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TRAVELLERS seized a new Ocado warehouse and lived the high life for 24 hours — until riot cops stormed the building. More than a dozen caravans were driven into the £250million depot, which delivers Waitrose and own-brand treats. The trespassers ordered contractors to leave, padlocked themselves in and turned away scores of staff arriving for work yesterday. Inside the travellers enjoyed the rich pickings from the shelves in the 500,000sq ft warehouse. Witnesses said cops who tried to speak to them were told to “f*** off”. A police helicopter circled above the warehouse during the stand-off, which lasted nearly 24 hours. It ended when riot cops raided the site last night. They used bolt cutters to get in before ordering dozens of men, women and kids to leave. Officers with riot shields slammed one man to the ground after he allegedly picked up a chain. A witness said: “The travellers got in on Tuesday night by using a van to pull away a giant boulder that was blocking the warehouse entrance. “Once past the first perimeter they used bolt cutters to break into another fence. They helped themselves to towels, food and drink, and showers. Ocado’s depot in Dartford, Kent, will service what is dubbed the biggest online grocery store in the world. Hundreds of thousands of orders will be processed there when it opens in the near future. The firm did not comment on the invasion.

Two slaughtermen have been sacked after an undercover investigation exposed shocking cruelty to horses at an abattoir. The disturbing video shows them being beaten with metal poles and illegally stunned in groups of up to three at a time before being killed. In one horrifying moment a stunned horse appears to regain consciousness, only to find itself hanging upside down and about to have its throat cut. The footage was captured at the Red Lion Abattoir, near Nantwich, Cheshire, after an eight-week investigation by animal welfare group Hillside. They also saw horses which appeared to be sick or injured and hadn't been immediately put down. 'It's unbelievably depressing there. They shouldn't be stunned or shot in front of each other like that. The scandal emerged as several British supermarkets have been exposed as selling frozen beef burgers which contain horse meat. The alert was first raised by Irish food watchdogs after horse DNA was found in burgers sold through Tesco, Iceland, Aldi, Lidl and Dunnes in Ireland. It subsequently emerged that burgers from the same batches were sold in the British outlets of both Tesco and Iceland. Incredibly, the beef content in one Everyday Value burger sold by Tesco was actually 29 per cent horse meat. The horses at the Red Lion Abattoir are believed to be butchered for European food markets. Under the Welfare of Animals Act 1995, horses cannot be slaughtered in sight of another horse as it causes severe distress to the animal. The footage, which has been uploaded to YouTube, shows three horses crammed into a tiny pen before being stunned. The Food Standards Agency told the Daily Mirror it has revoked the licences of two slaughtermen after a probe into the video. FSA head of approvals Craig Kirby said: 'As soon as we got the footage and reviewed it we took immediate action to revoke the slaughtermen's licences. The Red Lion Abattoir told Sky News it views animal welfare and public health with paramount importance. It said the incidents were 'not the norm, but of an isolated nature' and they have taken disciplinary action against the individual featured. The statement continued: 'I agree horses should individually enter the stunning area and most certainly not three at a time. 'However, small horses and ponies having spent years together as companions are difficult to separate. Horse lovers would understand that. An RSPCA spokesperson said the organisation is viewing the footage and will decide whether to prosecute. In a statement it said: 'The footage is shocking and upsetting to watch. With the Welfare of Animals (Slaughter or Killing) Regulations 1995 in mind, we have concerns that horses appear to be in the stunning pen at the same time rather than individually as the law requires. Former government chief veterinary officer Keith Meldrum, who viewed the footage, has told Sky News he was shocked by the 'appalling' breaches of animal welfare. 'We see three animals stunned at the same time and it is totally illegal and contrary to welfare slaughter regulations,' he said. Roly Owers, chief executive of World Horse Welfare, said: 'The breaches, from what we've seen, are throughout; from the care of the animals to the slaughter process.

When I started out in real estate, I had big dreams — fancy cars, slick suits, velvety leather briefcases brimming with new listings — but I had no clear idea of how to get from li’l ol’ me, to power broker. Some subscribed to a virtual assistant program online. Others created “teams.” And some hired transaction coordinators and marketing assistants ad hoc.

ADOTAS — Internet Week will bring the Internet to life across New York City during Internet Week New York 2014 from May 19-25. The weeklong festival is expected to draw more than 45,000 people to over 250 events taking place both citywide and at the Internet Week New York HQ, the nerve center of the festival at Chelsea’s Metropolitan Pavilion, where speakers like New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Spike Lee, Zipcar’s Robin Chase, BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti, Upworthy’s Peter Koechley, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley and Orange is the New Black’s Piper Kerman will take to the stage. Passes to the Internet Week New York HQ can be purchased at http://www.internetweekny.com/orders. To stay on top of all the action leading up to and during #IWNY, follow our live Twitter feed.

