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News about Media, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. After Trump’s vindication, the liberal media and its allies in government should face a reckoning. I’m not holding my breath. Retailer on Military Bases Says TV News Is Too ‘Divisive.’ Its Suggestion? Tune to Sports. “When in doubt, you can’t really go wrong with sports,” said a spokesman for the retailer, which offers shopping on military bases around the world. A reader supports efforts to expose corruption, but objects to WikiLeaks’s methods.

FULTON, Thelma Ruth. Passed away 05/02/2019 Aged 95 years. Loving wife of Stanley (deceased). Mother of John and Peter. Always remembered by her niece Josephine, Ian and family.

ST. JAMES PARISH, LA (WAFB) - The Sunshine Bridge closure has put sugarcane farmers in a real bind. It’s harvest season, and for some, transporting cane across the Mississippi River is costing them more than they anticipated. St. James sugarcane farmer and president of the East St. James Parish Farm Bureau Pete Dufresne enjoys tending to his 2,600-acre crop just off the river. In the fall, the combines, tractors, and trucks are rolling out the year’s finest. “It’s harvest time, and this is where we make it. This is our whole year,” Dufresne said. But Dufresne is concerned about his profit this time around, and the weather has very little to do with it. His land is just off the Sunshine Bridge. Harvest season began on October 3, just nine days before a barge carrying a crane rammed into the bridge, damaging a major support beam. The bridge has been closed since for repairs and it’s not expected to be back open until January, the end of harvest season. “It’s going to affect the profit margin because, unfortunately, our sugar is sold at predetermined prices. We can’t just increase the price of sugar to overcome the additional expenses,” Dufresne said. Those additional expenses, Dufresne says, comes from the five extra trucks he has had to hire to haul his quota of cane to the mill each day. He says what used to be an 18-mile trip across the river is now approximately 50. The longer hours and extra fuel are adding up. “A truck used to complete a trip in one hour and now it takes three hours,” Dufresne said. All that extra time is money Dufresne says he can’t get back. The sight of the Sunshine Bridge under repair for the remainder of the season, Dufresne finds hard to stomach. “Surely it was a completely avoidable incident. That’s the most frustrating part about it. To me, it wasn’t an accident, it was avoidable,” Dufresne said. Dufresne says so far, the closure has tripled his harvesting expenses.

With variety in its new model Estilo, the auto industry leader will take on Santro and Tata Indica, writes Deepak Joshi. Industry leader Maruti Udyog Ltd onTuesday unveiled a new model of its compact car Zen, called Estilo, signalling dynamic efforts to strengthen its presence in the fastest growing segment of the industry. The car will be available in four variants with a price tag ranging between Rs 3.19 lakh and Rs 4.02 lakh (ex-showroom in the Capital). The new Zen is expected to take on Hyundai Santro and Tata Indica. The new Zen will be available in eight colours. Zen Estilo will be available to the customers for Rs 3,19,403, while Zen Estilo Lxi is will cost Rs 3,48,403, Similarly, Zen Estilo will carry a price tag of Rs 3,734,03 and Zen Estilo Vxi ABS has been priced at Rs 4,02,403. Maruti had in March this year discontinued 'Zen' in its earlier avatar. The first generation Zen was launched in 1993 and the company had sold 7.60 lakh Zen models until March this year, including the export of 1.22 lakh units. At the time of discontinuation of production, Maruti was selling nearly 4,000 units of Zen every month in the domestic market. Zen Estilo is roomier than the original 'Zen' and has a 1,061 cc engine. It delivers 64 bhp , thereby making it an ideal vehicle for Indian city conditions, Maruti officials say. Explaining the company’s strategy for launching this car, Maruti managing director Jagdish Khattar said, "Young people in India today desire products with contemporary styling and international appeal. The new Zen will appeal to this new India, just as the original Zen appealed to the India of mid-1990s. It incorporates features and attributes that are uniquely suited to India and valued by Indian car buyers." The compact car A-2 segment has posted 27.5 per cent growth between April and October this year with 4.08 lakh units being sold compared with 3.2 lakh units in the corresponding period last year. As a result, the share of the A-2 segment cars to total sales rose to 63.70 per cent as against 60.60 per cent last year. However, Maruti grew at a rate less than the industry average as it had discontinued the production of the first generation 'Zen'. Maruti sold 2,30,137 units during April-October this year, a growth of 23.5 per cent from 1,86,035 units in the same period last year. Maruti’s market share in the A-2 segment in the seven months of the financial year is 56.4 per cent.

Sci-Fi fans will rejoice with today’s news as details about the upcoming game, Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock which was first announced last month, have been revealed in a trailer that was released by BBC Worldwide today. The main revelation was the fact that the game will be a 2D platform, but don’t let that put you off. In the past the video game world has only left fans of the famous sci-fi series disappointed as it has failed to deliver a game worthy of being a big hit as the series has been for decades. Things look like they are about to change with this new game though as judging from the trailer it will be delivering some impressive visuals, despite the game being limited to a 2D style of gameplay. It is being developed by Supermassive and is expected to be hitting shelves in March, although for now it has only been confirmed to be on PC, PS3 and PS Vita platforms. Reports of two new Doctor Who titles being released after may give other platform holder something to look forward to. You can check out the trailer below in the meantime. Are you a fan of the good Doctor Who? What do you think of the game so far?

A test launch of US/Japan-made anti-ballistic SM-3 missiles in the Pacific Ocean has gone off successfully, Japanese officials said. The test was conducted in cooperation with the United States. The SM-3 Block IIA missiles were launched from a US warship equipped with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System and successfully hit a hypothetical target – a ballistic missile, Japan’s Logistics Agency under the Defense Ministry said, according to Japan’s state newspaper Asahi Shimbun. The drills took place in the Pacific Ocean near the Hawaiian Islands on Sunday, the agency added. The SM-3 Block IIA is an upgraded version of the anti-ballistic missile that has been used in the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System. Both the US and Japan are working together on adjusting the model. Two ground launch tests of the missile were conducted in 2015, but these drills are the first ones to take place at sea. Japan and the US retain long-lasting military relations outlined by the Mutual Security Assistance Pact signed in 1952. The agreement ensures comparability of the weapons produced by the two nations and gives Japan access to intelligence information and classified technical information. On Friday, newly appointed Secretary of Defense James Mattis dismissed speculation on Trump’s intentions to scrap the US defense treaty with Tokyo judging by his perception of the Asian region and the alliance. “The US-Japan alliance is critical to ensuring that this region remains safe and secure – not just now, but for years to come,” Mattis said at news conference with Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, Reuters reported. The statement repeated what Mattis said earlier this week while on a visit to another US key Asian ally – South Korea. During his election campaign, US President Donald Trump claimed that both Japan and South Korea were taking advantage of the US security umbrella while not giving back enough in exchange. “But make no mistake: in my meetings with Japanese leaders, both our nations recognize that we must not be found complacent in the face of the emerging challenges we face. “As our alliance grows, it will be important for both our nations to continue investing in our defense personnel and capabilities,” Mattis stressed. In turn, Inada told the same press conference that the question of increasing Tokyo’s financial support for US troops in Japan by Tokyo has not been discussed. Nearly one percent of Japan’s GDP is allocated to defense, in comparison to two percent spent by China and three percent by the US.

General Motors has made its first decision in its ongoing global media review: It has cut social media agency Big Fuel from its AOR roster. GM informed Big Fuel of the decision on Nov. 1, although it was not disclosed until the Detroit Free Press wrote about it Tuesday. A rep for the company confirmed the cut, indicating that creative ad agencies for individual brands will handle social media efforts going forward, which is seen as more efficient than having a separate social media shop handle the duties. The cut comes about a year after Big Fuel -- headed by Jon Bond, a co-founder of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners, now an MDC Partners agency -- opened a Detroit office, mainly to service the GM account. In July, Publicis Groupe -- which is the incumbent on GM’s U.S. media assignment and on some creative assignments as well -- took a majority stake in the social media firm, citing the overlap on GM duties. For now, Big Fuel will reportedly keep a scaled-down office in Detroit. GM began its media consolidation review in August, shortly after the arrival of its new global CMO, Joel Ewanick. The carmaker spends an estimated $3.5 billion in ads worldwide and just over $2.1 billion in the U.S., according to Kantar Media. It's the first consolidation review the auto giant has conducted since 2005, when Publicis Groupe's GM Planworks, then a dedicated GM media planning unit, beat Interpublic's MediaWorks, the GM buying incumbent at the time. Separately, GM is conducting a creative review of assignments on its Chevrolet brand.

Quiz Quiz: Which Movie Couple Are You? There's no other couple on Earth like you two ... but we bet there's at least one movie couple that you can definitely relate to. Whether it's an action flick or a rom-com, find out which couple on the silver screen you're most like.

USA TODAY NETWORK will host the first ever livestream of the American Football Coaches Association Awards Show (AFCA) and green carpet from Charlotte, N.C. USA TODAY NETWORK will host the first ever livestream of the American Football Coaches Association Awards Show (AFCA) and green carpet tonight from Charlotte, N.C. After Alabama’s thrilling comeback victory over Georgia in the national title game last night, the AFCA Awards Show will bring together 8,000 coaches and former coaches to celebrate the best in college football this season. The event will air live on USA TODAY.com and on USA TODAY Sports' Facebook page. The awards show, presented by Amway, will be hosted by Rick Neuheisel, the former UCLA coach and Rose Bowl-winning quarterback for the Bruins, as well as former ESPN broadcaster Bonnie Bernstein. The night’s honors will include the FBS Coach of the Year, Allstate AFCA Good Works Team® Honorary Head Coach, and USA TODAY Sports Coach's Play Call of the Year. Football fans can look forward to appearances by Central Florida’s (and now Nebraska’s) Scott Frost, former Huskers coach Frank Solich, Georgia’s Kirby Smart, Virginia’s Bronco Mendenhall, Wisconsin’s Paul Chryst, Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald, Iowa State’s Matt Campbell, Fresno State’s Jeff Tedford, and Liberty’s Turner Gill. Former Marshall coach Jack Lengyel will be honored, along with Jenks (Okla.) High School coach Allan Trimble, who will receive the Power of Influence Award as he fights ALS. Coaches from FCS, Division II, Division III and NAIA will also be recognized. Before the show’s kickoff, there will be a green-carpet event hosted by USA TODAY Sports Pulse’s Trysta Krick and Adam Woodard, along with USA TODAY Sports national college football writer George Schroeder. It will feature interviews with coaches as they arrive on the green carpet and will debut original videos shot at this year’s convention by USA TODAY Sports. USA TODAY NETWORK is excited to give fans the opportunity to watch the AFCA Awards Show from a livestream platform and extend the fun of the college football season. The green-carpet event will be livestreamed via Facebook beginning at 6 p.m. ET from the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and the awards show will air live starting at 8 p.m. ET.

The ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.57% was down less than 0.1% at 96.93 in Monday trading, with its month-to-date loss at 0.4%. It continued to weaken even after data showed that the New York Fed’s Empire State business conditions index rebounded to a reading of 10.1 from a nearly two-year low of 3.7 in March. May silver SIK9, +0.77% meanwhile, turned higher by the settlement, after touching an intraday low of $14.795, the lowest of the year so far. It climbed 1.2 cents, or less than 0.1%, to settle at $14.975 an ounce. In other metals trade, July platinum PLN9, -0.58% fell $4, or 0.5%, to $894.50 an ounce, while June PAM9, +1.82% lost $15.50, or 1.2%, to $1,334.70 an ounce. May copper HGK9, +0.59% fell 1.1 cents, or 0.4%, to $2.935 a pound. The SPDR Gold Shares exchange-traded fund GLD, +0.25% traded down 0.2%, while the iShares Silver Trust SLV, +0.65% edged up by 0.1% in Monday trading.

Designed by Seattle architect Tom Kundig and featured recently in the New York Times, this truly modern home enjoys views of the mountains and ocean from atop 10 landscaped acres in Montecito, California. Utilizing raw steel, glass and concrete as its main building materials, this spacious three-bedroom, three-bathroom residence is designed to open fully onto surrounding terraces via sliding doors, blurring the lines between interior and exterior spaces. A swimmer's lap pool reflects its surroundings stunningly, while a custom fire pit nearby hints at parties to come. A clean, strong architectural statement created for its surroundings, this clean, contemporary home will leave its future owners feeling at one with the land. View the listing.

Fake and low-quality medicinal drugs are threatening progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, according to a collection of 17 scientific studies published at once to highlight the issue. Researchers found that up to 41 percent of medicinal specimens out of a total 16,800 drug samples fell short of quality standards. In addition, one article published in the batch considered an estimated 122,350 deaths of African children given fake or substandard malaria drugs in 2013. Other studies found that poor-quality antibiotics harm health and boost antimicrobial resistance, the US National Institutes of Health said in its Monday announcement of the studies. Those conclusions, and more, were part of the 17 articles published to call attention to global drug standards and ways to combat the proliferation of damaging medicines, especially in low- to mid-income nations. Packaged together in a journal supplement under the title, “The Global Pandemic of Falsified Medicines: Laboratory and Field Innovations and Policy Perspectives,” the articles will be published online by The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. “The pandemic of falsified and substandard medicines is pervasive and underestimated, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where drug regulatory systems are weak or non-existent, as shown by field studies in the supplement,”said Jim Herrington, PhD., MPH, co-editor of the journal supplement and director of the University of North Carolina’s Gillings Global Gateway at Chapel Hill. Former US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, MD, wrote in introductory essay for the package in which she pointed to globalization as a reason why false or low-quality drugs have spread so virulently. “Today’s medical-product landscape blurs the line between domestic and foreign production, drawing attention to the need for global quality and safety oversight to prevent patient exposure to falsified products,” wrote Hamburg, now foreign secretary of the Institute of Medicine. Some of the published articles detailed new methodologies that are helping to test drug quality, including examinations that are useful in remote areas devoid of more advanced technology, according to NIH. The researchers called for an "urgent and coordinated response" to address this pandemic. Suggestions included a global pact in the same vein as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, as well as stricter laws to fight and punish peddlers of counterfeit medicines.

I am working with an outstanding boys school based in south east London that are looking to take on an Economics teacher for September. This is a full time, temporary to permanent role for one term in the first instance with a view to extension after the Christmas holiday. Economics is a very popular subject and has a very high up take A level. The department is situated on its own floor and teachers have access to a private common room and facilities. The school records outstanding results on a yearly basis and has the benefit of excellent resources that allow teachers to push their students above and beyond the national average. The school are keen to meet with candidates and are looking to appoint as soon as possible. If you are an economics teacher and would like to be considered for this role in education and training please submit an up to date copy of your CV as soon as possible. This is a Boys Grammar School, with Academy Status and a Coeducational 6th Form and is one of the top performing schools in the borough having been rated as Outstanding by Ofsted in 2007 and again in 2012. It is heavily oversubscribed and boasts excellent facilities, with well-equipped classrooms and state of the art technology throughout. The school's success is owed greatly to the determination of its staff and the ethos that they uphold. Students are happy at the school and actively engage with their classes and are pushed by their teachers to go beyond the curriculum with excellent results. REESON Education is London's premier recruitment agency. Established in 2006 by experienced teachers, education professionals and recruitment specialists, we have built our business and reputation on the cores values of honesty, integrity and excellence. We work exclusively with a number of London's best secondary schools across all areas of London, offer highly competitive rates of pay and an unmatched personal service. REESON Education will try to respond to all applications within three working days. However due to the volume of applications we receive we are sometimes unable to respond to individual candidates. If we have not contacted you within three working days your application has been unsuccessful and your details have not been retained. Please apply for any other vacancies we advertise in future that you think you may be suitable for.

The word hero gets thrown around so much that its use has lost much of the intended impact. Indie filmmaker Denise Ohio restores a bit of the word’s luster with this surprisingly compelling portrait of Frank Minden. Who? An ordinary, hard-working man, a WWII vet and master diesel machinist, the 76-year-old Minden has never signed a multimillion-dollar contract with a sports franchise or refused an Oscar in honor of the worthy cause of the day. But in the short space of thirty minutes, Ohio illustrates what makes this St. Louis man so admired and respected by those around him. Interviews with Minden’s wife and seven adult children reveal the kind of family anecdotes and obviously oft-told tales that shouldn’t be of interest to anyone not Minden, but the sincere adoration of his family lends a potency to them, perhaps by reminding us of our own familial bonds… or highlighting a lack thereof. Reticent and staid, Minden doesn’t have much to say for himself, but Ohio’s artfully simple footage of him at work in his shop says more about the stolid nobility of this ordinary man than words ever could. Shot partially in digital form and edited digitally, Family Business is a lovingly produced family album, a high-tech movie about a decidedly low-tech hero… yes, hero.

After a meeting of the minds with renown psychologist Albert Bandura, David Kelley sketched out his philosophy of design thinking education. He outlines the details in depth in his book Creative Confidence and in his 2012 TED talk. This poster presents a summary of that philosophy. Prepared for a talk and painted by hand in David's home studio, it is a map of the d.school pedagogy and a high-level treatise on how to unlock creative confidence in his students. “The real goal of the d.school is to give students creative confidence, an idea similar to what Bandura calls “self-efficacy:” the ability to do what one sets out to do, in her own way, even while facing ambiguous circumstances. The core trait that holds people back is fear: fear of failure, fear of being judged. Something about Design Thinking –– that it is human-centered and focused on helping others, or that it thrives on experimentation and small steps –– gives students permission students to try on new behaviors despite the fear. Download a hi-resolution poster. Feel free to print and share with others. David Kelley is a founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school and a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford.

It may be a zombie bite, a rival group's attack, or just a lone walk toward the great unknown. No matter what you call it, Rick Grimes will soon be gone from The Walking Dead. Several news outlets are reporting that Andrew Lincoln will be exiting the series sometime in season nine. Entertainment Weekly has independently confirmed a report from Collider that Lincoln is ending his years-long run on The Walking Dead next season (we reached out to AMC but they declined to comment). Lincoln has been with the show since the very beginning, playing the sheriff-turned-apocalypse leader. While his role has been rife with issues over the past few seasons - we've even been arguing that Rick needs to die in order to keep the show alive - Lincoln has been the series lead since the very beginning and it will be sad to see him go. Even if it's felt like a long, long, long time coming. It's just one of many ways The Walking Dead has seen some turmoil recently. In addition to the showrunner turnover, Rick Grimes' son Carl (Chandler Riggs) was killed off last season, and we're hearing rumours Lauren Cohan (Maggie Greene) could be next on the chopping block. Collider is claiming that AMC is courting Norman Reedus to take over as the series star, but the network declined to comment on that to us as well.

The Obama administration is funneling millions of dollars toward finding new ways to prevent and treat Alzheimer's debilitating dementia. More than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease. On Tuesday, the Obama Administration announced the launch of the National Alzheimer’s Plan, with the goal of finding effective ways to prevent and treat the devastating effects of dementia by 2025. The current initiatives underway include funding for Alzheimer’s research projects by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Two of those projects involve a $7.9 million clinical trial testing an insulin nasal spray for treating the disease and a $16 million study that is the first prevention trial in people at the highest risk for Alzheimer’s disease. There is also increased funding for improving high-quality training for physicians and a media campaign to be launched this summer. For patients needing support now, the Health and Human Services (HHS) department has a new website with extensive resources for Alzheimer’s patients and their families. Prevent and effectively treat Alzheimer’s disease by 2025: The Obama Administration has already invested $50 million in new Alzheimer’s disease research funding for this year and $80 million in research for 2013. “These investments will open new opportunities in Alzheimer’s disease research and jumpstart efforts to reach the 2025 goal,” the authors write. Optimize care quality and efficiency: To better educate Alzheimer’s caregivers and physicians, the administration announced a $6 million investment over two years for provider education and outreach. Expand support for people with Alzheimer’s disease and their families: “Supporting people with Alzheimer’s disease and their families and caregivers requires giving them the tools that they need, helping to plan for future needs, and ensuring that safety and dignity are maintained,” the report says. The announcement proposes an investment of $10.5 million for 2013 to support the needs of caregivers. Enhance public awareness and engagement: The report says 85% of people surveyed can identify Alzheimer’s disease and its symptoms, but misperceptions can lead to delayed diagnoses and stigmas. The administration is investing $8.2 million over two years, starting this year, to support public awareness initiatives. Track progress and drive improvement: The administration proposes to invest $1.3 million in 2013 for data collection improvement and increased understanding of the disease’s impact on people with the disease, their families and the health care system.

Lexington is known for is its accessibility to the Thoroughbred stars that reside on the horse farms that dot its landscape. With the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games set to begin its run on Sept. 25 and the influx of equine enthusiasts expected to visit Central Kentucky, some top farms are expanding the opportunities for visitors to get an up-close view of the signature industry. That glance behind the scenes in turn gives the Thoroughbred racing world a chance to attract new fans. As the owner and breeder of this year's Derby winner Super Saver, WinStar Farm has been inundated with requests to see its sprawling facilities and has responded by offering as many as four free tours a day of its stallion barn from Sept. 18 through Oct. 17. Vinery Stud farm that many Lexington residents have driven past on Spurr Road is part of a global breeding and racing operation that has a division in Australia. Vinery will give a group of about 40 fans from Australia the chance to see the American arm of the farm with a special tour of its grounds on Sept. 25. Offering tours is just one way Central Kentucky's farms are doing their part to support WEG and its participants. Castleton Lyons, which is just down the road from the Kentucky Horse Park, is making beds available for members of the Irish team who will be competing at the Games. And the endurance competition taking place on Sept. 26 would have been impossible if it were not for nearby farms like Mt. Brilliant, Cobra Farm and Kentuckiana Farm allowing the 100-mile event to go through their farms. Cobra and Kentuckiana are each hosting small private parties during the endurance event. "You know, I really don't know that there is that much of a gap between the Thoroughbred people and the sport-horse people because so many of the Thoroughbred people are involved in event horses or dressage or hunter/jumpers," said Mike Owens, manager of Cobra Farm, which is also hosting opera singer Denyce Graves, who will sing at the Games' opening ceremonies. The efforts the farms are making come at one of the busiest times of the year in the Thoroughbred industry. The Keeneland September yearling sale runs from Sept. 12 through Sept. 26. And the Keeneland race meet begins Oct. 8 and leads into the Breeders' Cup at Churchill Downs on Nov. 5 and 6. "Just because the Games are going on, you can't change the schedule of the farm or the stallions," said Michael Hernon, director of sales for Gainesway Farm. "It is a busy time, and then it's a balancing act in a way. You want to try to accommodate people, but you also don't want people randomly showing up." The Seattle Slew statue stands in the middle of the stallion complex at Three Chimneys Farm near Midway. Visitors can find packages through Horse Capital Tours.

Aug. 9, 2011 -- Executive Editor George Chamberlin speaks with Mark Riedy, executive director for the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate at the University of San Diego, about how economic uncertainty is affecting various markets, the downgrading of U.S. debt -- as well as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and more. Aug. 8, 2011 -- Executive Editor George Chamberlin recaps last week's financial events and looks at the week's upcoming announcements. Aug. 4, 2011 -- Executive Editor George Chamberlin speaks with Eugene Bounds, senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, about how information technology has transformed over time and the focus on cyber security. July 22, 2011 -- The Daily Transcript wraps up another year of Comic-Con with a look at the costumes and exhibits that make the event so popular. Aug. 1, 2011 -- Executive Editor George Chamberlin looks at the week's upcoming financial announcements.

Today, businesses are approaching their inefficiencies with disruptive technologies like IoT & big data. NEW DELHI: The Fourth Industrial Revolution is replacing the "inefficiencies" of traditional businesses with disruptive technologies and thus upskilling and cross-skilling of employees would be an important component in all sectors, according to experts. Industry 4.0 and its impact took centrestage at a management summit held Saturday at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Rohtak where experts from the core industry and other sectors discussed and deliberated on the subject. Emphasising on the changing business landscape, Dheeraj Sharma, the director of IIM Rohtak said, "In view of the increased use of cyber systems, it is important that we develop a strong culture of cyber security and cyber-immersion in our institutions." "In order to do so, we need to develop a stronger campaign to echo the significance of security training, safety of online transactions, responsible social networking and ethical data mining," he said. Industry 4.0 refers to various digital technologies, automation and data exchange techniques, which can contribute to creating cyber-physical systems thus revolutionising the process of industrial production. The experts also discussed how businesses are approaching their inefficiencies with disruptive technologies like IoT (Internet of Things) and big data. The Internet of Things (IoT) is an ecosystem of connected physical objects that are accessible through the Internet. "The Fourth Industrial Revolution is replacing the inefficiencies of traditional businesses with disruptive technologies like IoT, cloud computing and big data to name a few. The digital wave has its impact on every sector of the economy and promises to revolutionise manufacturing, supply chain, distribution, and retail," IIM-Rohtak said in a statement. The pace of change today is immense and to stay relevant businesses are required to make information and data an integral part of their business model, it said. Arvind Bali, CEO, Videocon (Telecom) said, "The things we see today will vanish in a couple of years. The pace of change is much higher today as compared to what it was yesterday; this pace is an essential NCR-IIM-SKILLINGpart of Industry 4.0." Akhil Prasad, Member, Board of Directors, Boeing India also participated in the summit and spoke about Industry 4.0 from the aviation sector perspective. "In Industry 4.0, we are moving towards a phase in manufacturing where it is imperative to reduce wastage. We at Boeing are exploring smart technologies on a regular basis to make better and smaller aircraft," he was quoted as saying in the statement. The leaders from different sectors agreed that data today is indeed a "strategic asset" and stressed on the increasing need for skilled personnel". Upskilling and cross-skilling of employees thus will be an essential function in every sector, be it logistics, manufacturing, real estate or services, the experts said.

