 1.5 mm for a distance range of interest (0.5 - 0.8 m). We have also validated the use of the system for volume measurement using a full-sized model female torso. The Kinect-based result is in good agreement with the volume measured by filling a mould of the breast with water (225.5±8.7 ml, 229.4 ±9.7 ml respectively). The method has the potential to provide convenient, cost- and time-effective measurement of breast volume in clinical practice.", "Based on the principles of urban traffic planning and forecasting, a traffic simulation modal of approaching the existing OD trip volumes of the traffic zones from the observed link flows has been introduced by analyzing the relations between the OD trip volumes of a traffic zone and the link flows. The modal is defined as an \"inverse traffic simulation modal\" because its process is a reverse to that of the staged traffic forecast modal.", "In this paper, we address the problem of tracking temporal deformations between two arbitrary densely sampled point-based surfaces. We propose an intuitive and efficient resolution to the point matching problem within two frames of a sequence. The proposed method utilizes two distinct space partition trees, one for each point cloud, which both are defined on a unique discrete space. Our method takes advantage of multi-resolution concerns, voxel adjacency relations, and a specific distance function.", "This paper presents real-time interaction between 7-DOF KUKA robotic arm and any untrained human operator using Kinect V2. Kinect sensor is utilized to detect human body joints and mono color object to be grasped, using HSL-XYZ algorithm. By moving hand holding simple object such as a ball, operator can make KUKA robot follow the expected trajectory and fulfill pass-and-place tasks. One hand of operator is followed by KUKA, while the pose of the other arm commands the gripper to move, grasp, release and place. Experiments proved our advantages that Human-Robot Interaction is more robust, easier and more intuitive for human, with lower requirements for sensor; and is a novel solution for industries and life. Client — server application using UDP protocol is performed to transmit and receive real-time control and feedback data.", "Conventional human action recognition methods use a single light camera to extract all the necessary information needed to perform the recognition. However, the use of a single light camera poses limitations which can not be addressed without a hardware change. In this paper, we propose a novel hardware setup to help solve many of said limitations without changing the available human action algorithms. The setup uses the depth information from the Microsoft Kinect camera for the Xbox 360 gaming console, and a secondary light camera in a stereo camera configuration. In the paper we explain how the configuration is setup, and how it is used to extract the skeletal data from the Kinect camera and project this skeletal data onto the secondary camera's image. The results of the extraction are tested for accuracy, and potential applications are discussed.", "An unified radio application interface and a reconfigurable mobile device utilizing the same are disclosed. The unified radio application interface, which is one of interfaces mounted on the reconfigurable mobile device, comprises: a first module for a radio application management service; a second module for a user data flow service; and a third module for a multi-radio control service, wherein the unified radio application interface provides at least one of a radio application management service, a user data flow service, and a multi-radio control service to a radio control framework (RCF) operating on a radio computer of a mobile device and to an unified radio application (URA) operating on a radio computer, and supports the RCF so as to reconfigure a radio application according to a wireless communication environment or a wireless connection environment of the mobile device.", "The problem of multi-modal pattern recognition is considered under the assumption that the kernel-based approach is applicable within each particular modality. The Cartesian product of the linear spaces into which the respective kernels embed the output scales of single sensor is employed as an appropriate joint scale corresponding to the idea of combining modalities, actually, at the sensor level. From this point of view, the known kernel fusion techniques, including Relevance and Support Kernel Machines, offer a toolkit of combining pattern recognition modalities. We propose an SVM-based quasi-statistical approach to multi-modal pattern recognition which covers both of these modes of kernel fusion." ]

[ "Tim Bauerschmidt left home when he was 19. He would call or visit his parents in Michigan occasionally. Decades went by. After his father died last year, he knew his mother couldn't live by herself. She was 90, and he realized he didn't know her that well. \"I had some stilted conversations,\" says Bauerschmidt. \"She'd be on the other end of the phone when I talked to my dad. I'd have to say, 'Mom, are you there? Are you on the line?' [She would say] 'Oh yeah, I'm here.' \" Bauerschmidt says it was like his mom, Norma, lived in the shadow of his dad. The pair were married for 67 years. Two days after he died, Norma was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. The doctor recommended a hysterectomy and chemotherapy. \"She said, 'Nope, I'm not doing any of that,' \" says Ramie Liddle, Bauerschmidt's wife. The couple offered to have Norma come live with them. But there was a catch — they live in an RV and travel full time. Liddle says Norma took about two minutes and gave them her answer. \"I'm 90-years-old,\" Liddle recalls Norma saying. \"I'm hitting the road. Let's go have some fun. I don't want to spend another minute in the doctor's office.\" Last summer, Norma, Ramie, Tim and the couple's poodle, Ringo, embarked on a year-long adventure across the U.S. Before she was married, Norma served in the Navy. She was a nurse at a hospital in San Diego during World War II. After that, she lived in Michigan, rarely venturing far from home. When the foursome pulled away in the RV, Norma began to experience many firsts. Bauerschmidt says she had never even been to Wisconsin, the state next to Michigan. There were so many foods she never tried: buffalo burgers, fried green tomatoes, lobster and oysters. \"She realized quickly that she loved key lime pie,\" Liddle says. Over the course of the year, they traveled nearly 13,000 miles and slept in over 75 locations in 32 states. They visited dozens of national parks, monuments and recreation areas. Norma even experienced some smaller things, like taking off in a hot air balloon, riding a horse and getting a pedicure. At the beginning of their trip, Liddle started to document their adventures. \"I decided to put it on Facebook,\" Liddle says. \"I used to keep a travel blog because Tim and I were always on the road and honestly, I liked to let my mom, who lives in Pittsburgh, know where we were.\" She named the Facebook page \"Driving Ms. Norma,\" and after a few months, people beyond Liddle's mom started to take notice. A website picked up on it, and the page gained hundreds of thousands of followers. People around the world were in awe of Norma — the way Ramie and Tim were. \"I used to say 'No,' to a lot of things,\" Bauerschmidt says. \"My knee jerk reaction to most things – no, no – but now I hold my tongue and I consider it, and I'm saying 'Yes,' to uncomfortable situations.\" Norma died last week at the age of 91. Her memorial service was held on Friday in Friday Harbor, Wash. — on the other side of the country from where her RV adventures began. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: This next story is about learning to live in the moment. Tim Bauerschmidt left home when he was 19. He would call or visit his parents in Michigan occasionally. Decades went by. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: After his father died last year, he knew his mother couldn't live by herself. She was 90. And he realized... TIM BAUERSCHMIDT: I really didn't know my mom. I had some stilted conversations. She'd be on the other end of the phone when I talked to my dad. I'd have to say, Mom, are you there? Are you are on the line? Oh, yeah, I'm here. MCEVERS: Tim says it was like his mom, Norma Bauerschmidt, was always in the shadow of his dad. They had been married for 67 years. And two days after he died, Norma, who was already grieving, was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. The doctor recommended a hysterectomy and chemotherapy. RAMIE LIDDLE: She said, nope, I'm not doing any of that. CORNISH: That's Ramie Liddle, Tim's wife. The couple offered to have Norma come live with them, but there was a catch. They live in an RV and travel full-time. Ramie says that Norma took about two minutes and then gave them her answer. LIDDLE: I'm 90-years-old, I'm hitting the road. Let's go have some fun. I don't want to spend another minute in a doctor's office. MCEVERS: And so last summer marked the start of a year-long adventure for Norma, Ramie, Tim and the couple's poodle Ringo (ph). Before she was married, Norma had served in the Navy. She was a nurse at a hospital in San Diego during World War II. After that, her life was contained to Michigan. CORNISH: So as soon as the foursome pulled away in the RV, Norma experienced many firsts. BAUERSCHMIDT: Never been to Wisconsin, the state next to Michigan... LIDDLE: Yeah. BAUERSCHMIDT: ...I've never been here. LIDDLE: Yeah. BAUERSCHMIDT: Foods she'd never ate. LIDDLE: A buffalo burger, a lobster, oysters. She realized real quickly that she loves key lime pie. BAUERSCHMIDT: Or just attractions, she's never seen the Gr" ]

[ "People who have survived melanoma were more likely to protect themselves from sun exposure than those who hadn't experienced the disease, but a significant portion of them still reported getting a sunburn in the past year, among other behaviors that might increase the risk of a new cancer. The study, which appears Thursday in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, included 724 cancer survivors who had been diagnosed with melanoma, a potentially deadly form of skin cancer, between July 2004 and December 2007. Researchers also surveyed 660 people who hadn't had melanoma but who were similar in age and gender to the cancer survivors. The study, conducted in 2015, relied on self-reports, which means some people may have overestimated their positive behaviors, and it captures only one point in time. So it's not possible to say whether a given cancer survivor changed his or her sun exposure behavior after diagnosis. You can look at the results two ways: On the positive side, the survivors were on average doing better at protecting themselves from sun exposure than people who hadn't had skin cancer. For example, 34 percent of survivors reported spending more than an hour outside on summer weekdays, compared with 44 percent of those in the control group. Among survivors, almost 20 percent reported at least one sunburn within the past 12 months, compared to nearly 37 percent of people without a history of the disease. And 62 percent of survivors said they often or always wear sunscreen outside in the summer, compared to 39 percent of the control group. On the other hand, one might wonder why more melanoma survivors weren't taking protective measures. Study co-author Rachel Vogel, a cancer epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, says she puts the findings in the \"glass half full\" category. \"These survivors are almost 10 years out, and the fact that they're doing better [than the control group] at all is surprising,\" she says. On the flip side, though, she says there is definitely room for improvement, which is where she plans to focus future research efforts. (More on that in a minute.) The results point to a truism of health: changing behavior is really, really hard. There's an assumption that a cancer diagnosis provides a teachable moment when people are more willing to make positive changes, but whether it represents a true window of opportunity isn't well studied, says Colleen McBride, a behavioral epidemiologist who chairs the department of behavioral sciences and health education at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health and wasn't involved with the study. Most of us think that people make life-changing positive changes after a cancer diagnosis, but that doesn't always happen; a 2014 study found almost 15 percent of lung cancer survivors were current smokers. The best timing for when an intervention should be offered isn't known, McBride says. \"Does it actually make a difference, compared to giving the intervention at any other time?\" she says. \"There's not a lot of research to pin that down.\" McBride and her colleagues have proposed a way to think about whether a given event, like a bad diagnosis or, on the brighter side, a pregnancy, represents a true window of opportunity for making changes. The event has to make a person feel at risk, has to provoke emotions and has to challenge self-concept. So a cancer diagnosis might make you feel at risk of serious health problems or death, which could provoke worry and anxiety, and can make you feel like a patient — who is, by cultural standards, supposed to work hard to try to get better, she says. That may help explain why some melanoma survivors in the study weren't studiously avoiding the sun. Vogel says that in focus groups preceding the study, melanoma survivors seemed to fall into two groups: those who said they wore long sleeves every day and only golfed starting at 7 a.m., and those who said they did pretty much whatever they wanted to do. She says that latter group didn't seem to think that their diagnosis had been a serious one — they may never have felt truly at risk. \"There may be an education piece we're missing,\" says Vogel. \"People go to the dermatologist and have the melanoma removed, and that's the end of the story for them. They don't realize that they dodged a really big bullet and got very lucky.\" (Early stage, localized melanoma has a five-year survival rate of more than 98 percent, but if the disease has spread beyond the nearby lymph nodes and to other parts of the body, the rate drops to 17 percent.) A diagnosis may motivate the patient herself or a relative or loved one to try to change their behavior. \"But once they're in the door, they face all the challenges of anyone who is trying to change their behavior,\" McBride says. \"It's difficult to let go of old habits.\" That's particularly true when those habits like smoking or overeating give people comfort during the stressful period right after a diagnosis. Vogel is ", "1Our troubles began in the summer of 1914, the year I turned thirty-five. The Archduke of Austria had just been assassinated, the Mexicans were revolting, and absolutely nothing was happening at our house, which explains why all three of us were riding to Paterson on the most trivial of errands. Never had a larger committee been convened to make a decision about the purchase of mustard powder and the replacement of a claw hammer whose handle had split from age and misuse.Against my better judgment I allowed Fleurette to drive. Norma was reading to us from the newspaper as she always did.\"'Man's Trousers Cause Death,' \" Norma called out.\"It doesn't say that.\" Fleurette snorted and turned around to get a look at the paper. The reins slid out of her hands.\"It does,\" Norma said. \"It says that a Teamster was in the habit of hanging his trousers over the gas jet at night but, being under the influence of liquor, didn't notice that the trousers smothered the flame.\"\"Then he died of gas poisoning, not of trousers.\" \"Well, the trousers —\" The low, goosey cry of a horn interrupted Norma. I turned just in time to see a black motor car barreling toward us, tearing down Hamilton and picking up speed as it crossed the intersection. Fleurette jumped up on the footboard to wave the driver off. \"Get down!\" I shouted, but it was too late. The automobile hit us broadside, its brakes shrieking. The sound of our buggy shattering was like a firecracker going off in our ears. We tumbled over in a mess of splintered wood and bent metal. Our harness mare, Dolley, faltered and went down with us. She let out a high scream, the likes of which I had never heard from a horse. Something heavy pinned my shoulder. I reached around and found it was Norma's foot. \"You're standing on me!\" \"I am not. I can't even see you,\" Norma said. Our wagon rocked back and forth as the motor car reversed its engine and broke free of the wreckage. I was trapped under the overturned rear seat. It was as dark as a coffin, but there was a dim shape below me that I believed to be Fleurette's arm. I didn't dare move for fear of crushing her. From the clamor around us, I gathered that someone was trying to rock the wagon and get it upright. \"Don't!\" I yelled. \"My sister's under the wheel.\" If the wheel started to turn, she'd be caught up in it. A pair of arms the size of tree branches reached into the rubble and got hold of Norma. \"Take your hands off me!\" she shouted. \"He's trying to get you out,\" I called. With a grunt, she accepted the man's help. Norma hated to be manhandled. Once she was free, I climbed out behind her. The man attached to the enormous arms wore an apron covered in blood. For one terrible second, I thought it was ours, then I realized he was a butcher at the meat counter across the street. He wasn't the only one who had come running out when the automobile hit us. We were surrounded by store clerks, locksmiths, grocers, delivery boys, shoppers — in fact, most of the stores on Market Street had emptied, their occupants drawn to the spectacle we were now providing. Most of them watched from the sidewalk, but a sizable contingent surrounded the motor car, preventing its escape. The butcher and a couple of men from the print shop, their hands black with ink, helped us raise the wagon just enough to allow Fleurette to slide clear of the wheel. As we lifted the broken panels off her, Fleurette stared up at us with wild dark eyes. She wore a dress sheathed in pink taffeta. Against the dusty road she looked like a trampled bed of roses. \"Don't move,\" I whispered, bending over her, but she got her arms underneath herself and sat up. \"No, no, no,\" said one of the printers. \"We'll call for a doctor.