Canada, the United States, Britain, France and Germany pledged Thursday to work to disrupt "the hostile activities of foreign intelligence networks" and called on Russia to disclose its nerve agent program. In a joint statement, the other four countries said they backed Britain's assessment that Russian officers were behind an attack on a former Russian spy and his daughter using the nerve agent Novichok after London charged two Russians in absentia. "We have full confidence in the British assessment that the two suspects were officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU, and that this operation was almost certainly approved at a senior government level," the statement said, adding that the countries urged Russia to provide "full disclosure of its Novichok program." The countries also said they welcomed the attempted murder charges brought yesterday against two suspects. On Thursday, British UN Ambassador Karen Pierce briefed the 15-member United Nations Security Council on the latest developments in the case of the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. She said there was clear evidence of Russian state involvement. Nikki Haley, the American ambassador to the UN, said the United States stands shoulder to shoulder with its ally and accepts its findings in this case. The Trump administration official then urged the Russian government to turn over these alleged "murderers," who are said to have used a military-grade nerve agent to carry out the attack. "While this incident was in Salisbury, who is to say it couldn't have happened in Paris or Amsterdam or Addis?" Haley said. "We must now help our British friends find the two Russian suspects they have identified and bring them to face justice in the United Kingdom. Better yet, why doesn't the Russian government turn these two murderers over to British authorities?" Haley praised the work of British authorities who identified the two Russian intelligence agents said to be behind the attack, calling it "a master class" on how to conduct an investigation. Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council that inconsistencies in the British evidence were "off the charts" and London was only interested in "unleashing a disgusting anti-Russia hysteria."

Gartner analysts caution that "75 percent of enterprises that do not perform a pre-implementation analysis of their IP network infrastructure will not achieve a successful VoIP implementation." Transitioning physically separate voice and data networks onto a single shared infrastructure without compromising the quality of either voice traffic or data traffic will require new practices and procedures. Remote Performance Management Solutions play a central role in successful network assessment. The cloud is growing and as a result businesses are becoming increasingly dependent on cloud-based technologies to run their businesses. One example revolves around VoIP technology. Many business owners are attracted to VoIP because of its cost savings and applications that drive employee productivity; however some business owners hesitate because they are concerned about sacrificing call quality. This often occurs when companies conduct business with a technology provider that does not have the proper technical expertise or the tools to successfully deploy IP based solutions. Advanced Remote Performance Management Software pinpoints network drains, all the way down to the appliance. The tool provides valuable insight that can determine which appliance, such as a PC, within an organization is hoarding bandwidth causing poor voice or video quality. In order to keep up with the rapid pace of technology, data networks will need to become much stronger, faster, flexible and transparent. The success of a business's operations will be strongly correlated to network performance and Remote Performance Management Solutions allow businesses to diagnose network issues and resolve problems immediately. Data networks are the lifeblood of business operations and companies like Voice Smart Networks are proactively protecting their customers, increasing their profitability and providing them with a competitive advantage.

Wolters Kluwer’s compliant document solutions enable it to generate, print, fulfill and deliver compliant dynamic content. By using dynamic content, Wolters Kluwer can assist in reducing the number of “customized” documents historically used by servicers to meet state-specific regulatory guidelines. With each new rule that’s released by regulators, banks face an additional set of compliance challenges that must be met or else, and a new survey from Wolters Kluwer Financial Services shows just how concerned banks are by those new compliance challenges. Maybe a rate hike isn’t a big deal. Also, there’s something happening with wages that no one is talking about. And the market capacity for housing? We got that covered, too. If you want to know what’s happening in housing and mortgage finance, this is your stop. With the huge adoption of managed IT services (better known as SaaS or cloud services), an SOC 2 audit provides a definitive statement of security assurance. This warrant is exactly the kind of information that financial institutions need when evaluating managed service providers. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services acquired a substantial portion of Austin-based Stormwater Research Group, which provides flood compliance solutions to the mortgage banking industry. Wolters Kluwer will expand its presence in the flood determination aspect of mortgage lending with its acquisition of Stormwater, which provides both basic and life-of-loan flood determination services. In advance of the new requirements added to the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) that take effect January 1, 2010, the Minneapolis-based Wolters Kluwer Financial Services launched its RESPA Tool Kit to help financial institutions understand and implement the changes. The software provides an overview of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) changes, including revisions to the good faith estimate and HUD-1 and HUD-1A documents, as well as settlement cost booklets intended clarify loan terms to consumers. Beginning in August, Wolters Kluwer Financial Services will use several of its technology solutions to test mortgages against the Federal Reserve's new higher-priced mortgage thresholds that will take effect October 1. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services' new Disclosure Manager Solution will enable institutions to comply with the new Truth-in-Lending Act (Regulation Z) through a single, secure, electronic system, the company said today. On May 8, the Federal Reserve Board finalized its early disclosure rules within Regulation Z, which are meant to ensure consumers receive disclosures explaining the cost of a mortgage earlier in the lending process. Wolters Kluwer says its system offers the first complete solution for automating the entire early disclosure process.

The company’s vision is to be the home of leading professional ICT services and to provide our clients with top quality products and services and to be the supplier of the choice in the southern African region and beyond. The company’s continued growth reflects team spirit and the ability to successfully harness key values which drives business forward. Our Firm has an established full range of brands spanning from the renowned Dell, Microsoft packages, Meccer, Acer, Pastel Xpress, Pastel Partner and Pastel Evolution. However, we also have an extensive technical experience in these international brands, having been associated with these brands on a long standing sound in the ICT industry. Our outfit is a household of massive brands and has confidently captured a significant portion of the local and regional IT market, where we have a presence. However, the strength of the company comes from its commitment to provide our clients with high uncompromised quality products at very competitive prices and we also ensure customer satisfaction at best levels, which is enhanced by our genuine brands in stock.

