CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) - Managers at the federal government’s troubled nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico plan to install several safety bunkers.
Eight of the refuge chambers - or safety havens as they’re called - were recently delivered to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad. Officials say the havens will be taken into the underground before the disposal of waste resumes.
The repository has been closed since February 2014, when a container of waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory ruptured and released radiation into portions of the underground storage area.
Each unit can house 20 people for at least 36 hours in the event of an emergency where workers may not be able to evacuate.
Police say the 25-year-old victim was hit in the lower torso and was treated at a hospital and released.
The shooting occurred shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday. Police say the man heard what he thought were gunshots while inside the Gold Club on South Market Street. Police say the man left the building and then saw a man firing a handgun. That’s when the man was shot. A friend drove him to the hospital.
Are you aware that there is an international effort to increase taxes, including those paid by Americans?
On Oct. 5, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will release its “final package of measures for a co-ordinated international approach to reform the tax system under the OECD/G20 Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Project.” In plain English, what the OECD bureaucrats are attempting to do is put in place minimum international corporate tax rates, and companies will be required to share sensitive and proprietary information with non-Americans who may misuse it. History tells us that governments often fail in their promises to keep sensitive information confidential, and once a new minimum rate is established for a tax, it is quickly raised. The U.S. income tax started out with a top rate of only 7 percent, which only affected the few millionaires back in 1914.
There are a few important facts that most members of the global political class willfully choose to ignore. In most countries the individual and corporate tax rates and government spending levels are well above the revenue and welfare maximizing rates. Much government spending is also wasteful and even harmful because the bureaucrats are spending other people’s money rather than their own. For instance, this past week, it was revealed that the Environmental Protection Agency — the same agency that a month ago heavily polluted a river in Colorado, causing great environmental damage — has been caught spending taxpayer dollars on unneeded exotic furniture. To be exact, one official bought a chair costing $4,047, and another spent $813 on a pencil holder. All of this is small potatoes as government spending goes, but it does illustrate how many in government treat hard-earned taxpayer dollars — and why economic growth declines as government gets bigger.
It has also been well known that as government spending on pensions and other “entitlements” grows, it has a negative effect on hours worked and economic growth. A new paper published by the European Central Bank also shows a strong negative correlation between pension and social security expenditures, as shares of gross domestic product, on household net wealth levels. Again, none of this is surprising, but it is ignored as being politically inconvenient.
Many people, without thinking about it, like the corporate tax because they think it is a tax on greedy billionaires. In fact, the corporate tax is paid by consumers in the form of higher prices and by workers in the form of lower wages and fewer jobs. It results in less investment in new plants and equipment and fewer new goods and services — which is why most tax economists view it as a bad tax. Investors are also hit by the corporate tax, but they have many options, including investing elsewhere or just consuming their savings, which hurts economic growth and future job creation.
The OECD started life several decades ago as a trade promotion and statistical organization created by the few big, rich nations. As bureaucracies tend to do, the OECD grew in number of members and engaged in “mission creep,” most notably becoming a lobbying organization — using taxpayer money — for those wanting higher taxes. In its initial effort to promote higher taxes, the OECD published a paper in 1998 titled “Harmful Tax Competition” — which ignored the obvious that competition is beneficial and that tax rates in most countries were already too high for the common good.
The United States and the major European states, notably France, then began a major attack on countries with low tax burdens and tax rates, referring to them as “tax havens,” rather than applauding many of them for being fiscally responsible. In the 1980s, the so-called tax havens were accused of harboring drug dealers, which morphed into accusations of protecting organized crime, which morphed into accusations of protecting terrorists, and now they are accused of fostering inequality. Most of these countries and political entities, being small, were pressured into signing and complying with tax and other information-sharing agreements. Yet they are still being slandered as “tax havens,” and global investors are being legally prohibited or discouraged from using their legitimate financial services.
The United States has become a global, irresponsible financial bully by imposing its Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) regulations on the world’s financial institutions. FATCA greatly reduces the ability of Americans living abroad and low-income people most anywhere on the globe to open bank accounts and transfer money, while placing a stifling burden of regulations on the world’s financial industry. The Obama administration and the complicit OECD never bothered to do cost-benefit analysis on all of these new regulations — because many are intellectually or morally dishonest (much like the fact that OECD staff is exempt from income taxes that they demand others pay). Brian Garst of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity said it best when he wrote that the OECD’s “BEPS threatens to erect substantial and costly new barriers to global commerce, and its proponents clearly hope no one will notice until it is too late.”