\" I looked up at the men standing in a circle around us. \"She'll be fine,\" I said, sliding a hand over her ankle. \"Go on.\" Some of those men looked a little too eager to help with the examination of Fleurette's legs. They shuffled off to help two livery drivers, who had disembarked from their own wagons to tend to our mare. They freed her from the harness and she struggled to stand. The poor creature groaned and tossed her head and blew steam from her nostrils. The drivers fed her something from their pockets and that seemed to settle her. I gave Fleurette's calf a squeeze. She howled and jerked away from me. \"Is it broken?\" she asked. I couldn't say. \"Try to move it.\" She screwed her face into a knot, held her breath, and gingerly bent one leg and then the other. When she was finished she let her breath go all at once and looked up at me, panting. \"That's good,\" I said. \"Now move your ankles and your toes.\" We both looked down at her feet. She was wearing the most ridiculous white calfskin boots with pink ribbons for laces. \"Are they all right?\" she asked. I put my hand on her back to steady her. \"Just try to move them. First your ankle.\" \"I meant the boots.\" That's when I knew Fleurette would survive. I unlaced the boots and promised to look after them. A m", "More than 50 years after he came up with a story about Clifford the Big Red Dog, artist and author Norman Bridwell has died. In 2012, Bridwell told NPR he had been shocked when his idea was accepted for publication. A native of Indiana, Bridwell was 86. He died Friday on the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard, where he had long lived with his wife, Norma. No cause of death has yet been released, but the AP reports that the author had been in the hospital since falling down at home several weeks ago. He had also suffered from prostate cancer, his wife tells the news agency. \"He passed peacefully with family members at his bedside,\" the AP reports, citing Norma Bridwell. It was Norma Bridwell who told the budding children's book author that his idea to call a huge bloodhound \"Tiny\" was \"stupid,\" as he recalled when he and his wife spoke with NPR's Scott Simon. Instead, they decided the dog should be named Clifford, after an imaginary friend Norma Bridwell had when she was little. The name of Clifford's best friend, Emily Elizabeth, came from the couple's own daughter, whom they raised on Martha's Vineyard along with their son, Timothy. Before the Clifford franchise could get started, Bridwell, who was trying to change careers after being an artist in New York City, endured the rejection of nine different publishers. Finally, Scholastic accepted the manuscript that he'd written over a weekend. Bridwell told Simon that he \"was shocked when it was accepted for publication, because I'd never written anything before.\" When Norma Bridwell suggested he follow up by writing another story about Clifford and Emily Elizabeth — and maybe even two or three — the author answered, \"Oh, no. This is just a fluke.\" The gigantic dog went on to anchor a series of books that has spread into TV and beyond. More than 129 million copies of his Clifford books have sold since then, and an animated series based on the books is aired in 65 countries. \"Norman Bridwell's books about Clifford, childhood's most lovable dog, could only have been written by a gentle man with a great sense of humor,\" Scholastic President and CEO Dick Robinson said. \"Norman personified the values that we as parents and educators hope to communicate to our children – kindness, compassion, helpfulness, gratitude.\" As the AP notes, \"Clifford became standard nighttime reading for countless families and a money machine for publisher Scholastic Inc. Spinoffs include cartoons with John Ritter as the voice of Clifford and future Hunger Games novelist Suzanne Collins among the scriptwriters.\"", "Finding out that you have cancer greatly increases the risk of death by heart attack or suicide, according to a new study. That risk is especially big in the first week after getting the bad news. The notion that stress can spark a heart attack has long been part of folklore. Only in the past decade have scientists connected emotional stress with physiological reactions that can bring on a heart attack. Heart attacks spike after the death of a loved one or a natural disaster, so it makes sense that could happen after a devastating medical diagnosis, too. Researchers looked at the medical records of 6 million people in Sweden from 1991 to 2006. The country's medical registry made it possible to match death records with cancer diagnoses. Suicide rates among people told they had cancer spiked in the first week after getting the news, with 2.50 suicides per 1,000 person-years of life, compared with 0.18 in people without cancer diagnoses. Continue Reading The risk of suicide was greatest for people who were diagnosed with esophageal, liver or pancreatic cancer — some of the deadliest forms of cancer. For all patients, suicide risk declined over time. But in the first year after a diagnosis, people with cancer were about three times as likely to commit suicide. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Deaths from heart attack also spiked in the first week, almost tripling compared to people without cancer. But the risk dropped more quickly than did suicide risk, and after a year it wasn't significantly higher than for the population in general. The fact that the risk of death increases immediately after diagnosis shows that it's the diagnosis, not the stresses of cancer treatment, causing the deaths, according to Unnur Valdimarsdottir, head of the Centre of Public Health Sciences at the University of Iceland and a co-author of the study. She and her colleagues had earlier found a sharp increase in deaths after a prostate cancer diagnosis. This study looks at all major cancers, and it found that the risk rose along with the seriousness of the cancer. \"We believe that the shock of the diagnosis and corresponding magnitude of stress is highest during the immediate time window following diagnosis,\" Valdimarsdottir tells Shots by email. \"Other studies on different kinds of stressors, e.g. loss of relative, also indicate a remarkably short induction time between stress onset and cardiovascular outcomes.\" Interestingly, people who were already getting psychiatric care or treatment for heart disease were less likely to die, perhaps because their stresses were already getting some attention. This suggests more support delivered along with a cancer diagnosis could reduce the risk of death. \"We do believe that we have identified a critical time window where the resources of health care providers of cancer patients needs to be directed,\" Valdimarsdottir says. \"The important thing is that health care professionals, cancer patients themselves and their significant others are aware of these risks, and remain observant of early signs and symptoms of such serious hazards.\"", "Journalist Leroy Sievers, who covered wars, genocides and natural disasters in more than a dozen countries — and who chronicled life after his cancer diagnosis for NPR on-air and online — died Friday. He was 53. For 14 years, Sievers worked at ABC News' Nightline, spending his last four years with the program as its executive producer. Earlier, he worked for nearly 10 years at CBS News. A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, he began his career at KTVU-TV in Oakland, Calif. In more than 25 years as a working journalist, Sievers covered conflicts in Iraq, Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, El Salvador and Nicaragua, among other countries. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he was embedded with the 3rd Infantry Division alongside Nightline anchor Ted Koppel. And it was Sievers who was responsible for \"The Fallen,\" Nightline's 2004 tribute to those who died in the ongoing Iraq war. After leaving Nightline, Sievers became a guest lecturer at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication, and he returned to Africa for Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group. For the Discovery Channel, again working with Koppel, he produced Our Children's Children's War, a special report on the long-term implications of the war on terrorism. In his quarter-century career, Sievers won 12 national news Emmys, two George Foster Peabody Awards and two Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards. A Diagnosis, And A Decision Sievers was first treated for colon cancer in 2001. Four years later, the cancer returned, this time in his brain and lung. Doctors told him he probably had less than six months to live. Instead, for 2 1/2 years, he was able to treat the cancer with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. As he began chemotherapy treatments, Sievers detailed his experiences on NPR's Morning Edition, in a commentary that aired Feb. 16, 2006. Ellen McDonnell, NPR's morning-programming director, recalls listening to that first commentary, and she remembers how the rawness and transparency of Sievers' words struck a chord with listeners — those battling cancer, and others as well. Several months after the first commentary came a second, and then a regular series chronicling Sievers' life in what he called \"Cancer World.\" Eventually, under the title \"My Cancer,\" the project would become a multimedia conversation that included a daily blog, a weekly podcast and — most important to Sievers — a community. \"Leroy gave voice to a topic that we are very uncomfortable with — death and dying,\" McDonnell said. \"My Cancer had a face and a heart and a smile.\" In his radio essays, in his podcast commentaries and on the blog, Sievers addressed the polite silences that surround cancer. He described his early internal debates about whether it was worth it to buy new pants and shoes. He spoke frankly about his hope that he would live long enough to read the final installment in the Harry Potter series. (He did, reporting avidly on the 759-page volume in a blog post written late at night, immediately after he finished the book.) In the summer of 2008, a week before his 53rd birthday, Sievers learned that the cancer he had kept at bay for so long had \"exploded\" throughout his body. His doctors told him that they had run out of treatment options. Courage To Face Horrors, And An Appetite For Small Joys A towering man at 6 foot 5, Sievers once wrote that he wasn't \"particularly graceful.\" Yet there was a grace in the frankness with which he observed the world. In 1994, in the final days of the Rwandan genocide, Sievers traveled with a Nightline crew to the sprawling, cholera-plagued refugee camps on Rwanda's border. There were no roads, no paths — just tens of thousands of people, barely living and already dead, lying \"head to toe in a lava field,\" as Sievers wrote in an article for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. As he and his crew picked their way through, he felt a movement at his feet. \"I looked down and saw a small boy,\" Sievers wrote. \"He looked to be about 5, which meant he was probably 10. Malnutrition will do that.\" \"He was lying on his back and had thrown his arm up over his head. His fingers had gotten tangled in my boot laces. As I looked in his eyes, I saw the light go out. And he died. A stranger's face, my face, was the last thing he saw. And all I could do was shake my foot to free my laces from his fingers, and then move on to catch up to my team. It was five years before I could tell that story.\" Like many who have become intimately familiar with death, Sievers learned how to appreciate the fleeting pleasures of life. At his home in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, he hosted an annual Halloween party, where one year he greeted guests dressed as another tall Washingtonian: Janet Reno. He indulged his cravings. He liked to drink an entire gallon of ice-cold skim milk each day. He loved jalapeno peppers and iced mochas. In one blog post, \"Little Things That Turn the Day Around,\" he ", "In the interest of the greening of the world, using less gas, decreasing carbon footprints and getting healthy, many municipalities are encouraging bicycle use. But along with greater numbers of bike riders on the road come increased conflicts with drivers. In Toronto last week, a cyclist died after an encounter with a prominent politician turned angry. The confrontation took place in one of downtown Toronto's wealthiest neighborhoods. The police say it started when a Saab convertible and a bicycle had a minor collision. The Saab swerved down the street with the angry cyclist hanging on to the drivers' side. The cyclist, 33-year-old bicycle messenger David Allen Sheppard, hit a mailbox, flew off the car and died a short time later. The driver, Ontario's former Attorney General Michael Bryant, was charged with criminal negligence and is scheduled to appear in court next month. Two days later, hundreds of cyclists protested at the site of the accident. They lay their bikes on the road and barked like dogs — a special bicycle messenger tribute. Many said it feels like there's a war going on between cars and bikes. The War Between Cyclists And Drivers Jordan Antflick said he's been hit three times in the last four years. \"The other week I was cut off by a taxi cab pulling over to pick up a fare on the road, didn't even see me, stopped right in front of me and I just went right over the back of his car,\" Antflick says. As bikers rode away, pedestrian Carol Shenfield walked past. She said she drives — and she blames the bikes. \"I think the basic thing is not following the rules of the road,\" Shenfield says. \"You think you're exempt. You ride a bike, so you think you can get away with everything.\" According to the North American Alliance for Biking and Walking, the number of people who ride their bikes in metropolitan areas has grown by up to 40 percent in the last few years. It says the number of crashes and injuries has actually gone down. But cycling advocates say there's still a lot of tension on the roads. Stress And Sense Of Unpredictability On Spadina Avenue in Toronto's Chinatown district, the bike lanes are only a couple of feet wide. The bikes weave in and out of car traffic and dart across streetcar tracks. Noah Budnic, who heads the alliance, says conditions like that cause stress that can lead to confrontations. \"This change going on on the streets is happening on the fly,\" Budnic says. \"They're learning how to behave differently and drive and bike on streets that are still designed for cars. So there's a lot of tension because people are just making it up as they go along.\" Road rage expert David Weisenthal, a psychologist at Toronto's York University, says it's that sense of unpredictability, combined with a desire for revenge, that leads to conflicts. \"We know we will never see the other drivers again who are in front of us, in back of us, alongside of us,\" Weisenthal says. \"We also have a sense of anonymity so that we feel freer to act in what may very often be a nasty manner.\" Weisenthal says cities have to do a lot more to separate bikes and cars. In the meantime, some people in Toronto are doing what they can to try to keep the two apart. Cyclist Dave Perks held his own protest this week at the corner where David Allen Sheppard was killed. He stood shouting at cars to get out of the lane reserved for bikes, buses and taxis. \"Oh it's getting better, but I had 15 in a row that were cars that shouldn't be in this lane,\" Perks says. Others said they hoped that last week's clash could be a catalyst for improved relations between vehicles that run on two wheels and those that run on four. (Soundbite of music) RENEE MONTAGNE, host: There has long been friction on streets that drivers and bike riders try to share and both tend to fault the behavior of the other. In Toronto last week, a cyclist died after an encounter on the road with a prominent politician. Anita Elash has more on that story. ANITA ELASH: The confrontation took place in one of downtown Toronto's wealthiest neighborhoods. The police say it started when a Saab convertible and a bicycle had a minor collision. The Saab swerved down the street with the angry cyclist hanging onto the driver's side. The cyclist, 33-year-old bicycle messenger David Allen Sheppard, hit a mailbox, flew off the car, and died a short time later. The driver, Ontario's former Attorney General Michael Bryant, was charged with criminal negligence and is scheduled to appear in court next month. (Soundbite of cheering) ELASH: Two days later, hundreds of cyclists protested at the site of the incident. They laid their bikes on the road and barked like dogs, a special bicycle messenger tribute. Many said it feels like there's a war going on between cars and bikes. Jordan Antflick said he's been hit three times in the last four years. Mr. JORDAN ANTFLICK: The other week, I was cut off by a taxicab pulling over to pick up a fare on the road, didn't e", "A \"computer algorithm failure\" in the U.K. kept hundreds of thousands of women from getting notified it was time for a mammogram, potentially shortening the lives of up to 270 women, the National Health Service says. The U.K. sends letters to women who are due for breast screening, according to British national guidelines, which call for exams every 3 years for women age 50-70. Because of the computer glitch, an estimated 450,000 women in England around the age of 70 did not receive their mammogram invitation. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced the \"serious failure\" on Wednesday, apologizing to the women affected. \"At this stage it is unclear whether any delay in diagnosis will have resulted in any avoidable harm or death,\" Hunt said. An independent review will work to answer that question, but in the meantime, preliminary statistical models show that as many as 270 women may have \"had their lives shortened as a result\" because of the glitch, Hunt said. David Spiegelhalter, a British statistician, notes that Hunt's announcement could be misinterpreted to mean hundreds of women died because of missed mammograms. But the total number likely includes women who have not yet died. None of that takes away from the fact that the government made a painful mistake, Spiegelhalter said. \"There is no doubting that Jeremy Hunt needed to make a strong apology,\" he wrote. The government says new screening notifications will be sent English women 70-72 who missed their notifications. For older women, for whom the benefit of such screenings is less clear, optional screenings will be available. The Times reports that the NHS and Public Health England, which administers the screening problem, are pointing fingers at each other, with each group suggesting the other body is to blame for the glitch. Meanwhile, the Royal College of General Practitioners says \"the priority should not be to establish blame\" but rather to address the demand for mammograms and prevent such a problem in the future. In the United States, which does not have a universal health care system like the U.K., there is no equivalent centralized process for notifying women they are due to have a mammogram. Otis Brawley, the chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, tells NPR that some HMOs and mammogram facilities will send out reminders, but it's not typical. \"The overwhelming majority of women in the United States, it's expected they or their physician will remember when it's time to get a mammogram,\" Brawley says. And the need for screenings in older women, like those affected by the U.K. debacle, is not widely discussed, Brawley says — even though 50 percent of breast cancers are diagnosed in women age 67 or above. However, as a woman gets older, a breast cancer detected by a mammogram is also less likely to end her life, Brawley notes. Meanwhile, unneeded treatment of such cancers could have serious side effects, as NPR's Rob Stein reported last year. That's why the U.K. stops testing women in their 70s, and why the ACS doesn't recommend mammograms for women with a life expectancy of 10 years or less. Brawley also emphasizes that many women diagnosed with cancer find the cancer themselves, and encouraged all women to be aware of any changes in their breasts.", "Samsung Electronics has issued a formal apology to its workers who were stricken with serious illnesses after working at its factories. It also promised to compensate the employees. At a press conference, Kinam Kim, president and CEO of the company's Device Solutions Division, gave a low bow as part of the apology. \"Beloved colleagues and families have suffered for a long time, but Samsung Electronics failed to take care of the matter earlier,\" Kim said, according to Yonhap News Agency. \"Samsung Electronics also did not fully and completely manage potential health risks at our chip and liquid-crystal display production lines.\" This apology and promise of compensation is more than a decade in the making. As NPR's Anthony Kuhn reported from Seoul, South Korea, \"Dozens of workers have reportedly developed cancer, leukemia and other afflictions at the world's largest chipmaker.\" However, Kuhn reports, it's worth noting that \"Kim stopped short, though, of admitting that the workplace was the direct cause of the workers' illnesses.\" One of the instigators of the push was Hwang Sang-gi, whose daughter Yu-mi contracted leukemia and died after working at a Samsung factory. \"No apology would be enough when considering the deception and humiliation we experienced (from Samsung) over the past 11 years, the pain of suffering from occupational diseases, the pain of losing loved ones,\" Hwang said at the news conference, according to The Associated Press. But he added that he views the apology as a vow to improve safety conditions. Hwang is one of the founders of the activist group Sharps, which stands for Supporters for the Health And Rights of People in the Semiconductor industry. The group has criticized the semiconductor industry, which it says exposes workers to dangerous, toxic chemicals. According to Yale Environment 360, a year after Yu-mi died, a woman who operated from the same workstation also died of leukemia. It highlights other cases: \"In March 2010, a 23-year-old woman named Park Ji-Yeon, who had worked at Samsung's On-Yang semiconductor plant since 2004, also died of leukemia, three years after her diagnosis. In 2005, a 27-year old woman named Han Hae-kyoung, who had worked in a Samsung LCD plant since 1995, was diagnosed with a brain tumor and is now seriously disabled. Another woman, Lee Yoon-jeong, who worked for Samsung in semiconductor production between 1997 and 2003, was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2010 at age 30.\"&nbsp; Kim promised compensation for workers who had gotten sick at chip and liquid-crystal display factories, Kuhn reported, \"including parents who had miscarriages, or children with congenital diseases.\" According to Reuters, \"Samsung will pay up to 150 million won ($132,649.45 USD) for each former and current employee suffering from work-related diseases if they are found to be caused by exposure to harmful chemicals.\" Compensation is available to people who worked at these facilities for more than a year, dating back to 1984, the wire service added. There's no official tally of how many people have gotten sick and even died after working at the plants. The BBC reported that Sharps \"said it had found 319 other victims, 117 of whom had died, as of June this year.\" The compensation will be administered by a law firm, Yonhap reported, and people can apply for compensation until at least 2028.", "It might seem odd to be reading about an old-fashioned farmstead shootout and thinking about how charming it is, but if you're reading Girl Waits With Gun, you might as well get used to it. You'll be thinking that a lot, because the women holding down this particular farmstead are Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp, who handle the battle with grim panache. Though they're under fire, Constance's narrative voice is endlessly pragmatic and authoritative: Neither stray internal monologue nor enemy bullets will be permitted. Author Amy Stewart has built her literary career on personable nonfiction that blends intensive research with a deceptively breezy style. Most famously, she's the author of The Drunken Botanist, a history of plants as used in tipple. However, she also wrote 2005's The Earth Moved, the most impassioned treatise on earthworms you're likely to read this year (or, really, any year). That sense of the drive beneath the facts underscores every page of Girl Waits With Gun — a story drawn from the real-life Kopp sisters, who in 1914 found themselves in the headlines after factory owner Henry Kaufman crashed his car into their buggy. When they demanded restitution, he began a campaign of harassment and intimidation, thinking to scare them into compliance. Instead, the sisters (led by Constance) took the fight to the streets, involving law enforcement and the press in an attempt to get Kaufman behind bars. It's a historical setting almost disheartening in its timeliness. Kaufman's bullying tactics (verified by court records down to the last threatening letter, because sometimes you can't make this stuff up) are all too familiar to many of today's women who have asserted themselves in public. And the Kopp sisters, who farm the family homestead by themselves, already operate under pressure from their brother Francis to settle nearby in town and diminish quietly, as is expected of them. It's one of this novel's many sly, unspoken jokes that Francis has so underestimated his sisters: They're often a mess — Norma has a pointless obsession with pigeons, Fleurette has a flair for the dramatic, and among the three of them there's not quite enough agricultural concentration to keep a profitable farm. But they're a mess on their own terms, and Francis' demands hit close to the heart of Girl Waits With Gun -- at some point there's not much difference between a drunken bully and your own brother, if they both want you to sit down and be quiet. You'll have to fight it all. Constance struggles against those assumptions from all quarters, especially after her run-ins with Kaufman lead her to a factory worker whose child has disappeared. It's a circumstance which gives the stolid Constance plenty of opportunity to reflect on her own past, and — with a frisson of Miss Marple — experience the thrill of a little detective work. The mystery's not always as compelling as the more directly drawn-from-history beats, but that's a common problem: Histories that are fascinating enough to write a book about might not need much embellishment, but to make a satisfying story, there's going to be some narrative architecture. (At points, I think I would have been as happy with one of Stewart's nonfiction takes instead, but of course such a thing doesn't truly exist; from the no-nonsense cadence Stewart creates for Constance to the archival press clips, someone's always constructing a story.) And while the layering of history and narrative creates moments of meta-mystery within the novel, the heart of the matter lies in that farmhouse. Stewart gives us three sisters whose bond — scratchy and well-worn but stronger for it, as can happen with family ties — is unspoken but effortless. Girl Waits With Gun might sometimes be a story in which truth is stranger than fiction, but it also makes for pretty charming fiction. Genevieve Valentine's latest novel is Persona.", "Almost every American will experience an error in diagnosis at some point in life. But the problem has taken a back seat to other patient safety concerns, an influential panel said in a report released Tuesday. The report from a blue-ribbon panel of the Institute of Medicine called for widespread changes in health care to improve diagnoses. Errors in diagnosis — defined as inaccuracies or delays — account for an estimated 10 percent of patient deaths, hundreds of thousands of adverse events in hospitals each year and are a leading cause of paid medical malpractice claims, the report said. Such errors can occur with very rare conditions, such as the Liberian man with undetected Ebola who was sent home from a Dallas hospital last September. But there are more common problems, such as acid reflux being mistaken for a heart attack or a pathology report showing cancer that is never communicated to a patient. Reducing the number of errors won't be easy, in part because there is no standard or required way to track them. Reversing current trends, the report concludes, will require better medical teamwork, training and computer systems. \"Some people go to their graves with a diagnostic error that is never detected,\" said Robert Berenson, a research fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., and one of the committee members who wrote the report. \"It's much more difficult to measure than a medication error.\" The report, called \"Improving Diagnosis in Health Care,\" is the latest in a series launched 15 years ago with \"To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System,\" which helped fuel the patient-safety movement. The first report estimated that as many as 98,000 patients die each year because of medical errors. The IOM is part of the private, nonprofit National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. Tuesday's report has a role for just about everyone in the health system, from computer programmers to clinicians to patients. It recommends better teamwork among health care providers, patients and families. Citing the dearth of data about diagnostic errors, the report calls for voluntary efforts to report such problems. Dedicated funding is needed for research, the report says, and hospitals and doctors need to develop better ways to identify, reduce and learn from near misses. Ironically, the report notes that computerized health records, which can help track and coordinate care, can also become a barrier to efficient and correct diagnoses. The systems, it says, often aren't compatible from one physician's office to another or among hospitals. Auto-fill functions sometimes enter the wrong information. And the sheer volume of inputs and alerts can overwhelm medical staff. The report cites a study of emergency department staff that found clinicians spent more time entering information into computers than taking care of patients. Another study found that while electronic health records provide alerts in response to abnormal diagnostic test results, 70 percent of medical staff surveyed said they receive more alerts than they could manage. Making the systems more efficient and allowing patients more timely access to their own medical records to check for and correct errors \"could be a game changer,\" said Berenson. Indeed, patients \"are going to be critical to the solution,\" said Dr. Michael Cohen, another report author and a pathologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. \"There's a real opportunity for patients to advocate for themselves and at the same time to challenge the health care providers about the diagnosis being made.\" Helen Haskell, who formed Mothers Against Medical Error after her 15-year-old son died because of a hospital medication error, said she was pleased the report focused on better teamwork and communication. She also said patients need better access to their records — particularly hospital records. Consumers, she said, should be prepared to ask questions about their diagnoses. \"What else can it be? Does this diagnosis match all my symptoms?\" are two of the best questions to ask, said Haskell. If there is any doubt, she said, \"people should get a second opinion.\"", "What would you say the chances are of a cancer-sucks comedy succeeding at the box office? 50/50? Suppose it starred indie heartthrob Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the guy diagnosed with cancer — and Up in the Air's perky Anna Kendrick as his inexperienced counselor. Would that make it more appealing? Throw in Seth Rogen as the faintly obnoxious but wisecracking best friend. More, or less? I ask because 50/50 — the movie, not the odds of success — is likely to strike many people as enormously appealing once they've seen it, but substantially less so beforehand. And for anyone feeling affirmatively about it, the question arises as to what might conceivably put butts in seats. It's sort of a given that The Big C won't. 50/50 features Gordon-Levitt as Adam, a 27-year-old producer for Seattle Public Radio (that's definitely appealing, no?) who in the film's early moments is told he has a rare form of spinal cancer and has a roughly even chance of surviving. He confides this to best buddy Kyle (Rogen) who's initially panicked, but knows he should buck up his friend and seizes on the probability of survival. \"50/50,\" he sighs, feigning relief: \"If you were a casino game, you'd have the best odds.\" Adam, who's the sort of guy who waits patiently at Don't Walk signs and doesn't drive because auto accidents are the fifth-leading cause of death in the U.S., is so blindsided by his diagnosis that he's perfectly willing to be led in upbeat directions. He nods his acquiescence to Kyle's assessment, and tries to get on with a life that will now involve chemo, hair loss and plenty of hash brownies. Kyle, meanwhile, seizes on secondary probabilities: Whether Adam's fair-weather girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) last two weeks once she knows about his illness? Whether telling bar babes that Adam has cancer will be a good pick-up line for either of them? Whether ... well, you get the drift. Sitcom-ish, sure, but with more than a germ of plausibility, not least because 50/50 was based by screenwriter Will Reiser on his own early-20s diagnosis with spinal cancer, which he received while working with Rogen, who was a writer on TV's Da Ali G Show. In interviews, both speak of how the diagnosis affected their relationship, and in the film, they've turned the awkwardness between Adam and Kyle into an effective hook. It's not really what drives the movie, but it earns audience buy-in, after which Gordon-Levitt can do his impressively nuanced thing, walking an emotional tightrope in a film that initially seems too interested in laughs to be all that concerned with delicacy. In fact, at first you'll worry that the film's entire support-group dynamic will get skewed by Rogen's noisily outsized performance. But it turns out there's still room at the story's edges for Adam's needy, self-dramatizing mom (a terrific if underused Anjelica Huston) who wants to move in with her son, and who finds other ways to make his problems her problems when he says no to that. Also room for hospital therapist Katherine (Kendrick, appealingly awkward), who realizes that she's developing a crush on her patient — Adam is only her third case, and she hasn't yet figured out how not to sound scripted — at about the moment he shifts from acquiescence to anger and starts to become a bit of a jerk. It's this entirely realistic if dramatically unorthodox twist that finally puts vinegar in a story that's been threatening to go all treacly on director Jonathan (The Wackness) Levine. Where most disease-of-the-week tales end up giving their sickly characters a saintly glow, this one realizes that the smarter tack is to keep him human — letting him bristle with cynicism and lash out as his support group concentrates on his inner sweetheart. In other hands, Adam might well be hard to take. But as the comedy in 50/50 turns darker, Gordon-Levitt, who's maybe the most natural, least affected actor of his generation, makes prickly plenty engaging. What were the odds? (Recommended)", "Songwriter, producer and singer Lee Hazlewood — best known for the No. 1 hit \"These Boots Are Made for Walkin'\" — has died after a long battle with cancer. The 78-year-old music-industry veteran spent most of his career writing or producing hits for others, while his own records lampooned the business. In fact, Hazlewood became legendary for his independence and for his disdain for the industry — an attitude that earned him the adoration of a later generation of rock musicians that includes Nick Cave and Sonic Youth. Hazlewood got his start in radio in the 1950s, with a job at a small station in Coolidge, Ariz. While Hazlewood was spinning discs, he was also writing songs. \"I used to spend $9.99 for a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles on the bus,\" he remembered during a conversation at his home just a few months ago.