Luther Vandross once said that anybody can make people scream, but you’ve got to be great to make people be quiet. For a long time, the only person who could make me scream and then make me be quiet was my grandmother holding a belt. But three years ago, I saw Kevin Hart at his sold-out show at Madison Square Garden—not an announced sold-out, a real sold-out, with bikes in the aisles and people on the handlebars. And Kevin did what only a really great comedian can do. He made Madison Square Garden feel like a small comedy club. When he wanted them to, he had the audience screaming. And when he wanted them to pay attention, they were quieter than a football player at a murder trial. Right now, Kev is the biggest stand-up comedian in the country. I don’t even think there’s a No. 2, to be honest. I wrote, directed and starred in Top Five with Kevin Hart. And I made sure Kevin was in every ad. I put emails from Kevin in my movie. I shouldn’t have even called it Top Five; I should’ve called it Kevin Hart Presents Chris Rock’s “Top Five With Kevin Hart.” Hillary should announce Kevin as her running mate and be done with it. After he makes you laugh for an hour, you feel like you’re his friend—you feel his joy and his pain. If he has asthma, you have asthma. That’s because Kevin’s vulnerable. When he’s talking about his kids, his kids know more than him. He’s not afraid to be “father knows less.” That makes him a new kind of cool. Not a keep-a-distance-from-the-audience kind of cool, but a lovable, show-your-warts kind of cool. In Kevin’s comedy, there’s the minute observations of Jerry Seinfeld, the family-oriented storytelling of Bill Cosby and the open-wound honesty of Richard Pryor. But mostly there’s a lot of Kevin Hart. I recently told Jerry, “Kevin’s at the big-boy table now, and nobody’s telling him to go away.” But we all agree he should pick up the check.

West Coast rapper Tyga is keeping his 2018 momentum going into the new year. The hip-hop star has come through with his new “Floss In The Bank” music video. Next ArticlePost Malone Wants R. Kelly’s Music Pulled, Travis Scott Pressured To Kneel At Super Bowl LIII, Kim Kardashian Chooses Between Taylor Swift & Drake?

Local artist, Kedgar Volta, will present ǝɯ embellished tonight, Wednesday, October 3, at downtown’s Hispanic Art Walk from 5:00 – 9:00 p.m. on the corner of West Monroe and North Laura Streets, across from the Jacksonville Public Library (333 North Laura Street). ǝɯ embellished is a public art project that challenges viewers to examine how self-perception aligns with public perception when we abandon our usual appearances. Volta spent the last several months shooting peoples’ portraits at places like the Burro Bar, Riverside Arts Market and Art Walk. The subjects willingly abandoned their usual appearance in favor of poses that emphasize the strange and uncomfortable. Volta captured more than 600 photos and will reveal 300 of them as part of tonight’s exhibit. Each photo is 18”x18” and all 300 are mounted together and will cover the outside of the Magnificat Café. This public art project should garner plenty of curious onlookers and will serve as one of the focal points of tonight’s Hispanic Art Walk. You can find more event information on Volta's ǝɯ embellished facebook page.

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (CBS/WJTV/AP) Three members of the University of Southern Mississippi football team who were shot during an altercation at an off-campus nightclub early Sunday morning reportedly apologized to their coach for "letting the team down." Linebackers Martez Smith, 22, and Tim Green, 21, and defensive lineman Deddrick Jones, 23, were shot around 1:30 a.m. Sunday after a fight broke out in Remington's Hunt Club and spilled into the club's parking lot, according to Hattiesburg police. Southern Mississippi coach Larry Fedora declined to discuss details Monday after visiting with the players who all remain hospitalized in fair condition. Smith and Jones apparently spoke to Fedora, but the coach says Green wrote his message because he was unable to speak due to his injuries. No arrests have been made and police have not released any possible suspects; however, Hattiesburg police spokesman Sgt. Allen Murray said the shooting was possibly gang related. "We will do all we can to assist these young men and their families, as well as assist the Hattiesburg Police Department in its investigation of this event," said University of Southern Mississippi President Martha Saunders, according to CBS affiliate WJTV. Smith, a fifth-year senior interdisciplinary studies major, was the team's starting middle linebacker before a season-ending knee injury last month. Jones, a junior from Bastrop, La., has started all 10 games on the defensive line, making 26 tackles this season. Green has made four tackles in the seven games he has played this season and he too is a junior interdisciplinary studies major. "During this difficult time our thoughts and prayers are with these three members of our Southern Miss family, Martez, Tim and Deddrick, as well as their families," Fedora said in a statement released by the school. "These three men are an integral part of the success of our football program and we will continue to keep them in our hearts and hope for a speedy recovery." Individuals with information are asked to call Crime Stoppers at 601.582.STOP or 601.582.7867. All information given to Crime Stoppers is confidential.