STREAKS, STATS AND NOTES - The game was scheduled to kickoff at 1:05 p.m. EDT, but was changed to a night game because of an expected ice storm. … Second postseason meeting after Chiefs beat Steelers 27-24 in wild-card round Jan. 8, 1994. Chiefs have not won home playoff game since. … Steelers and Chiefs have combined to lose once since Nov. 20. … Steelers scored franchise record 22 first-quarter points in win over Chiefs in October. … Steelers won four straight divisional playoff games before losing at Denver last year. … RB Le’Veon Bell set Pittsburgh playoff record with 167 yards rushing in win over Miami last Sunday. … Bell ran for 144 yards vs. Kansas City in October in first game after three-game suspension for violating NFL’s substance abuse policy. … Pittsburgh defense had five sacks against Dolphins, matching Heinz Field record. … Steelers All-Pro WR Antonio Brown had five catches for 124 yards receiving and two TDs vs. Dolphins. … Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley was Chiefs head coach last time Kansas City hosted playoff game in January 2011. … QB Ben Roethlisberger will tie Mel Blount and Terry Bradshaw (19) for most playoff games in Steelers history. … Roethlisberger needs eight completions to pass Donovan McNabb (341) for seventh most in NFL playoff history. He needs 22 to pass John Elway (355) for sixth. … Roethlisberger threw five TD passes to four different targets against Chiefs in October. … LB James Harrison needs 1 1/2 sacks to pass LaMarr Woodley (11) for most in Pittsburgh playoff history since sacks became official in 1982. … Chiefs have lost four straight home playoff games, three in divisional round. … Kansas City has lost four of last five to Pittsburgh. … Chiefs coach Andy Reid has 11 playoff wins, second to Patriots’ Bill Belichick (23) among active head coaches. … Chiefs All-Pro CB Marcus Peters had six interceptions, one behind Chargers’ Casey Hayward for NFL lead. Peters has 14 picks in 31 career games. … Chiefs’ Travis Kelce led all TEs with 1,125 yards receiving this season. … Kansas City S Eric Berry had two interception returns for TDs this season, giving him five for career. … QB Alex Smith averaged 262 yards passing in five playoff games, three with Kansas City. He’s thrown 11 TD passes against one interception. … Chiefs had plus-16 turnover differential this season, tied for NFL lead. … Kansas City went 22-4 over last 26 regular-season games, best record in league during that span. … Chiefs K Cairo Santos was 31 of 36 on FG attempts, kicking winners against Carolina and Denver. … Fantasy Tip: Chiefs rookie WR Tyreek Hill has 10 TDs since Week 10, most in NFL over that span, and made All-Pro team has punt returner.
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - Former Vice President Joe Biden will headline the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Convention next month.
The convention in Grand Forks is scheduled for March 15-18. Biden will speak on March 17. The former vice president has said he’ll keep his options open as he considers a run for president in 2020.
A presidential candidate twice before, Biden would be 78 on Inauguration Day if elected in 2020, a concerning prospect for some Democrats, even though he’s only a few years older than Trump.
Despite being only 26, Charlie Matthews made 163 senior appearances for Harlequins prior to joining Wasps in 2018.
He made his debut for the Twickenham-based club in 2009 when aged just 18, and went on to represent England at under 20 level in both 2010 and 2011.
Matthews was then part of the Quins squad that topped the Aviva Premiership table and went on to lift the title.
He also added to his international track record when capped at Saxons level in 2014, appearing alongside Dan Robson, Joe Simpson, Rob Miller, Kieran Brookes and Elliot Daly during England’s clash with Scotland A.
The 6ft 7 second row had previously appeared for Loughborough Students in the BUSA competition and National Leagues.
The SupaSkimmer is a large capacity skimmer box which is ideal for use in large domestic, semi commercial and commercial swimming pools. Because of its large capacity 5.9 litredebris collection it is also ideal for any swimming pool that is constructed in leafy environments.