In a speech at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, delivered January 19 2018, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced the nation’s latest National Defense Strategy, The first in ten years, Secretary Mattis indicated that the thrust of the nation’s policy had shifted away from fighting terrorism toward countering the threat posed by Russia and China. Most maliciously, authorities invariably deflect criticism of U.S. policy by attempting to link dissenting publications with Russia. Given that the U.S. appears to be just as self-serving and law defying as Russia is accused of being, what is the reality behind the unrelenting anti-Russian propaganda campaign? That question is at the heart of this week’s installment of the Global Research News Hour. In the first half hour, past guest Dmitry Orlov returns to the show to bring us up to speed on some of the latest developments. The Russian-American commentator addresses some of the actions in recent months including the Skripal affair and the stand-off with Israel over the shooting down of a Russian plane. He compares and contrasts the two countries’ military postures and their differing objectives. He also examines the impacts of the sanctions regime and its implications for international political and economic relations. Our second guest, Ron Ridenour, expands on the theme of his latest book, The Russian Peace Threat: Pentagon on Alert, which provides a historical context for the renewed cold war, deconstructs the propaganda depicting Russia as a menace, and details some of America’s far from benevolent records over the past century. He also hints at where the path to peace may lie. Dmitry Orlov is a Russian-American writer, blogger and geopolitical analyst based in Moscow. He has degrees in Computer Engineering and Linguistics and has worked in the fields of high energy physics, internet commerce, advertising and network security. He is the author of Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects and Shrinking the Technosphere: Getting a Grip on the Technologies that Limit our Autonomy, Self-sufficiency and Freedom. His blog site is cluborlov.com. Global Research: We’re joined by Dmitry Orlov. He is a Russian-American writer, blogger, and geopolitical analyst. His work has centered around the political, economic, and ecological and political decline and collapse in the United States, and he’s also the author of numerous articles. His books include Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects and Shrinking The Technosphere: Getting A Grip On The Technologies That Limit Our Autonomy Self-Sufficiency, And Freedom. He joins us here from Moscow. Thanks so much for coming back to the show Dimitri. Dmitry Orlov: Good to be with you Michael. DO: Well it’s a bit of a wake-up call for the Israelis because Russia has been extremely accommodating in everything that comes, when it comes to Israel’s security concerns. There is the realization that the rhetoric coming from Tehran has been, you know, quite virulent, you know, Iran is still telling itself that it has the goal of destroying Israel. There’s no way that Israel can avoid responding to such a provocation, and the fact that there are now Iranian troops close to the Israeli border, and that there is weapons manufacturing going on on Syrian territory is something that is a concern to them that the Russians have to allow Israel to take care of its own security concerns. But the Israelis have acted most irresponsibly because they gave less than a minute warning that this attack was coming. They misnamed the targets, and they misbehaved in the airspace in the sense that they couldn’t have not seen this big lumbering propeller plane that was absolutely no threat to anyone, and they knew that there would be some anti-aircraft fire and drew it not on themselves but on this plane. There are some other, you know unfortunate mishaps that occurred, which are all coming out as a result of the investigation, so it’s still early to say. But the response was basically to, you know, a dressing-down from Russia to Israelis, saying you cannot do this anymore, and the response was to arm the Syrians with a more up-to-date air defense system which was probably already in place. It was just handed over to Syrian command. I don’t think that this is a major development. I think Russia and Israel are going to patch things up. I don’t think Israel is going to stop attacking, stop attacking things, on the ground in Syria, that, you know, actions that they see as provocative. They are very fearful of precision rockets, precision weapons being built in Syria that can be smuggled into Syria or even fired, smuggled into Israel, or even fired into Israel from Lebanon or from Syria itself. DO: Well there is, there will be no declaration of surrender. Let’s not kid ourselves. Basically, what the US does in Syria, similar to what it does everywhere else, it generates activity. It generates activity in order to be in a position to order more weapons systems, more munitions, basically chew through more materiel, because that’s what the contractors require, and those contractors, military contractors, finance various congressional campaigns. That’s the entire political ecosystem, and what happens on the ground is sort of a sideshow. Now in terms of strategic objectives, whatever they are, the US definitely isn’t achieving them. There’s that encampment they have in Al-Tanf in the south, there are a few other locations in the north where they’re playing along with the Kurds, which is poisoning their relationship with Turkey. They did completely destroy Raqqa and made absolutely no effort to clean it up, to restore it, so there are still rotting bodies there buried under a piles of rubble, and it’s been many months. It’s basically a humanitarian atrocity that they’ve perpetuated in Raqqa, but they’re not achieving anything except wasting money and war materiel. And I think that that is actually their goal at this point is to generate military activity. DO: Oh, no, absolutely not. Basically, Russian posture, the Russian posture is to make sure that the US and NATO have absolutely no plan whatsoever to attack Russia, or to attack Russia’s allies. Perish the thought. But other than that, Russia’s posture is completely defensive, and American posture, because there is no need to defend the American homeland from anyone, nobody is planning to attack the United States, is purely offensive. DO: It’s really hard to figure out what is going to snap first. There’s definitely a huge amount of tension between Washington and the European Union. There is a huge amount of tension building up within the European Union itself, because the whole liberal juggernaut that started bringing in unlimited quantities of migrants into Europe, you know that is definitely running into a huge, huge problem, huge conflict that is internal to the EU. Now, the relationship between the EU and Russia has not really been all that badly damaged by Washington and by these sanctions that the Europeans have gone along with willy-nilly, many of them complaining all along the way. And, definitely, in terms of, for instance, energy cooperation between the EU and Russia is back on track because there are really no other options that the EU has to supply itself with natural gas other than to do business with Russia, and at this point that means also to circumvent the Ukraine because nobody really wants to do business with the Ukraine anymore. It’s basically a sort of poisoned chalice at this point. You know, in terms of what the sanctions have done to the Russian economy, yes, they cost them a couple of percentage points of GDP growth, but the beneficial effect of those sanctions is often underestimated. It really woke Russia up to the fact that it has to become self-sufficient in many areas, and it has become self-sufficient in numerous areas and is working very hard to achieve self-sufficiency in more areas and to find new trading partners that aren’t going to sanction them. So, the sanctions have really woken up the Russians to the fact that the Americans are not their friends, will never be their friends, and have prompted them to act accordingly. GR: The US economic situation, they have an unsustainable debt crisis. It doesn’t look like they’re ever going to be able to crawl out of it, they don’t have the ability to maintain the, their current trajectory. I mean, we’re probably looking at another stock market crash, probably sooner rather than later, and I think the writing is on the wall in that regard. That’s bound to affect the way the US comports itself in the world, even though they won’t say it out loud. I mean, you suggested that earlier. So that you have, you know, falling prices on some things and hyperinflation in other areas. There’ll be huge economic distortions, and the rest of the world will simply have to co-exist. They have a hoard of dollars, they use that hoard of dollars in order to trade with each other, they have contracts signed that are all in dollars. So, how do you de-dollarize that? It’s a gigantic task. With the Skripal affair, it’s preposterous throughout. There’s absolutely no evidence behind the British story, and there are a lot of facts that are just completely contradictory and negate the narrative that has been voiced. And so the Russians are happy to basically sit back and ignore all of that. They know that there will be sanctions, these sanctions have nothing to do with chemical weapons, they have nothing to do with anything except one fact: Russia is sitting on a stockpile of energy resources that will last it for hundreds of years. They’re basically jumping up and down mad that they have this problem that they can’t solve. They can’t attack Russia militarily. They’re trying to attack Russia economically, but that’s not working. They’re trying to isolate Russia, and as a result of that Russia is strengthening ties with countries all over the world. You know the SCO organization is now almost half of the world’s GDP, almost half of the world’s population. And it’s a security organization that Russia is part of. You know, they try to stage little provocations like the little training exercises along the Russian border in the Baltics that are supposed to frighten Russia. Now if NATO attacked Russia, Russia would have them arrested. It doesn’t really make sense as a plan, but it makes sense as an internal narrative, something that these incompetent Western leaders can tell their own people.

NEW YORK – Police have arrested a college student who walked around on his school's campus carrying a single-shot rifle and wearing a Bush rubber mask, police said. No injuries were reported in the incident at St. John's University on Wednesday. It was unclear "why on this particular day he brought a gun on campus," police spokesman Paul Browne said. Police identified the student as Omesh Hiraman, 22, and said charges were pending. St. John's is a Catholic university of about 20,000 students located in the city's Queens borough. Other students, one of them a police cadet, reported seeing the armed man at around 2:30 p.m. walking near a building on the campus around the time he was supposed to be in a business class there, police said. The man was carrying a plastic bag with the barrel of a .50-caliber rifle sticking out and was wearing the Bush mask, with its mouth cut out. In a statement, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly praised the cadet, 21-year-old Christopher Benson. Benson said he saw a man with a gun "walking really fast" and "jumped right in" to assist when campus security officers approached. Unarmed campus security officers and the student cadet tackled Hiraman as he walked toward a library, police said. Hiraman was turned over to the New York Police Department, which later searched his home near the campus. Hiraman's father, Pat Hiraman, said the incident was "a misunderstanding" and his son, who lives at home near the school, "would never harm anyone." "Our son has always been a good boy and has never been in any sort of trouble," the father said. He said his son hadn't been the same since having back surgery and was under heavy medication. Students were told to stay inside their classrooms and buildings until around 5:30 p.m. Classes on the campus were canceled for the evening. Kevin Su, an editor of the student newspaper, said students were ushered into buildings that were staffed with security guards and told to stay put. He said there was not much discussion of whether there were similarities between the incident Wednesday and the April 16 rampage on the campus of Virginia Tech, where a student gunman killed 32 people and then himself. "I think it's basically on everyone's mind," Su said. "It doesn't need to be said outright."

Crowdfunding has exploded as a way of raising money for needy individuals and groups. The websites may offer donors little guidance in navigating the tax implications of their gifts. Legally, those who give to some campaigns may be required to file a gift-tax return. If the spate of recent national tragedies has tugged at your heartstrings and encouraged you to donate to a charitable crowdfunding campaign, beware: you're entering dicey legal territory. That's because, in some cases, you may be required to file a gift-tax return, even if your donation was small in size, according to Martin Shenkman, founder of Fort Lee, New Jersey-based Shenkman Law. Charitable crowdfunding campaigns have exploded in popularity in recent years. According to a 2016 Pew Research Center report, 22 percent of American adults have contributed funds to crowdsourced fundraising project. The market for crowdfunding is expected to grow to greater than $300 billion by 2025, according to Fundly, a crowdfunding website that promotes itself as a platform to "raise money for anything." Yet the realm of charitable crowdfunding is a legal Wild West, and rife with pitfalls for donors and recipients. Shenkman said the gift-tax conundrum may arise when campaigns are organized by a friend or relative of the ultimate recipient, and the recipient will not be the one who withdraws funds. Although the gift-tax exclusion allows individuals to give up to $14,000 to a given recipient, in 2017, without filing a gift-tax return, the money must be immediately available to the recipient to qualify for this exclusion (in legal parlance, it must be a gift of "present interest"). If crowdfunding donations can't be immediately withdrawn by the recipient, they may not pass this test, Shenkman said. "You have this absurd result, that people who are giving small dollar amounts may actually have a gift-tax reporting requirement that they may violate," said Shenkman. Another headache for donors: their contributions aren't deductible unless they donate to a qualified organization such as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. That means you can't deduct an amount you donated to assist with an individual's medical bills, for example. Medical fundraising is the fastest-growing category on YouCaring, a platform for "compassionate crowdfunding," according to the company's website. Crowdfunding websites provide varying levels of assistance to donors trying to navigate tax rules. GoFundMe maintains a list of "Certified Charities" that have been verified as nonprofits, and automatically sends donors tax receipts for contributions to campaigns that benefit one of those charities. But the platform also allows recipients not on that list to describe their campaigns as a "charity" on its website. The website of Generosity, a platform for "socially conscious fundraising" owned by Indiegogo, states that donors should contact campaign organizers to determine if donations are tax deductible. The website advertises campaigns that claim to benefit registered nonprofits alongside campaigns that make no such claims. Donations can even create unintended headaches for recipients. If a beneficiary receives means-tested government benefits such as Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income, then receiving a large cash inflow from a crowdfunding campaign could cause him or her to lose government benefits, said Jonathan Blattmachr, a principal at Pioneer Wealth Partners in New York and director of estate planning for Peak Trust Company. That could mean that, for example, funds from crowdfunding pay for medical expenses that Medicaid would otherwise have covered. "You might think you're helping the recipient, but you're actually hurting her," Blattmachr said. Raising funds on behalf of a supplemental or special needs trust, for individuals seeking help with medical bills, would circumvent the problem, Shenkman said. Perhaps the biggest problem for donors, however, is the difficulty in evaluating whether funds will actually be used for the purposes described in a crowdfunding campaign's pitch. GoFundMe, Indiegogo's Generosity and YouCaring all have procedures in place to guard against misuse of their platforms, according to spokespersons for each of the companies. But it's impossible for crowdfunding companies to thoroughly vet every organizer and recipient who uses their platforms, said Daniel Borochoff, founder of CharityWatch. "It's convenient, and it's powerful because you can reach a lot of people quickly, but whether or not the money actually goes to its intended purpose is certainly not guaranteed," Borochoff said. Borochoff said donors should only contribute to a crowdfunding campaign if they trust the organizer, such as if it is someone they personally know or a respected community leader. If donors want to contribute to a non-profit organization, they should do so directly through the organization itself rather than through a crowdfunding website, which may collect its own fees from donations, he said. In contrast to crowdfunding campaigns, Borochoff said, tax-exempt nonprofits are subjected to oversight by a board of directors and by regulators, and must submit annual filings to the Internal Revenue Service. Traditional nonprofits may also have more experience in vetting potential recipients, he said. "With a lot of these websites it's very easy to feel good donating money," said Borochoff. "But whether you're doing good can be unclear."

Catholic Charities' mission is "to provide services to anyone in need, regardless of race or religion; to advocate justice, human dignity and quality of life; to call all people to join in these efforts, thereby reflecting compassion of God in Christ." When a woman doesn't know where her next meal is coming from, when a child is afraid to go to school because he has no supplies or appropriate clothing, when a refugee arrives on U.S. shores with nowhere to go, when a childless couple has been praying for a baby for years ... Catholic Charities is there. The mission of Catholic Charities is to provide services to anyone in need, regardless of race or religion; to advocate justice, human dignity and quality of life; and to call all people to join in these efforts; thereby reflecting the compassion of God in Christ. "That means that we are ready to serve the neediest among us — of all ages, all backgrounds and all challenges," said Lauren Weedon Hopkins, executive director for Catholic Charities Jacksonville. "I don't think most people realize that 85 percent of those we help are not Catholic. It doesn't matter to us — we do what we do to be a good neighbor." The programs offered by Catholic Charities are many and varied. The organization feeds the hungry, helps out with bills, settles refugees into this country, facilitates adoptions and helps out with school supplies, among other services. The Jacksonville Regional Office is the largest in the state, serving Duval, Baker, Clay, Nassau and northern St. Johns counties. The programs offered by Catholic Charities Jacksonville are many and varied. The organization feeds the hungry, helps out with bills, settles refugees into this country, facilitates adoptions and helps out with school supplies, among other services. In September 2017, Catholic charities launched a two-year global campaign to welcome refugees and migrants under the leadership of Pope Francis, but the organization's Refugee Resettlement Program in Northeast Florida has been going on for many decades to help resettle individuals and reunite families who legally enter the United States. The program, one of the largest in the state, assists refugees when they first arrive and for up to five years afterward. Clients receive extensive medical background and relationship checks before travel to the U.S. is approved. Many have fled their home countries because of persecution due to their race, religion, nationality or membership in a social or political group and have nowhere else to turn. "From July 2016 to June 2017, we helped 152 refugees get settled into this country," Hopkins said. "We assist in finding housing and provide classes in English as a Second Language, and we've set up a grant-matching program through which 260 refugees have already found jobs. We've found that refugees really want to work, so with training and an understanding of the workplace, they will be excellent employees." Camp I Am Special serves children and adults with disabilities in seven week-long overnight-camp sessions where each camper is paired one-on-one with a high-school buddy who helps with everything the camper does.The program is as popular with volunteers as it is with participants and has a waiting list of 150 volunteers. Many of those helped by Catholic Charities' Refugee Resettlement Program have limited English skills and employment histories, so ESL classes and help finding jobs is essential. Others have experienced emotional trauma, torture, the loss of family members or long years in refugee camps, making it necessary to "tread lightly" with an understanding heart. "We have a very diverse staff of 62 employees in Jacksonville, with some members coming here as refugees themselves," Hopkins said. "They have an immediate rapport with new arrivals, especially those from their home countries." Refugees aren't the only people having a difficult time finding employment, which is why Catholic Charities also offers a Workforce Development program. "Five years ago, we were seeing many who had lost jobs and wanted desperately to get back to work," Hopkins said. "With a three-year start-up grant from the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund, we have helped 937 people in the last five years, with 411 gaining employment." The weeklong program offers job readiness classes, help with resume-writing and interviewing, as well as a closet filled with clothes appropriate for job interviews. Then, for up to four months afterward, participants can come back to the center to use the computers, get help with cover letters and apply for jobs. "We also help with some of the barriers to employment — arrange child care, provide bus passes and appropriate clothing," Hopkins said. "And we work with the Family Foundation to provide mental health counseling for those who are not yet ready to work. "The main point with all our programs is that we treat each participant as an individual, showing compassion and love, and listening to what they have to say. These are individuals and a one-size-fits-all approach simply won't work." Catholic Charities' Immigration and Legalization program works with immigrants of all types, not just refugees. The program has been accredited for more than 10 years by the Council on Accreditation — only nine organizations in Jacksonville have that accreditation — and by the Department of Justice, so its staff can do the work that an immigration attorney would do. In the past year, the program has helped 512 documented immigrants with their paperwork. High on the list of programs that everyone — participants and staff alike — loves is Camp I Am Special, also ACA accredited for children and adults with disabilities. The camp serves those ages five through 65 in seven weeklong overnight-camp sessions, during which each participant is paired one-on-one with a high-school buddy who helps with absolutely everything. "This has been going on for 34 years with an incredible amount of success," Hopkins said. "I was actually a volunteer for four summers while I was in high school and so was my brother. It was there that he learned to have a love for these special children. He went on to medical school to become a pediatrician with a specialty in autism, and it's all because of volunteering at Camp I Am Special. It's such a wonderful experience that earlier volunteers are now doctors, nurses and lead nonprofits. Right now, there is a volunteer waiting list with 150 names on it." Response from the community has been generous as well. When the camp's 50-year-old swimming pool was finally declared unusable, $900,000 was raised and a new pool, designed by Auld & White, is scheduled to open in December. Because Catholic Charities is always looking for volunteers and donations, the 26th Annual Black & White Ball will be held on March 3 next year. "We had 500 attendees last years and the venue wasn't large enough, so this year, we'll be having the event at EverBank Field," Hopkins said. "This is the first time we've had it at the stadium, so we're really excited. We expect from 600 to 700 guests." These are just a few of the many programs available through Catholic Charities. "We are so grateful for the community's awareness and support of our programs," Hopkins said. "We have 22 people on our board who serve as advocates in the community; we couldn't do what we do without people caring about the vulnerable." Catholic Charities To advocate for the community and to help Catholic Charities care for those less fortunate, visit the website at ccbjax.org and click on the "Donate" button or on "How You Can Help."

ODELL BECKHAM Jr has signed a $95 million (£74 million) five-year extension with the New York Giants, making him the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL. Beckham is guaranteed to earn $65 million over the six seasons that he is now contracted to play for the Giants, but he could pocket a maximum of $95 million. The 25-year-old said: “Honestly, I don’t even know how to explain it...I don’t know if it’s a relief, I don’t know – it’s a combination of everything. You’ve worked all your life to get to this point and it’s finally here. I have to thank Mr Mara, Steve Tisch, Mr Gettleman, coach (Pat) Shurmur, Eli (Manning), all the guys I played with in the past years. Everybody was really a part of this - my mom, my dad, my family, everybody who was supporting me through this. It’s just such an amazing feeling, I can’t even explain. Roger Lewis, Beckham’s teammate was among those congratulating the Louisiana native on the deal.

A player's rating indicates his percentile rank in CAPS. olliesbo is outperforming 22.02% of all CAPS players. A player's score is the total percentage return of all his picks subtracting out the S&P. A player's accuracy is how often that player has made correct predictions. olliesbo appears to be stuck for things to say. Maybe tomorrow?

But following the professor's admonition might require great will power. Though informative, the site (www.mathpower.com) also serves up hours of indulgent distractions, with a menu of electronic games, not all of which are related to math. Under the heading ''fun stuff,'' which is accessible with a browser that supports Java, there is a three-dimensional Rubik's cube, a chance to challenge the computer at checkers and even a version of hangman. And showing that she really has a sense of humor, Professor Freedman gives students a chance to take out their anxieties on her. In the ''morph the professor'' area, they can stretch a photoof Professor Freedman's face, grafted onto a cartoon body, into a variety of shapes. Algebra Online offers an E-mail form on which students can seek help with a vexing math question, if they can ''be specific'' and do not tax the tutors with questions like ''teach me how to factor'' (www.algebra-online .com). A similar site, the Math Tutor (www.fliegler.com/mathman.htm), will try to answer any question on any level, ''from arithmetic to calculus,'' in 24 hours. The best site may be Ask Dr. Math, in which the ''doctors'' are college math students and the ''patients'' can be anyone in kindergarten through grade 12. In addition to questions answered by E-mail, there is an archive of past responses searchable by topic (www.forum.swarthmore .edu/dr.math/dr-math.html). Back on Professor Freedman's home page, some icons, like The Math Teacher's Ten Commandments, promise more than they deliver, and in the games section avoid Paint With Color and Basketball, which often freeze. Still, the site offers many resources for even the casual math student. And who can resist the chance to indulge in Mad Libs, in which the computer asks the viewer for the first words that come to mind and then combines them into a story.