Litecoin reached a new record today, extending its recent gains and increasing its year-to-date (YTD) returns to more than 4,000%. The digital currency, which is a fork of digital sibling Bitcoin, rose to as much as $186.89, according to CoinMarketCap. After starting out 2017 at $4.33, this latest high represented a YTD return of roughly 4,215%. While Bitcoin has had a great year, breaking through several price levels and enjoying a meteoric rise, Litecoin has experienced an even stronger rally. Bitcoin has risen to as much as $17,364.56 on the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI), representing a YTD gain of more than 1,600%. The digital currency has climbed even more by some measures, surpassing $18,300 on CoinMarketCap and rising more than 1,800% for the year. While these figures are impressive, generating countless headlines about Bitcoin's sharp climb and all the so-called "Bitcoin Millionaires" it has produced, Litecoin's YTD gain is more than twice that of its digital sibling. Bitcoin and Litecoin have both pushed higher this year, but this is certainly not he first time that the price of the two cryptocurrencies have risen in tandem. Earlier this year, a CoinDesk article described Bitcoin and Litecoin as "birds of a feather," emphasizing that the two have frequently followed each other in their price movements. This development has led some to speculate that Litecoin is simply riding Bitcoin's coattails. Tim Enneking, managing director of Crypto Asset Management, recently stated that the former currency is "absolutely cruising in BTC’s wake!" He emphasized that while Bitcoin has been generating headlines, Litecoin has not announced any major updates as of late. While the aforementioned explanations may provide a better sense of why both Bitcoin and Litecoin have pushed higher this year, certain analysts have started offering different points of view. Some of them have asserted that Litecoin is a "Bitcoin hedge," as the latter currency's network is dealing with a high level of unconfirmed transactions. Mati Greenspan, senior market analyst for eToro, was in this camp. "Litecoin is more scalable by nature and with bitcoins mempool currently flooded with unconfirmed transactions Litecoin is looking much better than BTC as a medium of exchange," he said. Charles Hayter, co-founder and CEO of digital currency platform CryptoCompare, also agreed that Litecoin is a Bitcoin hedge, stating that while the two are very similar, the altcoin has greater upside potential and less downside risk. Other market observers took a different tack, describing Litecoin as an investment that has been receiving tailwinds as market participants flock to cryptocurrencies. "All the attention paid to bitcoin in the past few weeks has served as a rising tide for all cryptocurrencies," he said. "But with bitcoin overbought at the moment and Ethereum relatively flat, they're turning to Litecoin -- a grande dame crypto with reliable underpinnings and enough similarities to bitcoin that they're comfortable buying." "We're going to see a lot of value flow into alt-coins driven by portfolio diversification and realization of gains," he stated. "In a speculative market, with new non-savvy entrants, the alt-coins that will do the best are the ones with highest accessibility. With LTC being provided across the main exchanges - i.e. is highly accessible to the average investor, it is no surprise to see a large chunk of the Bitcoin to Altcoin flow towards LTC."

SPRINGERVILLE, Ariz. (AP) - Authorities say four more wild horses have been found dead in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in eastern Arizona. Forest officials said Monday that the latest dead horses were discovered last Thursday inside the Heber Wild Horse Territory. They say that brings the number of deceased wild horses found since October to 16 in the forest’s Black Mesa Ranger District. Of that total, authorities say 10 horses had evidence of gunshot wounds. Five were severely decomposed and their causes of death remain undetermined while one other horse died of blunt-force trauma typically associated with a motor vehicle collision.

A month on from Tripoli’s fall to rebel forces, the leaders of France and Britain are traveling to the city in a show of support for the regime their warplanes helped put in power, while those who backed Colonel Gaddafi remain defiant but fearful. ­On the eve of the visit of French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British PM David Cameron, the head of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, has asked for more weapons to fight pockets of Colonel Gaddafi's loyalists and remove them from their remaining strongholds. The rebel government thinks the ousted dictator is hiding in southern Libya and planning a fight-back. However, the new authority is asserting an increasing level of control over the country. For some, that is cause for celebration – but many others are reserved in their optimism. In parts of Tripoli it feels as if the rebels’ triumphant campaign never happened, or did so elsewhere, in some parallel version of the Libyan capital. “We will do anything for Muammar, only Muammar! Even if we give our life for that!” claims one street vendor, while hiding her face from RT’s camera. And it was the same story with others who fervently support the ousted Libyan leader. Those calling themselves rebels are once again celebrating on Martyrs’ Square in downtown Tripoli. This time, they are welcoming Libya’s new government to the capital. The head of the National Transitional Council, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, spoke before large crowds, leaving Libyans in no doubt about who is now in charge. But while the NTC leader was giving his speech, most of Tripoli’s population preferred to stay close to their businesses and homes. Those who do not support Mustafa Abdul Jalil and could be seen all across the city proudly waving green flags just weeks ago backing Gaddafi, are now reluctant to leave their own backyards. “They are afraid because if they go out they will die instantly because there are many people with weapons and guns,” one man, who was afraid to speak on camera, told RT. With Gaddafi effectively gone, the new authorities have settled down here in the capital, Tripoli. People are chanting that Libya is now a new free country. But it seems there is at least one thing that still remains – fear. The 19-year-old says many of his friends have been arrested recently for making statements critical of the new regime. Ironically, we were talking just a kilometer away from one of Gaddafi’s top secret jails for political prisoners known as Abu Sleem. “The rebels, they only represent themselves – not the Libyan people. This revolution started with killings to intimidate through fear. Their hands are all covered in blood,” Ahmed said. Amnesty International has recently accused both Gaddafi's regime and the one which replaced it of committing war crimes, including killings and torture of soldiers, prisoners and civilians. Here in the Libyan capital, there is widespread fear that more is in store.