\"I knew a couple of publishers over there, and got in. They liked me but didn't like my songs. They thought they were awful.\" Rejection became a blessing when Hazlewood started writing music for one of his listeners — a young guitarist by the name of Duane Eddy, whose guitar-driven, rough 'n' ready tune \"Rebel Rouser\" was the first of several hit collaborations. And because Hazlewood published his own compositions, he collected the royalties that would otherwise have gone to a publishing company. \"I was writing songs that nobody cared about,\" he remembered. \"When I recorded them, then they cared about 'em. They bought 'em. That's how you become an independent producer.\" By the early '60s, Hazlewood was in Los Angeles, writing and producing for Dean Martin, Petula Clark and Dusty Springfield, among others. But just few years later, Hazlewood was hearing the Beatles and Motown all over the radio — and no longer heard a place for himself in pop music. So he took a break. Then one day, a neighbor asked Hazlewood to produce just one session for his boss' daughter. The neighbor's boss was Frank Sinatra, and the session produced a hit for Nancy Sinatra, called \"So Long Babe.\" But it was the next song that changed their lives. The title, of course, was \"These Boots Were Made for Walkin'.\" Hazlewood thought the song was a little too risqué for the 25-year-old Sinatra, whose record label was pushing a wholesome image. Nevertheless, once Hazlewood decided to record it, he gave Sinatra very specific instructions in the studio: \"Sing it like a 14-year-old girl who goes with truck drivers,\" he remembered telling her. Three duo albums followed — and many fans thought they were romantically linked. Sinatra says the fact that they were not involved was critical to the success of their records. \"I think the sexual tension was always there,\" she said. \"If it had actually been physically expressed ... we would have squandered it.\" As it is, \"it's there,\" Sinatra said. \"You can cut it with a knife.\" The financial independence that came from writing and producing hits for others allowed Hazlewood to give his maverick spirit its own voice — his. In songs like \"Sand\" and \"L.A. Lady,\" Hazlewood showcased a fiercely independent streak that endeared him to a generation of rockers in the '80s and '90s, including Kurt Cobain and a young drummer and record-company staffer named Mark Pickerel — who says they all loved the way Hazlewood used his success to thumb his nose at the record business. \"It afforded him the luxury of making the kinds of records he wanted to make,\" Pickerel says. \"Not worrying about whether they were successful or not, because he was always receiving royalty checks and could pretty much count on making a living off his existing catalog. So it was probably pretty liberating for him.\" Late last year, Hazlewood released a collection of reworked older tunes, along with some new songs written before his diagnosis. The last cut on the CD, called \"T.O.M., The Old Man,\" is eerily prophetic. \"His mind wonders what forever will bring,\" goes the lyric; \"in this place they call forever, will there be any songs to sing?\" \"Maybe they do sing songs over there in forever,\" Hazlewood said. \"I don't know — maybe you don't.\" If they do, Lee Hazlewood is already writing them. ANDREA SEABROOK, Host: Songwriter, producer and singer Lee Hazlewood has died after a long battle with cancer. He was best known for writing Nancy Sinatra's \"These Boots are Made for Walkin'.\" But Hazlewood's success as a notoriously independent producer earned him the adoration of a later generation of rock musicians that includes Nick Cave and Sonic Youth. Hazlewood died Saturday at the age of 78. NPR's Felix Contreras visited Hazlewood at home just a few months ago. And he has this remembrance. FELIX CONTRERAS: In a neat two-story house in suburban Las Vegas, Lee Hazlewood remembered getting his start in radio in the 1950s at a small station in Coolidge, Arizona. While Hazlewood was spinning disks, he was also writing songs. LEE HAZLEWOOD: I used to have spent $9.99 for a round-trip ticket to Los Angeles on the bus. And I knew a couple of publish", "Four years after implementing a policy to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses, Connecticut has seen a reduction in hit-and-run crashes and a steep decline in the number of people found guilty of unlicensed driving. More than 50,000 undocumented immigrants in the state have taken written exams, vision tests and road tests to obtain driver's licenses, funneling several million dollars into the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles. Connecticut's experience could offer a road map for lawmakers in eight other states that are considering similar laws to widen access to driver's licenses. Some police in Connecticut remain skeptical that training and licensing undocumented immigrants is the sole reason for 1,200 fewer hit-and-run crashes in 2018 than in 2016, but Charles Grasso, at the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center, said the policy is making a difference in both road safety and driver behavior. Don't see the graphic above? Click here. \"People that have gotten licenses ... [are] trained right, so it has made the roads safer,\" said Grasso, a former police sergeant who works with local police on crash investigations. Statewide, hit-and-run crashes dropped 9% between 2016 and 2018. Across 10 Connecticut cities with the highest concentrations of Drive Only licenses issued to undocumented immigrants, hit-and-run crashes fell by 15% in the same time period, according to state data obtained by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting. The state didn't compile hit-and-run crash data before 2015. Grasso said undocumented immigrant drivers are confident they won't be charged with unlicensed driving and are less likely to flee a crash. \"The feedback I'm getting is that the licenses are keeping people at the scene because they know that they have a driver's license now,\" he said. Besides Connecticut, 11 other states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico allow undocumented immigrants to drive legally. Scared to be pulled over Sebastian, a 30-year-old from Guatemala and resident of New Haven, Conn., has taken advantage of Connecticut's law. We are not using his full name because of his immigration status. \"Before I got the license, I was scared because sometimes [I'd] see a state trooper and think, 'I hope he's not pulling me over.' But after ... I have the driver's license, I feel safe like American people. They drive without worries,\" he said. That means about 80 miles a day of worry-free driving for this construction worker who's expecting his first child to be born in a few months. The law allowing Sebastian and undocumented immigrants like him to drive legally went into effect in 2015, creating a license marked with the letters \"DO,\" or \"Drive Only.\" License-holders can't use the document to get through airport security or get placed on voter rolls. Sebastian had to prove residency in Connecticut, pass a series of tests and get his car insured. Before 2015, he got behind the wheel without a license for about six years — running the risk of being caught by police, fined and possibly funneled into the federal immigration system and deported. Sebastian and other immigrants interviewed said that, with the new licenses, they are much less worried that a traffic stop might lead them into the hands of federal immigration authorities. Licenses help with policing In the capital city of Hartford, where hit-and-run crashes fell more than 20% since 2016, police Lt. Paul Cicero is skeptical about the link between Drive Only licenses and improved road safety, saying a three-year trend isn't enough time to make a judgment. There are roughly 2,000 newly trained and licensed undocumented immigrant drivers in the city, but Cicero pointed to traffic cameras and better street policing as reasons for lower hit-and-run crash numbers. But Cicero said the licenses do help with policing, saving officers time when issuing routine citations. \"There'd be times we pulled somebody over and they don't have any ID and it takes an officer off the road for one, two, three hours,\" said Cicero. \"It typically ruins someone's day going to jail, getting fingerprinted, getting photographed, waiting for fingerprints to come back. So, having these Drive Only licenses can be very beneficial to both the police and the community.\" Increased revenue for the state is one more benefit. Connecticut's Department of Motor Vehicles has collected $7.5 million in license fees over four years — offset by $300,000 to ramp up the new license program. Small businesses that offer classes in Spanish, like Santo Driving School in Hartford, filled up seats after the law was implemented. \"It increased a lot of business — probably that first year about an additional thousand,\" said owner Sal Calafiore. With thousands of newly legal drivers on the road, courts in Connecticut have found about 4,000 fewer people guilty of unlicensed driving in the last four years, according to Connecticut judicial data obtained by the New England C", "Rush Limbaugh is giving an update on his stage 4 case of lung cancer, saying that despite some success in treating the disease, recent scans showed the cancer has progressed. \"It's not dramatic, but it is the wrong direction,\" Limbaugh told listeners to his conservative radio show. \"Stage 4 is, as they say, terminal,\" Limbaugh said, providing the most specific details yet about his illness. He added that after first receiving the cancer diagnosis, \"I never thought I would see October 1st. I never thought I would. When October 1st hit on the calendar this year, I reminded myself of that — of that thought.\" Limbaugh disclosed his cancer diagnosis in February. Since then, he says, he has undergone several treatment regimens, including two early approaches that failed. But a third strategy showed positive results – until a recent scan found the cancer had progressed, he said. His treatment plan has now been tweaked with new chemotherapy drugs to try to slow the disease, he added. The longtime broadcaster says he intends to keep putting on his show, despite fatigue and other effects of his cancer and treatment. \"I am extremely grateful to be able to come here to the studio and to maintain as much normalcy as possible,\" he said. Limbaugh said his embrace of religion has helped him cope with the uncertainty cancer brings. After his update generated expressions of support, he thanked well-wishers via Twitter, saying, \"Thank you so much for your overwhelming encouragement, support, and prayers out there. They absolutely work! Fear not, I plan to hang around a long time to continue to annoy the left.\" Explaining his reluctance to give more regular updates on his condition, Limbaugh said he's not alone in facing cancer. He also said the disease presents so many reversals that keeping his audience informed would simply take up too much air time. \"In a nutshell, there are lots of ups and downs in this particular illness. And it can feel like a roller coaster at times that you can't get off of,\" he said. \"And again, I want to stress here that I know countless numbers of you are experiencing the same thing. If it isn't lung cancer, it's some kind of cancer. If it isn't you, it's somebody really close to you. If it isn't an illness, it's something.\" \"We're all going through challenges,\" the broadcaster added. \"Mine are no better and mine are no different and mine are no more special than anybody else. But it can feel like a roller coaster.\" One day after Limbaugh revealed his cancer diagnosis on the air, President Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom — a presentation that took place during the 2020 State of the Union address.", "Men diagnosed with prostate cancer face a dilemma. Should they get treated or wait to see what happens? Many prostate tumors grow slowly and pose little risk to health, while others that are aggressive can be deadly. Surgical removal of the prostate, a common treatment, carries risks of incontinence and impotence. Watchful waiting could spare a patient side effects, but there is also a chance the prostate cancer could suddenly worsen. Now, a federally funded head-to-head study of waiting versus surgery among men who were candidates for either approach has found that, overall, there was no survival benefit for men who had their prostates removed up to a dozen years after diagnosis. To participate, men had to have been diagnosed with early prostate cancer, be 75 years old or younger at the start and have a life expectancy of at least 10 years. They were then randomly assigned to prostate surgery or waiting. Over the course of the study almost half of the 731 men who chose to participate died. But only 52, or 7 percent of the total, died from prostate cancer. There was no significance difference in the number of deaths among the patients assigned to waiting versus surgery. In an interview with Shots, Dr. Timothy Wilt, a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota who led the study, said, \"Observation may be a very reasonable and preferred [option] for many men,\" he told Shots. \"In part, it appears to provide similar survival and lower risk of treatment harms than surgery.\" Indeed, most men diagnosed with prostate cancer will not die from it, Wilt said. \"I think that most doctors and patients would be surprised that death from prostate cancer is so low.\" A deeper analysis of the results from the study, known as PIVOT, suggests men with higher-risk prostate cancers may benefit from surgery. Improvements in survival from cancer were seen in men whose PSA score were greater than 10 or whose tumors were rated as high risk on a standardized scale. Still, Wilt emphasized \"may\" because the overall results showed no advantage. (For a look at the numbers in more detail, see this post from Pieter Droppert's Biotech Strategy Blog.) Dr. Robert Flanigan, a urologist at Loyola University Medical Center, told Shots the results show \"observation is a reasonable approach in patients at low risk.\" But, he added, \"in intermediate- to high-risk patients, there is a role for definitive therapy,\" such as surgery or radiation treatment. Wilt presented the study findings Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in Washington, D.C. The results haven't been published in a peer-reviewed journal, but Wilt says a manuscript is in the works. Earlier this month, a published study from Sweden concluded that surgery for early prostate cancer was the better route for younger men with low-risk cancers. But the prostate cancers in the study were more advanced and most could be felt in a physical exam. Wilt said most of the prostate cancers in the PIVOT study were flagged by PSA tests and were too small to feel in a physical exam. Update: For the full presentation by Wilt, you can check out this webcast from the AUA. Hat tip to Gary Schwitzer, who noted on his blog that a person in the room emailed that \"a pall descended\" on the room full of urological surgeons when the results were presented. I was there and that assessment rings true.", "Former President Jimmy Carter took a break Monday from reprising his role as Habitat for Humanity's most recognizable champion to talk with All Things Considered's Kelly McEvers from Memphis, Tenn. He says despite being diagnosed with brain cancer in August, he hasn't begun to cut back on his schedule yet \"because I still feel good.\" He adds: \"I'm taking special treatments for the cancer in my brain and in my liver. Part of the liver was removed and they did the treatment on four places in my brain with radiation. \"And now I'm taking a long-term medicine that stimulates my own immune system to fight against cancer. It's a newly developed medicine, so we don't know yet what the results have been. I'm feeling better than anybody expected me to so I'm still maintaining a pretty normal schedule, I'd say.\" He says he was originally supposed to be in Nepal this week, but was unable to go because of boycotts there. He also said Nepal would not allow supplies to enter. Carter, who turned 91 last month, said even though the cancer diagnosis has made him more careful about how he spends his time, he still packs a full schedule. \"I still teach at the Sunday school every Sunday like I did. I still work at the Carter Center. \"I would have probably been in Myanmar now, which used to be Burma, had my problem with cancer not come up. But I'm still, except for making overseas trips, I'm staying just about as busy as I ever did.