11:03: The T-Mobile-Google MyTouch 3G Launch event at the Skyline Studios on the west side. This event is a much more casual affair than the G1 launch from last September. There's no agenda in the USB drive and seemingly no Google people present. Google must be the surprise speakers. 11:03: The T-Mobile-Google MyTouch 3G Launch event at the Skyline Studios on the west side. This event is a much more casual affair than the G1 launch from last September. There's no agenda in the USB drive and seemingly no Google people present. Google must be the surprise speakers. Also, the press releases are the same two T-Mobile and Geodelic issued June 22 when the news formally broke. Cole Brodman, senior vice president, chief technology and innovation officer, and Denny Marie Post, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, are slated to speak. 11:09: Event starts. Brodman introduces Post, who says she is excited to talk about the launch. Today, existing T-Mobile customers can begin pre-ordering the phone through July 28 to get it before the national retail availability of the device on Aug. 5. As reported, the device will cost $199 for a two-year contract. Post: The phone taps into our self-expression. The myTouch 3G lets users create self-expression from inside out. The Android OS is much like taking crayons or water colors to create a device that is 100 percent you. Interesting marketing pitch. 11:11: Brodman: Says T-Mobile is fortunate to have Google as a partner. Talks about the G1 and how it lets users tap into innovation from Google and third-party application developers. Rich global ecosystem of software and hardware. 11:13: T-Mobile continues to invest in that strong Google partnership. Brodman promises more Android products later this year, but the myTouch 3G is the next big step along that path. 11:15: Post: Says the myTouch 3G is a slick device, fits in the hand very easily. "It's the kind of device you feel very bold to experiment with it and get into it. A premium device to get into the smartphone category." Post compares it to a custom car. "It becomes 100 percent you." I see a mantra developing. Three ways the myTouch 3G will be able to personalize it. Video time. 11:16: Woman in video says if the myTouch 3G could sweat for you, it would. Ewwww. Maybe too personal. She says the weather widget lets her know whether or not it will be lousy weather (she must do yoga). She also does Google searches on the myTouch. 11:18: Another woman says if it could go through airport security for her, it would. She uses it to search for a cool restaurant and to keep up on Facebook. She also demonstrates the translator app and books a last-second deal. She can one-click to Wikipedia and personalize her adventures. 11:19: Next, a rocker dude in the video says if it could make you a rock star it would. He makes music and e-mails the clips and posts YouTube videos through the myTouch. Tweets on Twitter when he's about to go on stage. Post pics on Facebook and has ringtones for all his friends so he knows who's calling while he posts Web content. 11:21: "If it could make you cool, well, actually it pretty much does." Putting the person back into personalized. Video ends. Brodman: The video shows us how to personalize with the myTouch. Brodman's been using the myTouch for weeks and months. Uses it many ways. No two myTouch devices are alike, he says. 11:23: Brodman uses Google Talk, Exchange, Weather Bug, and does Google Voice searches. He uses it to juggle personal and business work. 11:24: Post says as a working mother, she also keeps personal and business content. Connects her with family. She and her son play Zombie Run on the myTouch in malls. "It's about the applications, but more importantly it's about the expression of who I am." 11:25: Brodman discusses apps on the myTouch. T-Mobile and Google help users find new apps through T-Mobile store or the device itself. T-Mobile App Pack a new app coming in weeks. T-Mobile and third-party partner apps. Discusses Geodelic's Sherpa. 11:26: Geodelic is a recommendation and discovery engine for mobile. Find personalized, localized content, businesses, shops, restaurants. It gets smarter and more personal as you go. 11:27: How will T-Mobile make apps payment easier? T-mobile and Google will do a direct bill option directly from the myTouch. It won't replace current payment options, but provide an additional purchase avenue. 11:28: Post shows the device packaging, with guide, polish cloth, Special material to polish the screen. Comes in every box to keep it clean. It will have many accessories. Relationship with Skinit for custom skins. 11:30: Retail experience: Pop for consumers. T-Mobile training sells reps to make myTouch a great success. 1) make it work. 2) make it mine. 3) make it easy. Duh. 11:32: Post says T-Mobile will bring this market by consumer word of mouth. Equity of value versus any carriers out there. In mid-August, T-Mobile will launch a big advertising campaign centered on "100% You." TV, print, online -- the works. 11:35: Brodman wraps us up with: MyTouch and investment in Android is big for T-Mobile. Brings innovation of Web to mobile devices. Android products, services and applications. Starts with G1, then myTouch 3G, will continue in other devices. Question 1: Are there plans to bring the HTC Hero to the U.S.? No current plans to do this, Brodman says. In second half of the year there will be lots of Android devices, including more from T-Mobile. Question 2: Does this phone do multitasking? Can you have music playing and get into an app at the same time? Absolutely, Post and Brodman say. Widgets are live, so you'll get multiple apps working at once. Question 3: How is myTouch 3G different from the G1? 11:39: Brodman: It's about choice -- G1 is more tech-centric. MyTouch has more personalization features. Built differently from G1. Post says myTouch is for more general audience. Very easy and sleek. This was a disappointing launch compared to the G1. There were no Google people here at all. Videos of everyday people using the device are no substitute for Larry or Sergey, not even Android creator Andy Rubin. Not much new, but we've got a better sense of the myTouch 3G marketing campaign, which will flaunt the personalization aspects. My sense is that this will be a super social networking phone, the type of gadget that will be a blast to be roaming a different country with: it will help you find local businesses and haunts, take multimedia content and push it out to users or directly to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Sure, we can do a lot of this stuff on the G1 and other gadgets, but the myTouch is designed to make it easier for us.

June 7, 2007 3:02 P.M. SUDBURY - The Ontario government is undertaking an important rehabilitation project on Highway 17 east of Ignace, Northern Development and Mines Minister Rick Bartolucci announced today. "Our government recognizes the importance of a safe, well maintained network of highways to the economic and social well-being of the North," said Bartolucci. "We understand that high quality infrastructure is an underlying requirement for strong communities." The project involves resurfacing and reconstructing 16 kilometres east of English River. Improvements include increasing the shoulder width along existing passing lanes, the treatment of frost heave areas and drainage enhancements. There will also be upgrades to three snow plow turn-arounds in the area. A contract in the amount of $9,397,798 has been awarded to Miller Northwest of Markham. The project will get underway this spring and is scheduled for completion this fall. "We have laid out a strategic program and budgeted record investments in the expansion and rehabilitation of northern highways," said Bartolucci. "We will continue to invest in these important infrastructure initiatives." "The government's ongoing commitment to improving highway infrastructure across the region is helping our northern communities to grow and prosper," said Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield. "Better highways foster economic development and create jobs." The McGuinty government's five-year, $1.8-billion Northern Ontario Highways Strategy is forecast to result in the repair of 2,000 kilometres of highway and an additional 64 kilometres of northern highway system expansion. The strategy, now in its third year, is an important component of the Northern Prosperity Plan, which is founded on four key pillars: Strengthening the North and its Communities; Listening to and Serving Northerners Better; Competing Globally; and Providing Opportunities for All. This document was published on June 07, 2007 and is provided for archival and research purposes.

The objectives of the proposed work are to design, prepare and characterize a family of new advanced electron transport materials from simple, minimal-step, high-yield, and inexpensive synthetic processes for application in organic photovoltaics (OPV). These novel materials will be chemically prepared by linking together conjugated electron deficient moieties that may include, but are not limited to, phenyl- and naphthyl-imides, benzothiadiazoles, dicyanoimidazoles, and diketo-pyrrolo-pyrroles. These new materials will be used to fabricate OPV devices with efficiencies and lifetimes exceeding those of state-of-art OPVs that typically use fullerene-based electron transport materials. Organic photovoltaics (OPV) have recently reached power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of 7.7%1 and extrapolated lifetimes of >30 years2 bringing this area of technology closer to commercialization. Common to both of these reports are the use of fullerenes as the electron acceptor/transport materials. Fullerenes tend to have low absorption in the visible range, produce devices with relatively low open circuit voltages (Voc), are very difficult to synthesize and purify, and are very expensive. Figure 2: Potential improvement in the current-voltage characteristics from using new acceptor materials. New acceptor materials that could address and solve the issues of fullerenes could push PCE levels to >10%. For example, replacing the weakly absorbing fullerenes with more strongly absorbing acceptors should lead to efficient light harvesting below 700nm (Figure 1) and increased short circuit current densities (Jsc). Assuming a peak external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 0.75, Jsc can potentially be improved from 15.2 mA/cm2 in the record device to 17.2 mA/cm2 (Figure 2). Figure 3: Schematic of general strategy for materials design for application in OPVs. The general strategy of how the materials will be designed to address important properties necessary for OPV acceptors is shown in Figure 3. The materials will have two different electron deficient moieties linked together in an A-B-A type arrangement. Furthermore the A-B-A moieties will be linked by alkene, alkyne and/or phenyl linkages (sp2 hybridization) that will allow for electron delocalization throughout the molecule, thus stabilizing the negative charge over the entire molecule. Although the A-B-A moieties will be electron deficient in nature, they will have different degrees of deficiency so as to have partial push-pull character. This is known to impart low band gap properties, important for absorbing a greater amount of the visible spectrum. The proposed research is designed to be very interdisciplinary involving synthetic organic chemistry, materials characterization, and device processing/characterization. The research is aimed towards the goal of OPVs with PCEs >10% by the end of the project and will be divided into two sections – chemical synthesis and device physics. Design and synthesis of new electron deficient molecules will be carried out to achieve crucial fundamental properties such as: proper electronic energy levels; strong visible light absorption; side chain attachments for solution or vacuum processing; and solid-state packing for optimized charge transport. Charge carrier mobilities and solid state morphologies of neat and blend thin films using various microscopy and x-ray techniques will be examined. Energetic loss pathways due to triplet and charge transfer states will be explored using spectroscopic techniques. The physical, thermal, optical, and electronic properties of the materials are designed to be tunable so that they may be used with a large number of corresponding electron donor materials for device fabrication. Chen, H. Y.; Hou, J. H.; Zhang, S. Q.; Liang, Y. Y.; Yang, G. W.; Yang, Y.; Yu, L. P.; Wu, Y.; Li, G. “Polymer solar cells with enhanced open-circuit voltage and efficiency.” Nature Photonics 2009, 3 (11), 649-653. Schwartz, G.; Maennig, B.; Uhrich, C.; Gnehr, W.; Sonntag, S.; Erfurth, O.; Wollrab, E.; Walzer, K.; Pfeiffer, M. “Efficient and long-term stable organic vacuum deposited tandem solar cells.” Kafafi, Z. H., Lane, P. A., Eds.; SPIE: San Diego, CA, USA, 2009; 74160K-741611.

SPRING VALLEY, Wis. - Arnold Brorson, 88, Spring Valley, died Monday, April 15, in Spring Valley Health and Rehabilitation Center. Visitation will be from 4-8 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, at Keehr Funeral Home in Spring Valley. Visitation will continue from 10-11 a.m., followed by a funeral at 11 a.m., Thursday, April 18, at Gilman Lutheran Church in Spring Valley. Burial will be in the church cemetery. Arrangements by Keehr Funeral Home.

Douglas County School District Board of Directors — 6 p.m., Days Creek Charter School Room 215, 11381 Tiller Trail Highway. 541-825-3296. Winston Park Board — 6:30 p.m., City Hall, 201 NW Douglas Boulevard, Winston. 541-679-6739.

Despite the critique we have offered in the past, Zanu PF in its recently launched manifesto, insist on claiming that its vision is for Zimbabwe to be a middle-income country (MIC) by 2030. This is a bland and banal statement which requires qualification, quantification and supporting details for it to be meaningful. What does that vision statement even mean? The MIC nomenclature is a World Bank analytical tool that refers to economies with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita ranging from $1 005 to $12 235. This is too broad a grouping. In any case our GDP per capita income is $977, hence jumping to $1 005 (if we consider minimum qualification) over 12 years is not sufficiently ambitious. This is not visionary at all. It is instructive to note that the MICs are broken up into lower-MIC and upper-MICs. Lower-MICs have GDP per capita ranging from $1 006 to $3 955, while upper-MICs have per GDP per capita ranging from $3 956 to $12 235. Does Zanu PF aim for Zimbabwe to be a lower-MIC or an upper-MIC? More importantly, what is the target GDP per capita in their vision formulation? They must be specific and say we aim to be an MIC with a stated GDP per capita number (or range of numbers). Even with this flawed approach to the national vision process, there is need for caution. Under this rule, the number of years to double a GDP per capita is equal to 70 divided by the growth rate. So, for example, if we grow by 3%, then it will take us 70/3 = 23,33 years, to double our GDP per capita. If we grow at 5%, then it will take us 14 years. For Zimbabwe to double its GDP per capita by 2030, that is, attain a GDP per capita of at least $1 944, it needs to grow by about 6% every year for the next 12 years — which is a tall order. China did it though, but it is not easy. In Zanu PF’s vision, what is the target growth rate for Zimbabwe for the next 12 years to 2030? In the manifesto, there is target of attaining a growth rate of at least 6% per annum over the period 2018 to 2023. What happens beyond 2023? They do not tell us. Let us be generous and assume that Zanu PF wants to double our GDP per capita by 2030 — which would require an average growth of 6% for 12 years. The problem is that it has been a historical impossibility, with the exception of China. For example, between 1970 and 2010, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries only grew by an average of 1,9%! With Zimbabwe, for sure in the first few years, we may experience above average growth rates because of our low base, but we will eventually gravitate towards standard and traditional growth rates, which are much lower than 6%. More significantly from my analysis of their entire Zanu PF manifesto, I don’t see where that growth of at least 6% over the period 2018 to 2030, will come from. There is absolutely no articulated and demonstrated sources of such phenomenal growth. Nothing! It is neither sensible nor meaningful for Zanu PF to posit that their vision is for Zimbabwe to be an MIC by 2030. Zimbabwe needs a proper vision process and a more rigorous economic planning effort. In its 2018 manifesto, Zanu PF gets both the vision process and vision content wrong. A national vision has three pillars — politics, society & the economy — with over-arching issues being values and mega-impact projects. Aaagh Professor dai maramba muchitambira ku Robotics and Mechatronics and spare us the academic masturbation that you are now spewing. Ethiopia growth rate has been double digit for the last decade and the country lifted more than 50 million people out of extreme poverty in a decade. Meles Zenawi was a visionary. I am surprised even why people think 1,5million houses cannot be built in 5 years yes they can be built Ethiopia again is doing it. I dont even want to say South Africa but Ethiopia is doing with the help of the Chinese of course. Munangagwa is not Mugabe just like Deng Xiaoping was not Mao despite long time with Mao he changed China to what it is today so ED can do it if he wants which i think he does. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it. The trouble is the people in control of the country. Their track record speaks for them. Ukaona munhu anotaura zvekuchera zvibhorani iyezvino, iye ari president, haafaniri kubvumidzwa kuita chero sabhuku. Too many people have been hypnotized by ZPF to the point that they completely ignore their criminal incompetence. Lies. SA’s GDP growth rates prior to 2010 under Thabo Mbeki were driven by consumption expenditure – mainly retail/tertiary sector driven. That is why it was said to be jobless growth. It was growth that created no jobs but enriched the Capitalists. It is for that reason that the ANC govt introduced the Industrial Policy Action Plans (IPAPS); three year rolling industrialisation action programs to facilitate growth of the productive sector. Vana Aurthur – you were there in GNU and in MDC manifesto yamakaita yaiva ambitious ndeipi bambo. Zivai zhedu editor parade ku RSA uko. level rarema iri.

A teacher, a wife, and mom who thought she'd beaten cancer once was right back where she started. If, as the old adage goes, laughter is the best medicine, then a middle school teacher in Arlington is battling her second round of cancer with the best medicine she, her family, and a standup comic can find. Jade Laswell, a seventh and eighth grade teacher at Shackleford Junior High, had her first cancer scare September of 2016 at her very first mammogram. She was only 41 years old when her doctors found a suspicious lump, which led to a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy, and a doctor's promise that the odds were in her favor: that her type of cancer only had a 2 percent to 5 percent recurrence. "And I was actually in the middle of a reconstruction surgery this January when, the morning of my surgery, I found a lump. My surgeon found me, sat down next to me to tell me there were cancer cells on that lump. So, we've just started over again a couple weeks ago," she said. She was one of the 2 percent to 5 percent. A teacher, a wife, and mom who thought she'd beaten cancer once was right back where she started. "My heart like, literally, how do you describe like, where you have that dropping feeling in your stomach, where like my breath literally was taken away? I was just devastated. Absolutely devastated and couldn't stop crying," she said. What you'll notice if you're around Jade for only a few minutes, whether at school or at home with her husband and four children, is that instead of crying, she very much prefers to laugh instead. "It's a very, very dark place when you're dealing with cancer. It's scary, and there are a lot of scary things. And to be able to make fun of it, kind of takes the power away from the cancer," she said. "It's nice to connect with other people who get that, who understand that fight! Because not everybody will understand that fight." She found that someone on a recent Friday night at the Deep Ellum Art Company. The performer was a San Antonio native named Larry Garza. A stage 4 kidney cancer survivor, the "cancer comic" has made his journey, and his survival, part of his act. "So on a lighter note, I almost died," he said to loud, but sometimes, uncomfortable laughs from the comedy club crowd. And on this night, Jade Laswell was in the crowd, soaking up all the potential best medicine her fellow cancer fighter could offer. "I had a grapefruit size tumor grow in my kidney," he told the audience. "That developed into a lemon size tumor in my lung. You guys have no idea how hard that is for a Mexican to grow fruit and not be able to sell it! That was really hard for me," Garza joked as the crowd, including Jade Laswell, laughed. "I just wanted to tell my kids I love them one more time," Garza joked about his initial fear of death. "And I just wanted to tell my life like....Well, you're alright!" But to any fellow cancer fighters that might be in the audience, he sincerely offered this. "Come talk to me after the show, we have a connection now," he said. "Yes we do," said Jade seated next to her husband in the audience. The two cancer fighters did meet after the show, shared stories and shared laughs for more than a half hour. "But....you're gonna be fine," Garza told her. "And you're gonna be fine," Laswell replied. "And we just keep going." "And we're going to be like 80 years old saying, 'Remember when we were scared we had cancer," Garza joked as they shared another laugh together. "You just have to frickin’ laugh through it," Laswell said. "What are your choices?" "When you joke about it, you take the power away from it," Garza said. "That's exactly what I said earlier," Laswell replied. "Did you hear that earlier? I said that earlier!" "Joking about it to me is really important because it lightens it," Garza said in an interview with WFAA photojournalist Michael Botsford. "As much negativity comes with the disease, one thing that is positive about it is community, is family, and love really. I know it sounds mushy, but it's true." Studies have shown that laughter does have its benefits -- that people with a strong sense of humor have outlived those who don't, especially when battling something as brutal as cancer. Jade Laswell plans to keep busy laughing, especially when she gets news like she got last week. She made the announcement to her students at school. "Well, it came back clear. There's no cancer. So they're not finding any cancer in my body," she said as the students responded with applause and hugs. "And sometimes, with this cancer fight, it's just about waking up and putting one foot in front of the other and hanging onto a little tiny piece of hope that you can survive what the day is going to bring you, because you really don't ever know," she said. But we do know that in her classroom, among all the positive and encouraging messages on the walls, is the one right behind her. It says "a day without laughter is a day wasted." So here's to Jade's and Larry’s journeys of no wasted days and laughing in the face of cancer every precious moment they can. Jade Laswell is also busy running her own nonprofit. It's called Craft Hope and sends care packages to families in need, including children in hospitals fighting their own battles with cancer. Larry Garza, meanwhile, said he is improving too, healthy enough now to tour comedy clubs all over Texas. Click here for information on how to donate to Jade Laswell's fight on cancer.

Dog owners in Arvada, Colo., can leave their leashes at home now that the city has opened its first Off-Leash Dog Park. Phase I opened on June 18 at a special “Leash Cutting” ceremony attended by about 50 people and their pooches. The five-acre site is set to expand to 17 acres eventually. Phase I features a large field with fenced areas for shy or small dogs, custom-painted fire hydrants, doggie-poo bag containers, water fountains for people and dogs, and a view of the Rocky Mountains. The first phase cost about $36,000 while the total park will cost upwards of $200,000 and will be maintained by the Parks Services Department. For more information, visit Arvada's Web site www.ci.arvada.co.us.

In what may have been the final start of his career, John Lackey pitched a beauty to help the Cubs clinch the NL Central title. ST. LOUIS — They kept looking for him Wednesday night, calling his name, chanting his name, louder and louder and louder, until Chicago Cubs pitcher John Lackey finally emerged. The Cubs, who had just clinched the NL Central title with a 5-1 victory over the rival St. Louis Cardinals, kept the celebration relatively tame until Lackey’s arrival, clearing a path for him into the middle of the clubhouse. Lackey slowly walked towards the middle, and with every step he took, they chanted his name, dousing him with beer, spraying him with champagne, until he stepped into the circle, where teammate Jon Lester was standing. Lester, his teammate of nearly eight years, with the two of them winning two World Series championships together with two different organizations, asked the room for quiet. The clock now reading 9:25 p.m., Lester began to toast not only one of his closest friends, but perhaps as fine a teammate he’s ever had in his career. "He didn’t come here for no bleeping haircut boys," Lester began, stealing Lackey’s infamous line of a year ago. "I know we got the playoffs going guys, but I’ve had the pleasure of calling this guy a teammate for eight years. I’ve learned a lot about the game from this guy, and I’m sure you guys have too. "Here’s to one of the best teammates and one of the best people I’ve ever got to play with. "Tonight is probably his last regular-season start. Here’s to one hell of a career." Lester and Lackey embraced, and as his teammates screamed even louder, Cubs bench coach Davey Martinez grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal. Lackey tipped his head back, and Martinez poured it down his throat. Lackey, chugging it down as if he were at a fraternity keg party, then yelled out: "This is for the boys on the bus!" "We’re not stopping here boys. We got 11 more. Eleven more. Eleven bleeping more. So keep it going. Keep it rolling. I’m proud of every one of you guys. Eleven more. Eleven more. Let me hear it." The Cubs, their T-shirts soaked with beer, all began chanting: "Eleven more! Eleven more! Eleven more!" The Cubs, only the second World Series champion in eight years to return to the postseason in the ensuing season, won’t be the favorites to win it like a year ago, not with just 89 victories, but they know they’ve got a chance. "That’s all you can ask for," Cubs president Theo Epstein said. "We’ve got an opportunity. That’s all you want. I’m sure people aren’t picking us to win the whole thing again. But it doesn’t really matter. It’s opportunity. "Our guys love the opportunity. They love big games. They love competition at the highest level. So it’s an opportunity to make some history." Certainly, there are few active pitchers who have taken advantage of their opportunity, thriving on baseball’s biggest stage, more than Lackey. He was a rookie in 2002 when he stepped onto the mound for the Los Angeles Angels in Game 7 of the World Series, and became the first rookie to win Game 7 since Babe Adams in 1909 for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He won the clinching Game 6 with the 2013 Boston Red Sox, celebrating their first title at Fenway Park since 1918. And again last year with the Cubs winning their first title in 108 years. It was likely the last time that Lackey (12-11, 4.56 ERA) will ever start a game. He will be on the Cubs’ postseason roster, but he’s expected to pitch out of the bullpen. But if this is really it, and that was the final start of his life, he sure went with a beauty, as the first Cubs pitcher to win a clinching game in St. Louis since 1938. He dazzled the Cardinals for six innings, giving up just two hits and one run, suffocating the same offense that scored seven runs a night earlier and winning for the 188th and, perhaps, final time of his career. Lackey hasn’t publicly discussed his likely retirement and has shared his plans with only his closest friends and family, but Lester wanted to make sure to put the spotlight back on Lackey, wanting him to treasure this night forever. "I wanted to do that as a repay for everything he’s done for me," Lester said. "I think this is it for him, but if he does end up pitching somewhere, he owes me some beers." Lackey has spent 15 years in the big leagues and all but two months with Lester since 2010. When they each were traded away from the Boston Red Sox in the summer of 2014, it was Lester who convinced him to join the Cubs as a free agent after the 2015 season, allowing the two of them to share history together when the Cubs won their first World Series since 1908. "Really," says Lester, "he’s family to me." Lackey may have a perpetual scowl on the mound and be cranky with the media, but Epstein has never been around a player whose public perception is as vastly different as the respect and admiration he has in the clubhouse. Late Wednesday night, he had whiskey to drink, champagne to spray, and a whole lot of cold beer to finish before the end of the night. "You always celebrate like it’s your last one," Lester said. "You don’t know what’s going to happen or what’s in store for you. I know people get mad about all of these celebrations, but I’d rather go all out than regret it not doing it when you had the chance. "It’s the same with Lack. We are going to celebrate. And we’re going to celebrate together. "This is what it’s all about." Follow columnist Bob Nightengale on Twitter @BNightengale.

Newsweek news director Cristina Silva will leave the company, editor-in-chief Nancy Cooper announced to staff in an internal memo on Thursday. “I want to let you know that Cristina Silva will be leaving us. She came to IBT four years ago as Breaking News Editor and has contributed enormously to the company every day since, becoming Managing Editor of IBT before moving to Newsweek as News Director,” said Cooper. Silva was one of the top editors at the site and her name is still prominently featured on the masthead. She is also a notable survivor from some of the most perilous days at the company, which saw staff shakeups, mass firings and management turmoil earlier this year. In the memo, Cooper said that Silva planned to return to freelance writing and teaching as an adjunct professor at NYU. She also plans to travel. It’s unclear who will replace Silva. A Newsweek insider told TheWrap that they expect the company to look for high profile outside talent to fill the position. Once one of the most venerable news magazines in the country, Newsweek has suffered in recent years as it has struggled to pivot to digital platforms. The company has been accused of inflating its traffic numbers in an effort to bilk advertisers, while also providing free advertising for a Christian university linked to senior management at Newsweek’s parent company IBT. Newsweek’s offices in Manhattan were raided by the Manhattan D.A. as part of a long-running probe, the exact details of which still remain mysterious. In February, several insiders told TheWrap that employees were in a state of near revolt over unpaid salaries. The company took punitive action internally against those deemed disloyal and fired senior correspondent Celeste Katz over this article she co-bylined investigating Newsweek’s troubles. “This is the story Newsweek editors and a reporter were fired over,” reads a description of the article which remains live on the Newsweek site. In an editor’s note, the magazine’s senior editorial leadership — including Silva — admitted “egregious breaches of confidentiality and journalism ethics,” with respect to how management handled the story.