My research aims to improve our understanding of how cells with the same genome can develop dramatically different behaviors. For example, consider the mechanical abilities of a muscle cell compared to the electrical excitability of a neuron, or the industrious activity of bone building cells in a youthful person compared to an elderly one. Each of these cells, (if taken from the same individual) has an identical genome — and yet each is “reading” a very distinct subset of that genome and consequently carrying out very different behaviors. The choice of what to read and what to hide away is made during development. An increasing body of data suggests this is accomplished by modifying the genome both in the nature of the proteins bound to different sequences and in the spatial organization of those sequences relative to each other. The spatial organization or folding of the genome may be particularly important in complex multicellular organisms, since many of the sequences known to interact based on genetic data are nonetheless substantially separated from each other along the linear genome. By regulating the folding of this linear sequence into a higher order structure, a cell might change which regulatory sequences have access to which genes, and achieve different behavioral states. So far we have little imaging data on how the genome is folded within a cell on the length scale of individual genes, or whether this folding is regulated in any way relevant to the behavior of the cell. Our limited knowledge stems largely from want of a method that has both the resolution and specificity to visualize such genomic substructure. Conventional fluorescent microscopy has developed excellent tools for coloring specific regions of DNA and particular DNA-associated proteins with uniquely colored dyes — but lacks the resolution to turn these colored blurs into structures. Electron-microscopy has substantially greater resolution but lacks compatibility with specific labeling techniques to tell different gene clusters or different protein types apart. Super-resolution imaging approaches promise to address this balance by allowing the use of fluorescent labels while simultaneously resolving structures on the nano-scale. I have been adapting this approach to uncover the nano-scale structure of chromatin and determine to how this structure changes when bound by different types of nuclear proteins. While individual gene clusters appear as quite diverse structures, there appear to be a few general features, for example, linking structure with the epigenetic state. OligoSTORM and OligoDNA-PAINT meld the Oligopaint technology for fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) with, respectively, Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM) and DNA-based Point Accumulation for Imaging in Nanoscale Topography (DNA-PAINT) to enable in situ single-molecule super-resolution imaging of nucleic acids. Both strategies enable ≤20 nm resolution and are appropriate for imaging nanoscale features of the genomes of a wide range of species, including human, mouse, and fruit fly (Drosophila).

This week in viral videos, a baby hedgehog sneezes its way into our hearts, Simn Zebo does his best John McClane impression and a man attempts to jump in the world’s grimmest swimming pool. Ah here, this is more cuteness than one person can handle. With the help of Wildlife Aid, three hedgehog hoglets were rescued just 24 hours after their mother had abandoned them. Obviously a little cold and frightened, the three little creatures were brought back to full health and now appear to be getting used to their new comfy surroundings. Being told apart by dabbing nail polish on their spines, the three then break the cute barrier by sneezing. Not much else to say really, just look at them! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the world of modern American politics. Republican presidential hopeful Senator Lindsey Graham doesn’t really want you to concern yourself with public policy decisions. Rather, for some reason, he’d have you more concerned with throwing in a dig at other hopeful and toupéd billionaire Donald Trump all while breaking old mobile phones. It literally offers nothing else, but it’s proving pretty popular online so if you like seeing a middle-aged, powerful white guy getting his teenage angst on, then look no further. Couldn’t agree more with the title of this video, frankly. I’m not sure where exactly it is but it’s hard to imagine a more grim-looking backyard pool. As always with fail videos, however, it has the gradual, slow build-up that all people love as he wets his feet (?) prior to his dive attempt and bigging himself up to the guy filming him. So take note kids, an actual diving board is much better to use than a flimsy plastic chair. Eating a hot dog at a baseball game is as American as you get, that is, unless you aren’t really watching the game are failing at eating said hot dog. This was the case for one kid at a baseball game who was caught on camera failing miserably at eating an adult-sized hot dog. Either way, watching a kid fail at eating a hot dog at a baseball game is arguably more entertaining than actually watching a baseball game. Watch out for his killer ‘five second rule’ skills. Yo dawg, we hear you like rescuing drones so we got a drone to rescue your drone so you can have two drones. This meme reference was brought you with the help of Harrisen Howes who as a drone pilot foolishly let one of his drunk friends fly one of his aircraft, who then ended up crashing it on a neighbour’s roof. And this begins the most dramatic drone rescue of all time (probably) recruiting a bigger DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone to rescue the original Syma X5C, all to the music of soundtrack legend Hans Zimmer. Fly drone, you’re free now! This week in ‘when animals make weird noises we weren’t expecting’, a deer in Japan surprises American tourists with a weird noise we weren’t expecting. It sort of sounds like a curious fart noise, only for it to be followed up by some satanic scream that probably says something if you played it backwards. Honestly, the people’s reactions to the deer is probably the best bit of the video, they really find it hilarious and I don’t blame them. Seagulls. No one likes them and anyone who does must have a psychotic streak that enjoys seeing the scourge of skies rule our lives during the summer months. Well for one man and golfer, he’s beginning (entirely by accident) a one-man crusade to end their dominance over the world, one golf swing at a time. And all it took was one really, really bad golf swing off the tee. “Yeah, he killed a bird”, says one man behind the golfer who is truly the most observant type. We don’t know if the bird is actually dead, but we can be rest assured there’s at least five to take its place. In an orchestra, the sousaphone can add much needed oomph to the tinnier sound of the violin, but on its own, it becomes an instrument of hilarity. In this case, a KKK rally in the US was thankfully interrupted by one anti-KKK protestor who brought their sousaphone, giving them some hilarious marching music. The KKK crowd don’t react, thankfully, but are clearly miffed by the send-off. Oh well. Kudos Elvery Sports, you’ve done good here. In its bid to sell more jerseys it’s done some competition or whatnot, but to promote it it has hired Irish rugby star Simon Zebo to take on the role of John McClane from Die Hard in Try Hard. Adding a massive wedge of Irishness, Zebo fights off comedian Patrick McDonnell who plays the Hans Gruber role. Well, aside from Patrick actually, it’s mostly filled with some rather entertaining acting from non-actors, which is usually worth a good laugh, and it’s worth giving a watch.