\" The 39th president vowed to \"come back to Memphis next August and build\" with Habitat for Humanity, an organization he has been associated with for more than three decades. KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Back in August, former president Jimmy Carter announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer - Melanoma that had spread to his liver and his brain. At the time, he said he might need to cut back on his busy schedule. Well, I spoke to Carter earlier today, and it doesn't seem like the former president has slowed down too much, even at the age of 91. He was helping build a house in Memphis, Tenn., with an organization he has long supported, Habitat for Humanity. JIMMY CARTER: I was in charge of making sure all the walls were absolutely erect by using a level, and I nailed a lot. And I was also in charge of putting the hold-down straps for the possible earthquake that might come to this Memphis area. MCEVERS: You've been doing this kind of work for three decades now. I would assume there's a different level of physical commitment for now. Is that right? I mean, is it - are you doing a little bit less of the hard stuff? CARTER: It's really the same thing that we've always done. We've been doing this now for 34 years, my wife and I, together. We were supposed to be in Nepal this week, and we kind of substituted Memphis because we couldn't go to Nepal because of some boycotts and everything down there. They wouldn't let supplies come in. So we still do the same kind of work we did 35 years ago - that is, erect the walls first and then put on the roof later on today and then put in the ceilings and the walls inside the house. MCEVERS: When you announced your cancer diagnosis in August, you had said at the time that you would cut back on your schedule. But I mean, we're talking to you now. You're there building a house. Are you really cutting back? CARTER: Well, I haven't cut back yet because I still feel good. I'm taking special treatments for the cancer in my brain and in my liver. Part of the liver was removed, and they did the treatment on my - four places in my brain with radiation. And now I'm taking a long-term medicine that stimulates my own immune system to fight against the cancer. It's a newly developed medicine. So we don't know yet what the results have been, but I'm feeling better than anybody expected me to. And so I'm still maintaining a pretty normal schedule, I'd say. MCEVERS: Has the diagnosis, though - has it made you more choosy, I guess, about how you decide to spend your time now? CARTER: Well, it's made me more careful about my time schedule, yes. But I still work. I still teach Sunday school every Sunday like I did. I still work at the Carter Center. I would've probably been in Myanmar now, which used to be Burma, had my problem with the cancer not come up. But I still - except for making overseas trips, I'm staying just about as busy as I ever did. MCEVERS: Wow. I mean, you had such a long and fruitful career after you left the White House. Do you think about what advice you might give to, you know, President Obama as he prepares to leave that job? CARTER: Well, the Carter Center has a special program. We've been in 80 countries around the world. We monitor elections. We've done a hundred of those. And this year, we'll treat 71 million people so they won't go blind or have other strange diseases that are known in the tropics. But I think that a lot of the presidents, as they got ready to leave office since I left office - each president is different from all the others, and so each on", "EL PASO, Texas — A man who gained worldwide sympathy and support after his wife was killed in a mass shooting in the Texas border city of El Paso was remembered Friday as kind and thoughtful — and haunted by the loss of the woman he loved.A few dozen people attended the memorial services for Antonio Basco, 63, who died Aug. 14, just over two years after his wife, Margie Reckard, was fatally shot along with 22 other people by a lone gunman who authorities say targeted Latinos in an attack that stunned the U.S. and Mexico. Reckard's August 2019 funeral drew thousands of people from as far away as Arizona and California and across the border in Mexico, after Basco announced that he was alone with almost no family left and invited the world to join him in remembering his companion of 22 years. Few in attendance had ever met Reckard.Flowers poured in, and an SUV was donated to Basco, who made a modest living at washing cars and other odd jobs. The day of his wife's funeral, a crowd of strangers stood in a line that wrapped around the block to pay their respects. Basco — a wiry, weathered man — embraced one visitor after another with open arms for several hours.It was a raw and loving outpouring of emotion at the 22nd funeral following the attack. A final victim would die of his injuries nine months later. Friday's funeral amid a resurgent pandemic drew a trickle of visitors to a cavernous chapel. They included a hospice worker who cared for Basco in his final days and a retired Army veteran who liked Basco without ever meeting him. Several were linked to Basco through the tragedy of his wife's death.Jose Luis Ozuna, a local retiree, said he and his wife met Basco at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the Aug. 3, 2019, shooting and that Basco made an impression. Ozuna said Basco always put others ahead of himself.So the last time Ozuna saw Basco, who was in tears as he struggled to cash a $300 check without an ID, Ozuna said he cosigned the withdrawal. \"We had a real good bond. He was a very loving kind of person,\" Ozuna said. \"We lost track of him because he lost his phone.\" Adria Gonzalez, an El Paso native who was inside the Walmart during the attack, said she saw Basco deteriorate mentally and physically in the months after his wife's funeral, amid struggles with alcohol.Basco was arrested and jailed in late 2019 for driving under the influence.\"He said he missed his wife,\" Gonzalez said, \"and he wasn't the same.\"Judith Quinones, the hospice worker, said Basco was visited regularly by friends as his health failed but also was haunted by loneliness without his wife.\"He wished his wife wasn't dead. He didn't want to die this way,\" Quinones said.Basco passed away after a months-long struggle with cancer after a late diagnosis, according to Roberto Sanchez, a local lawyer handling his estate.Sanchez described Basco as a wanderer who was born and raised in Louisiana before he set out on an unmapped journey.\"I think I'd probably call him the Jack Kerouac of nowadays,\" said Sanchez, referring to the beatnik author who wrote the classic road trip novel \"On the Road.\" \"He would go from city to city looking for employment. When he found the love of his life, that's when he made El Paso his home.\"Pastor Jackie Johnson called Basco a free spirit and belted out a spiritual: \"There will be no more weeping and no more wailing.\" \"He didn't let anybody tell him how he could move or where he could move, but he was a free spirit who respected people,\" Johnson said.High above the chapel pews, video monitors flashed images of the crammed 2019 funeral services for Reckard and sprawling roadside memorials to the shooting victims.Basco lived to see the dedication of a permanent memorial to the victims — a plaque and metal tower evoking a candle that stands outside the store where the attack occurred.The man accused of carrying out the attack, Patrick Wood Crusius, faces state capital murder charges and more than 90 federal hate-crime and firearms counts.The shooting happened on a busy weekend day at a Walmart that is typically popular with shoppers from Mexico and the U.S.Authorities say Crusius aimed to scare Latinos into leaving the United States, driving from his home near Dallas to target Mexicans after posting a racist screed online. Crusius has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers said their client has been diagnosed with mental disabilities.", "Updated at 11:42 a.m. ET Around 10:08 p.m. local time Sunday, a gunman — a \"lone wolf\" according to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo — opened fire on the audience at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, killing more than 55 people and wounding more than 500 in what is being referred to as the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Lombardo said the shooter has been identified as Stephen Paddock. Here's what we know so far about Route 91 Harvest and Jason Aldean, the country star performing at the time the shooting began. Route 91 Harvest Nicknamed \"the neon sleepover,\" this was the fourth edition of the open-air festival, held at Las Vegas Village at the MGM Grand Las Vegas. Attendance last year was reported to be around 25,000, according to Las Vegas Weekly. That is the Village's capacity, according to its website. Passes to the festival sold out in advance in 2015, 2016 and this year. The festival was organized by Live Nation and tour promoter Brian O'Connell, who has also produced the country festivals Watershed in Washington state, Faster Horses in Michigan, Lake Shake in Chicago and Farmborough in New York City. \"Las Vegas and country music has always had a special relationship and I think the runaway success of Route 91 Harvest is a product of that, in addition to the artists that continue to come on board and the fans traveling from all over the world to make this festival what it is,\" O'Connell said in a statement about the festival earlier this summer. Following the shooting, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino tweeted, \"Our hearts are with the victims in Las Vegas, their families and loved ones who are grieving this morning.\" Paddock fired from a window on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, which overlooks the Las Vegas Village. Writer Mark Gray was on the scene at the time of the shooting. In a piece for Rolling Stone, Gray wrote that at first, \"it sounded like two firecrackers going off.\" After attendees began to run from the site of the shooting, Gray writes, he \"looked up at Mandalay Bay and saw a light flickering, while shots were still ringing out. Was this the shooter? Maybe. I didn't stare long enough to find out.\" In an interview, Eric Paddock, the brother of shooter Stephen Paddock, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal, \"There is no reason we can imagine why Stephen would do something like this.\" Route 91 Harvest had a long list of banned items — including stuffed animals and tactical gear — and allowed those with TSA Precheck clearance to bypass general admission lines. A map of the event shows six possible exits, all leading to roads on the Vegas Strip. Photos directly following the attack showed many jumping the fence around the event's perimeter. Following a bombing at Manchester Arena in the U.K. immediately after an Ariana Grande performance, this is the second major attack at a music event this year. Other recent attacks at music venues include the Pulse nightclub shooting of 2016 and a shooting attack in the Bataclan concert hall in Paris during a show by the rock band Eagles of Death Metal in November 2015. Jason Aldean Aldean, the headliner at the final day of the three-day-long event, was onstage at the time of the shooting. Top-billed performers at the event's first two days were Eric Church and Sam Hunt. Aldean closed out the inaugural Route 91 Harvest concert in 2014 as well. In a post on Instagram after the attack, Aldean wrote, \"Tonight has been beyond horrific. I still don't know what to say but wanted to let everyone know that Me and my Crew are safe. My Thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night. #heartbroken #stopthehate\" The video below shows Aldean performing \"When She Says Baby\" as the attack began. The 40-year-old Aldean, born in Macon, Ga., has been one of the biggest stars in country music since the release of his self-titled debut album in 2005. The singer of dozens of country hits, Aldean's three most recent albums, including 2016's They Don't Know, have reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. In April, Aldean was named entertainer of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards, the second consecutive year he picked up the honor. Aldean began performing at 14 and spent time before a move to Nashville, Tenn., driving a Pepsi truck during the day and playing Macon clubs at night. He has been tied to the rise of \"bro country,\" a power-chord reliant strain of pop-country radio that often takes as its subjects beer, trucks and romance. Aldean is scheduled to headline the hurricane relief benefit Country Rising on Nov. 12 at Nashville's Bridgestone arena.", "Singer, songwriter and philanthropist Lou Rawls died early Friday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Rawls was being treated for lung and brain cancer. According to his family, he was 72. Rawls was born in Chicago, and his career spanned gospel, blues, jazz, pop and disco. For the last quarter century of his life, Rawls -- in addition to performing and recording -- devoted himself to educating black youth and raising money for the United Negro College Fund. MELISSA BLOCK, host: Singer Lou Rawls died early this morning in Los Angeles from complications of cancer. His family says he was 72 years old. The silky-voiced baritone had a career that spanned over 40 years. Rawls was also a philanthropist who helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for the United Negro College Fund. NPR's Neda Ulaby has this remembrance. NEDA ULABY reporting: Louis Allen Rawls grew up in America's coldest musical forge. Mr. LOU RAWLS (Singer-Songwriter; Philanthropist): I was born in the city that they call the Windy City. They called it the Windy City because of the hulk. The hulk, oh, mighty hulk: Mr Wind. ULABY: A South Side Chicago Baptist church choir was where a little Lou Rawls developed his oversized pipes. Mr. RAWLS: God gave them to me. People said, `Your voice has been like this all the time?' I said, `Well, they put me in the baritone section in junior choir when I was eight.' ULABY: But as a grown-up, Lou Rawls made his name with a different kind of music. (Soundbite of \"Dead End Street\") Mr. RAWLS: (Singing) They say, they say this is a big, rich town, but I live in the poorest part. I know I'm on a dead-end street in a city without a heart. Mr. JERRY BUTLER (Soul Singer; Chairman Emeritus, Rhythm and Blues Foundation): I wish I could sing like that. ULABY: Jerry Butler is the Iceman of Soul. He's also chairman emeritus of the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. Mr. BUTLER: Lou Rawls was the sound of Chicago in the sense that he incorporated blues, jazz and gospel. In all three of those genres, Lou Rawls was a master. ULABY: The difference between gospel and blues, Lou Rawls told NPR in 2002, lies in the lyrics. Mr. RAWLS: Instead of saying, you know, `Oh, Lord, take my hand and lead me on,' say, `Oh, baby, hold my hand and love me long.' Oh, yeah. (Soundbite of \"Tobacco Road\") Mr. RAWLS: (Singing) Gonna leave and get a job with the help and the grace of God. ULABY: As a teen-ager, Rawls hit the road with another neighborhood musician named Sam Cooke. Their gospel quartet was touring when their car was hit by a truck, killing one musician. Rawls was pronounced dead at the scene and lay in a coma for five days. After recovering, Rawls went solo. He was discovered in Los Angeles, and by 1966 Rawls' resonant baritone seduced both black and white audiences. (Soundbite of \"Love Is a Hurtin' Thing\") Mr. RAWLS: (Singing) For every little kiss there's a little tear drop. For every single thrill there's another heartache. The road is rough. The going gets tough. Yes, love is a hurting thing. ULABY: Rawls was a mutable entertainer. He acted in film and TV, he performed in jazz clubs, but his biggest hit was the disco sensation. (Soundbite of \"Love Is a Hurtin' Thing\") Mr. RAWLS: (Singing) You'll never find as you long as you live someone who loves you tender like I do. ULABY: Rawls won multiple Grammy Awards and recorded over 60 albums, but he devoted the last quarter century of his life to charity. Jerry Butler says to him, one song sums up Lou Rawls the best. Mr. BUTLER: \"Groovy People\" expresses kind of who he is, just a big ol' country boy who happened to grow up on the South Side of Chicago and absorbed all of that into his beat. (Soundbite of \"Groovy People\") Mr. RAWLS: (Singing) Give me the simple life filled with love and joy. Can't you see I'm just a big, ol' country boy? ULABY: Lou Rawls lived to see Chicago honor him with a South Side street named Lou Rawls Drive. Neda Ulaby, NPR News. (Soundbite of \"Baby Come Home\") Mr. RAWLS: (Singing) ...home, baby, home. Come home. Come on home. Well, if you don't come, girl, I'll be in misery. Oh, yeah! BLOCK: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.", "Though the vaccine against human papilloma virus is highly effective in preventing certain forms of cancer, the number of preteens getting the vaccine is still dismally low, doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday. \"One of the top five reasons parents listed is that it hadn't been recommended to them by a doctor or nurse,\" the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat told reporters at a press briefing. \"Parents who aren't planning to vaccinate lacked knowledge and didn't hear a physician recommendation,\" said Schuchat, who directs the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. \"We don't think it's an issue of politics. This is something that parents seem to be open to.