Description Viennese-born conductor Albert Rosen conducts the RTÉ Symphony Orchestra in Dublin's Gaiety Theatre in January 1968. The occasion was the Irish premiere of Honegger's opera 'Joan of Arc at the Stake'. RTÉ Radio broadcast this concert on 2 April 1968; the Guide published a preview on 29 March 1968.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A teenage passenger lost his footing while trying to get onto the balcony of his room aboard Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas and plummeted to his death, officials said. The teen apparently did not have the key card to his room and was trying to get from a neighboring eighth-floor balcony to his own when he slipped, falling to the pier below. The cruise ship’s medical staff performed CPR on Mercer, but he had suffered “major head trauma” and died of his injuries, the medical examiner’s office said in a statement to the Sun Sentinel.

Sacrament of the New Law, instituted by Christ to give the sick spiritual aid and strength and to perfect spiritual health, including, if need be, the remission of sins. Conditionally it also restores bodily health to Christians who are seriously ill. It consists essentially in the anointing by a priest of the forehead and the hands, while pronouncing the words "Through this holy anointing and His most loving mercy, may the Lord assist you by the grace of the Holy Spirit, so that, freed from your sins, He may save you and in His goodness raise you up." In case of necessity, a singly anointing of the forehead or of an other suitable part of the body suffices. Olive oil, blessed by a bishop, is normally used for the anointing, but any vegetable oil may be substituted in case of emergency. The institution of anointing by Christ is an article of the Catholic faith, defined by the Council of Trent (Denzinger 1716). The Church further teaches that this sacrament is implied in Gospel reference to Christ sending out the disciples, who "anointed many sick people with oil and cured them" (Mark 6:13); moreover that the sacrament was promulgated by the Apostle James when he wrote, "Is anyone among you sick? Let him bring in the presbyters of the Church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick man and the Lord will raise him up and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him" (James 5:14-15).

Country singer Janelle Arthur has survived another round of 'American Idol.' The 23-year-old performer won enough votes to move forward this week after singing her own original arrangement of the Supremes classic 'Keep Me Hanging On' Wednesday night (March 27), to the universal praise of the judging panel. Armed only with her acoustic guitar, Arthur delivered a restrained version of the song that Keith Urban said brought out the underlying angst of the lyric in a different way, while Mariah Carey lauded the performance as "Janelle at her finest." Arthur has made a cottage industry of restraint in recent weeks, differentiating herself from the other female vocalists on the show by holding back and imbuing her songs with an emotional tenor that relies on connecting, rather than over-singing. It's a choice that is in keeping with the stripped-down traditions of country music, and it's obviously working, as Arthur easily moved forward another round on the results show Thursday night (March 28).

State Rep. Daniel Patterson says he will file a detailed response to a report in which investigators are recommending he be expelled from the Legislature. Patterson says he’ll file the response by a deadline of 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. That’s also when the House Ethics Committee will meet to further consider a complaint by fellow legislators against the Tucson independent. The agenda includes the possibility of a closed-door executive session during the meeting. The complaint stems from domestic violence allegations made by Patterson’s ex-girlfriend, but the report also concluded that his behavior has left some lawmakers fearful. Patterson has denied wrongdoing and says he’s not a threat to anyone at the Capitol.

After the game, Carlisle said he benched Rondo because Barea and Felton were so effective — then the story changed the next day. With Rondo now jettisoned to parts unknown —the nine-year veteran becomes a free agent on July 1 — that opens the door for Barea and Felton to show management what they can do. “Well, both those guys are fighters,” Carlisle said after Thursday’s practice. “They’re big-time competitors. The effectiveness of Barea and Felton will be part of the storyline when Game 3 of this best-of-seven series tips off at 6 p.m. Friday at American Airlines Center. The Rockets lead the series 2-0, but the Mavs are hoping Barea and Felton can help them win Friday, put pressure on Houston and climb right back in this series. While Rondo had apparently mentally checked out of Game 2 after a series of unforced errors, Barea played 34 minutes, scored 13 points, grabbed six rebounds and was 5 of 14 from the field. Felton scored nine points and was 3 of 9 from the floor in 18 minutes. Barea averaged 7.5 points and 3.4 assists in 17.7 minutes this season, and also started 10 games. Felton averaged 3.7 points and 1.4 assists in 9.7 minutes, and made three starts. But Felton was limited to only 29 games after he suffered a nasty high ankle injury in the second preseason game against Oklahoma City, and then served a four-game NBA-imposed suspension after pleading guilty in June to a gun charge in New York. The Mavs also are optimistic that point guard Devin Harris will be able to play Friday. Harris missed Game 2 with a recurring injury to his great left toe — an injury that occurred April 13 against Utah. “The hope is that he won’t have any restrictions either in terms of minutes or anything like that,” Carlisle said. “The adrenaline of the game starts and that can help, too. Harris wasn’t limited in practice Thursday, but noted that there weren’t a lot of contact drills. He did, however, admit to a wardrobe change. “I changed shoes completely and got another injection [Wednesday],” Harris said. “Back to a normal size, what I was playing with before. With Rondo now a footnote in Mavs’ history, Harris knows the Mavs don’t have time to dwell on what’s past. Particularly with the Rockets’ James Harden and Dwight Howard ready to make life miserable for Dallas again. “We’ve been short-handed a little bit throughout the year,” Harris said. “Other guys have stepped up. And the guys the Mavs have running the show at point guard — Barea, Felton and Harris — are left to make the best of what turned into a combustible situation with Rondo. “Well, we’ve just got to bring high energy, we’ve got to play together, we’ve got to play with pace, we’ve got to play with discretion, we’ve got to be aggressive without being frantic,” Carlisle said. “I like our team.

Against the odds, Auburn Smith, 16, has become a nationally ranked wheelchair tennis player. She will participate in the USTA-ITF Junior Wheelchair Tennis Camp. PORT ORANGE — Auburn Smith was born into sports. Her first name largely derives from her father's love of Auburn University, where he has attended football games since childhood. “She loves it when we go to the football games and they're chanting her name,” said Jimmy Smith, her father. She was also born with spina bifida, the most common permanently disabling birth defect in the United States, according to the Spina Bifida Association. Literally meaning “split spine” in Latin, spina bifida occurs when a baby is in the womb and the spinal column does not close all the way. Across the United States, roughly eight babies are born with spina bifida or a similar defect of the brain and spine every day. Against the odds, Smith, 16, has become a nationally ranked wheelchair tennis player. She will participate in the USTA-ITF Junior Wheelchair Tennis Camp in Mission Viejo, Calif. from July 28-Aug. 2. 32 athletes from ages 12-18 from across the globe, spanning 10 states and six countries, will attend the camp to improve their skills and receive instruction from some of the top coaches in the world. This will be the Smith family's fifth straight summer trip to Southern California. Smith primarily enjoys getting to see the friends she has made over the last five years. The campers spend virtually the entire six-day period together, including an annual trip to a theme park. Dan James, the USTA's national head coach and national manager of wheelchair tennis, will be one of the primary instructors at the camp. Even though he has coached in four Paralympic games, he says the camp is his favorite week of the year. The soon-to-be junior at Spruce Creek began playing tennis at the age of 7. Since then, she has worked with Nancy Olson, who runs the "Tennis Everyone!" program for Easter Seals of Volusia Flagler Counties. Olson helped Smith gain exposure across the country since, in her opinion, Florida is not recognized as a wheelchair tennis hotbed. “I wanted her to have the example of how good she could be and to see really good tennis,” said Olson, a two-time Paralympic silver medalist in wheelchair tennis. Smith was named a National Youth Representative for Easter Seals on Oct. 25, 2012, becoming the first national representative from the Easter Seals affiliate in Volusia and Flagler counties. Not only has Smith had a positive influence on others with disabilities but also with her own family. Jimmy gave up a job in business management to become a registered nurse in honor of Auburn.

Insulation offers an easy and cost-effective way to cut your heating costs. 3 What Can You Put on a Cinder Block Wall to Stop Cold From Coming In? Unfinished basement walls lower the energy efficiency of your home, resulting in cold drafts and reduced comfort for your family. Missing or inadequate insulation also leads to higher utility bills due to wasted energy, and may result in more maintenance and more frequent replacement of your heating equipment. And, a well-insulated basement is a selling point when it comes time to put your home on the market. Save money and protect the environment from the effects of air pollution by installing insulation in your basement to conserve energy. Measure the depth of your exposed wood framing using a tape measure. Choose your insulation based on the available space and your budget. Put on your safety glasses and gloves before handling the insulation. Cut fiberglass batts to fit between the exposed wooden studs. Size the batts to fit snugly between the framing members so that friction will be enough to hold them in place. Place the batts into the wall cavity, adding several layers as needed to achieve the desired R-value. Finish the walls with drywall or leave unfinished, as desired. Cover the entire wall with a vapor barrier, such as 6 mm polyethylene. Secure the edges of each sheet to the wall using construction adhesive, and overlap each row by 6-inches. Tape the seams of the vapor barrier using heavy clear tape. Measure over 16 inches from one corner of each masonry wall. Mark this spot with a marker or chalk, then continue to make marks every 16 inches along the length of the wall. Place 1 by 2 inch furring strips at the marks you made on the wall. Use concrete or masonry screws to secure each furring strip to the wall. Cut rigid foam sheets to fit between the furring strips using your utility knife. Size the sheets so they fit snugly between each strip. Insert the sheets of rigid foam between the furring strips. If friction isn't enough to hold the sheets in place, add a bit of construction adhesive to the back of each sheet. Add a second layer of foam to maximize R-value. Cover the furred-out wall with 1/2-inch drywall. Screw the drywall to the furring strips using drywall screws and finish as desired. Energy Savers recommends insulating the interior side of basement walls to between R-5 and R-19 depending on where you live. Choose high-performance insulation products to achieve a greater R-value per inch, or stick with standard products to save money if space is not a concern. Wear safety glasses and gloves to protect yourself when handling fiberglass insulation. Never install rigid foam products without covering them with 1/2-inch drywall. These materials release toxic fumes during a fire that could pose a significant health risk to your family. Beach, Emily. "How to Insulate Basements." Home Guides | SF Gate, http://homeguides.sfgate.com/insulate-basements-8635.html. Accessed 23 April 2019.

An 18-year-old Rancho Cucamonga woman remained hospitalized in critical condition this morning with injuries suffered Tuesday when her car was broadsided by a transient accused of speeding through red lights in a stolen car. Patrick Griffin, 41, was booked this morning at West Valley Detention Center on suspicion of attempted murder, grand theft auto, and felony DUI, said Tracy Dorsey, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. “Preliminary investigation determined that (Griffin) had been drinking,” Dorsey said. The victim, Jessika Garcia, suffered severe head injuries in Tuesday’s collision, and hasn’t regained consciousness, Dorsey said. She remains hospitalized at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton. “She was just the innocent victim of (Griffin’s) criminal activities,” Dorsey said. Griffin was hospitalized after the collision but was discharged this morning. Griffin is from Washington state, and was passing through the area hoping to eventually reach Florida, Dorsey said. He has no known local addresses, Dorsey said. On Tuesday afternoon, Griffin reportedly stole a Toyota Camry from the Union 76 gas station at the intersection of Arrow and Hermosa Avenue, Dorsey said. At about 1:40 p.m., a sheriff’s deputy saw Griffin driving erratically as he pulled out of a shopping center at the corner of Arrow and Archibald Avenue, Dorsey said. The sheriff’s deputy made a U-turn intending to make a traffic stop on Griffin’s car, Dorsey said. As the deputy continued to watch Griffin’s car, he saw the vehicle drive west on Arrow at speeds of up to 80 mph and run red lights at Archibald, Hellman Avenue, and Vineyard, Dorsey said. At the Vineyard intersection, Griffin collided with Garcia, who was traveling north on Vineyard in a 2010 Hyundai. Griffin slammed into the passenger side of Garcia’s car. Garcia didn’t have any passengers in her car, Dorsey said. Dorsey said that investigators do not believe the deputy’s pursuit of Griffin was a factor in the crash. Because Griffin had been drinking, investigators do not believe he was aware there was a sheriff’s unit behind him, Dorsey said.

In this three-part mini-series, Stefanie Koehler shares her experiences in bringing a sustainability focus into her work. Biomimicry, the practice of emulating models and strategies found in nature, provides designers with tools for seeing and learning from nature in new ways (Biomimicry 3.8 Institute), serving to both embed an ethos of sustainability and potentially inspire radical thinking. For the competition, I explored the use of biomimicry as a process for creating a sustainable product as well as a scalable social enterprise idea. Under the inspirational guidance of Denise Deluca, co-founder and director of Biomimicry for Creative Innovation (BCI), this work ultimately grew from my Master's thesis project. My design concept was a water treatment system called SolDrop. My team went on to become the only US finalists in the global 2013 BSDC and I had the honor of presenting at the Biomimicry Education Summit and Global Conference in Boston that year. Upon first looking to Mother Nature as a mentor, I started with getting curious while walking through a coastal forest in Oregon. I wanted to know how the clouds were forming in the forest and if I could glean insight into water management strategies. After a quick search on AskNature.org, I discovered that pine needles use the strategy of high surface area to perform the function of collecting moisture. Dozens of searches and many design iterations later, I learned that nature performs multiple functions using various strategies on all surface-, structure-, and systems-levels. Similar to the pine needles, an elephant's wrinkly skin and several desert plants, use the strategy of high surface area, to perform varied functions. Amongst these multi-functional strategies I found several patterns that occurred across many biological organisms. The biomimetic design idea, SolDrop, is based on the concept of using several modular solar distillation "pods," in a decentralized fashion, to provide a water treatment option that may be affordable for people in impoverished areas. Ideally, SolDrop solar still "pods" are made from recycled plastic bottles or other locally available materials that can be found and maintained locally, and used to purify water in someone's home. By integrating several bio-inspired strategies and practicing the methods of biomimicry (as applied to design), I went from having an inspiration-level understanding to gaining a deep understanding of biomimicry thinking as a problem-solving framework. This led to continued 'ah-ha's' in how I might create a sustainable product innovation and a social enterprise that enriches the ecosystem with good business. In retrospect, I took far more away from studying, practicing and making biomimicry thinking a part of my daily habits than I had ever anticipated. Initially I thought I'd just be tackling the product as a designer, but soon shifted to creating a water treatment option that also engages local communities and enhances local economies for long-term positive impact. This article is part of a mini-series about a young industrial designer's experiences bringing a sustainability-focus to her work entitled "Aspiring to Improve the World by Crafting a Career in Sustainable Design."

John Tory has his first real competition in the mayor’s race. Jennifer Keesmaat, the city’s former chief planner, registered Friday before the 2 p.m. deadline to run for mayor. Keesmat said that she made the decision so recently that she didn’t have time to alert her parents that she was running. “It was a very impromptu decision but one that comes deeply from my heart and passion for this city,” she said, when asked if she was joining the race because of Premier Doug Ford’s announcement that he was cutting the size of council to 25 members. Now I have had a chance to sleep on it. Secession. Why should a city of 2.8 million not have self governance? Keesmat kicked off her campaign with a bang, tweeting Thursday night that if Toronto were to secede from Ontario, it would be the fifth largest province/territory in Canada. She said she was running because she’s prepared to work hard and isn’t “afraid” to make hard choices and decisions. Keesmaat is a well-known advocate of transit, pedestrian and bicycle-first policies and also a ban on handguns. She left her role with the city on Sept. 29 after five years. Her tenure wasn’t always smooth. At times, she butted heads with politicians, most notably Tory over the Gardiner Expressway East project, where she favoured a tear-down. Council supported Tory’s hybrid option, which kept most of the elevated expressway intact. When her departure was announced, Tory lauded her accomplishments while leading the city planning department. He highlighted her work on significant transit projects like the Scarborough subway extension and SmartTrack. “Jennifer has used her platform and voice as chief planner to help guide council’s efforts to build a better city for all Torontonians and I wish her all the best in the next phase of her career,” Tory said in a statement.

Go behind the plates of JLB's review of Malia Island Fusion on Sanibel. The Thai noodle salad is on the lunchtime menu at Malia Island Fusion on Sanibel. Shown here with salmon for $22, the dish starts at $14. While the salmon was perfect, the noodles (overdressed and salty) were a rare miss for the restaurant. But even Malia's misses look stunning.

North Carolina Democrats made a lot of progress last night in winning back seats long held by Republicans, but there was one clear factor that prevented a sizable “blue wave” from truly transforming state politics: partisan gerrymandering. We’ve known for years that Republican majorities in the General Assembly and the state’s congressional delegation have far exceeded the size of their actual support in a closely divided “purple” state, but last night’s results really brought that fact home again. This was most obvious in the state’s 13 congressional districts where the total vote was almost dead even, despite the presence of nine extremely well-funded Republican incumbents and one race — the third district — in which Democrats didn’t even field a candidate. In the 12 contested races, the vote total thus far shows Republicans winning 1,642,344 votes or about 48.5% while Democrats won 1,747,742 or around 51.5%. Yet, despite this impressive performance, Democrats only won three of the 12 seats. I’ve yet to add up all of the numbers, but a preliminary glance at legislative races reveals what appears to be a similar pattern: Republicans will still enjoy sizable majorities almost exclusively because of partisan gerrymandering. The bottom line: Gerrymandering continue to remain a toxic and dangerous plague upon our democracy. Its elimination (and the adoption of a nonpartisan redistricting system) must remain at the top of the policy priority list for all caring and thinking people. While I agree gerrymandering is disgraceful, even gerrymandering has little effect when you have such low voter turnouts. Being retired from public service, I remember people telling me I better be registered a certain party or I probably wouldn’t be hired. The older employees had lived by that system of changing their party affiliation on paper but not in actual vote. Does that affect gerrymandering? It wasn’t struck down by the Supreme Court. They had chances last year in Gill v. Whitford (Wisconsin) and Abbott v. Perez (Texas) but they sent Wisconsin back to the lower courts with a lamer standard (ditto North Carolina) and they just let Texas stand because they are conservative bigoted liars. You don’t have to take MY word for that — it was 5-4 so at least 4 esteemed constitutional scholars concur in that judgment.

One of the byproducts of being around a narcissist for any significant portion of time is that you end up feeling a deep sense of self-loathing. This can be true in any category of relationship, such as intimate partner, parent-child, boss-employee, sibling, co-worker, or any other type of relationship involving an ongoing interaction with a narcissist. If you are the child of a narcissist, you believe your parent(s) love you because they take care of you, right? They clean the house, take you to school, feed you dinner, and buy you clothes. You even have structure and rules to abide by. No one is hitting you or touching you in inappropriate ways. You live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. But, in spite of all of these blessings and signs of care, inside you feel a deep sense of shame. Why is this? And when you aren’t experiencing all of their projected disdain, contempt, and disgust, there’s always the envy to contend with. The envy isn’t usually directed at you, it is usually felt toward others, those not in your narcissist’s family. The narcissist is usually very envious of other people – the ones who have “good” children and spouses. Your narcissist will feel very sorry for him or herself for having to deal with his or her disappointing and lousy family, believing that if only s/he had a better spouse or different children, ones that could deliver, then s/he would be happy. As you observe and experience your narcissistic loved one comparing you to others and feeling wanting, you, by implication, take on the obvious understanding that you are an inadequate failure. Why do narcissists particularly enjoy the emotions of disgust, contempt, disdain, and envy? Let’s dissect the former three emotions first, because they are all quite similar and projected outward in a judgmental way towards other people. Think about when you feel disgusted toward something or someone. Don’t you feel that you are in the non-disgusting position, capable of welding the “disgust” label outside of yourself? Don’t you feel in some ways above whatever it is you don’t like? Think about the emotions of contempt and disdain for a minute. When you feel contemptuous toward someone, on the one hand you are angry with the target of your contempt, and on the other hand you are superior to that which is contemptuous. The same applies to the emotion of disdain. When your narcissistic loved one is displaying either overtly or covertly the emotions of contempt or disdain toward you, then he or she is obviously in the one-up position, smug and superior, able to impute judgments on you, the target of the projected feelings. There are probably two main reasons that narcissists so often feel these contemptuous and negative emotions. One, is because someone in their youth (probably one or both of their parents did the same thing to them) projected this emotion on to them, and, in addition, he/she (the parent) “imprinted” this type of behavioral expression of negative emotions onto them (monkey see, monkey do,) which they replicated in adulthood. The second explanation for this type of emotional display is due to projected shame and rage. The narcissist, incapable of experiencing any depth of vulnerability, projects his/her shame and rage outwards onto certain targets in order to not have to “carry’ his/her shame and rage within him/herself. This projection sometimes takes on the form of disdain, disgust, and contempt. Targets, not realizing what is happening, serve in the capacity of garbage dumps for their loved ones projected toxicity. What role does envy play in the lives of narcissists? It serves as a constant symbolic scapegoat of why narcissists feel so empty. Because narcissist’s have an inability to self-reflect, they use over-compensatory coping strategies in order to feel okay about themselves. Envy is a very useful tool because it serves to convince narcissists that their problems do not exist within themselves, but reside in their failing loved ones’ inabilities to perform to their satisfaction. This is why when you are around a narcissist for any significant length of time you feel a deep sense of self-loathing. Your narcissist has unwittingly brain-washed you with toxic shame interspersed with inconsistent bouts of normalcy. Your person does not have to blatantly tell you you’re a failure, you figure that out yourself by your inability to make him or her happy and satisfied. After all, if you were sufficient, your narc wouldn’t be experiencing disdain, disgust, contempt, or envy. The dangerous web you get caught up in is the web of thinking that somehow if you can just figure out how to be “enough” for the other person, then he or she will be happy. The first step toward breaking out of this toxicity is to understand that you already are enough. The problem resides inside the other person and has absolutely nothing to do with you. You need to tell yourself and convince yourself that YOU CANNOT MAKE A NARCISSIST HAPPY. PERIOD. So you might as well stop trying.

Shelagh Delaney, the acclaimed playwright whose ground-breaking debut, A Taste of Honey, challenged many of the taboos of 50s Britain, has died. She was 71 and had been suffering from cancer. The feisty Salford-born writer, who drew on the gritty reality of working-class life, was one of the pioneers of the "kitchen sink" realism movement of the late 1950s and 1960s. She was just 19 when A Taste of Honey premiered in 1958 and became an instant success, with runs in London and New York. An earthy and moving story of a teenage girl's pregnancy following a one-night stand with a black sailor, and her supportive relationship with a gay artist, it would become one of the defining feminist plays of the 1950s. It was subsequently turned into a film, starring Rita Tushingham and earning Delaney and the film's director, Tony Richardson, Bafta and Writer's Guild awards for best screenplay. Tushingham told the Guardian: "Shelagh was such an important person at the start of my career. I am deeply saddened that we have lost such an amazing talent." Jane Villiers, Delaney's agent for the last 15 years, told Channel 4: "No word was wasted. Every word meant something. She was extraordinarily accurate about characters." The daughter of a bus inspector of Irish descent, Delaney wrote A Taste of Honey, aged just 18, after seeing and disliking Terence Rattigan's play Variation on a Theme, partly because she felt his work showed insensitivity in the way it portrayed homosexuality. She wrote it in two weeks, adapting it from a novel she was already working on. Her second play, The Lion in Love, which portrayed an impoverished family and a difficult marriage, did not enjoy the same critical success when it opened in 1960. She did not write for the theatre again until 1979, when she revised her BBC series The House that Jack Built. In between she wrote screenplays: The White Bus (1965), Charlie Bubbles (1967), The Raging Moon (1970), and the screenplay for the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger, based on the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed for a crime in Britain. Driven, in part, by rebellion against a theatre which, she claimed, did not portray "life as the majority of ordinary people know it", she found a vitality in Salford that infused her writing. "The language is alive, it's virile, it lives and it breathes and you know exactly where it's coming from. Right out of the earth," she said in a 1960 film by Ken Russell. "Down by the river it's even romantic, if you can stand the smell." Acknowledging her as an inspiration, the author Jeanette Winterson has said Delaney's talent had been allowed to fade because of her gender. "She was like a lighthouse – pointing the way and warning about the rocks underneath. She was the first working-class woman playwright," Winterson wrote in the Guardian last year. "She had all the talent and we let her go." The singer Morrissey frequently referenced her writing in his lyrics, particularly in the song This Night Has Opened My Eyes, and her face appeared on the cover of The Smiths' compilation album Louder Than Bombs and single Girlfriend in a Coma. The Beatles were also said to be fans, recording their own version of the theme from the film adaptation of A Taste Of Honey.