Fish oil. Protein shakes. Vitamin D pills. The packages look alike. Does it matter which you buy? It certainly does, according to Labdoor, a four-year-old, South San Francisco-based startup that tests about 50 supplements and energy drinks each month that it buys off retail shelves, then ranks for consumers. What it finds might intrigue you. Vitamin C degrades in water, for example, so any water-based Vitamin C tablets are basically worthless. More than a quarter of fish oil products are rancid on the shelves, even when their expiration date may be two years out. Many protein powders don’t live up to their claims, either. Some are largely composed of amino acids rather than the 100 percent whey protein isolate advertised on the label. Others contain so much sodium that consumers confuse bloating for muscle mass. Why are these things allowed? FDA loopholes, says Labdoor founder and CEO Neil Thanedar, who says that in the case of protein powders, for example, manufacturers need only test the nitrogen content of their product. And to a nitrogen test, amino acids and why protein isolate look the same. Thanedar, who studied chemistry and molecular biology at the University of Michigan, seems almost destined to be taking on the $36 billion-dollar-per-year supplements industry. He says his father, Shri, ran testing labs his entire life, and he was intrigued from a young age in the science behind the labs. In fact, though his father had retired by the time Thanedar was graduating from college, he pulled him back into the business. “I decided I wanted to start a lab instead of get a job, so I kind of wrangled him in and we ran it together for three years and now he runs that lab independently” in Michigan, says Thanedar. While lucrative, Thanedar saw an opportunity to cater to customers and let them know what, exactly, it is that they’re ingesting. What they see is a big opportunity beyond affiliate marketing, which is how Labdoor has been making money until recently. Now, in addition to sending visitors to Amazon to buy that top-rated multivitamin (and sending Amazon a healthy percentage of its revenue), Labdoor has begun experimenting with direct sales, fulfilling orders itself or else sending them directly to the products’ manufacturers, which it aims to do more of. “Part of the issue is routine quality control. We want to make sure your fish oil is fresh,” Thanedar says. It also wants to start testing — and directly selling — cosmetics, personal care products like sunscreens, and baby food — “anything that people buy based on brand loyalty versus the actual content of the products,” says Thanedar. Like Amazon itself, it wants you to start buying these things on a subscription basis, too. That shouldn’t be as hard as it sounds. The company is already operating out of a 9,000-square-foot warehouse and plans to carve out 2,000 square feet for its tests. It also wants to get to 30 employees, the number of people who Thanedar projects the company will need to begin testing up to 100 different products each month. Not last, Labdoor is aiming to bolster its users, including, largely through SEO and by creating more original content. Thanedar says that roughly five million people have visited the site to date to either research a product or buy it directly, producing around $1 million in revenue so far in this year. If he has his way, that number should be increasingly dramatically soon, too.

Colombian Vice President Angelino Garzon said Monday that the government will not allow regional body UNASUR to mediate in the conflict with the FARC, as the guerrilla group proposed. Garzon said that the Colombian government prefers to negotiate directly with the FARC. He added that for the government to consider a dialogue, the FARC must demonstrate that they are willing to seek peace. “What the Colombian government demands of the guerrilla is that they free all the hostages without condition, that they cease the activity of kidnapping, and that of planting land mines, and they cease the recruitment of children, which is a modern expression of slavery. Moreover they must be able to demonstrate to the Colombian public that violence is senseless,” Garzon said. The vice president’s comments follow a request by the FARC to discuss its perspective on the Colombian conflict at a UNASUR meeting.

A SENIOR sales manager at Coventry Building Society has been appointed as president of Coventry and Warwickshire Local Centre for the Chartered Institute of Bankers. Nick Wood, pictured right, who has served on the committee since 1999 as treasurer, and as vice president for the past year, succeeds Julian Atkins, left, in the post. Mr Wood has worked for the Coventry since 1991, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers and holds an MBA from Henley management college. He said: "I am delighted to be taking over this role in an organisation which plays a key part in the professional education and career development of local financial services employees. "It is an honour to be taking on the position of president and I look forward to supporting the Local Centre in its range of activities."

From left to right Emma Hunt, Kai Wilcox, Rosemary Rianosheck and Kate Hranko holds hands in a moment of silence after the names of the victims of the Parkland school shooting were read out during an anti-gun violence march in front of the Boulder County Courthouse on Friday. Students from Monarch, Shining Mountain, Watershed and New Vista participated in the march. Sylas Fox of Monarch High leads a portion of the anti-gun violence march on the Pearl Street Mall on Friday. From left to right, Sam Andrews, Dani Cooke, Kate Hranko and Althea Wilson chant slogans during an anti-gun violence march in Boulder on Friday, April 20, 2018. Students from Shining Mountain, Monarch and the Watershed School marched to the Boulder County Courthouse. Dozens of students in Boulder-area schools walked out Friday, while most in the state stayed in class or participated in low-key, meaningful activities to mark the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. Instead of leaving classes during a national protest against gun violence, students at Columbine spent Friday doing community service work. The school has traditionally closed its doors on April 20, the day two students with firearms in 1999 walked inside and killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves. About 500 students and activists rallied Thursday night near Columbine High, calling for tougher laws to end gun violence. The event marked the start of the Vote for Our Lives movement, which is pushing teens and 20-somethings to register and vote for candidates who back stricter gun-control measures. Among those at Thursday night’s rally were students who survived the Feb. 14 massacre that left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. That shooting began a national student movement aimed at ending gun violence and tightening restrictions on guns. Students from more than 2,700 schools and institutions across the country left their classes at 10 a.m. in each time zone Friday to remember the Columbine massacre. After walking out of class and observing a 13-second moment of silence for gun-violence victims, students lobbied to register voters and marched to the offices of local legislatures. Some Denver Public Schools high schoolers had discussed a walkout and march to the state Capitol to mirror similar protests across the country, but that did not materialize, said district spokesman Will Jones. Instead, students at Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy in Denver took part in a “Peace Walk” in Harvey Park, adjacent to the school, while a variety of on-campus activities were put on at the Denver School of the Arts. Students from four high schools walked out of class in Boulder and marched to the Boulder County Courthouse, where they chanted: “Hey, hey, ho, ho! The NRA has got to go!” Watershed Waldorf School Junior Dani Cooke said the demonstrators were hoping to combat complacency about gun violence. “In a place like Boulder, there are a lot of people who don’t recognize oppression or issues of social justice, like gun violence, because they haven’t directly touched our community as much as they have others,” Cooke told the Daily Camera. Dudley Brown, the president of the Loveland-based National Association for Gun Rights, said the protesting students are seeking to destroy Second Amendment rights to bear arms. Organizers said an estimated 150,000 students protested Friday across the nation, including at least one school in each state, as they sought to sustain a wave of youth activism that had driven a larger round of walkouts March 14. Activists behind the earlier protest estimated it drew nearly 1 million students. In many cities, it was common to see crowds of students clad in orange — the color used by hunters to signal “Don’t shoot” — rallying outside their schools and at public parks. The Boulder Daily Camera and Associated Press contributed to this report.