"For anyone interested in a deeper appreciation of crisis discourses, this thought-provoking book is a must-read. Nabers meticulously challenges established notions of crisis and change in International Relations and illustrates how the current limits of the field restrict IR scholars' grasp of the fundamental relationship between crisis and change. Without understanding their interrelationship, argues Nabers, IR scholars cannot help but fail to address pressing issues in today's world. Drawing on insights from Marxism, feminism, and poststructuralism, he develops a discourse of crisis and change that emphasizes contingency and process. As such, those invested in exploring the limits of IR to make room for alternative global politics will also find plenty of insights here." - Annick T.R. Wibben, Associate Professor of Politics, University of San Francisco and the author of Feminist Security Studies: A Narrative Approach (2011)
"Many of us believe the social is in a permanent crisis and is dissolving. Dirk Nabers' book urges us instead to understand differently the relation between social change, politics, and democracy by introducing the key notions of contingency, dislocation, antagonism, and heterogeneity. By confronting International Relations with political theorists like Habermas, Derrida, and Laclau, this book, with great success, permits us to reconnect the question of the social with the one of the international" Didier Bigo, Professor of War Studies, King's College London, UK
"Nabers has perfected a rigorous quantitative method of analyzing political speeches and other official narratives....This is a theoretically sophisticated book, which has the potential to be a canonical work in IR theory" - David B. MacDonald, Professor of Political Science, University of Guelph, Canada
If you’ve already got your camera ready at the thought of seeing the Colosseum then you’ll like the location of this apartment. Not only can you walk to the Colosseum but numerous other sights are in the area too. The apartment itself is simple, unpretentious and cosy; a great base for relaxing in at the end of a long day of exploring.
n.— «“So you’re using the old Soddi defence, are you?” the Crown Attorney asked the accused on cross-examination. “I’m not familiar with that term,” said the prisoner at the bar. “Is that “Saudi,” as in “Saudi Arabia?’” “No,” interjected the judge, “it’s S-O- D-D-I—as in “Some Other Dude Done It!”» —“Defence benefits from creative thinking” by Peter V. MacDonald Toronto Star (Can.) Dec. 22, 1991. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
n.— «Stretch marks, on the other hand, I’ve got lots more of.… (About 50% of the skin on my shoulders and the biceps side of my upper arms is stretch marks; overdoing it in the sun makes for a plethora of bright red stripes (the stretch marks sunburn a lot easier than the rest of the skin). Any decade now I figure the “tiger stripe” look will be cool….)» —“Re: women—what do you like in a man?” Usenet: misc.fitness.weights Mar. 17, 1997. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A car struck the Wisconsin Capitol building over the weekend after the driver apparently suffered a medical problem.
Dane County Communications tells WKOW-TV that a call came in of a vehicle rolling into a wall of the Capitol building about 7:30 p.m. Saturday. A Madison firetruck and an ambulance responded.
A state Department of Administration representative says the driver apparently had a medical event that led to the crash.
There was no reported damage to the Capitol. No one else was in the car when it crashed. The condition of the driver is not known.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) -- The Florida Department of Health says in its weekly flu report that influenza activity in the state is high and continues to increase.
Officials say the panhandle region continued to experience the largest increases in flu activity, which prompted school officials in Gulf County to cancel classes on Friday.
Heath officials have also confirmed that a child with underlying health conditions has died from complications from the flu. This marks the third flu-related child death in Florida so far in the 2017-2018 flu season. The report says all three of the children were unvaccinated.
More outbreaks have been reported than in previous seasons, health officials add. One of the outbreaks occurred in Suwannee County, where a daycare reported 25 individuals with an influenza-like illness. Officials say samples taken from seven individuals tested positive for the influenza virus.
With flu season in full swing, WCTV is also hearing reports of local shortages of medication used to treat influenza.
"Due to the recent spike in flu activity in the Tallahassee area, we are experiencing greater demand for antiviral medications used to treat influenza. While we are taking additional measures in an effort to help meet patient demand at this time, some of our pharmacies in the area may not have all versions or strengths of Tamiflu available. We are expecting additional inventory at our pharmacies within the coming days, and in the meantime recommend customers call ahead to confirm availability (of Tamiflu)."
Health officials say, based on the data so far this flu season, increases in influenza deaths are expected in the coming weeks.
The Department of Health in Leon County is urging anyone who has not yet received a flu vaccination to do so now, adding, "There are still weeks of flu activity to come. It is not too late to get your flu vaccination. The flu vaccine is safe and recommended for everyone six months and older, including pregnant women."