Andy Wirth has announced his retirement as chief operating officer of Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows. Andy Wirth, president and chief operating officer of Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows, has announced his pending retirement, according to an email obtained by the Truckee Sun. “I’m prideful in having worked here at Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows over the past eight years having spent the vast majority of that time as the Chief Executive Officer,” Wirth wrote. “I look back on these eight years with great pride associated with a great many initiatives, but in particular: the acquisition of Alpine Meadows, the deployment of nearly $100 million in truly transformative capital and advancing the California Express Gondola, a generations-old dream of so many. Wirth cited spending time with his daughters and desire to be closer to the family’s new home in San Juan Capistrano, California, as reasons for stepping down from Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows. Alterra Mountain Company, which operates Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows, will announce new leadership for the resort in the near future, according to a statement from the company. Ron Cohen, Alterra Deputy General Counsel, will serve as Interim President and Chief Operating Officer for Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows. Cohen has been working in the ski industry for 16 years, including eight years with Mammoth Mountain. Justin Scacco is a reporter with the Truckee Sun, a sister publication of The Union in eastern Nevada County.

On Nov. 8, American voters for the first time in history will see a woman’s name on the ballot as a major party’s nominee for president. A broad majority of voters — men and women — say they are happy this milestone has been reached, but fully half of them say they would have preferred that that first woman not be Hillary Clinton, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll looked closely at women’s political views and broader outlook on American life, as well as how the wider society views the role of women. The survey found that women think more progress has been made toward ending sexism than racism in society. They value motherhood more than marriage. They think that sexual harassment is a significant issue in the workplace. And they think the greatest problem facing American women is inequality in pay and career opportunities. Mrs. Clinton is supported by 52 percent of women likely to vote in November, while 39 percent back Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump’s problems with women are significant: 55 percent of female respondents say he does not respect women and about half think a Trump presidency would be bad for women. Only 11 percent think electing him would be good for women, while 45 percent of women say Mrs. Clinton’s election would benefit them. Mrs. Clinton’s nomination has done little to reverse women’s perceptions of gender discrimination in America, and in many cases, their views differ sharply from men’s. Forty-eight percent of women — but just 35 percent of men — think there are more advantages in being a man than in being a woman in society today. Majorities of women with a college degree, those who identify as Democrats, those younger than 30, those with household incomes of at least $100,000, and black women all say men hold an advantage. Asked to name the most important problem facing women today, women cited issues related to gender inequality in the workplace, primarily pay, more than any other. Gender divisions were particularly pronounced on issues related to the workplace. Three-quarters of women said women in the United States are paid less than men doing similar work, while 55 percent of men held the same opinion. Women were also more likely than men to say there is “a lot” of sexual harassment in most American workplaces today — fully one-quarter said so, compared with 18 percent of men. But the same number of men and women, 53 percent, acknowledge that there is “some.” Younger women and African-American women are most likely to say there is a lot of sexual harassment. A poll of women conducted for Virginia Slims in 1994 found virtually the same result: Three-quarters of women said there was some sexual harassment or a lot in the workplace. By a ratio of almost two to one — 51 percent to 27 percent — American women think more progress has been made in overcoming sexism than racism in the past 20 years. But Joyce Coleman, an African-American from Southfield, Mich., and a retired human resources consultant, said in a follow-up interview that there had been less progress toward ending sexism. The nationwide poll was conducted from Sept. 9 through 13 on landlines and cellphones with 1,770 adults and has an overall margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. Men are significantly more likely than women to see themselves as ever being leaders in business or government. Nearly half of men say they could achieve this while less than a third of women do. African-American women are much more likely than white women to see themselves as leaders (40 percent versus 26 percent). Likewise, women younger than 45 and those with more education or higher incomes are the more likely than other women to think this high level of leadership is achievable. Carla Lytle, a 52-year-old African-American, manages election officials at the Election Commission in Shelby County, Tenn., and is one of the survey participants who sees herself as a leader. Women rate success at work as much more important than their appearance in determining how they feel about themselves, but significantly more think that society places a higher emphasis on looks than on their success at work. Fifty-three percent of women say their appearance is very important in how they view themselves, while 71 percent say society judges them by their physical appearance. African-American women are far more likely to rate their appearance as very important. Fifty-six percent of women think Mrs. Clinton is a good role model for women. By contrast, in 2007, during her first campaign for the presidency, a Times/CBS News poll found that 70 percent considered her a good role model. Willa Speiser, 68, a freelance editor in Warwick, N.Y., plans to vote for her but does not consider her a role model. The poll looked closely at women’s political views and broader outlook on American life, as well as how the wider society views the role of women. Significantly more men than women consider marriage to be very important. While 58 percent of men said being married is very important, just 47 percent of women overall said so. Most women with household incomes over $100,000, those who identify as Republicans and those between the ages of 30 and 45 said marriage is very important to them. But in roughly equal numbers (almost three-quarters), both men and women said being a parent was very important to them. Women under the age of 30 were least likely to rate parenthood as very important, but still, 59 percent hold this belief. Dalia Sussman, Giovanni Russonello and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

The slightest imperfection in the road can derail a rally driver's entire race. That's what happened here when Kimi cut the apex a little too tight before the car was airborne. Luckily (or unluckily?) the car bounced off the dirt walls before landing on its roof.

Dr Peter Phillips (right) presents SashaKay Robinson, a 2018 GSAT student, with financial assistance during a recent luncheon. Dr Peter Phillips (sixth left) with students from the Maxfield Park division of his St Andrew East Central who performed well in the 2018 sitting of GSAT. Phillips presented them with financial awards. Member of Parliament Peter Phillips has advised the top Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) students from the Maxfield Park division of his St Andrew East Central constituency to be wary of peer pressure. Phillips, who is also the leader of Opposition, was speaking to the students and their parents at a luncheon held in Kingston during the weekend. The 10 students were each awarded an undisclosed sum of money to assist with back-to-school preparation. "Don't follow people; because a crowd is doing it, that doesn't mean it is right," Phillips advised the students. "I remember when I was much younger than you, a group of students said they were going to steal out of school early, and I know it didn't make any sense, but I followed them, and a girl who was in the group got hit by a car while she was running across the road," he recounted. "That taught me from then to follow my conscience. That voice inside of you that says, 'No, don't do this.' Listen to that voice," said Phillips. The students, with averages from 69-96 per cent, and who listed zoologist and mathematician among their future career choices, were advised by Phillips to attain at least five passes at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certifi-cation level, including mathematics and English, to achieve their goals. Phillips also encouraged parents to have an open relationship with their children and to participate as much as they could in their high-school journey. "They really need a friend, and a guide that they can say anything to. The worst thing is for them to feel alone and as if they have no one, because they might turn to the wrong person. "A child needs to know that you care. So, when they call for parent-teacher meeting, go to the meeting. Be involved in your child's life. Ensure homework is done, and be in touch with their teachers," counselled Phillips.

The new Yahoo under Marissa Mayer is in early stage talks to acquire online video site Hulu, according to AllThingsD. The report says there hasn't been a formal offer put on the table yet, though Mayer has met several top-Hulu execs to see how the video site would tie into Yahoo's existing comeback plan. The move to make a video acquisition is nothing new for Yahoo, which tried to purchase a $300 million majority stake in France Télécom’s Dailymotion video service earlier in the year and was rejected by a regulatory official who didn't want the company to move out of France. The acquisition of Hulu would be big for the company. Under Mayer's leadership, which begun in the summer of 2012, Yahoo has begun snatching up several smaller mobile companies as it works to increase its presence on mobile. The acquisitions have led to a beautiful new Yahoo Weather app and a redesign of the Yahoo app to include Summly tech. In recent months Yahoo has also begun focusing more on video, as it announced last month it will have exclusive right to a slew of Saturday Night Live clips to host on its site. Hulu's video content would play nicely with Yahoo's plans to offer "original content alongside a larger tranche of curated content from across the web". If Yahoo is serious about its Hulu bid, it had better be ready to bring the cash. The company has previously been valued at around $2 billion, considering its 2012 revenue topped $700 million. We'll be on the look out to see if the Yahoo/Hulu deal materialises. Given AllThingsD's usually very spot-on sources, this sounds real.

The Minnesota Historical Society has given a $7,000 emergency grant to help with recovery of artifacts after fire destroyed the Isanti Historical Society in Cambridge. The July 8 fire has been ruled an arson. Although many historical documents and collections were lost, a team from the county and state historical societies, along with volunteers, did salvage some materials, including 75 cubic feet of paper research collections. The surviving collection includes maps, oversize photographs, plat books, aerial photographs, quad maps, vital-record index cards and vertical subject files. State officials said the $7,000 grant is from a State Grants in Aid program administered by the Minnesota Historical Society, and was available in the emergency, even though the Historical Society is closed because of the state shutdown. The money will be used to help to restore, re-catalog, store and care for surviving archives and artifacts. The majority of salvaged books, documents, photos and artifacts were damaged by water necessary to contain the fire. These items will be freeze dried and stored appropriately so that they can be preserved and accessed by the public.

ADANI has again denied any wrong doing over the release of flood waters at Abbot Point Coal Terminal during Cyclone Debbie and has today entered a not guilty plea in court. In 2017, during the extreme weather, flood waters were released from the coal port after the Queensland Department of Environment granted Abbot Point Bulk Coal with a temporary emissions licence. The impact of the flood water release was the subject of an investigation following allegations of environmental harm. Adani was subsequently issued with a $12,190 fine by the Queensland Department of Environment for allegedly releasing 800 per cent more contaminated water than the temporary licence allowed. The Department alleges Abbot Point Bulkcoal discharged sediment water from a location called W2 that was eight times above levels authorised by the Department of Environment in the temporary emissions licence granted to the company. The company opted to have the matter heard by a magistrate, instead of paying the $12,190 fine. Today, Abbot Point Operations has entered a 'not guilty' plea in the Bowen Magistrates Court refuting causing any environmental harm. Abbot Point Operations CEO Mr Dwayne Freeman refuted the company caused harm to the Great Barrier Reef, as a result of the flood water release. Mr Freeman said since 2017, Abbot Point Operations had implemented a number of measures to improve environmental management, including the start of a three-year program - involving an initial $15 million investment project currently underway and a total program forecasted cost up to $50 million - to facilitate continuous water infrastructure upgrades. "These upgrades are improving our ability to mitigate the impacts of extreme weather events such as cyclones and floods," Mr Freeman said.

The storm we're bracing for is the type of January variety everyone prepares for: monitor school closings, check flashlights and stock up on bread, eggs and milk. It's hard to know exactly how any storm will hit until it actually arrives. But there's a foreboding sense about what to expect in the coming days. "We had something comparable in January 2014," said Aaron Reynolds, meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Buffalo. That storm launched Buffalo's first official blizzard in 21 years at the time. Reynolds stopped just short of predicting this week would yield the same designation, but he left open the possibility. "It's too early to tell," Reynolds said. "It's not out of the realm of possibility." The January 2014 blizzard started with a blast of frigid polar air that dropped temperatures from 45 degrees to 2 degrees in a single day. It brought wild, gusty winds over 50 mph, subzero temperatures and wind chills colder than 40 degrees below zero. And, it brought 17.6 inches of snow that spanned Jan. 6-8, 2014. Like it did then, weather service headlines for this week herald the coming of a "very dangerous and life-threatening Arctic air mass." The polar blast is expected to rush behind a passing cold front Tuesday, and in combination with a southwesterly flow over the still relatively open waters of Lake Erie, it will help ripen and fuel a strong lake-effect snowstorm, forecasters said. Subzero temperatures, strong winds and brutally cold wind chills are also forecast. A winter storm warning for Erie, Genesee and Wyoming counties starts at 4 p.m. Tuesday and is scheduled to run through Thursday morning. As of late Monday, the weather service estimated snow totals are likely to be upward of 18 inches in the areas most persistently affected by the lake-effect bands. That's on top of the roughly 20 inches of snow that fell in metro Buffalo last week. Forecasters said winds could gust as high as 45 mph late Wednesday through Thursday and "may produce near blizzard conditions with severe blowing and drifting snow." "Travel could be very difficult to impossible," the weather service said. High temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday are expected in the single digits with overnight lows Wednesday below zero. Wind chills as low as minus 25 are possible in metro Buffalo. They could be even colder in other parts of the region. "The cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 15 minutes," the weather service said. Although the frigid temperatures are expected to hasten freezing on Lake Erie – which has been lingering at 32 degrees for a week – it's not likely to happen fast enough to avert cranking up the lake-effect machine, according to Don Paul, a contributor to The Buffalo News. "As for the growing ice cover, the freezing of Lake Erie isn’t like popping an ice cube tray into your home freezer. It takes time," Paul wrote Monday. "It happens faster when winds are light. That will not be the case until Friday at the earliest. Strong winds, like strong currents in a stream, slow the icing process." Buffalo's last "official blizzard" came Jan. 2, 2018. It lasted four hours. So, how to get ready? Keeping a battery-operated lantern or battery-powered flashlights. Having a battery-operated radio handy for important news and emergency announcements. Charging your mobile phone – and any portable chargers. Making sure prescription drug needs are met. Stocking baby food, water, canned foods, a first-aid kit and food you don't have to cook like dried fruit and crackers. Meanwhile, area school superintendents said they would monitor conditions closely. In Buffalo, district spokesperson Elena Cala said in an emailed statement that because most students are "walkers" – either to the bus stop or to their school – the district is especially mindful of dangerous weather conditions. "The decision of whether or not to close schools is based on New York State Department of Education guidance," Cala said. "When the National Weather Service issues wind chill advisories between -15 and -25 degrees, the Buffalo Public Schools will strongly consider closing." "We'll probably wait until Tuesday evening to make a decision," Laurrie said. "We don’t want to go too early. Things have been known to change." So, how "historic" do forecasters think this week's storm will turn out to be? "I wouldn't go 'once in a generation event,' or anything like that," Reynolds said. "It's definitely a significant event." News staff reporters Samantha Christmann and Barbara O'Brien contributed to this report.

Location-based advertising (LBA) and marketing (LBM) could be of great benefit to local merchants, though there are some things that need to happen before widescale adoption of mobile campaigns will come about. Primarily, merchants need to know why mobile campaigns are beneficial to themselves and their target market, how to measure return on investment, and have access to smartphone owners regardless of application, device, or mobile platform. For years, merchants have reached local customers through local daily and weekly print publications and other traditional media channels. However, with the growing number of smartphone users and the decrease of consumer use of print and other traditional media, merchants need another way to reach their target market. In many ways, smartphones and mobile devices such as the Apple iPad are an even better way to reach local customers, offering the ability for short-term, time-sensitive, location-based offers. Consider that mobile advertising is expected to be $7B+ market in the next four years, with LBA potentially having a significant slice of that. TheWhereBusiness.com outlined some of the current problems hampering LBA’s growth, with one of the biggest being the relative lack of smartphone users to target. Be sure to take note of their explanation outlining the difference between LBA and LBM. This post, since it focuses only on local merchants, refers to a more general grouping of mobile campaign services, say LBAM (Location-Based Advertising and Marketing), as local merchants are less likely to make a distinction between the two terms. Sure, there are a growing number of smartphone owners out there, but how many of them are using LBS (Location-Based Services) — aka location-sharing — apps such as Foursquare, MyTown, Gowalla, and dozens of others? There are many reasons people do not use location-sharing apps, including there really being no incentive to, beyond amusement. Why would merchants want to spend money on campaigns with little or no audience? Other issues that limit merchant use of LBAM include the lack of standards for running mobile campaigns, and the means of measuring ROI. Create mobile campaign bellwethers. Applying the “law of least resistance” that humans tend to follow means that the average merchant is not going to adopt LBAM campaigns just because they can. They need to see the value. Someone or some group has to be a bellwether and define standards and metrics, create methods of measurement, define best-practices for mobile campaigns, run some successful campaigns, and then educate and influence anyone who can help propagate these standards. Then and only then will merchants start to buy into LBAM with confidence. When merchants start to make useful offers via mobile devices that appeal to consumers, word of mouth will also help spread the reasons for consumers to use LBS apps. E.g., most merchants know what a loss-leader is, when you offer something at a loss in a sale, in hopes of selling a shopper something at a greater profit margin. If merchants knew how to do that via mobile devices, they and consumers would both benefit. Agnostic channels: aggregation of apps and smartphone owners. Merchants want to reach consumers. They don’t care which phone, mobile platform or LBS app a consumer is using. Otherwise there’s just too much fragmentation. App-specificity might be part of Location-Based Marketing, but I think it’s a bad idea from a local merchant point of view. Maybe if LBS apps developers teamed up to follow some open standards, a merchant would not have to create diffferent campaigns for different LBS apps. Consolidate ad networks. As with device/ app fragmentation, there’s a similar problem with merchants having to deal with multiple networks. Ideally, merchants should just be able to go through some sort of mobile ads brokerage (maybe MobClix) that is platform- and ad network-agnostic in the sense that running campaigns become simplicity: setup your ad specifications, content and campaign details, then publish and measure. The less fragmentation of target market that merchants have access to, the sooner they’re likely to adopt LBAM campaigns. It’s not clear whether any of these “necesssities” are likely to happen anytime soon. Several big players, including Google and Apple, have their fingers in the mobile advertising pie and like to define things on their own terms. There are some consolidations of networks and companies going on in the LBA space, which might be ultimately beneficial. On a side note, based on recent patents that have been granted, namely iGroups and Concert Ticketing +, Apple seems to stand the best chance of implementing some powerful LBAM features into their iPhone platform, possibly via the recently announced iAds platform.

Tanya Plibersek, Health Minister and staunch Julia Gillard supporter, provides gives her take on the coming ALP leadership ballot. CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: Joining me is one of Julia Gillard's staunch supporters, Health Minister Tanya Plibersek. TANYA PLIBERSEK, HEALTH MINISTER: Hi, Chris. CHRIS UHLMANN: You've just heard what Robert McClelland had to say. He's one of a number in your caucus who believes that this party is doomed under Julia Gillard. Under all the available evidence, isn't that correct? TANYA PLIBERSEK: Well I think "doomed" is very emotive language. I think we have been having a tough time electorally, but certainly the sort of distraction that we've seen over the last few days doesn't help that. I think we've got an excellent record to talk about and we've got a clear vision for the future. And I hope that on Monday, if this ballot goes ahead, that there is a decisive victory and then we can all go back to doing what we went into Parliament to do, which is serve our communities. CHRIS UHLMANN: But you can't convince the community that that's what you're doing, that you are a good government. You can't even convince, it would appear, one third of your own caucus and that surely is disastrous. TANYA PLIBERSEK: Well, you're picking numbers out of the air, Chris, so I don't think you can just assume numbers here or there. But, the real issue is that we've been talking about ourselves for much too long. I think - I think we need to sort this matter out on Monday. Julia Gillard has said that if she's not successful on Monday, she'll go to the backbench. I think it's very important that we get a clear statement also from Kevin Rudd that if he should not be successful in a ballot on Monday, that he will accept that his caucus colleagues have made a decision and he will work as part of a team to get our message across, get out the fact that we've done phenomenally well coming out of the Global Financial Crisis, get out the fact that we need to keep our economy strong so that we can build a fairer society. CHRIS UHLMANN: But you've just seen what Robert McClelland had to say and we've heard what Bruce Hawker had to say last night. It's quite obvious that the Rudd camp believes that if it gets close enough this time, that's just the start. This could go on for months. CHRIS UHLMANN: What do you think it would do? TANYA PLIBERSEK: ... and, most importantly, what it would do to good government in this country, our ability to deliver for the people that we care about. We've got this huge agenda for the future. We've just released the Gonski Report. We want to engage with the National Disability Insurance Scheme. In my own area, I've got a dental report coming out next week. We want to do better on dental health care. These are the things that matter for people. CHRIS UHLMANN: Certainly. And all of that would be trashed though, wouldn't it - all of that would be trashed by a continuing leadership crisis in the Labor Party and that's what's being promised. TANYA PLIBERSEK: There must not be a continuing leadership crisis. We must sort this out on Monday that. That must be the end of it, because our record is not getting out, our successes are not making an impact on people, and, more importantly, our plans for the future are being lost in these internal discussions, and Labor Party supporters, Labor Party members, members of the labour movement need to hear us talking about what we're going to do, our vision for the future. CHRIS UHLMANN: Members of the labour movement would be in despair at the moment, wouldn't they? They would think that this generation of Labor politicians may well be ending the long history of the Labor Party. TANYA PLIBERSEK: Well I think there'd be very strong support for us sorting this out on Monday and then getting on with governing. CHRIS UHLMANN: Was Kevin Rudd as damaging and destructive and dysfunctional as everyone now says? And if so, why didn't you say so at the time? CHRIS UHLMANN: You were a closer observer than anyone else. TANYA PLIBERSEK: ... ministry. No, I'm not gonna pass judgment on people. I have plenty of my own personal failings, and what I do every day is get up and go to work and do the best job I can for the people that I care about that I want to serve. And I think a majority of my colleagues feel that way. CHRIS UHLMANN: Well we have seen a number of cabinet ministers today, the Prime Minister on down, saying that this is the case. Doesn't that show that as a cabinet they were completely supine; they didn't actually speak up when things were going wrong? TANYA PLIBERSEK: Well I think what the Prime Minister said very clearly today is that she worked her guts out to try and fix things that she believed needed fixing and she did it inside the cabinet processes, which is completely appropriate. In fact I don't think this sort of public blood-letting does any of us any good. I think it overshadows our great achievements and it overshadows our plans for the future, and really, that's what people wanna hear about. CHRIS UHLMANN: With everything that we've heard though over the last little while, and we're going to hear a lot more over the course weekend as people try to bludgeon support one way or the other in caucus, how can you possibly unite after this and convince the people that you have united? TANYA PLIBERSEK: Well, I am confident we can. You know, we just heard from Robert McClelland who has - you know, said in his interview that he takes a different position from me. I like and respect Robert and I will have no trouble working with him on Monday afternoon, no matter what the outcome of this is. And I truly believe that the vast majority of my colleagues want what's best for the Australian people, and what's best for the Australian people is that we are able to complete the work that we have done. CHRIS UHLMANN: Very briefly, could you work in a Kevin Rudd cabinet? TANYA PLIBERSEK: I've worked with Kevin before, I've served him loyally, but I must say I believe that Julia Gillard delivered - delivered the Minerals Resources Rent Tax, a price on carbon, we've now got education reform, disability insurance scheme. She has delivered complex and difficult reform in a very - extraordinarily difficult parliamentary environment. CHRIS UHLMANN: Tanya Plibersek, we'll have to leave it there. Thankyou.

In 1995, he said ‘Babe’ should be banned because it might hinder ham sales. The former Fianna Fáil TD was arrested on suspicion of using a false invoice to claim for mobile phone expenses. The (not) Primate of All Ireland defends the outgoing TD’s right to root out the evil of intellectualism in politics. Which would you choose: a son of the soil or an "intellectual"? Which would you prefer to see represent you in the 31 Dáil? Five things you need to know: a bad day for Fianna Fáil, a gruesome Valentine’s attack in Newbridge, and the tipping point approaches for mortgage holders. Ned O’Keeffe says he could withdraw support for government, and that he and other TDs “won’t wear the Budget if there are cuts” in welfare payments. FIANNA FÁIL TD Ned O’Keeffe has called for a cabinet reshuffle – and the appointment of a new Minister for Finance. Speaking on RTE Radio 1′s Drivetime programme, O’Keeffe added that NAMA would “not work”. RTÉ also reports that at this afternoon’s meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, O’Keeffe likened the government’s NAMA strategy to that of a “third world” and said the taxpayer had bought a “pig in a poke”.

0% of this provider’s 323 patients who are 65 and older filled at least one prescription for an antipsychotic drug, compared to an average of 1%. 17% of this provider’s 377 patients filled at least one prescription for an antibiotic drug, compared to an average of 22%. 46% of this provider’s prescriptions were for brand-name drugs, compared to an average of 17%. This is far more than peers. $68 was the average price of a prescription from this provider, compared to $123 among peers. This provider's address and specialty information was last updated on Jan. 10, 2015.

Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood has said that the band “haven’t ruled out” getting original frontman Rod Stewart to play with them again. The reuniting band have recruited Simply Red’s Mick Hucknall as a replacement for Stewart, and are set to play the Sussex Vintage At Goodwood festival (August 13-15). Wood told NME that Stewart wasn’t on board because of schedule clashes, but claimed they were on good terms and he may join them in the future. Stewart in fact told fans at his O2 Arena gig last week (May 29) to give the Simply Red man “a chance” if they went to see the band live. The guitarist said that the band may tour in January and hoped to play Glastonbury and other festivals in 2011. To check the availability of Vintage At Goodwood tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0871 230 1094.