RISK: Taking out a roof warranty is essentially another form of insurance paid for at the time of installation. Keeping and maintaining a roof is essential to the structure of any building. Having a roof warranty can help with keeping peace of mind. The Bermuda Sun spoke to Kaissa managing director Charles Dunstan about what a roof warranty entails. What is a roof warranty? As with certain other elements of construction, a roofing system is deemed of such critical importance to the long-term life cycle of a building that it requires extra assurance of correct construction and installation. Ordinarily, this risk is assumed by the building insurer but, more and more, the installer and the roofing system manufacturer are taking on this risk as a sign of their commitment to excellence in the design, manufacture and execution of the roof system installation. Essentially, a warranty is another form of insurance, the cost of which is paid for at the time of installation. Manufacturers pass this risk on to their insurers. For this reason, it is insurance companies that have driven the industry forward in improved specifications and quality control. Factory Mutual Insurance is one such leader in property insurance. FM’s business approach is centered on the belief that property losses can be prevented or mitigated. FM Global engineering personnel regularly visit insured locations to evaluate hazards and recommend improvements to their property or work practices to reduce physical and financial risks if a loss occurs. They have taken the initiative in testing and approval of a wide range of building elements, including in depth testing of roof systems. In North America, their Roofnav system is a recognized source for approved roof system ratings. Similarly, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issue standards for engineering performance for various building elements, such as roofs. These are published for use by architects and specifiers in design of the appropriate roof for a property development. What types of roof warranties are available? They can also vary in coverage. Some are simply material warranties, covering only the material to last for its stated life cycle or at least warranty period. Some are labour warranties, backing up the installation for a stated period of time, usually no more than five years. Or there are full system warranties, which cover both material and installation for a stated period. What doesn’t a warranty cover? In a material only warranty, the installation labour is excluded. If the roof material fails, the owners recourse is limited to replacement of the cost of material only. In a labour warranty, the material cost may be excluded. A full system warranty may have various limits declared within its terms that the consumer should examine and be aware of. For example, each roof project should have performance requirements outlined in the specification documents that are tied to one of the rating systems mentioned above, such as FM or ASCE. There will be certain parameters on the performance of the roof pertaining to wind uplift, vapour permeance and thermal resistance. These performance requirements have to be clearly identified and quantified at the outset in order to qualify for coverage. There are limits on all elements of risk. Wind uplift coverage will be limited to 120mph of wind speed. Warranty coverage will exclude damage from wind blown debris. At one time exclusions often made reference to the general phrase “Acts of God”. Lately this generality has been replaced by more specific terms and requirements, as the insurers tighten up their risk exposure. Why are roof warranties important? Following significant storm damages, much investigation and research goes into determining what factors led to the demise of a failed roof system. From this research, new techniques and standards are created to mitigate the risk of failure in the future. Once a manufacturer knows the risk is mitigated, they can offer the assurance of a warranty to ensure the roof system is designed and installed correctly. The existence and the extent of coverage says to the property developer that the roof system has been designed and installed to a standard that the manufacturer and installer will stand behind. What are the benefits of having a roof warranty? The roof warranty can also be useful in indicating maintenance cycles. In the case of a Bermuda ‘K’ Roof system (widely known as the SKB system), the topcoat requires reapplication every five years in order to continue protection for the base assembly. For this reason, the warranty carries a duration of five years, and becomes null and void unless this regular maintenance is undertaken. The warranty term builds in budgeting expectations for the property owner for maintenance and replacement of this major building element. What are some of the issues that can arise with a roof that a warranty will cover? The most vulnerable element of any roof system is the edge termination. FM’s Roofnav rating system will specify details on fastening and adhesion for the perimeter termination of all certified roof systems. In the case of a roof failure, the resulting investigation will usually begin at the perimeter. Unless it can be proven that the perimeter termination was not installed according to the specification, the failure will be covered by the warranty. How do people go about filing a claim in the event of an issue with their roof? Instructions for claims on the warranty will usually be included in the standard terms of the warranty document. The developer should familiarize himself with the document in case he ever needs to activate the terms. Initially, this is no different than filing a claim with any insurer. There will be some burden of proof involved with an ensuing investigation, but this will be borne by the warranty provider. Kaissa Limited is located 117 Front St. They can be contacted on 495-4242.