\" Federal health officials have for several years been recommending that all preteen boys and girls be vaccinated around age 11 or 12 — before the initiation of sexual activity. That's when the vaccine has been shown to be most protective against HPV infections that can lead to cervical cancer, genital warts and oral and anal cancers. But data from the national survey released Thursday, and published in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, suggest that only 57 percent of young women ages 13-17 — and only 35 percent of young men that age — have received one or more vaccine doses. Every year more 27,000 people in the U.S. get cancer caused by HPV, Schuchat said. Protection against the virus did go up a little bit in 2013, the survey showed, compared with 2012, when 53.8 percent of young women and 20.8 percent of young men had received the vaccine. Still, more needs to be done, Schuchat said. Doctors and nurses are missing many good opportunities to vaccinate for HPV, she said. For example, they are already successfully immunizing preteens at a high rate against tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (Tdap), and against meningitis. Roughly 77 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds have been immunized against meningitis, and about 86 percent have received the Tdap vaccine. The problem is not that doctors are reluctant to give the vaccine, Schuchat said; it's more often a problem of miscommunication. Surveys show many are actually forgetting to mention it to patients. \"Physicians need to know that the vaccines they give can prevent very serious cancers in the U.S.,\" she said. At every appointment for adolescents, doctors should tell parents, \" 'Today there are three recommended vaccines,' \" Schuchat advised. Had shots against HPV been administered when other routine vaccines were given to preteens in the last several years, she says, about 91 percent of today's 14-year-old girls would be protected. NIS-Teen, which collected information on more than 18,000 teens in the 2013 survey, has been collecting vaccination information since 2006 through use of random-digit-dialing of both landlines and cellphones. After a teen's parent or guardian provided permission to contact the teen's health provider, the survey team mailed the parents a questionnaire. Results from the survey were then verified via a check of medical records.", "A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows the clearest evidence yet that women carrying the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes should consider preventive surgery because they are at a very high risk for breast and ovarian cancers. It confirms what smaller studies have suggested in the past: Women who have a family history of breast cancer can greatly reduce their chances of getting the disease by having a double mastectomy. And, if they also have their ovaries removed, they can further reduce the risk of breast cancer and minimize their chances of getting ovarian cancer. Researchers from around the country tracked nearly 2,500 women with the BRCA mutations who had surgery to try to prevent breast and ovarian cancer. \"We found mastectomy provided huge risk reduction of subsequent breast cancer diagnosis and death. Risk reduction [was] probably in the range of 80 to 95 percent,\" said researcher Timothy Rebbeck, an epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania. And women who had ovaries removed reduced their risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 80 percent. The study findings are extremely reassuring to Rebbeck -- no breast cancer diagnoses among women who had double mastectomies after three years of follow-up. Among the women who did not have the surgery, 7 percent were later diagnosed with breast cancer. Rebbeck says these decreases are big but are cautions that cancer risk will never be brought down to zero. That's because all the tissue is never completely taken out. \"Breast tissue is found throughout the torso and can't be completely removed through surgical means. And, with ovarian cancer, the ovary leaves behind cells that could go on to become cancerous. So, it's just not possible to remove all the tissue that might be at risk,\" he says. Toby's Story One of the women who decided to take that chance is 61-year-old Toby of New Jersey. (Because she's worried about her health coverage, she doesn't want her last name used.) Toby's mother died of ovarian cancer when Toby was in her 20s. Researchers now know that disease is linked, along with breast cancer, to genetic mutations. Toby had first her ovaries and then both breasts removed after she tested positive for the BRCA genes about five years ago. But at first, she had hoped to avoid the surgery. \"After my genetic testing, they would alternate mammogram with MRI every six months. I thought I was getting very, very good surveillance, and I thought that would probably be enough and they would be able to diagnose something very, very early and be able to cure me if I were to get breast cancer,\" she says. But her doctors thought otherwise. Breast cancer caused by BRCA mutations is particularly aggressive. And they told Toby her lifetime risk of that type of cancer was as high as 90 percent. Toby was one of the women researchers from around the country tracked in the study to see how they fared after having this surgery. Women like Toby who chose both ovary and breast removal had dramatically lower risks of getting both cancers after the surgery. Only 3 percent of those who had surgery died, compared with 10 percent of those who did not, during the follow-up period. Role Of Genetic Testing In an editorial accompanying the study, Virginia Kaklamani, an oncologist at Northwestern University, says lives can be saved if women have genetic testing. \"A lot of times I see these women having had a very preventable type of breast cancer. Preventable because I can identify the fact that they had a higher risk of getting breast cancer,\" she says. \"Had they been genetically tested a few years prior to my seeing them, they would have had the option of having bilateral mastectomy. So, we could have prevented these breast cancers and we didn't,\" says Kaklamani. For Toby, it's been about a year since her double mastectomy. She's had reconstruction. And, today, she says she feels physically strong again. But she now feels an emotional empowerment, and that comforts her. \"My mother left me when I was 26, and it was extremely painful and traumatic for my entire life,\" she says. \"I just didn't want to do that for my children. I had a chance to control that and to fight what my mother never had a chance for.\" Oncologist Kaklamani says women with the BRCA mutation should be counseled about genetic testing, and strongly consider it. While surgical decisions are up to patients, the findings of this study should help them decide what to do, she says. Toby has a daughter who decided to take the test, based on her mother's experience. She tested negative, Toby says. MELISSA BLOCK, host: From NPR News, it's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel. There is news today that could influence a hard decision facing women at high risk of breast and ovarian cancer. A new study shows that women who discover they have a genetic mutation called BRCA can dramatically reduce their odds of developing breast cancer if they choo", "Ivan Thompson's cross-border matchmaking business has dwindled in recent years, under competition from the Internet. But a new documentary about \"Cowboy Cupid,\" who arranges marriages between American men and Mexican women, has boosted interest in his services. Thompson's life had never been much of an advertisement for his own business. Seventeen years ago, he put an ad in a newspaper in Juarez, Mexico, for a wife. He was astonished when he got about eighty responses. One of them led to marriage, but it only lasted nine years. Despite his failed cross-border marriage, the former rodeo cowboy and horse trader realized there was a plentiful market of lonely American men who were tired of American women -- and lonely Mexican women who were tired of Mexican men. What they lacked was an introduction. Thompson charges about $3,000 for his personalized matchmaking service. The business is not incorporated, it doesn't have a name, and there are no contracts. Just a handshake. It's really only a sideline. Thompson lives mainly on his Social Security. He says his business dwindled as the Internet became a more popular meeting place for couples. But he says things are starting to turn around. A new documentary about Thompson, Cowboy Del Amor by Israeli filmmaker Michèle Ohayon, has received favorable reviews -- and Thompson's phone is beginning to ring more often. Ohayon says her film has been generating clients for Thompson in the unlikeliest places, including retirees who saw the documentary at the Palm Springs Film Festival. \"There's a lot of lonely guys out there who want to be matched, and they want somebody they can grow old with,\" she says. RENEE MONTAGNE, host: We first met Ivan Thompson six years ago on this program. He's a former rodeo cowboy and horse trader turned matchmaker. Today, Ivan Thompson is still fixing up American men and Mexican women on the southwest border. His business had fallen on hard times, but after a recent documentary movie was made about him, things could be looking up. NPR's John Burnett revisits the Cowboy Cupid. JOHN BURNETT reporting: Ivan Thompson's life has never been much of an advertisement for his business. Seventeen years ago, he put an ad in a newspaper in Juarez, Mexico, for a wife. He was astonished when he got some 80 responses. One of them led to marriage, but it only lasted nine years. Despite his failed cross-border marriage, Thompson realized there was a plentiful market of lonely American men tired of American women, and lonely Mexican women tired of Mexican men. What they lacked was an introduction. (Soundbite of Mexican radio commercial) Mr. IVAN THOMPSON (Matchmaker): The ad says American businessman, 61 years old, looking for a marriage-minded woman between the age of 25 and 50--thin, no more than one child. Call this motel and this room. BURNETT: Thompson and his client are waiting for applicants to the radio spot in Room 115 at Las Puentas Hotel in Casas Grandes, Mexico, a three-hour drive from the New Mexico border. The marriage broker slouches in a fake leather chair, nibbling cashews and waiting for love. He looks more cowboy than Cupid, in a hat, boots, and a big silver belt buckle. The client sits on an algae green bedspread. He's a big man in hiking boots, jeans, and a leather vest. Mr. GARRY CHILDS (Thompson's Client): I am Garry Childs, and I'm from Michigan. I'm a rancher, retired firefighter. I met Ivan through a friend of mine, and thought it was kind of interesting to come to Mexico to find a slim, attractive young lady that appreciates a good man. BRAND: Two American men inviting women for interviews to hotel room in Mexico? Okay, it's sounds seedy, maybe a little menacing, but Thompson's done it this way, he estimates, more than a hundred times, and he claims it works. The mail order bride industry occasionally erupts into scandal when an abusive husband mistreats, even murders, his new foreign wife from places like Russia and the Philippines. In January, President Bush signed into law the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act that seeks to protect immigrants from husbands with criminal records. Thompson claims, to his knowledge, he hasn't had any abusive clients. Nothing happens over the Internet, he insists. Everything is face to face. And here comes another prospect: A short, thin woman with painted on eyebrows, wearing a Sport Girl jacket, stands in the doorway. Ms. NORMA (Bridal Prospect): I hear you in the radio. Can I sit down? Mr. CHILDS: Sure. Mr. THOMPSON: Yes, you can sit down. So, Ivan Thompson. Ms. NORMA: Hi, my name is Norma. Mr. THOMPSON: Norma. Ms. NORMA: Uh-huh. Mr. THOMPSON: Mucho gusto. BURNETT: Childs doesn't say much. Norma sits nervously with her four-year-old son, Miguelangel, and tries to be upbeat during her brief audition. Ms. NORMA: I smile a lot. I always happy. My friends, they always ask me how come I laugh a lot? They don't be happy, them being in a bad mood. Mr. THOMPSON: Your boy", "It's hard for doctors to do a thorough eye exam on infants. They tend to wiggle around — the babies, that is, not the doctors. But a new smartphone app takes advantage of parents' fondness for snapping pictures of their children to look for signs that a child might be developing a serious eye disease. The app is the culmination of one father's five-year quest to find a way to catch the earliest signs of eye disease, and prevent devastating loss of vision. Five years ago, NPR reported the story of Bryan Shaw's son Noah, and how he lost an eye to cancer. Doctors diagnosed Noah Shaw's retinoblastoma when he was 4 months old. To make the diagnosis, the doctors shined a light into Noah's eye and got a pale reflection from the back of the eyeball, an indication that there were tumors there. Noah's father Bryan is a scientist. He wondered if he could see that same pale reflection in flash pictures his wife was always taking of his baby son. Sure enough, he saw the reflection or glow, which doctors call \"white eye,\" in a picture taken right after Noah was born. \"We had white eye showing up in pictures at 12 days old,\" Shaw said at the time, months before his ultimate diagnosis Shaw is a chemist, not an eye doctor nor a computer scientist, but he decided to create software that could scan photos for signs of this reflection. \"If I would have had some software in telling me 'Hey, go get this checked out,' that would have sped up my son's diagnosis and the tumors would have been just a little bit smaller when we got to them. There might have been fewer,\" he says. Now, that software exists. Along with colleagues at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, Shaw created an app called CRADLE. It uses artificial intelligence to find white eye, which can be a sign of several serious eye diseases such as retinoblastoma, pediatric cataracts, and Coats' disease. To test the app, they analyzed more than 50,000 pictures taken of 40 children. Half had no eye disease and half had been diagnosed with eye cancer or some other eye disease. \"On average the app detected white eye in pictures collected 1.3 years before diagnosis,\" says Shaw. In other words, the app could give an early alert to parents that something might be amiss with their child. The results appear in the journal Science Advances. The app isn't perfect. It sometimes misses white eye when it's there, and sometimes says it's there when it's not. That latter condition is a problem. Even though those so-called false positive occur less than 1% of the time, ophthalmologist Sean Donahue of Vanderbilt University Medical Center says that's not good enough. Donahue explains that there are about 4 million children born in the U.S. each year. A 1% false positive rate would mean tens of thousands of children showing up at the doctor unnecessarily. Still, Donahue is upbeat about the promise of the app. \"This is exciting new technology, and this is how I think we're going to go for screening for a number of diseases in the future,\" he says. Alison Skalet, an eye cancer specialist at the Oregon Health and Sciences University agrees. \"There's certainly promise here and it makes sense to me to be harnessing the technology that we have,\" she says. She expects the app will get more accurate as time goes on and its artificial intelligence gets smarter. Bryan Shaw would like to see that, but to train the app to better recognize white eye, he needs people to send him pictures who've been diagnosed with leukocoria. \"We need more pictures. Especially from kids in Africa and Asia,\" he says. That will make the app more globally relevant, and Shaw hopes, save more children's vision.", "After several close games along the way, the U.S. men's basketball team was all business on Sunday as they routed Serbia, 96-66, in the gold medal game that brought down the curtain on the competition in the Rio games. Kevin Durant led the way, hitting three-point bombs, driving for dunks, handing out assists and making steals on defense. After a close first quarter, which ended with the U.S. up 19-15, the Americans blew the game open in the second frame. Durant had 24 points by the half and the U.S. had a 23-point lead, 52-29. The Americans extended their lead in the third quarter and were up by as many as 41 in the fourth. Durant finished with 30 and DeMarcus Cousins added 13 in a balanced U.S. attack. This was a radically different game from the earlier U.S.-Serbia encounter in group play, where the Serbs missed a three pointer at the buzzer that would have sent the game into overtime. Instead, they lost 94-91. The Americans also had tough, close games against Australia, Spain and France, and often looked vulnerable, particularly on defense. This was the third straight Olympic gold for the American men, with all three teams coached by Mike Krzyzewski. The Duke coach was brought in to provide continuity after the 2004 Athens games, where the Americans lost to Argentina in the semifinal round and had to settle for a bronze. Carmelo Anthony, who was on that 2004 team and the three squads since, became the first male basketball player to win three gold medals at the Olympics.", "More than 60 people have died and dozens are still missing in western Germany following torrential rain and flooding overnight Wednesday. One of the hardest-hit areas was the wine-growing, hilly Eifel region in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Six houses collapsed in the village of Schuld, and authorities say another 25 buildings in the village are at risk of caving in. In response to offers of help from the public, Koblenz Police have asked people to stay away from the Eifel's Ahrweiler region, but to upload any footage of the floods to social media to help them locate the missing. Authorities in Koblenz tweeted Thursday morning that 18 people had died in the region. Many residents are waiting to be evacuated from their rooftops, but roads to some villages in the region are no longer accessible because of flooding and landslides. Regional authorities have declared a state of emergency, and the army has been deployed. Climate change now increases the risk of seasonal rains turning catastrophic. In a hotter Europe, scientists expect heavy rainfall to get even more intense and flooding to grow more frequent. Rhineland-Palatinate's state government is holding an emergency meeting Thursday to address the dangers of the current situation and the operation required to clear up damage. In the neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia, an 82-year-old man died in his flooded basement in the city of Wuppertal. Two firefighters also died overnight during rescue operations, according to regional authorities. The flooding has also affected neighboring European countries including Belgium, where Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said the country is facing \"unprecedented rainfall.