Katharine McPhee was let go from her RCA recording contract last year, but that experience didn’t leave her broken. Instead, it fueled her career and brought her to the attention of David Foster. McPhee’s sophomore release, appropriately titled “Unbroken,” was released last week. The singer is currently on the roster of Verve Forecast Records, a division of Universal Music Group. McPhee became a household name on Season 5 of “American Idol.” Week by week she improved her style, but her vocals set her apart. She was definitely meant to be a singer. Her fate to win was cut short when Taylor Hicks beat her out. Neither Hicks nor McPhee did as well commercially as anticipated. I liked both of their debut CDs, but it was obvious their music wasn’t as authentic as their performances on “AI.” I don’t blame either one for that. Both are talented performers and nice people. I’ve met them both. McPhee’s self-titled debut was good, but its sales were lackluster — not the kind of punch RCA hoped for. Hopefully, “Unbroken” will change things for McPhee. Upon first listen of the new disc, it was clear to me her time spent with Foster transformed her from a girl who made a splash on TV into an amazing singer who believes in what she’s doing. “Unbroken” contains 12 tracks, six co-written by McPhee, and a bonus track guaranteed to make you smile. She shares songwriting credits with such people as "Idol" judge Kara DioGuardi, Rachael Yamagata, Ingrid Michaelson and Paula Cole. The music is a nice blend of pop, rock and country all rolled into one – if you’re a fan of crossover artists like Taylor Swift, Mandy Moore or Carrie Underwood, you’ll like McPhee. Tracks that definitely pop out and say “listen to me” include “Keep Drivin’,” “Had It All” and “Surrender.” They showcase an almost different side of McPhee, a vulnerable side some would say was missing before now. Something that’s been there all along has been her vocal abilities. She can sing, crystal clear and very well. The song “How” is amazing and should become a massive hit for McPhee. Verve Forecast would be stupid not to make this song a single. It’s a “10” in every way: lyrics, style, vocals and presentation. “How” is the kind of song someone like Martina McBride or Celine Dion would sing and take it to the top. The only thing is we don’t need them to do that; McPhee nailed it herself. The title track, along with “Anybody’s Heart” and “Faultline,” are touching ballads, as is the song “Terrified,” where McPhee is paired up with country singer Jason Reeves. The song “Lifetime” is a cutesy little number she has fun with, but no song on the album is more fun than the bonus track “Brand New Key” made famous in the early ’70s by Melanie. What a great song and a nice addition to an already great album. David T. Farr is a Journal (Sturgis, Mich.) correspondent. E-mail him at [email protected].

Name: Joker, as in Joker from Full Metal Jacket, the Joker in Batman, and the great game show, Press Your Luck. Birthdate: August 7, 2016. Just right for bringing home a pet. Ethnicity: Here's where it gets a little tricky. He's a Staffordshire terrier — that's Kennel Club talk for pit bull. Citizens for Animal Protection is one of the few shelters that will adopt out a pit bull. I know a lot of people have a default setting ... pit bulls have a bad reputation and it's just as easy to adopt a golden retriever or cocker spaniel. Why roll the dice? But there are people that swear that pit bulls' bad rap is just media hysteria. If you raise a pit bull with love and gentleness, the dog will be the sweetest animal walking the earth. That said, here's a little about Joker. He's a big fella, 54 pounds and strong. But he's a sweet, adorable pooch who just wants to hang with the family and cuddle on your lap. Shelter workers say he's good with other dogs and cats, but if you have another pet, you might bring that pet to meet Joker first and see how they get along. It's your decision, if you are a pit bull fan (the dog, not the singer), Joker might complete you. He's a cutie, all right. Come and get me: Joker is available for adoption at 11 am Friday, October 5 at Citizens for Animal Protection (17555 Katy Freeway; 281-497-0591). Tell them, "Ken sent me."

The skinny: After running out of gas in the second half last week against a bullish Towanda squad, St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy looks to rebound Friday at Coudersport. The Wolves (1-1) trailed just 21-20 at halftime before the Knights pulled away for a 42-20 win. The road won’t get any easier when the Wolves face the Falcons this week. Senior quarterback Ethan Hite and senior running backs Coy Hoffman and Zac Elenchin lead Coudersport (1-1). Hite has thrown for 275 yards on 17-for-31 passing in two games this season. He also has four touchdown passes to just one interception. On the ground, Hoffman leads the team with 23 rushes for 194 yards, while Elenchin adds 121 yards on 23 carries. Hoffman also has eight receptions for 162 yards and two touchdowns. However, the Falcons have yet to earn a rushing touchdown this season. The variety of the Coudersport attack will undoubtedly test the stamina of an 18-man Wolves’ roster, but St. Joseph’s has its own multiple-threat offense. Phil Fenstermacker has been sensational in two games at quarterback. The junior has thrown for 349 yards and six touchdowns on 26-for-41 passing (63.4 percent). The combination of fellow junior Khasim "NuNu" Buey and Mike Jabco gives the Wolves multiple points of attack. Buey is a big-play threat whenever the ball finds his hands. The speedster caught nine balls for 105 yards against the Knights. Jabco is a possession receiver with good size and strength. He grabbed six balls for 103 yards and two scores in the first half last week. On the season, the pair caught 21 of Fenstermacker’s 26 completions and five of his six touchdown passes. A lack of roster depth will make it difficult for St. Joseph’s to win a high-scoring shootout. The defense will have to get stops. Junior Titus Tice and freshman Elisha Lipscomb are playmakers on the defensive side. The Wolves return home Sept. 20 to meet Curwensville.

News about White Phosphorus, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times. The Pentagon’s failed campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan left a generation of soldiers with little to fight for but one another. American forces dropped thousands of gallons of tear gas, defoliants and other weapons during the conflict. Images and reports from witnesses in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa suggest the presence of the material in munitions. Its use in populated areas is prohibited under international law. A mountain of evidence has been compiled against Syrian officials for war crimes from torture to summary killings. But there is no clear path to justice. The Russian Defense Ministry blamed a technical failure for the crash of the jet, a MIG-29. The Pentagon kept silent as munitions left over from Saddam Hussein’s war with Iran found new targets from 2004 to 2011: American and Iraqi troops. The Israeli military said on Friday that it planned to remove shells containing phosphorus from active use within about a year. A munition normally used for warfare is said to have been used on Buddhist monks and villagers during a crackdown, according to a group investigating the incident. The uprising in Libya last year, especially the decades-old weapons let loose in the chaos, tell a cold-war tale of allies and arms deals. An increase in rocket fire into Afghanistan from Pakistani territory has fed suspicion and resentment among American troops. Coordinated strikes on outposts near the Pakistan border, timed apparently to mark the 10th anniversary of the start of the Afghan war, caused minimal damage, officers said. The punishment of a brigadier general and a colonel was a rare admission of high-ranking wrongdoing during the war a year ago. Korangal Valley is an example of what can happen when determined adversaries settle into a competition for a small space. Ambushed by Taliban fighters, American soldiers fought their way out of a riverbed, and then grieved the loss of one of their own. The two Army lieutenants crouched against boulders beside the Korangal River. Taliban gunfire poured down from villages and cliffs above, hitting tree branches and rocks and snapping as the bullets passed over the officers' helmets. An American platoon was pinned in the riverbed, which had blossomed into a kill zone. One squad and the radio operator were trapped in a wheat field on the far side. An improvised bomb had just exploded in their midst. The blast wave had blown the soldiers down, and, though the platoon did not yet know it, killed a soldier on the trail. Essential questions about the country’s actions against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza war. Officers are stepping forward, some at the urging of the top command, others on their own, to dispute accusations. Egyptians saw Barack Obama as a symbol of justice. They welcomed him with almost total enthusiasm until he underwent his first real test: Gaza.

July 1-4 event aims to put into action Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium. ORLANDO, Fla. — The Catholic bishops in the United States want to form a Church of missionary disciples on fire to spread the joy of the Gospel to their communities. To be held July 1-4 in Orlando, Florida, it will be a gathering of thousands of Catholic leaders working in dioceses, apostolates and movements across the country. Having the U.S. bishops bring together Catholic leaders from all U.S. states and territories into a single meeting place to discuss evangelization has no precedent in the life of the Catholic Church in the United States. The convocation also reflects the social genius of the Catholic Church in a unique way, by using the principles of solidarity and subsidiarity. Although the U.S. Catholic bishops have convoked this gathering of Catholic leaders from across the U.S. and its territories to promote unity in proclaiming the Gospel, all the participants are there to learn from the experiences and insights of Catholic leaders in more than 300 organizations that are trying to spread the Gospel at the local level. Jonathan Reyes, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, told the Register that the event seeks to strengthen the “apostolic vision” of the Church by bringing its leadership together for this one-time event. The idea of the convocation originated in the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities and the Department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development and has been in the making for more than seven years, Reyes explained. However, Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium provided the needed push to put this plan into action. “Evangelii Gaudium was the sort of key moment, with this sense that the Church, facing the challenges of the age, was just called to missionary discipleship, encountering Christ, and [the need] to try to do something that was never done before,” he said. The convocation is by invitation only. All the U.S. Catholic bishops have chosen Catholic leaders for their diocesan delegations. Approximately 160 out of 197 dioceses, eparchies and ordinariates are sending delegations, with an average of 10 delegates accompanying their bishop. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati is sending the most delegates, 52 persons, while the eight delegates for the Romanian Catholic Eparchy of St. George’s in Canton, Ohio, represent the greatest ratio of delegates proportional to flock size. With its 6,200 Catholics, that’s one delegate for every 775 Catholics. The USCCB also disbursed more than $500,000 in scholarships to make sure the personal and geographic diversity of the Church, along with insights and contributions, was represented, including African-American and Native-American Catholics, low-income attendees and “Catholic Home Missions” dioceses. Some attendees are coming from as far away as the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. The USCCB has also invited more than 160 Catholic organizations, covering a wide variety of Catholic-led ministries, apostolates and movements, dedicated to advancing the mission of the Church, Reyes said. The convocation features 66 breakout sessions, covering a wide variety of themes in the Church. Reyes said the sessions are off the record, so people in the Church can have a frank and open conversation about where the Church is advancing and failing and how to create effectively a Church of missionary disciples. Each delegation will have to strategically choose which breakout sessions its members wish to attend over the three days. However, the convocation will provide plenty of opportunities for networking to establish relationships with other Catholic leaders to continue gathering ideas and strategizing how to put them into action. All the public events — such as the public presentations, Mass and prayer services — will be televised with commentary on EWTN, the Register’s parent company, so Catholics at home can experience part of the event. Diocesan and organizational delegations will then have the task of disseminating the fruits of what they’ve acquired to the local parish and community level. Sherry Weddell, author of Forming Intentional Disciples and a convocation presenter, told the Register that the real opportunity for the conference will be networking. Delegates will not be going to find “silver bullets,” because each of their circumstances is different. But the breakout sessions and presentations will help start ideas and get the conversation going, meaning the real work — putting conversation into action — will be after the gathering. The convocation itself represents a real change in the U.S. Church she has seen gaining steam recently — going from a maintenance to a missionary attitude. Evangelii Gaudium, she said, built on the call for missionary disciples honed by Blessed Paul VI, St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, and the majority of the bishops have taken it to heart. “The conversation has changed so dramatically in the last five years,” said Weddell. The delegation from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, one of the main sponsors of the convocation, has been preparing for the event by studying Evangelii Gaudium together. Kathleen Buckley Domingo, associate director of the diocesan Office of Life, Justice and Peace, told the Register they have drawn their delegation from Catholics in the chancery, parishes and other organizations that reflect the diversity of Catholic ministries in L.A. — such as pro-life, homeless and immigration ministries — but also from different ages, socioeconomic backgrounds and cultures. Domingo said they are looking forward to learning “new ideas and new approaches” from others on evangelization, since they have to fight a wide variety of attacks on human life and dignity. At the same time, she said the archdiocese hopes to contribute its own experience of how having people engaged in life, justice and peace-building, “united for the glory of God,” can deliver a more effective witness. The Diocese of Las Vegas is just 20 years old, but Connie Clough, director of faith formation, said they look forward to learning from similarly situated Catholic dioceses and eparchies about how they have effectively used their size and resources to proclaim the Gospel. Clough said they are looking forward to learning the perspective of the Eastern Churches — delegations are coming from the Ruthenian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Melkite, Maronite, Syro-Malabar and Armenian Catholic eparchies in the U.S. Las Vegas’ largest parish has 8,000 families, and its smallest missions have 25 families. But Clough thinks they will bring back new knowledge and networked contacts from the convocation and also a model for collaboration and learning between the diocese’s parishes and Catholic organizations. The Archdiocese of New York has drawn its delegation from chancery staff, but also a “broad swath” of religious and lay Catholics involved in ministries in the field, according to Daniel Frascella, the archdiocese’s director of adult faith formation. New York is known for its rich cultural and ethnic diversity, and Frascella said the archdiocese wants to see what “best practices” it can learn from others on how to communicate the Gospel in these different contexts, since their parishes also include rural, suburban and urban communities. Frascella said the archdiocese is working on a plan to reconvene their 40 delegates after the convocation, discuss their takeaways, and consider how they can implement them practically in their ministries for the local Church. Jaime Maldonado, a Connecticut seminarian with the Archdiocese of Hartford’s delegation, told the Register he is looking forward to learning how to engage more effectively with the “Nones” — the large segment of the U.S. population that no longer identifies as Christian — particularly millennials. Maldonado, 38, who has a scientific background — before seminary, he was a neuroscientist at Yale — said many times he was asked during his postdoctoral fellowship how he could believe in God and be a scientist. Maldonado admitted his answers at the time were “not eloquent,” and he looks forward to learning from others in the breakout sessions about how the Church can provide a better witness in this area. It is critical for reaching out to millennials, many of whom seem to have the view that science and faith are incompatible. The “Convocation of Catholic Leaders” provides an excellent opportunity to get the Church in alignment for the challenge of proclaiming the Gospel in the 21st century, according to Curtis Martin, founder and CEO of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). But Martin said the Church needs to recover its own story, particularly in how the Church has been successful in communicating through the culture in order to proclaim the Gospel and raise up a generation of disciples on fire for Jesus Christ — Christians who understood that their faith required a “completely radical response to the most radical event of human history.” Martin pointed to the Jesuit missionaries of North America, who learned the language and culture of the Native peoples and helped them spread the Gospel. He pointed to the Huron martyr Joseph Chiwatenhwa and his wife, Marie Aonetta, who dedicated themselves to raising a family of saints and took the initiative as lay Catholics to spread the Gospel, supported by St. Jean de Brébeuf and the other Jesuit priests. The witness of the Coptic martyrs in Egypt, who recently gave their lives for their faith, drove home for Martin the importance of cultivating this kind of discipleship. This story was updated at 9:30am Eastern June 8, 2017. Public portions of the event will be broadcast on EWTN and livestreamed online. Go to event.registerat.com/site/USCCB/Program.aspx.

Agona Swedru, April 14, GNA- The District Co-ordinating Director for Agona, Mr G.B.L. Siilo has suggested to District, Municipal and Metropolitan Assemblies to bear 25 percent cost of European Union (EU) Micro Projects for the effective implementation and execution of the projects. He said the rationale behind taking up the cost on behalf of the beneficiary communities, was to alleviate them from economic difficulties. Mr Siilo who was speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Agona Swedru on the success of EU Micro projects in the district said certain communities were facing serious financial and social problems, and needed to be helped. The European Union bears 75 percent cost of the projects, while the beneficiary communities take up the remaining 25 percent. He said when the assemblies took up the full cost, as directed by the EU, the projects would be completed early. Mr Siilo noted that the communities who are mostly farmers find it extremely difficult to make ends meet, and wondered how they could contribute to the project. The DCD said the assemblies spend more funds before putting up a classroom or toilet, and wondered why they could not do the same thing in the EU Micro Projects to alleviate the suffering of beneficiary communities.

Lily Aldridge, Chrissy Teigen & Nina Agdal Grace Sports Illustrated's 50th Anniversary Swimsuit Issue! Talk about a triple threat! The coveted 50th anniversary cover of Sports Illustrated‘s Swimsuit Issue goes to models Lily Aldridge, Chrissy Teigen and Nina Agdal. Wearing only barely-there bikini bottoms, the beauties get cheeky in the golden anniversary issue as they turn to the camera and show off their perfectly toned backsides. Shot in the sunny Cook Islands, the cover is in stark comparison to the arctic temperatures last year’s cover girl Kate Upton had to endure. Not since 1994’s “Dream Team” of Kathy Ireland, Elle MacPherson and Rachel Hunter has a trio appeared on the cover. While Teigen, 28, and Agdal, 21, are veterans of the annual edition – making their debuts in 2010 and 2012, respectively – 28-year-old Aldridge is a newcomer. As for Teigen’s reaction: “I started crying. It was a weird shaking [and] trembling, because I didn’t believe it,” said John Legend’s wife, who like Aldridge, first called her husband to share the good news. The 2014 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue’s 50th anniversary edition goes live across the Web, mobile and tablets, and hits newsstands on Feb. 18. Lily Aldridge, Chrissy Teigen &#038; Nina Agdal Grace <em>Sports Illustrated</em>'s 50th Anniversary Swimsuit Issue!

After a Swiss court reportedly ordered an Israeli oil firm to compensate Iran over a scrapped joint venture, Israel said Thursday that its laws prohibited any payment to "the enemy". Iranian state news agency IRNA said Wednesday that the court had found Israel's Trans-Asian Oil (TAO) liable for payment of $1.1 billion to the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). It said that NIOC and an Israeli company had signed an agreement in 1968 to transport Iranian oil to the Jewish state across the Red Sea. But after the 1979 Islamic revolution which overthrew Iran's pro-Western shah, the new regime cancelled the contract because it did not recognize the Jewish state.

A Jim Thorpe police officer who charged a borough man with escape testified yesterday that he never told the man he was under arrest or was being detained. Patrolman Stephen Shabazian admitted at a preliminary hearing that all he did Sept. 15 was ask Joseph Kennedy for his driver's license -- while Shabazian was sitting in his cruiser and Kennedy was walking by. District Justice Edward Lewis of Jim Thorpe tossed out the escape charge and a summary offense of failing to produce a driver's license when asked. Lewis convicted Kennedy of driving on the wrong side of the road and imposed a $25 fine. Shabazian, the only witness at the brief hearing, said that fellow Patrolman Robert Transue was driving the cruiser about 2 a.m. Sept. 15. Shabazian said he and Transue saw a step van cross the center line several times as it came up North Street. The van turned and the driver parked at Kennedy's home. Transue pulled the cruiser alongside the van. Kennedy was out of the van, and Shabazian, while still inside the van, asked Kennedy for his driver's license. Kennedy said his license was inside the house, turned and walked away. Shabazian called out for Kennedy to forget about the license and asked for registration. Kennedy continued walking toward his house. Shabazian did not follow or try to stop him. Shabazian lost sight of Kennedy, but, several minutes later, knocked on a door at the Kennedy home. A young girl, who Shabazian said was Kennedy's daughter, answered and said her father was not home. The girl refused to allow Shabazian to search the house. He told the girl to have her father call the police station when he got home. Kennedy didn't reappear, but Shabazian stayed put until about 2:30 a.m. He searched Kennedy's van for Kennedy and "for illegal paraphernalia," then left. On Oct. 8, Shabazian went back to the Kennedy home. Kennedy produced a valid driver's license. Shabazian asked Kennedy to come to the police station to discuss the events of Sept. 15, but Kennedy declined when Shabazian said he didn't know whether criminal charges would be filed. Shabazian on Oct. 12 filed the charges. Kennedy's lawyer, Robert T. Yurchak, asked that the escape charge be dismissed because a person who has not been told he is being officially detained cannot escape. Lewis agreed. In throwing out the failure to produce a license charge, Lewis said that although a person has 15 days in which to show that he has a valid license, Shabazian didn't go back to the Kennedy house for 23 days and didn't make clear whether Kennedy would be charged with a crime.

The Internet at-large has produced many mashups both terrific and mundane. But “We Used to be Friends”—a 22-minute, 47-second cut of every episode of season one of Friends overlaid on itself—argues that the powers of cheap, consumer-grade video editing tools are best used to capture the horror of Baconian nightmare. As Dante passes beneath the archway, he can … hear only the noises coming from the swarm of sinners, babbling in different languages, the sound of their hands slapping against their bodies—the vast, cacophonic gang eager and hungry to cross, being stung by insects and bleeding. And then, for several minutes, a Central Perk logo hangs like a ghostly apparition amid the frenzy. “Hell. This is hell,” you say. But no, it’s only Friends. And they’ll be there for you–if you’re there for them too.

The trade war between the US and China is taking an ugly turn. At the centre of the trade war between the two economy giants is the stealing of massive Intellectual Property (IP) of the US enterprises by the Chinese business firms and other dubious entities. It is to be noted that irrespective of the current standoff between Washington and Beijing — starting from the Huawei to an incessant trade war to blocking of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist at the UN — US President Trump needs to be careful about the immediate consequences of falling apart with the $14trn worth Chinese economy at the moment. Amid claims and counter-claims by both Washington and Beijing, it is worth noting how both are veering around the IP issue and defending one another. For Trump Administration, making China listen and take necessary steps to curb sheer violations of IP rights that amounts to some good billions each year is the aim for now. For President Trump, what is good for him is that a large business and political community in his country agree that China can spoil the global trading system in the long run. China’s steroidal State capitalist regime poses a serious threat to the current international business system. But then, China strongly refuses such claims constantly made by both the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) and the European Union of Chamber of Commerce in China (European Chamber). Last year, China’s Vice-Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen publicly declared that accusations that China steals IPRs and forces technology transfers are sheer fabrications out of nothing and groundless. The Xi regime has outrightly rejected US and EU allegations. Indeed, the Chinese Government says that it is keen on protecting IPRs and has already taken serious steps in doing so. Ironically, the AmCham China and European Chamber in their China business climate survey, ranked the IPR issue as the 12th and the 11th last year. But this has given fresh ammunition to Beijing to reclaim that if China had forced technological transfers, failed in IPR protection or even stolen IPRs, the concerned enterprises would have complained directly. It has been constantly aired by the Government that in terms of IPR legislation, China has enacted adequate laws and regulations which are truly compliant to WTO directives. Meanwhile China has set up three IPR courts in Shanghai, Beijing and in Guanghou and special judicial branches in more than 15 cities to handle cross regional IP cases. This all is fine on official records. What makes foreign enterprises fighting IP issues see it is as a herculean task is to fight China’s opaque judicial system. And moreover, all these organs are party-controlled and cases are always bias either towards the locals or state owned enterprises. Now the question is how the Trump Administration will wade through this crisis and find a way out wherein; first, the interests of American enterprises are served, and second, most of the European and other corporate houses are well protected from the clutches of Xi’s new-found market socialism. Besides, as the presidential election fever is about to grip America, the President must bring an end to the current trade war between the US and China. Again, his team demands a robust public relations campaign to respond to the Opposition and special interest groups. Contrary to what Xi proclaimed, he is turning all his efforts to mount a nationalist fervour so as to drum up continued support for strengthening the Communist Party at home and expansion of China’s shady deals abroad. It must be noted here that when China joined the WTO in 2001, it clearly pledged not to demand technology transfer from the MNCs coming to operate inside as one of the prime conditions for market entry. Global experts say it is really difficult to make a case against China because it has generally observed by the letter of its WTO commitments. In reality, what makes running business tricky in China is the indispensable role of the local partners that play on the global corporate houses. It has been noticed that from car manufacturing to cloud computing, only with the aid of the local agents and partners, the MNCs can make their business happen. When it comes to the project implementation level, the Chinese regulators demand methods of product testing and approval procedures which results in compelling the foreign companies to divulge their IP secrets in the process. Various global trade experts say the unstated goal behind the entire process is to help the Chinese companies getting easy access to foreign technology. But then the Beijing smartly replies quite often that these business regulations and verification procedures are completely voluntary and are purely commercial agreements made between concerned MNCs and the Chinese Government. Another serious problem that directly hits the foreign MNCs in China is the issue of “quojin mintui” (the State advances, the private sector retreats), particularly under the Xi Government. The Government and its banks systematically funnels cheap capitals towards these state owned firms at times at the cost of the advancement of the big corporate houses. Simply speaking, economic reforms if at all carried out by Xi, it would be a win-win situation for both China and America. However, looking at China’s poor global compliance records so far, Trump requires more manoeuvring tactics to encounter a recalcitrant Beijing administration either through tariffs or with the help of arbitration to save the treasured IPs of global giants.

Gazprom is in talks with Brunei LNG about possible gas purchases as delays in Russian LNG projects have forced the Russian oil major to seek additional resources in Asia, Vedomosti daily reports. Gazprom, the holder of the world's largest gas reserves, has been struggling to kick-start LNG projects in Russia amid global financial turmoil and recent discoveries of vast unconventional gas resources in the United States. The gas from Brunei LNG could be purchased after 2013 when current contracts expire, reports Vedomosti, citing documents prepared for Gazprom's board. A Memorandum of Cooperation between Gazprom and the Government of Brunei was signed in June, reported The Brunei Times. But the details were not disclosed. A Gazprom spokeswoman would not comment. Brunei LNG is half-owned by Brunei, with Japanese group Mitsubishi and Anglo-Dutch company Shell each owning 25%. However, two sources close to Russia’s state-owned giant say Gazprom needs a guarantee of non-stop deliveries: in 2009 Gazprom set up subsidiary GM & T Singapore, which was intended to develop Russian gas deliveries to the promising Asian region. It is actively searching for Asian customers, but Gazprom’s LNG resources are limited. Russia's only LNG plant, Gazprom-led Sakhalin-2, produces around 10 million tonnes a year. Gazprom, and partners in the Shtokman project, Total and Statoil, have been struggling to work out a scheme to develop the huge Barents Sea field which holds more gas than all of Norway's continental shelf. However, Vedomosti cite documents that indicate that Gazprom’s Asian delivery commitments are set to be fulfilled "primarily" with Russian resources, and mining projects in the Asia-Pacific region, including in South Asia, can only serve as an "additional resource base," especially regarding the implementation of LNG projects.

2.(S/NF) Deputy Secretary Kimmitt and PUS Ricketts agreed that U.S.-UK economic and political-military cooperation in Iraq has been excellent and that more needs to be done to better utilize the large amounts of un-spent financial resources in Iraq. Kimmitt explained that finding sufficient resources was not the problem, rather, Iraq needed to more effectively use the money. Building up Iraq's institutional capacity in order to properly spend funds is key to success. Kimmitt discussed the importance of quickly setting up the one-year review conference for rejuvenating the Iraqi economy. Ricketts pledged the UK would cooperate closely with the U.S. in preparing the conference, and suggested Brussels as a location that was central to most of the major players involved, which could also tap into EU budget coffers. Ricketts agreed to talk to Sweden's Carl Bildt, who had proposed Stockholm, about the possibility of hosting the event in Brussels if Stockholm did not work. Kimmitt noted that economic recovery will be an important issue during U.S. Congressional hearings with Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus and agreed with Ricketts that it is important for the international community to build Iraqi capacity to "get things done on their own." Ricketts promised the UK embassy in Washington would follow up on next steps for the conference. 3.(S/NF) The Paris Afghanistan conference in June should be sufficiently high-profile to attract Afghanistan President Karzai, in order, among other goals, to have him brief on Afghanistan's progress under the Compact, Secretary Kimmitt told PUS Ricketts. Ricketts said either SIPDIS Foreign Secretary Miliband or Minister Lord Mark Malloch-Brown would attend for the UK. Ricketts expressed concern that Afghanistan's political and security climate had become a more pressing issue than Iraq, and that the UK was worried about: their own military's growing role there, counter-narcotics issues, the need to increase Afghanistan's institutional capacities, and whether Karzai would win the 2009 elections. Ricketts complained that large amounts of money had been disbursed, but not used well, while additional money had been pledged by international donors, but not yet disbursed. Kimmitt stressed the need for effective development assistance. 4.(S/NF) Ricketts described Prime Minister Brown's deep interest in stabilizing Afghanistan and using all possible multilateral tools - IMF, World Bank, NATO - to coordinate and step up their efforts. Brown is particularly interested in whether money is being effectively spent, and the need to tie assistance to reforms. Ricketts said the newly named envoy for Afghanistan Kai Eide, was a good pick, but not as effective as Paddy Ashdown would have been. 5.(S/NF) Secretary Kimmitt noted Italy's hesitation to list Bank Melli and asked if it was a signal by Italy regarding overall Iran sanctions policy or represented LONDON 00000781 002 OF 002 Italian commercial interests with Melli. Ricketts confirmed that Italy was holding things up in the EU process, and suspected Italy was influenced by long-term commercial ties with Iran, and the desire to maintain relationships for future use. Ricketts said the UK is working to persuade Italy that Melli is a problem, and that FS Miliband was currently approaching Italy at the GAERC. Ricketts predicted the issue would not be resolved at the GAERC March 10-11, but sent to the EU Council later in the week where PM Brown would address it on the margins with his colleagues before sending it back to the GAERC to resolve. Ricketts promised to keep the U.S. Embassy briefed on the results. Kimmitt noted U.S. desires for a stronger UN Security Resolution than what ended up as UNSCR 1803. Ricketts agreed and said the UK was frustrated with the EU, and stressed the need to resolve the Melli issue clearly in the EU and have them sanctioned before the Iranian elections. 6.(S/NF) Shifting to the UK domestic front, Kimmitt suggested that the UK change its laws to allow the use of confidential information in its sanctions process. SIPDIS Ricketts said HM Treasury is looking to allow sensitive information to be used in court, and thanked Kimmitt for raising it with HMT. 7.(S/NF) Secretary Kimmitt and PUS Ricketts agreed on the need to distinguish between sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) and state owned enterprises (SOEs) when discussing the issue in public and deciding on government approaches in dealing with each group. Kimmitt explained that in over fifty years of existence, there is no evidence of SWF investment for political reasons. He explained that SWF's own governments need to be more active in addressing concerns about SWF's activities when talking to the press, so that publics do not mistrust their motives. Ricketts said SWFs had been functioning well in London for years, but the UK recently felt the purchase by a Chinese State-owned enterprise of mining company Rio Tinto was done solely as a deliberate and calculated political maneuver. Ricketts also noted that if Gazprom were to show up in London and start purchasing assets it would set off alarm bells, but that on the whole, the UK preferred to let the markets set the tone, rather than government. Ricketts said the UK financial sector was worried when governments talk of regulating SWFs, but were themselves concerned about the role of SOEs. 8.(U) Participants: UK: Peter Ricketts, Permanent Under Secretary, Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Natalie Gowers, SIPDIS U.S. Desk Officer, Foreign and Commonwealth Office; Robert Kimmitt, Deputy Secretary, Treasury, Ambassador Robert Tuttle, Eric Meyer, Director, Europe and Eurasia, Treasury, Rob Saliterman, Spokesman, International Affairs, Treasury, Mark Johnson, Notetaker.

Archives|Mirror, Mirror, Who Is the Unfairest? Mirror, Mirror, Who Is the Unfairest? ROOTING out conflicts of interest on Wall Street has become a full-time job for securities regulators in recent years. Thankfully, some long-needed changes have been made to research and sales practices at brokerage firms, banks and mutual fund companies. But one conflict lives brazenly on, safe from even the most assiduous reform efforts. That enduring unfairness is related to, of all things, the fairness opinion. Fairness opinions are produced by Wall Street banks and are intended to assure the directors of companies involved in a merger, acquisition or other deal that its terms are fair to shareholders. But the opinions can be problematic. That's because the bank affirming the fairness of the transaction is often the same one that proposed the deal -- and that stands to reap millions in fees if it goes through. When J.P. Morgan Chase paid $58 billion to acquire Bank One last July, the fairness opinion was supplied by -- who else? -- J.P. Morgan Chase. However laughable they may be, fairness opinions continue to be used to justify transactions and to provide legal cover for directors fearful of being sued if a deal goes bad. At least some regulators are beginning to awaken to the conflicts that fairness opinions pose. The NASD has asked its members and the public for comments on the practices surrounding the opinions and may propose new rules related to their use. In Massachusetts, William F. Galvin, the secretary of the commonwealth, is investigating the fairness opinions supplied by Goldman Sachs and UBS, the two investment banks advising Gillette, which is the subject of a $57 billion offer from Procter & Gamble. Merrill Lynch provided the fairness opinion to Procter. Mr. Galvin said he had subpoenaed documents relating to these fairness opinions out of concern that the deal might not be, well, fair to Gillette shareholders. "For us here in Massachusetts, this is a very big deal because many of the shareholders are residents," he said. "The fairness of the valuation is at issue. In the proxy statement, Goldman was credited with bringing the deal together. When one of the fairness opinion providers brought the deal together, how objective could their opinion be?" A spokesman for Goldman Sachs declined to comment. UBS's spokesman said, "We are confident in the advisory services provided to our client." As a part of his investigation, Mr. Galvin asked Rajesh K. Aggarwal, a professor at the University of Virginia who specializes in corporate governance and executive pay, to analyze the fairness opinions. Professor Aggarwal wrote in his study that the opinions were reasonable and valid but that there were "substantial discrepancies" between the public and private statements the companies have made estimating the merger's value. For example, the companies' public projections on the revenue and cost "synergies" they expected to achieve as a result of the merger were about $14 billion to $16 billion. But internal company documents, Professor Aggarwal said, put the estimates at $22.1 billion to $28.1 billion. In addition, he said, there seemed to be errors in the way the merger's value synergies were calculated -- mistakes that underestimate the value of the deal. He concluded that by underestimating the value of the synergies, the deal would be more beneficial to Procter & Gamble shareholders than to Gillette's owners. Eric Kraus, a Gillette spokesman, said the company had no comment on Professor Aggarwal's analysis. "Virtually no financial expert thinks the deal is anything but excellent for Gillette shareholders," Mr. Kraus said, adding that Gillette was cooperating with Mr. Galvin's inquiry. Procter & Gamble said it believed that the opinion provided by Merrill Lynch was fair. Shareholders of both companies will have the last word. They are scheduled to vote on the merger in June. Speaking generally, Professor Aggarwal said: "There's a sense that whatever the two parties agree to must be fair. But management has no interest whatsoever in having independent third parties looking at the details of any transactions, and boards historically weren't going to question the judgment of management. So the issue here is the one party that doesn't participate in the negotiations -- the shareholders." But shining the spotlight on fairness opinions, as Mr. Galvin has done, is indeed a public service. And surely, in a time when corporate directors are being held increasingly accountable for their actions, they ought to be concerned about the conflicts that make many fairness opinions so dubious. "I think we're going to see more boards hiring independent parties to evaluate transactions, to evaluate the performance of management and to evaluate compensation contracts," Professor Aggarwal said. "I think that if one of the high-profile deals that are in process now were to blow up because it looked like the board didn't do enough investigation on behalf of shareholders, you would absolutely see a lot more use of third parties to make sure the deal is good for shareholders." When it comes to hiring firms that can conduct truly independent reviews of deals, directors have had few choices. But a new firm, set up by two experienced Wall Street bankers, hopes to change that. The firm, Pirie, Goldsmith & Associates of New York, offers independent fairness opinions on mergers and acquisitions, as well as on asset sales, executive compensation and other issues, said Robert S. Pirie, a former partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and, from 1987 to 1992, the chairman of Rothschild Inc., an investment firm. "To be able to look the lawyers in the eye and say, 'We hired someone who had nothing to do with the deal, who looked at it and said in their opinion it's fair,' if I were a director I'd be very happy to have that," Mr. Pirie said. Gerald Goldsmith, a former top executive at Rothschild, is the firm's other founder; its advisory board members are Paul W. MacAvoy, professor of economics at Yale, and Peter Scanlon, former chairman of Coopers & Lybrand. While the established Wall Street firms may snicker at the creation of such a firm, Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, applauded the idea of an organization devoted to the issuance of unbiased fairness opinions. "If there was ever going to be a market for this kind of thing it will be now," he said. "It strikes me that it would be very valuable. A lot of mergers are promoted for the benefit of those involved." And all too often, shareholders are the last on that list.

Britain's Andy Murray beat Serbia's Novak Djokovic 6-2, 7-5 on Sunday to win the Miami Masters and clinch his third title of the year. The world number four wrapped up victory after reeling off the last five games of the second set having seen Djokovic, the world number three, throw away his chance to level the final. The Serbian, the champion here in 2007, had served for the second set leading 5-3, but a fifth double fault disrupted his fightback and his game quickly fell apart. Murray, the first three-time winner on the ATP Tour in 2009, also made further inroads on Djokovic's world number three ranking with only 170 points now separating them. The 21-year-old Scot dominated Djokovic for most of the match as the Serbian fell prey to a total of 43 unforced errors. Djokovic called for the trainer early in the second set and Murray's level subsequently dipped slightly, although the Scot said it wasn't necessarily due to any distraction. "If you look at the next game or so, he started rushing me," Murray said. "He started coming forward more, and he hadn't been doing that. "He went for broke a little bit and tried to shorten the points. He hit the ball well. I struggled a little bit, but it wasn't just because of the timeout he took." Djokovic broke Murray twice to win four games in a row, then the Scot won a marathon game to hold for 2-4 and regained the momentum. Overall Murray kept Djokovic off-balance with his variety of pace and direction and thwarted his attempts to come to the net with precise passing. Murray's day included two second-serve aces, including one 76 mile per hour ace that flummoxed Djokovic. "The majority of players now play so well from the baseline and both sides, that if you can use some slice and drop shots, some high balls and stuff, it just takes them out of their comfort zone," Murray said. "It's my way of dictating how the match is getting played. A lot of people might not necessarily think my game looks the most aggressive or offensive, but very few times will I not have the points played how I like them to be played." Murray said he also believed he had benefitted from his improved fitness. He has an apartment in the area and did pre-season fitness training here. "I think mentally it makes a difference," he said. "Even if you're struggling, you know your opponent is going to be feeling the same. Whereas before, sometimes you could get tired and look over at the other side and the opponent seems fine. "A match like today - it was hot out there. A few long rallies and I would be a little bit out of breath. I could look down the court and see him struggling, as well." Murray, the first British finalist here for 25 years, took victory when Djokovic went long with a lame volley after an hour and 42 minutes on court. The 21-year-old Scotsman, who had raced through the first set with two breaks taking him to 4-0 lead, has now won three Masters titles. He was the champion in Cincinnati and Madrid in 2008. "I think any time you win a tournament, obviously it gives you confidence," said Murray, who had also reached the final of the Masters event at Indian Wells in March. "The Masters Series have always been, after the Slams, tough tournaments to win."

Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (ABSA), the largest retail bank in Africa, has chosen Shandwick Consultants as its financial PR adviser. Africa, has chosen Shandwick Consultants as its financial PR adviser. Citigate and Brunswick were all approached. agencies overseen by ABSA chief executive Danie Cronje. - handled by College Hill since December. The account will be led by Shandwick director James Poole out of London. bank in South Africa,’ said Shandwick marketing director Jonathan Mason.

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Florida State treated Division I-AA underdog Western Carolina with compassion Saturday night, sticking to a bare-bones game plan that netted a 50-10 homecoming victory. A festive crowd of 52,778 watched on a cool, clear night. They let go with one of their largest cheers before the game when former FSU player Burt Reynolds presented FSU trainer Don Fauls with a new Ford station wagon. Fauls, with FSU for 28 years, is retiring. So mismatched were the teams that FSU probably could have scored as many points as it wanted. The easy victory was so expected that it did little to enchance FSU's season. It did, however, keep the Seminoles in line for a bowl invitation, probably the Gator Bowl. Tommy Gay, past president of the Gator Bowl selection committee, watched the Seminoles (8-2) on Saturday and was all but ready to give them his vote. "We think they are our No. 1 choice," he said. "Of course, that could change, but FSU would be a very attractive team for us." The Gator Bowl, to be played on Dec. 30 and nationally televised by ABC, is advertising a $900,000 payoff for each team. That much money is a big consideration for FSU. It needs a big payday to help wipe out a projected deficit of $1.5 million. And the proximity of the Gator Bowl, played in Jacksonville, would allow FSU to travel cheaply to the game and thus bring home more money. The Seminoles' opponent would come from a list that includes the third- place finisher in the Big Ten, either Ohio State or Michigan, along with Air Force and Oklahoma State. Bowl invitations will be extended Saturday. FSU, favored by some five touchdowns over Western Carolina, was superior in every category. The Catamounts had a scrappy quarterback in Kenny Edwards, but he couldn't carry the load. Edwards, constantly chased, completed nine of 24 passes for 87 yards. "I'd like to have a game like this every week," FSU Coach Bobby Bowden said. "It was tough to get ready, but I am just glad I was coaching our team and not on the other side coaching against us. We were playing against a team that we were much bigger and stronger than. We just ran it in the middle all night." FSU was led by tailbacks Tony Smith (13 carries, 114 yards) and Keith Ross (15-103), who scored two touchdowns. Quarterback Chip Ferguson completed seven of 18 passes for 182 yards and a touchdown. Hassan Jones caught four passes for 103 yards and a touchdown. The Seminoles were merciful in that they, for the most part, chose simple, time-consuming plays. Western Carolina (3-6-1) offered few challenges. The Seminoles scored on their first possession when Derek Schmidt kicked a 36-yard field goal. They built a 19-0 halftime lead and coasted from there. For FSU, the game was little more than a necessary chore before turning full attention to a Nov. 30 date with the University of Florida in Gainesville. The Seminoles made sure they revealed no secrets Saturday. After sticking with inside running plays in the first half, Bowden substituted freely in the second half. The result was an uninspiring, sometimes ragged game. Homecoming games are supposed to feature lopsided victories by the home team, though, and FSU assured itself of success when it scheduled the Catamounts. Usually, Western Carolina is at least competitive on its own level, but this year it has struggled against even Division I-AA teams. "It has been a tough year, and tonight sort of culminated everything for us," Western Carolina Coach Bob Waters said. "Florida State is a tremendous football team, and I said before the game that they might be the best we've ever played. Now I'm sure they're the best we've played."

Dan Porter, the former CEO of OMGPOP, now general manager of Zynga New York, apologized to his colleagues on Friday for saying that the company copied ideas for games. The company posted his email to the Zynga blog. "Zynga is often accused of copying games, which is mostly true," Porter reportedly said in a panel discussion at a startup's offices in New York Wednesday night, according to Quartz. What I said was that everyone in the games business copies games. That is the nature of the business and has been well before Zynga was ever in business. My point was that obsessing over the copying of games is really not that interesting and misses the main point. ... I should know better. Lesson learned. Sometimes it is truly better to say nothing at all. While the copying of ideas from games is controversial in the industry, U.S. law is very clear on this point: There is no copyright protection for games as games. Only visual or written elements of a game, like the game board or instructions, can be copyrighted. Zynga and Electronic Arts recently agreed to drop a lawsuit over claims that The Ville copied elements of EA's Sims franchise. Porter did make an interesting point, which is that Zynga's skills as a company are around growing and adapting games over time to keep them fresh for users. This is not the first time Porter's gotten in hot water over remarks he's made at an event. Not that these incidents appear to have hurt Porter. In a recent consolidation of remote offices, Porter emerged as the top Zynga executive on the East Coast, absorbing employees from a second New York studio as well as some from closed studios in Baltimore and Boston. And though a drop in paying customers for Draw Something—the hit mobile drawing game which prompted Zynga to buy OMGPOP—has hurt Zynga's financials, the company recently celebrated Draw Something's one-year anniversary by announcing it had seen more than 100 million downloads. Draw Something remains an important franchise for Zynga, which has increasingly emphasized its mobile titles as traffic to its social games on Facebook has dropped.

VIBE: A lot smoky, a little sleazy, plenty of uninhibited fun. BEST USE: Good for freaking out out-of-town guests, first date with a total stranger. This upscale yet comfy lounge pairs a forward-thinking wine list with casual but imaginative tapas and chunky furniture that can swallow you whole for hours. Drawing a sophisticated crowd of locals and tourists, it also features better-than-average bar/restaurant art. Nice sized dive type neighborhood bar with pool, darts, and beer pong tournaments. Watch your favorite sports on one of our five flat screen TVs. Pitch some washers on our newly built patio. Different nightly drink specials with friendly knowledgeable staff. Cold beer, cheap drinks, good times. This is a location with a spacious environment for the situated drinker, but also a great hangout for the outgoing type looking for a good time. Reasonable drink prices, an attentive staff and 27 TVs create the perfect atmosphere for a game-night hop-in. Poker tournaments on weeknights, live bands on Friday and Saturday, no-cover PPV events and a full food menu. ; Coyote Ugly meets the Regal Beagle at this former fern bar in the Medical Center. Highlander’s varied happy hour rush is a Northwest microcosm of med students and old timers, and the vibe is charged and upbeat.

Jordan Spieth reacts to missing a putt on the 12th green at Oakmont. Yes, the members, even the head professional, at Oakmont Country Club, are rooting for the course in a U.S. Open. “I hope so, Mark,” Ford replied. “I like seeing that flag blowing, I promise you.” Wind, of course, helps dry out the greens. “Bob’s getting a little pressure and text messages from his members asking them to be sped up,” Brooks said. Legend holds that the USGA slows the greens down for the U.S. Open, that the members play them faster day in and day out. They are, at any rate, as treacherous as any in golf.

The author, an occasional Eagle contributor, has written a book entitled, "The Gritty Berkshires: A People's History From the Hoosac Tunnel to Mass MoCA." "Under [unsafe] conditions strikes were inevitable and apparently they met with a fair amount of success. The West Shaft workers conducted a successful strike after the bucket crushed the skull of one of their number. They refused to go back to work until the bucket's hemp rope was replaced with an iron cable " "I have seen little children at the tender ages of eight, nine and ten years, some right here in North Adams, working right in the Union [mill] Is it not an everlasting shame and disgrace?" "We are all girls who have to work for a living. Some of us are supporting our mothers but we talked it over and decided to walk out in a body We may as well play for nothing as to work for nothing We have no union for we believed that the company would do what was right by us." "Well, as soon as the selectmen start to tell you what to do, it's time to stand up and tell these politicians what they need to do [W]e will know who our friends are and what to do when they come up for election in the spring." "The systematizer would watch us work. And if you had two minutes to yourself, he'd put that down. If I had five minutes to myself, he'd put that down, and the next day you had another pile of work to keep you busy " Once, Ouellette stopped his car to pick up a hitchhiker. When he found out his passenger was a "systematizer," he told him to "Get the hell out." "I couldn't punch in until the work came down the line. Sometimes I wouldn't even work at all and they'd send me back home. Then, I would no more than get back home and they would send for me and I had to go back again [T]he foremen's wives were working with them, their aunts, their uncles, their brothers So we formed [a union]. The first thing we did was to stop foremen from having members of their family working for them...Next, we got four hours of guaranteed work if we reported to work " "Married women with children [worked at Sprague] [T]heir husbands came home at night and stayed with the kids, and [later] they went to work My husband took care of my kid at night, and I went to work. And in the daytime I was home [That] wasn't unusual [The men] had to help." "[W]e were very happy about the fact that we had framed a contract that applied to almost every problem that we had [W]e had been able to move a corporate giant like the Sprague Electric Company into listening to us and into achieving some measure of fairness." "No, that's not my job [I]f you want a maid, go out and get a maid I mean if you guys want a cup of coffee, you can walk up there and get it It's like they didn't see many women in labor being involved in those types of positions You know they would support GE [but] when it came to our organization [need for pickets at Hillcrest Hospital or NARH], it was like they're not there — and I hounded them on the phone I embarrassed them until they came." Val Rodriguez, X-Tyal employee, one of 13 arrested for trying to stop the auction of company equipment in North Adams in 1986, responding to the personnel manager's negative treatment toward her: "And you know the guy that did this He was born and brought up in this area. And I was twice as angry at him because I thought, How can he do this to his people? We're his people. And I think I was more angry at him than the others because the others were from New York State." Kathleen T. Hoczela, on being part of worker-owned Heritage Supermarket in North Adams, 1988: "It's more like a family. Problems can arise, but there's no one trying to be lord and master looking over your shoulder, or the fear of being on the outside looking in." "This is not about the closing of a factory or a business. It's not the loss of our local newspaper. It's not the loss of local ownership of our radio station. It's not that the state closed our employment office [and] our welfare office in North Berkshire When we lose our full service hospital, you've hit the tipping point If the government can bail out the banks because they're too big to fail, we have to let our government officials know that hospitals are too big to fail." The book launch for Maynard Seider's "The Gritty Berkshires: A People's History From the Hoosac Tunnel to Mass MoCA," will be on Saturday, April 13, from 2-4 p.m., at the American Legion in North Adams. Music by Wintergreen and the public is invited.

Canadian officials showed some optimism on Sunday they were beginning to get on top of the country's most destructive wildfire in recent memory, as favourable weather helped firefighters and winds took the flames southeast, away from oil sands boomtown Fort McMurray. There was still no time line, however, for getting Fort McMurray's 88,000 inhabitants back into what remains of their town, or when energy companies would be able to restart operations at evacuated sites nearby. The wildfires have cut Canada's vast oil sands output in half. The wildfire scorching through Canada's oil sands region in northeast Alberta since last Sunday night had been expected to double in size on Sunday, threatening the neighboring province of Saskatchewan. But with the fire moving into its second week, light rains and cooler temperatures helped hold it back, giving officials hope that they could soon begin assessing the damage to Fort McMurray, close to where the fire started. "As more and more fire has burned out around the city and the fuel around the city starts to disappear ... we are starting to move into that second phase of securing the site and assessing the site," Alberta Premier Rachel Notley told the same media briefing. Officials said it was too early to put a time line on getting people back into the town safely. The broader wildfire, moving southeast through wooded areas away from the town, would still take a long time to "clean up," Morrison cautioned. Officials previously warned that the fire could burn for months. Alberta's government estimated on Sunday that the fire had consumed 395,000 acres. That was less than a previous estimate, but authorities warned the fire would likely grow overnight. Fort McMurray is the center of Canada's oil sands region. About half of the crude output from the sands, or 1 million barrels per day, has been taken offline, according to a Reuters estimate. Oil prices jumped almost 2 percent in trading early on Monday, as Canada's fire contributed to tightening supply. The inferno looks set to become the costliest natural disaster in Canada's history. One analyst estimated insurance losses could exceed C$9bn. Officials said on Sunday the fire had done minor damage at CNOOC unit Nexen's Long Lake facility, in the site's yard. It was the first reported damage to an energy industry asset since the fire began. Morrison said air tankers, helicopters and bulldozers had kept the blaze from reaching a Suncor Energy facility, which Suncor identified as its base oil sands mining site north of Fort McMurray, and a Syncrude facility. Suncor said on Sunday it would allow employees to return to work as soon as it was safe to do so. "We are hopeful that this will be soon," the company said in a statement, adding it planned to use temporary camps for employees and was arranging for workers to commute from Calgary and Edmonton.