\" North Rhine-Westphalia's state governor, Armin Laschet, who is running to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel in the September election, visited the affected city of Hagen. The city has seen its worst floods in 25 years, and authorities there are warning residents who live near the river to leave their properties. Merkel, who has been in Washington, D.C., meeting with President Biden, issued a statement through a government spokesperson on Twitter. \"My condolences go out to the relatives of the dead and missing. I thank the many tireless helpers and emergency services from the bottom of my heart,\" Merkel said. Transport infrastructure has also been badly affected by the rain. Most rail services running through central and western Germany have been suspended, resulting in congestion on the nation's highways. Parts of southern and eastern Germany have also been hit by flooding, as have neighboring countries Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Dutch troops are aiding precautionary evacuation efforts in the southern province of Limburg as rivers are expected to burst their banks. After more than two months' worth of rain in just 24 hours, authorities are bracing themselves for more rain Thursday, but dryer weather is expected by the weekend. The intense flooding has also sparked conversation about the impact of climate change with Germany's Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze tweeting, \"The events show the force with which the consequences of climate change can affect us all and how important it is to prepare even better for such extreme weather events in the future.\"", "The death of actor Chadwick Boseman last week at the age of 43 came as a shock to many Africans. I liken it to the death of a great African King. In my Igbo culture, when a great king passes on, we say, \"Oke osisi adaala n'obodo,\" which means \"a great tree has fallen in the land.\" It is a rare occurrence for great trees to fall. However, the fall is also not the end of the tree because its deep roots ensures it keeps sending out new sprouts. Boseman's life is like that. Part of him will continue to live on through his films and inspire us, especially his role as King T'Challa in Black Panther. The 2018 film was a hit across Africa. The fictional country of Wakanda, which was depicted in the movie as the most technologically advanced society in the world, was the nation that Africans wish they had. The film reminded us of what is possible for African countries – and how our continent could be powerful and respected. I recall how excited Africans were to watch the film. In Ghana, people were dancing, drumming and wearing traditional clothing at the premiere. The former vice president of Nigeria took his family on a special outing to see the film. Others provided viewing opportunities to those who could not afford it. My friend Angela Ochu Baiye, a 2019 Mandela Washington fellow for the Young African Leaders Initiative, was so moved by Black Panther that she raised funds and took 200 children from poor communities to watch the movie at a cinema in Abuja, Nigeria. \"To see yourself represented in fiction, especially through a lead character, is meaningful and profoundly empowering beyond words,\" she wrote on her social media. Boseman's unexpected death has left Africans feeling as if we have lost one of ours. Indeed, he was one of us. During a 2018 interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Boseman acknowledged his African lineage. His family is from the Yoruba people, one of Nigeria's largest tribes, and the Limba, who come from Sierra Leone. He said his African background was one of his influences for making Black Panther more human. He succeeded in making the character someone we all wish we knew. Africans have been sharing tributes to Boseman across social media. It's a reflection of how beloved he is on the continent. Nigerian Stephanie Busari, CNN's supervising producer for Africa, tweeted, \"Chadwick Boseman will never know how much we loved him. Battling colon cancer, shooting films in between bouts of chemo and surgery. What amazing strength. He once said: 'The struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose.' Rest on King. Long live T'challa!\" South African activist Bele Nanotshe tweeted: \"I would like to send my deepest condolences to Chadwick Boseman family and friends. On behalf of South Africa, I say we are proud of you and your achievements and the genuine manner in which you portrayed Pan Africanism in Black Panther movie. Rest in peace. We will indeed miss u my bro.\" African corporations have also found ways to honor Boseman's death. On Aug. 31, the TV network M-Net Movies, in collaboration with Marvel Studios, aired Black Panther on one of its mainstream channels to share the film with a wide African audience. In Africa and beyond, Boseman's death also has brought global attention to colon cancer. Many are amazed how the actor handled the disease with superpower attributes. Despite his diagnosis at age 39, he continued acting. I am hoping for a Chadwick Boseman effect that would lead to an increase in screenings for colon cancer, similar to the Jane Goody effect. After the British reality TV star died from cervical cancer in 2009, the U.K. saw a surge in cervical cancer screenings. In mourning Chadwick's death, Dr. Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu, a Nigerian board member of the Union for International Cancer Control, reminds all that \"Cancer is constantly in our faces; regardless of age, sex or ethnicity. It seems to beat even those with the best hospitals and access to care. We must not despair. We have to remain vigilant, watch for early signs and live a healthy lifestyle.\" Runcie Chidebe, a Nigerian cancer control advocate sent me this statement: \"The U.S. and global cancer control must consider reviewing the screening age for colon cancer. Chadwick's diagnoses at 39 is not unique. In Nigeria, we have seen 30-year-olds diagnosed of colon cancer.\" Indeed, the greatest tribute that Africa can give to Boseman is to ensure there are no more untimely deaths from colon cancer on the continent. African governments must increase access to preventative and curative services for colon cancer and other cancers. Sadly, the current access to prevention and treatment of cancers is abysmal in sub-Saharan Africa. As of 2019, Nigeria had just 4 cancer treatment centers for an estimated population of 200 million. For this population, Nigeria would require at least 170 cancer treatment centers, according to the World Health Organization. As Africans, we have to hold our governments a", "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in an interview Tuesday that she does not favor proposals put forth by some Democratic presidential candidates who have advocated changing the number of Supreme Court justices if the Democrats win the presidency. Ginsburg, who got herself in trouble criticizing candidate Donald Trump in 2016, this time was critical not of any particular Democratic contender, but of their proposals to offset President Trump's two conservative appointments to the court. \"Nine seems to be a good number. It's been that way for a long time,\" she said, adding, \"I think it was a bad idea when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the court.\" Several Democratic candidates have indicated an openness, if they were to win the presidency, to adding to the number of justices on the Supreme Court to reduce the power of the current conservative majority. Some would also like to enact term limits for Supreme Court justices. The term-limits proposal doesn't worry Ginsburg because she sees it as unrealistic, given that the Constitution specifies life terms for federal judges and because, as she puts it, \"Our Constitution is powerfully hard to amend.\" Don't see the video? Click here. Indeed, it takes the votes of two-thirds of the Senate and the House, and three-quarters of the state legislatures. But, in contrast, as Ginsburg notes, there is no fixed number of justices specified by the Constitution, and the court over the course of history has had as few as five justices and as many as 10. Roosevelt's proposal would have given him six additional Supreme Court appointments, expanding the court to 15 members. And Ginsburg sees any similar plan as very damaging to the court and the country. \"If anything would make the court look partisan,\" she said, \"it would be that — one side saying, 'When we're in power, we're going to enlarge the number of judges, so we would have more people who would vote the way we want them to.' \" That impairs the idea of an independent judiciary, she said. \"We are blessed in the way no other judiciary in the world is,\" she noted. \"We have life tenure. The only way to get rid of a federal judge is by impeachment. Congress can't retaliate by reducing our salary, so the safeguards for judicial independence in this country, I think, are as great or greater than anyplace else in the world.\" But the whole notion of the country's independent judiciary hinges on public trust, she noted. \"The court has no troops at its command,\" Ginsburg pointed out, \"doesn't have the power of the purse, and yet time and again, when the courts say something, people accept it.\" She recalled Bush v. Gore, the controversial case in which the Supreme Court stopped a Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election. \"I dissented from that decision,\" Ginsburg said. \"I thought it was unwise. A lot of people disagreed with it. And yet the day after the court rendered its decision, there were no riots in the streets. People adjusted to it. And life went on.\" Ginsburg's interview with NPR was wide-ranging, discussing, among other things, her health. She has had three major bouts with cancer over the past 20 years. In 1999, she underwent surgery for colorectal cancer, followed by nine months of chemotherapy and radiation. In 2009, she underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer, and late last year, for lung cancer. Outlasting the naysayers Ginsburg's iconic status with women, in particular, and her leadership of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court mean any health news involving the tiny, 86-year-old justice can cause something of a panic in certain quarters. Ginsburg is not oblivious to health concerns, but she waves away worries about her future. \"There was a senator, I think it was after my pancreatic cancer, who announced with great glee that I was going to be dead within six months,\" she recalled. \"That senator, whose name I have forgotten, is now himself dead, and I,\" she added with a smile, \"am very much alive.\" Don't see the video? Click here. That said, most cancer patients do worry. Some view one cancer, never mind three, as a sword of Damocles over their heads. So how does Ginsburg manage? She said she has followed the advice of the opera singer Marilyn Horne, who was asked about her pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2005. \"And she said, 'I will live,' not that 'I hope I live,' or 'I want to live,' but 'I will live.' \" But fighting cancer is wearing and hard. How does she manage her work? \"The work is really what saved me,\" she said, \"because I had to concentrate on reading the briefs, doing a draft of an opinion, and I knew it had to get done. So I had to get past whatever my aches and pains were just to do the job.\" Missing Marty Her lung cancer last year, however, was the first time she did not have her beloved husband, Marty, with her. He died in 2010, and she said she misses him every day, maybe especially now. Her children have visited frequently to lift her spirits, but her husband, she said, always was t", "As part of a series called My Big Break, All Things Considered is collecting stories of triumph, big and small. These are the moments when everything seems to click, and people leap forward into their careers. Like all great comedians, Tig Notaro started out small: at open mic nights in coffee shops and one-nighters in Holiday Inn lounges. \"I remember this saloon in Montana,\" Notaro says. \"I was standing in a corner with a dusty disco ball above my head. And I think there was a man with a look of Santa Claus on his day off sitting at the bar and staring at me while I told him what I thought was funny. And, based on his response, I don't think he agreed.\" Her comedy took her out of saloons and onto larger stages in front of devoted fans. Now, she's the subject of a new Netflix documentary, titled Tig, out this week. The film captures Notaro's search for a sense of humor amid devastating news. \"In 2012, I had pneumonia and then I contracted this potentially deadly disease called C. diff [C. difficile infection] and was hospitalized,\" Notaro says. \"When I finally got out of the hospital, my mother tripped and hit her head in a freak accident and died. And then I went through a breakup after her funeral, and then I was diagnosed with cancer.\" Days after her diagnosis of breast cancer, Notaro was scheduled to perform her weekly stand-up set at the Largo nightclub in Los Angeles. She wanted to cancel, but she ended up going on stage anyway. That show became legendary. \"I kept the performance on the books and had invited my friends Ed Helms and Louis C.K. and Mary Lynn Rajskub and Bill Burr to all perform,\" she says. \"They didn't think it was anything other than a typical show, and I went out on stage and talked about everything I was going through.\" Her opening line was shocking. As she greeted the audience, she nonchalantly told them she was diagnosed with cancer. \"I have cancer, how are you? Hi, how are you? Is everybody having a good time? I have cancer, how are you?\" At first, the crowd nervously laughed through her routine. \"When I hear it played back, I can hear the nerves in my voice and my voice is very shaky,\" Notaro says. \"I was very fragile and vulnerable at that time. And I also was not wanting to hurt anybody's feelings. I just didn't like that moment where people didn't know yet that I had cancer.\" But they catch on quickly. Notaro says the audience became her support group. As she makes light of tragedy, the crowd roars in laughter. \"I would've felt dishonest or inauthentic, I think, if I was on stage just talking about — just observing life in general, from afar. That wasn't where I was,\" she says. \"I was very ill. My pants were falling off of me, I was so skeletal at the time. I felt so lucky for the audience there, because they really carried me through that and the people there were really tremendous.\" That performance at the Largo was released in 2013 as a comedy album titled Live. It was nominated for a Grammy. \"Things changed after that. It definitely was a big break. It was a weird break. As much as it was big, it was a weird one,\" she says. \"You don't know what's around the corner. It could be a cancer diagnosis or the unexpected, accidental death of a parent, a breakup, a Grammy nomination, falling in love. Whether it's good or bad, in my personal life, my career, I feel OK. Nothing's going to make or break me.\" We want to hear about your big break. Send us an email at mybigbreak@npr.org. ARUN RATH, HOST: Like all great comedians, Tig Notaro started out small at open mics in coffee shops and one-nighters in Holiday Inn lounges. TIG NOTARO: I remember this saloon in Montana. I was standing in a corner with a dusty disco ball above my head. And I think there was a man with a look of Santa Claus on his day off sitting at the bar while I told (laughter) - while I told him what I thought was funny. And based on his response, I don't think he agreed. RATH: Her comedy took her out of the saloons and onto larger stages in front of devoted fans. Now she's the subject of a new Netflix documentary titled \"Tig\" out this week. In the film, Notaro searches for a sense of humor amid devastating news. NOTARO: In 2012, I had had pneumonia, and then I contracted this potentially deadly disease called C. diff and was hospitalized. And when I finally got out of the hospital, my mother tripped and hit her head in a freak accident and died. And then I went through a breakup after her funeral, and then I was diagnosed with cancer. RATH: Days after her diagnosis, Notaro was scheduled to perform a stand-up routine at the Largo theater in Los Angeles. She wanted to cancel, but she went onstage anyway. That show became legendary. It was her big break. NOTARO: Had invited my friends Ed Helms and Louis C.K. and Mary Lynn Rajskub and Bill Burr to all perform. And they didn't think it was anything other than a typical show. And I went out on stage and talked about everything I was going through. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED", "Across the U.S., 6,227 pedestrians died in traffic accidents in 2018, the highest number in nearly 30 years. The findings from a Governors Highway Safety Association report show that many of these deaths occurred in big cities like Houston and Miami. The signs are all over most cities — stretches of road without crosswalks and people needing to walk on roads built for rush-hour traffic. But the real increase, experts say, comes from larger trends: drivers and pedestrians distracted by their phones and a growth of larger vehicles on the road. Macon, Ga., isn't immune to any of these problems. Home to 110,000 residents, one in every 8,000 died in a pedestrian accident last year. Violet Poe lost her friend Amos Harris, 62, in 2014. \"Amos was a good person. He was really kindhearted,\" she said. Walking between traffic cones and the curb of a five-lane highway, she pointed to the street he would have walked down that night. Harris had been out after dark, searching for his nephew, when he crossed Riverview Road at a blinking light. \"He came down and crossed here and was hit,\" she explained. His body was thrown 100 feet. Georgia is one of five states that made up nearly half of all the nation's pedestrian fatalities in 2018. The others were Texas, Arizona, Florida and California. In California, 432 pedestrians were killed in just the first half of 2018. Several of these states also had a significant increase in population, which the report finds is a contributing factor in the fatalities. \"Designed for cars and not for people\" But population growth, like jaywalking, isn't central to the problem, according to Tom Ellington, chair of Macon's Pedestrian Safety Review Board. The county created the board to address the city's long-standing problem with pedestrian fatalities. Ellington said blaming jaywalkers for the problem ignores the big picture. \"We've spent decades building a transportation system that's designed for cars and not for people,\" he said. In Macon, many thoroughfares are also state highways, one of the types of roads where pedestrian fatalities are common. \"We have an awful lot of people who don't have their own vehicles who are dependent either on transit or on their own foot power to get around,\" Ellington said. That makes them particularly vulnerable to roads that were designed for fast-moving semitrailers and rush-hour traffic. \"I could point you to places that have as much as a two-mile gap between crosswalks. It's great advice to tell people to use a crosswalk, but that's not very useful if the crosswalk doesn't exist.\" Even when there is one, it is often too far. Research has found that most people will walk only 300 feet to the nearest crosswalk. Amos Harris would have had to walk 600 feet out of his way in one direction or a mile in the other. Richard Retting, the author of the Governors Highway Safety Association report, said this is an underlying problem, but the spike in deaths can't be blamed on the sidewalks. \"There wasn't a 10 percent reduction in sidewalks from one year to the next,\" he said in a phone interview. Something else accounts for the 30 percent jump in pedestrian deaths in just the last 10 years. \"Looking at the various metrics available, the ones that pop out to me are distraction related to smartphone use and the market share increase in SUVs.\" Since 2013, the number of consumers buying light trucks has far outpaced those buying cars. \"There's no question that pedestrians hit by SUVs are more likely to die than those hit by a car,\" he said. SUVs are bigger, heavier and deadlier for pedestrians. Compounding that problem are smartphones. Both walkers and drivers use cell data 4,000 percent more than they did in 2008, which means they aren't watching the roads. Retting said he would like to see autonomous pedestrian sensor technology added to more vehicles. The technology does exist but isn't widespread, and it won't be in most cars anytime soon since most vehicles on the road today are at least 10 years old. Achilleas Kourtellis, assistant program director at the University of South Florida's Center for Urban Transportation Research, said another approach to the problem is dealing with bad driving. \"No matter what you put out either on the road or in the car, you still have people involved,\" he said. \"We know that the human is the cause of most crashes — actually 94 percent of most crashes — meaning there is room for improvement in behavior.\" In Florida, for instance, the majority of crashes involve local distracted drivers — not tourists. Distraction can mean a lot of things too, he said. \"It's not just the phone. You're putting lipstick on or you're eating or things like that that distract you from driving.\" Florida is considering legislation that would allow police to ticket drivers for any type of distracted driving, including petting your dog or yelling at your kids. That type of law exists in five out of the six New England states, which saw, overall, a 36 percent drop", "This interview was originally broadcast on September 28, 2011. 50/50 is now available on DVD. When screenwriter Will Reiser was 24 and diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer, he coped by thinking up ideas for cancer comedies with his best friend, actor Seth Rogen. \"We wanted to do a parody of The Bucket List where you do really absurd and ridiculous things,\" he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. \"Like skydiving with hookers and things that were completely outlandish. But it was a joke, and it was sort of a coping mechanism for me at the time.\" Six years after his diagnosis, Reiser is now cancer-free. He's also now a screenwriter, for a comedic film loosely based on his experiences throughout his cancer diagnosis and treatment. The movie, called 50/50 after Reiser's initial survival odds, stars Rogen alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a kind of Reiser stand-in. Gordon-Levitt, a veteran actor who has been in films like Inception, Hesher, and (500) Days of Summer, says he was drawn to the part of Adam because Reiser's script was one of the rare comedic scripts he's received that doesn't have cliched plot points or stereotypes. \"I read the script, and I quite liked it. I was laughing. I was concerned. I didn't know what was going to happen next,\" Gordon-Levitt says. \"These are all what makes me want to get involved with a project. So I flew up to meet [the cast and crew] and accepted the role the next day.\" And over the next few weeks, Gordon-Levitt repeatedly interviewed Reiser about his physical and emotional transformation over the course of his cancer treatments. \"I'd ask him, 'What hurt? Where? When? For how long? How badly?' \" says Gordon-Levitt. \"That was always really useful. ... But the more interesting stuff that we would talk about was not medical at all. It was, 'How do you feel? What were you thinking about?' And that's really what the movie is about, to me.\" The movie does have its funny moments. Reiser says the film doesn't make fun of cancer itself, but instead finds humor in how people close to cancer patients react to their diagnosis. Adam's on-screen mother, played by Anjelica Huston, tries to smother her son — which is exactly what Reiser's mom did in real life. \"She got on a plane and flew to L.A. We went to one doctor's appointment, and I just could not handle being babied. I was 25, and I was just at the age where I was really kind of finding my own independence,\" Reiser says. \"The idea of having my mother take care of me just seemed so unbearable. So I put her on a plane and made her go back to New York. ... It's hard at 25 to know how to ask for help from your mother, because it's the person you're trying to break away from.\" His best friend Rogen, meanwhile, tried to be helpful by making Reiser laugh — and by changing his bandages despite having an aversion to bodily fluids. \"Seth was incredibly squeamish,\" says Reiser. \"Despite what you might think about Seth, he is an incredibly fragile human being who does not like the sight of blood or cuts or scrapes or anything like that. For him, changing the dressing and seeing my giant wound was a traumatic experience for him. But he did it — he just complained about it the whole time, much as he does in the movie.\" Rogen also suggested to Reiser that he use his cancer diagnosis as a sympathetic pick-up line. But that didn't work out so well. \"People would give me a lot of sympathy, but really, it was the kind of sympathy that you'd give a sick dog,\" he says. \"It wasn't like women found me really attractive because I had cancer. It's because they felt bad for me. It was pity-sympathy. It wasn't sex-sympathy.\" Reiser says he looks back on his illness differently now. \"I did feel like I was a victim right after I went through the entire ordeal, but now I've really kind of processed that and moved on from that period,\" he says. \"But there was a time when it was really difficult, and I felt like who I was was entangled in being 'a sick person.' ... It's pretty incredible for me to take what was the most painful experience in my life and turn it into something that I'm really proud of and that I've made with my friends. I think it's pretty great.\" Joseph Gordon-Levitt Additional Interview Highlights On 3rd Rock From The Sun \"By the time I did 3rd Rock, I had been acting for seven years. I had just crossed the majority-of-my-life threshold. It was always a bit of a joke on set with Kristen [Johnston] and French [Stewart], who had two of the other regular roles on 3rd Rock — they were from the theater before, but hadn't done much TV or movies. That was the joke ... because the character I played on that show was supposed to be the old one.\" On life after 3rd Rock \"After 3rd Rock, it was very difficult to convince anybody that I could do anything other than be in a funny TV show or romantic comedy. I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me. [But] it wa", "Wilko Johnson is better known in the U.K. than he is here in the States. Over there, the band he formed in 1971, Dr. Feelgood, is a big deal. The band's style is simple and blues-based, yet Johnson insists it's been quite influential. \"I think it's true to say the whole punk generation watched Dr. Feelgood,\" Johnson says. \"We did have that influence.\" A few years back, Johnson found himself at a music awards show reminiscing about the good old days with another famous British rocker, Roger Daltrey of The Who. \"So we said, 'Let's make a record,' \" Daltrey says. \"And we kind of threw it around a bit and talked a lot about doing it and never got around to it.\" But things changed when Johnson got a severe and inoperable form of pancreatic cancer. In January 2013, he was given less than a year to live. \"I wasn't freaked out when the guy told me,\" Johnson says. \"I went out the hospital in this beautiful winter's day, the trees against the sky and that and I just felt so elated and just thinking, 'You're alive, you're alive.' \" Johnson opted against chemotherapy, deciding to just let the cancer take its course. Soon after, news of his diagnosis began to spread. When Daltrey heard, he called Johnson immediately. \"You know Wilko,\" Daltrey says, \" 'Let's not worry about what we're going to record, let's just go and record anything!' The most important thing of all if you have a year to live is to have some fun.\" At first, Johnson envisioned recording covers of American soul hits from the 1960s. \"But under the circumstance,\" Johnson says, \"when we finally got to record it, I'm thinking, 'Right, well, this is the last thing I'll do. I'll have a bit of a retrospective of my songs.' \" The two recorded Going Back Home in a mere eight days, which Daltrey says is one reason the album is so special: \"A lot of today's music is made ponderously where people dissect it and they spend hours overdubbing and all this stuff. We did it very simply and I think that's reflected on this album.\" Daltrey thinks the album's title track says it all: The experience captured the spirit of going back to the vitality they had four decades ago. \"There's a 70-year-old singer and a dying guitarist; it's got so much energy, it's ridiculous!\" Daltrey says, laughing. The album did remarkably well in both the U.K. and the U.S. It was voted album of the year by Classic Rock magazine. So the duo decided to take the show on the road, including a performance at London's Royal Albert Hall. \"I've had many experiences of standing onstage in front of audiences and feeling that this could be the last time,\" Johnson says, laughing. \"It's quite a wonderful feeling — actually very, very intense.\" But then something odd happened. Johnson didn't die. The doctors were stumped, so they ordered a new round of tests and determined they might just be able to remove his tumor. Last spring, Johnson underwent a major surgery that left him, he says, cancer-free. \"My body is getting better and better,\" Johnson says, \"but my mind is still finding it hard to adjust to the idea that the future is once again an indefinite thing.\" Johnson says he hopes that future will include a tour to North America — he hasn't been to the U.S. since the 1970s. Daltrey is also optimistic about what lies ahead. \"He's got a long way to go and he'll be a Type 1 diabetic for the rest of this life,\" Daltrey says. \"But who knows? Maybe there's a Part 2 to this record. I hope that there is.\"", "According to the World Bank, 16 of the world's 20 most polluted cities are in China. The industrial revolution transforming the world's most populous country is also destroying its environment. China is now the world's second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main gas linked to global warming, and it is set to overtake the United States in 2009, a decade earlier than previously predicted. A visit to Shanxi province's Linfen, the city that has topped China's pollution charts for the past three years, demonstrates the factors contributing to China's rise in greenhouse gases. At 7:30 a.m. on Linfen's streets, it feels more like the middle of the night because it is still dark and drivers need their headlights on in order to navigate the haze of pollutants. People are going to work, and many are wearing face masks in a desperate attempt to protect themselves against the air they breathe. 'We've Ruined Mother Nature' The hospital is one of the busiest places in town, and the respiratory diseases department is the busiest of all. Every day, there are too many patients to count here, says textile worker Sun Haixia. She has accompanied her grandmother, who is suffering from a chronic cough, to the hospital. The air pollution affects everybody, she says. \"We've pushed our environment to its limits,\" Sun says. One of the reasons for this environmental degradation is clear in Beilu village on the city's outskirts. Coal, which is the mainstay of the local economy, heats the brick bungalows here. The air is acrid and sulfurous, making residents' eyes sting and their throats dry and scratchy. Piles of snow on the ground are black from coal dust. Wang Dongli, a 36-year-old villager, says that after economic reforms started in 1979, the number of factories grew and the blue sky disappeared. \"We've ruined Mother Nature,\" she says. Cancer, Other Diseases Take Toll The local doctor, Zhang Keguan, says Beilu is known locally as \"the cancer village.\" Of the approximately 1,000 people in the area, Zhang says at least 20 people have died from cancer recently, while three or four are still suffering from the disease. And most who died in recent years were young — just 30 or 40 years old, he says. The anecdotal evidence of a high death rate is backed up by a government research project by a scientist who didn't want to be interviewed. Figures show the normal death rate in China is six per 1,000 each year. In the most polluted parts of Linfen, for those ages 55 and older, that rate has risen to 61 per 1,000 each year. For Qiao Xiaoling, such bald statistics disguise the terrible pain of loss. Her husband died four years ago from leukemia. Then lung cancer claimed her 34-year-old son. As she minds her 3-year-old grandson, she admits she doesn't know what caused their illnesses. \"I don't know if it's because of the water or the air. I'm scared in my heart and worry about this little boy. I think about moving, but I don't have the money,\" Qiao says. Economic Development vs. Environmental Degradation Trucks transporting coal thunder past her house 24 hours a day. About a half-mile from Beilu village, there's a coke oven, a coal-processing plant, a power station and a pharmaceutical factory. The village is located in a natural basin that traps pollutants. And the shallow village wells are polluted, too. But officials like Wang Jinglong from the Shanxi Environmental Protection Agency admit that polluting factories play a vital role in China's development. \"If we closed all Linfen's polluting factories, the environment would clear up. The water would still be polluted, but the air would be better. But then a new problem would emerge — how would people afford to eat?\" Wang says. He says the government has closed 40 coke ovens in Linfen in the past year alone and is determined to do more. But on the ground, there is still a real feeling of discontent. Pollution Outsourcing Plagues China The people in Linfen feel abandoned and bitter: They think cleaning up environmental pollution should be a priority, a view shared by 93 percent of the residents of Shanxi province, according to a recent government survey. But 91 percent of city mayors in the province fear environmental measures would harm economic progress. It is a sign of a gulf dividing China's citizens from those who govern them. Some, however, argue that the problem isn't just China's, but a consequence of globalization and the outsourcing of pollution. The United States, for example, has shut down many of its coke plants and transferred that production to developing countries, such as China. Figures from researchers at MIT show that in 1970, China produced less than 10 percent of the world's coke. Now, that figure has risen to about 50 percent, while American and European coke production has declined. Gap Widens Between Haves and Have-Nots In China, these polluting industries are making some people rich. That much is clear in a grimy car showroom on the outskirts of Linfe" ]