The UK-based band Pirates of Panama chatted with Digital Journal about their new music, their forthcoming EP, as well as their musical influences. On their song "The Chase," they said, "It started out with two chords played back and forth which really got our feet stomping which made us think this can become something! We then added in the guitar intro part and jammed it out, the whole song came together in just a few hours. The lyrics are about us chasing our dreams and getting out of the rut we were in at the time." They noted that their song "Been There Before" sounded quite a bit different at first. "We had a cool drum intro and lots of layers building up but we decided to strip it back for the record to head straight into the song! The original guitar riff has stayed the same since day one! The idea was something that I've ( Ed ) played around with for years and eventually thought this could really be something! We like to mix this track up when we play live and extend the intro and have a bit of fun with the arrangements." On their music inspirations, they said, "We can’t pin point one single source of inspiration for our music. It usually just comes naturally. Of course we have our influences but we are always taking inspiration from really bizarre sources such as things we read online or a story we've been told at the pub." Regarding the origin of their band's name, they said, "The name came about after a good few days of throwing ideas around until we got in from a night out and started talking about how cool pirates were and then suddenly we came up with Pirates of (blank). Then, we all had a think and came up with Panama! The next morning we all said Pirates Of Panama, and then the name was born." Their future plans including releasing their new EP, as well as continuing to your across America and Europe. "We are working on some cool shows which will be announced soon," they revealed. On the digital transformation of the music industry, they said, "Live streaming has become a really big thing across all platforms now and has really blown up, I remember when we started using twitcam a while ago and how much hassle it was to share all the links and get people to visit the page, now with Facebook, you can instantly stream. It's crazy! This has really helped artists to interact with their fans." Regarding their daily use of technology, they said, "We usually use our Smart phones every single day for most aspects of the band. From social media posting to photos and laying down acoustic demos or vocals. No matter where we are we can always grab our phones and write lyrics or record quick ideas. It's crazy that using just our phones we can record ideas, Skype our team, do live broadcasts and even create artwork for shows." For their fans, they said, "Thank you to all you pirates out there old and new for the continued support. We are working hard to produce new music for you guys and sorting out shows. Can't wait to see you on the road soon." To learn more about Pirates of Panama, check out their official homepage.

Join IBM November 1 at 21st Cloud Expo at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA, and learn how IBM Watson can bring cognitive services and AI to intelligent, unmanned systems. In this session we will build a chatbot powered by IBM Watson, connect it to third-party APIs, and share best practices of chatbots co-existing with humans. Cognitive analysis impacts today's systems with unparalleled ability that were previously available only to manned, back-end operations. Thanks to cloud processing, IBM Watson can bring cognitive services and AI to intelligent, unmanned systems. Imagine a robot vacuum that becomes your personal assistant that knows everything and can respond to your emotions and verbal commands! This session will demonstrate how robots implemented with IBM Watson cognitive services can interact verbally with people and respond to their emotions and demonstrate the practicalities of joining IoT-robotics with cloud processing and a mobile platform for communications. Create a Watson Conversation-based financial chatbot that enables you to query your investments, analyze securities, and use multiple interfaces. Chatbots are rapidly gaining acceptance and becoming the norm for all kinds of customer interactions. In this developer journey, you will create a Watson Conversation-based chatbot that enables you to use an Investment Portfolio service to query portfolios and associated holdings. You'll use a Simulated Instrument Analytics service to compute analytics on securities under a given scenario and will learn how to swap between a standard web interface and a Twilio interface. JeanCarl Bisson is a IBM Developer Advocate in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been developing web applications since he was a teenager, has participated in and won numerous prizes at more than a hundred hackathons in six years, and has been a developer and co-founder of two startups. At IBM, he educates developers about the IBM Cloud offering, leading workshops and meetups using services available in IBM Bluemix and IBM Watson. Marek Sadowski is a full stack developer advocate, a robotics startup founder and an entrepreneur. He has about 20 year experience in consulting largest enterprises in USA, Europe, Middle East and Africa as a senior engineer and an IT architect in mobile, web, Java and integration technologies. As a graduate from the International Space University Marek pioneered in a research on VR goggles for the virtual reality system to control robots on Mars in NASA Ames in 1999. He founded a startup to deliver robotics solutions and services for space, military, and industrial sectors. Marek moved to Silicon Valley to promote IoT and robotics solutions driven in Swift, Node.js, Node.RED by mobile, AI and Cloud. Lennart Frantzell, PhD, is a Developer Advocate with IBM in San Francisco who focuses on Fintech, Blockchain and Watson Services. He attends Meetups, Industry Events and Hackathons and works with startups and developers in the greater Silicon Valley and California area. He has a background in programming and cloud computing. His hobbies are walking in the mountains and Cryptocurrencies.

Wyoming Statute 9-2-409: "Each department or agency of the state government shall designate a records officer who shall supervise the departmental records program and who shall represent the office in all departmental matters before the records committee. The records officer and the director shall prepare transfer schedules for the transfer of public records to the records centers or to the archives. Wyoming Statute 9-2-410: "All public records are property of the state. They shall be delivered by outgoing officials and employees to their successors and shall be preserved, stored, transferred, destroyed or disposed of, and otherwise managed, only in accordance with Wyoming Statue 9-2-405 through 9-2-413." Help control the amount of storage and length of time records are kept. Provide orderly and systematic destruction of records consistent with administrative, legal, fiscal, and historical requirements. Reduce costs associated with the storage of active and inactive records. Identify and preserve records of permanent value, saving UW’s institutional memory. Ensure protection of valuable records against deterioration or destruction.

Novichok Survivor Gets 'Propaganda' In Meeting With Russian Ambassador To U.K. A survivor of a Novichok poisoning in England last year has met with the Russian ambassador to Britain to ask questions about Russia's involvement in the string of poisonings that killed one and left four others seriously ill. Charlie Rowley -- whose girlfriend Dawn Sturgess died after being exposed to the nerve agent -- met with Russian Ambassador Aleksandr Yakovenko in London on April 6. Rowley said he went to the Russian Embassy "to ask them 'Why did your country kill my girlfriend?' but I didn't really get any answers," he told the Sunday Mirror newspaper, which arranged the meeting. "I just got Russian propaganda," he said. Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious on a park bench in the English city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018, and it was later discovered they had been exposed to Novichok. They both recovered. Three months later, Rowley found a wrapped bottle of perfume in a park in the town of Amesbury and gave it to Sturgess, who became seriously ill after spraying it on herself. The bottle was found to be filled with Novichok. Rowley had also been exposed. Sturgess died in hospital several days later and Rowley recovered after spending 10 days in a coma. He still has serious health problems from the exposure. In September, British authorities said they had enough evidence to charge two Russians -- known by presumed aliases Aleksandr Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov -- with various crimes including conspiracy to commit murder. Scotland Yard accused them of being Russian military intelligence (GRU) officers sent to Britain to assassinate Sergei Skripal. Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the incident. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview that the two suspects were civilians who went to England as tourists. The two men said in an interview with Russian broadcaster RT they went to Britain to see the Salisbury Cathedral and famous nearby monument Stonehenge, which they said they didn't visit because of bad weather. "I liked the ambassador, but I thought some of what he said trying to justify Russia not being responsible was ridiculous," said Rowley. "The ambassador kept saying the substance definitely wasn’t the Novichok [the Russians] had made because if it was it would have killed everyone."

Sophia Cruz, 5, broke past security to reach Pope Francis while he was on his motorcade in Washington DC to deliver a message on immigration. The daughter of two undocumented immigrants, Sophia traveled from Los Angeles to meet the pontiff to beg him to keep her parents in the USA. Unlike her parents, Sophia and her sister are American citizens. Security tried to stop the little girl as she ran towards the popemobile as he passed her outside the White House, but she made it through on her second attempt. Pope Francis motioned to the security team to let her through, where she handed him an envelope containing her letter. The pope kissed her cheek accepting the letter, which read: “I believe I have the right to live with my parents. I have the right to be happy. “My dad works very hard in a factory galvanizing pieces of metal. All immigrants just like my dad feed this country. Sophia said her hope is the pope can bring about change to USA’s immigration laws, adding she has another letter for President Obama. She and her father wore t-shirts saying “Pope: rescue DAPA, so the legalisation would be your blessing,” Fox reported. Earlier, Pope Francis spoke on the White House lawn introducing himself as a child of an immigrant. Though Sophia’s actions were not just spur of the moment – La Hermandad, in Los Angeles, chose her to approach the pope after a similar plan worked in Rome involving another little girl. Her father Mr Cruz, who traveled to the USA a decade ago, agreed to let his daughter take part in order to get across the wider message on immigration. Sophia said she rarely gets to see her father, because he works long hours at a factory in LA. She added she lives in fear that he would be forced to leave their home and the country she’s grown up in. Sophia wasn’t the only one who got to get a blessing from Pope Francis, security also picked babies from the crowd to bring to the pontiff. At one point, his team handed him five-month-old Loukas Chavez, another son of immigrants from Virginia. Chilean-born Mariajose Ovalle of Alexandria, Virginia, who was there with her 6-year-old son, Matias, said seeing popes in person was a vital emotional part of living her faith. She saw Pope Benedict XVI in London, but her most memorable sight was St. John Paul II at his last World Youth Day, in Toronto in July 2002. Even at a great distance, “you could feel his presence,” she said. Protesters were in short supply. Police wouldn’t intervene in a free-speech matter that had not escalated beyond the verbal stage.

Canadian Oil Spill Threatens Drinking Water : The Two-Way An oil slick has forced the city of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, to shut down its water treatment plant, after a pipeline dumped tens of thousands of gallons into the North Saskatchewan River. Crews work to clean up an oil spill on the North Saskatchewan River on Friday. Husky Energy has said between 200,000 and 250,000 liters of crude oil and other material leaked into the river on Thursday from its pipeline. The water supply for communities in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan is threatened by an oil spill that dumped an estimated 66,000 gallons of heavy oil, along with natural gas used to dilute it, into a major river. The pipeline that broke is owned by Husky Energy Inc. The site of last Thursday's leak is within 1,000 feet of the North Saskatchewan River. The central Saskatchewan town of North Battleford, which gets its water from the river, shut off its river intake last week and switched to groundwater, according to Reuters. By far the largest community affected so far is the city of Prince Albert, which has a population of about 35,000 people. On Monday, officials there announced they had shut down the city's water treatment plant after the oil slick arrived in town. The CBC reports the city has enough water stored to last 48 hours, and officials are urging residents to limit water use to stretch that until the end of the week, which will buy time to get a backup system running. Managers for the province's public works department are working to lay an 18-mile temporary water pipeline to supply the city with water from another source, the South Saskatchewan River. The Globe and Mail reports authorities say they have recovered 40 percent of the spilled liquid so far. "In a telephone conference with reporters, officials from the province of Saskatchewan said they had built five booms to contain the spill and were working with Husky and the federal government on a cleanup plan. "Husky said the cleanup at the site of the leak had been completed, although neither it nor the province gave a time line for resolving the issue entirely. "The company also said three birds had been 'impacted' by the spill and that one died." Despite the severity of the spill, and its widespread effects on people living downstream, the premier of Saskatchewan defended pipelines as the safest way to move oil over land, reported The Canadian Press wire service. Premier Brad Wall told the wire service, "The facts remain that if we're not moving by a pipeline, it's going to move ... (by rail). We know that rail is actually more susceptible to spills and spills are often more intense." The neighboring province of Alberta is considering pipeline options to bring crude oil from its tar sands to ocean ports, after a cross-border proposal that would have run through the U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico was shut down by the U.S. government.

A new stage in a lucrative military-truck contract could make or break the stock. OKLAHOMA CITY -- Force Protection ( FRPT - Get Report) fans have high hopes for the next stage in the government's armored-vehicle procurement effort. Billions of dollars will be at stake in a program now widely called MRAP II. The big-budget sequel to the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle program funds the purchase of vehicles that can protect U.S. soldiers deployed overseas from threats like mines and bombs. Force Protection landed a big role in the original MRAP program. But with the curtain set to rise on MRAP II, Force Protection may be forced to share the spotlight with deep-pocketed rivals including Navistar ( NAVZ and a new venture formed by Oshkosh ( OSK - Get Report) and Ceradyne ( CRDN. Ladson, S.C.-based Force Protection believes it is up to the task, but some observers suspect the result will be even more pressure on Force Protection's once-highflying stock. "Even as talk of pulling out of Iraq grows louder, the military has been recruiting other, bigger contractors to help with production," The Wall Street Journal noted earlier this month. "The big companies are diversified builders of everything from ships and Gulfstream jets to dump trucks, while tiny Force Protection largely owes its existence to building MRAPs for the U.S. military's campaign in Iraq. ... More than its rivals, Force Protection's volatile shares waver on the news of MRAP awards going to other contractors." Just compare the stock charts of General Dynamics ( GD - Get Report) and Force Protection, for example. The two companies rank as equal partners in a joint venture competing for MRAP awards. But General Dynamics depends on MRAP business far less, so it trades within a few dollars of its all-time high. Force Protection, up 7 cents to $15.98 on Tuesday, has lost half its stock-market value after hitting a record earlier this year. That steep decline actually emboldens Force Protection bulls, though. "The stock is cheap virtually no matter what earnings assumptions one makes," C.E. Unterberg Towbin analyst James McIlree said last month. "This is the type of environment the big players wait for to make acquisitions, when a stock tumbles and much of the risk has been taken out of the shares." McIlree has a buy recommendation and a $32 price target on Force Protection's stock. His firm has investment banking ties to the company. Looking ahead, McIlree calls MRAP II "the next battlefield" for Force Protection. Given its strong performance and production record so far, he feels that Force Protection should enjoy a definite edge in that fight. Meanwhile, Force Protection has been loudly reminding the military of its strengths. This summer, the company launched an advertising campaign targeting the likes of Defense News and Military Times that touts "the unmatched battlefield performance" of its popular MRAP vehicles. "Our business is the protection of our troops facing deadly explosive threats on a daily basis," stated Force Protection Vice President Michael Aldrich. "We feel it is important for them to know that there is a proven solution that is being manufactured and delivered as quickly as possible to support them in their critical mission." Force Protection has been making those claims for some time, even as rivals like Navistar have managed to land huge contracts and meet tough production deadlines to boot. Going forward, two newcomers -- Oshkosh and Ceradyne -- hope to snag a piece of the action as well. Their new vehicle, known as the Bull, can withstand hits from powerful "explosively formed penetrators" and is therefore considered an early favorite for MRAP II awards. Still, the companies are realistic about their odds. "While Oshkosh is optimistic about its chances to play a larger role in MRAP II ... it believes that competitors currently building MRAP I vehicles may have an advantage," Robert W. Baird analyst Robert McCarthy wrote this month. Still, "management appears confident it has learned from its MRAP I experiences and that its proposal for MRAP II will be considerably stronger." McCarthy has an outperform rating and a $75 price target on Oshkosh's stock, which rose 3.5% to $56.55 on Tuesday. His firm has investment banking ties to the company. Ceradyne, which tapped Oshkosh as its partner earlier this year, clearly expects the Bull to burst onto the MRAP scene. The company -- already the top supplier of body armor for U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- stands to pick up some new followers if that happens. "Vehicle armor represents a large new potential market," Morgan Joseph analyst Michael French stressed when initiating coverage of Ceradyne last month. French, whose firm seeks to do business with the companies it covers, has a hold recommendation on Ceradyne now -- but he indicates that could change. "If ... the company is successful in its vehicle armor initiatives -- and that becomes evident this fall -- we would become more aggressive on the shares," he wrote.

The Colombian government is preparing to lift its economic growth target for the year, a reflection of a strong recovery that could result in a 4.5% increase in gross domestic product this year. Hernando Gomez, the head of the National Planning Department, said Thursday that the economy could expand 4.5% this year, a figure substantially higher than then current official 3% target. A new official estimate will likely be announced once the second-quarter economic results are published in September, Gomez said. The new estimates will likely bring the government’s official forecasts in line with those of the central bank, which expects the economy to expand between 3.5% and 5.5% in 2010. The higher growth estimates point to a faster economic recovery than the government’s initial 2.5% forecast at the beginning of the year. Finance Minister Juan Carlos Echeverry said Wednesday that Colombia could grow 5% this year. Strong growth in consumer demand, as well as solid figures in manufacturing and retail sales, is behind the improved economic outlook. In the first half of the year, retail sales rose 9.8% from a year earlier, while industrial output climbed 5.8%. Colombia’s faster economic growth this year, after climbing a tepid 0.8% in 2009, hasn’t created inflationary pressures yet. The consumer price index decreased 0.04% in July as food prices dropped 0.5% from July 2009. Food prices account for 28% of the CPI.

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Variable costing affects the reported value of inventories. A manufacturer has two general ways to account for fixed manufacturing costs: variable costing and absorption costing. Under variable costing, you do not include fixed manufacturing costs in your calculation of the cost of each item you produce. Under absorption costing, you allocate a portion of those fixed costs to each item. Variable costing has distinct advantages for internal planning and assessment, but you can't use it for your external financial reporting. Variable costing clearly separates the costs that rise in tandem with production from those that remain constant. Absorption costing, on the other hand, blurs the lines. Say your company manufactures a certain product. Producing one unit requires $5 worth of raw materials, $2 in direct labor and $1 in variable manufacturing costs, such as electricity to run the machinery. Meanwhile, you have $10,000 per quarter in fixed manufacturing costs -- such things as rent or property taxes on your production facility, equipment depreciation and salaries of supervisors. Assume you produce 5,000 units in a quarter. Under variable costing, each unit produced has a reported cost of $8 (that is, $5 plus $2 plus $1). The $10,000 in fixed costs, meanwhile, is treated as a separate quarterly expense. Under absorption costing, each unit has a reported cost of $10 -- $8, plus $2 worth of the fixed cost ($10,000 / 5,000 units = $2 per unit). If you bump production up to 8,000 units, your per-unit cost remains $8 under variable costing, but falls to $9.25 under absorption costing. The consistency offered by variable costing simplifies production budgeting. This can especially benefit a small manufacturer that can't support a separate budgeting department. Variable costing provides a more accurate picture of your cash flow, which is critical for small manufacturers operating with tighter margins. In the previous example, imagine you manufactured 5,000 items but sold only 4,000, at $20 apiece. Under variable costing, your revenue is $80,000, the expense you report for the cost of the goods you sold is $32,000 (4,000 x $8), and you have a $10,000 expense for fixed overhead. So your manufacturing profit is $38,000, and your balance sheet shows inventory worth $8,000 (1,000 x $8). But under absorption costing, your revenue is $80,000, your cost of goods sold is $40,000 (4,000 x $10), and you have no separate expense for fixed overhead. Your manufacturing profit is $40,000, with $10,000 (1,000 x $10) on the balance sheet as inventory. An extra $2,000 has been "parked" on your balance sheet rather than reported as an expense, even though you've already paid that money. Financial statements prepared under variable costing provide all the data needed for break-even analysis, a key tool in determining how much your company must sell at a certain price before it shows a manufacturing profit. The basic formula is: F/(P-V)=BE, where F is the fixed costs, P is the price, V is the variable costs, and BE is the necessary sales to break even. Using the data from the example, with fixed costs of $10,000 per quarter, a $20 selling price and variable costs of $8, you get: $10,000 / ($20 - $8) = 834 units per quarter (rounded up). Because absorption-costing financial statements lump variable and fixed costs together, they can't be used for break-even analysis. Generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, require that you use absorption costing in financial statements prepared for outside observers, such as a potential investor in your business or a bank you approach for a loan. The GAAP standard-setters believe that absorption costing better upholds the matching principle, which requires that expenses be reported in the same period as the revenue generated by those expenses. Since fixed manufacturing costs contribute revenue only when manufactured goods are actually sold for revenue, the thinking goes, they shouldn't be expensed until then. GAAP only applies to external statements, though. You can use variable costing on internal documents. Maintaining two sets of records may add to your accounting costs, if your business doesn't handle accounting in-house, but it's not as difficult as trying to derive absorption-costing statements from those based on variable costing, or vice versa. The extra cost, if any, may be well worth the benefits to a smaller manufacturer. Merritt, Cam. "The Pros & Cons of Variable Costing Accounting." Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/pros-cons-variable-costing-accounting-43136.html. Accessed 25 April 2019.

AMES, Iowa - Violent crime rates are taking a nosedive across the nation, according to a data from the FBI, and Ames is one city topping the list. Data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Report analyzed by 24/7 Wall St. shows violent crime fell to 355.5 incidents per 100,000 residents - the lowest it's been in decades. Violent crime peaked in the 1990s, but has steadily declined over the past 20 years. The data analyzed looks at a five-year span, from 2010 to 2014, and ranks Dubuque and Ames as the #1 and #2 cities in the U.S. where crime has plummeted the most. In Dubuque, the five-year decrease in violent crime is 58 percent; Ames boasts a 56 percent drop in violent crime over that same five-year period. Officials with the Ames Police Department say having a low violent crime rate has helped officers focus energy on proactive measures to keep it that way. "One of the tenants we have here at the police department is problem solving and relationship building," said Commander Jason Tuttle with Ames PD. "And so, when we can do that, and we have the time to do that, we can get into the neighborhoods, work with some of the community leaders, work with some of the neighborhood association leaders on trying to solve specific problems in our neighborhoods. And when we do that, we're working side by side with them to work through those issues, rather than policing over them and having more of a confrontational relationship with those citizens." There was only one homicide reported in Ames in the five-year span of the study, with zero homicides from 2012-2014. Police say the study doesn't include 2015 data, where the city had just one homicide - classified as "justifiable" due to self-defense. "I've lived here for 30 years in the same neighborhood, and generally I would say I've never had the perception that violent crime was ever a problem," said Debbie Lee, leader of the Oak to Riverside Neighborhood Association in Ames. Lee credits the police department for being proactive, by forming close relationships with the city's neighborhood associations. "Progress doesn't happen in a vacuum, and I would really credit - Ames has been fortunate to have an exceptional police chief who has been willing to be creative and try different approaches," Lee said. Those different approaches include training landlords to keep crime out of their apartments, meeting with students every fall at Iowa State University, and providing resource officers to neighborhoods. "I credit this very much to the leadership in the police department, that has - on the area of violent crime, on the area of mental health, on the area of alcohol abuse, on the areas of racial relations - been working very hard on being a proactive rather than a reactive situation," said Ames Mayor Ann Campbell. Comm. Tuttle says it's a cycle: if you have a low violent crime rate, you can focus your energy on preventative measures to keep it that way. "We don't pay a great amount of attention to these reports because we're working daily to build those relationships, and educate people in our community on how to have those safe neighborhoods," he said. While violent crime is down in Ames - and especially in the category of homicides - it should be noted Ames' sexual assault rate was higher in the study's span than the national average. Ames officials note, however, the rate over the five-year span of the study is lower than it was for the city in the late 2000s.

CHERKESSK, Russia -- Karachais in Russia's North Caucasus region of Karachayevo-Cherkesia have marked the 74th anniversary of their mass deportation to Central Asia by Soviet leader Josef Stalin. Prayers in the region's mosques on November 2 were dedicated to those who died during the Karachais' deportation to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan between 1943 and 1957. Karachayevo-Cherkesia's leader Rashid Temrezov, Prime Minister Aslan Ozov, and parliament speaker Aleksandr Ivanov, issued a joint statement on November 2, calling on all ethnic groups in the region "to do everything in our power not to allow the horrors of repressions anymore." Karachais are a small, Turkic-speaking and predominantly Muslim ethnic group. They were the first ethnic group in the North Caucasus deported by Stalin's government in the 1940s. Between November 2 and November 5, 1944, some 70,000 Karachais were deported in cattle train cars to Central Asia by Moscow, which accused them of collaborating with Nazi Germany. According to unofficial estimates, about a quarter of those deported perished during the journey. Those who survived deportation were allowed to return back to the North Caucasus in 1957.