Pugnacious Promotions Set for Saratoga – July 31. Don’t Miss the Miller Brothers! Off to BWAA Awards Dinner!

Jim Albertini and others will discuss Military Depleted Uranium (DU) radiation contamination at Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) in the center of Hawaii Island. STOP DU RADIATION CONTAMINATION IN HAWAII, IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, ETC. Sponsored by Malu `Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action P.O. Box AB Kurtistown, Hawai`i 96760.

This isn't just a museum; in 2005, the Knesset (Israel's parliament) passed a law declaring Beit Hatfutsot the center for Jewish communities in Israel and around the world. This beautiful facility traces the history of the Jewish people and spotlights the constant evolution of the faith and culture worldwide. Exhibits include artifacts, dioramas and murals. Recent Jewish visitors especially liked tracing their own origins right there at the museum, while non-Jewish visitors found the exhibits educational and engaging. Beit Hatfutsot is located on the Tel Aviv University campus about 5 miles north of the downtown area. You can reach the museum by bus Nos. 7, 25, 45, 94, 137, 222, 270, 271, 274, 289, 572, train, or taxi. Beit Hatfutsot welcomes visitors from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Thursday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Admission to the general exhibits costs 45 Israeli shekels (about $13), but children 4 and younger get in free. Entry to some of the special exhibits will cost extra. To learn more, visit the Beit Hatfutsot website.

It’s believed that over 3,200 Washington state prisoners were released from their sentences early because of a bug which miscalculated time credits for their good behavior. CNN reports that the bug was introduced into computer systems in 2002, when an updated version of court rulings about good beahvior credits were introduced. Apparently three percent of all releases made since then were given too much credit for their good beahvior. Of those released prematurely, the median number of days of extra freedom granted clocked in at 49. Though the BBC claims that one prisoner had his sentence cut by a frankly amazing 600 days. A full fix for the bug is expected to be rolled out by January 7th. For those prisoners released early, it’s not all good news. Officials have said that they will be required to fulfil their sentences, though they will also receive good beahvior credit for the days they’ve spent abiding by the law outside of prison.

Editor's note: Stephen Lemons is a blogger and columnist with Phoenix New Times in Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona (CNN) -- Every movement needs heroes. The fight against discrimination in the state of Arizona just got nine. Sometime before noon Tuesday, nine activists entwined their bodies in a thick steel chain, locking themselves to the doors of the Arizona Capitol in protest against the recently passed Senate Bill 1070, a bill that would open the door to racial profiling in the Grand Canyon state and force all law enforcement officers with "reasonable suspicion" to inquire about the immigration status of those they stop. In a statement, the nine activists said they chained themselves to the doors "because nothing else has worked. ... Our purpose is to expose Arizona's apartheid legislation, and to uphold our dignity and human rights." If the use of the word apartheid seems extreme to the uninitiated, all I can say is that you have to know this bill, and this state, to understand that it is, unfortunately, all too correct. Brewer should veto this dangerous, abhorrent and costly measure. The new legislation, which was written by state Sen. Russell Pearce, resembles the dictates of an authoritarian government. It would presume all those stopped by police to be immigrants unlawfully present in the United States unless they are carrying one of several forms of federal or state ID. Even citizens could be held if they do not have their papers on them. Those here illegally would be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Aliens here legally, who are not in possession of their registration documents, could be fined $500 and jailed for six months. Police agencies that do not enforce federal immigration law "to less than the full extent permitted," according to the bill, could be sued by any legal Arizona resident and fined anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 a day. Although the new law would apply to all residents, in determining "reasonable suspicion" the legislation allows police to take into consideration any two of the following: race, color or national origin. Considering the state's proximity to Mexico, and the fact that nearly one-third of Arizona's population is Hispanic, mass racial profiling will be the inevitable consequence if the governor fails to veto the measure. As the legislation has inched toward becoming law, the outcry against it has become more and more vocal, drawing both the fringes and concerned citizens into a carnival of the enraged and the desperate. The debate has become polarized, with proponents of the legislation calling opponents "open borders anarchists," and critics referring to the other side's partisans as "racists" or "Nazis." On Monday, as the state Senate debated the measure, prayer vigils, hunger strikers and protesters comparing the bill to police state-style roundups competed with Second Amendment enthusiasts toting assault rifles and pistols, all for the attention of the media. For the most part, the pro-firearms people didn't interact with the SB 1070 protesters (gun laws in Arizona allow residents legally to carry their firearms either openly or concealed), but one enraged gun-wearer began shouting, blaming the demonstrators for the death of Rob Krentz, the southern Arizona rancher slain recently, some believe by a drug runner or human smuggler from Mexico. The man was mostly ignored by the anti-SB 1070 crowd. They were intent on a mock funeral of political "courage," complete with coffins, weeping women and a minister with the United Church of Christ, outfitted in a dog collar. But on Tuesday, the chaos was more desperate. Hundreds swarmed the Capitol for a rally urging Brewer to veto the legislation, while the bill's supporters stayed away. Then the nine affixed themselves to the Capitol, which dates back to Arizona's days as a territory. The Capitol Police had to squeeze through the crush of reporters and activists who had crowded near the spectacle, refusing to disperse. The nine, seated, remained quiet. The bolt cutters came out, chains were cut, and the demonstrators were arrested. Later, they were transported to the Fourth Avenue Jail and charged with disorderly conduct. But before they were bused away, something small happened -- not that odd, really, but strangely moving. From inside a room where they had been sequestered to await their lawyers, the nine activists, all Hispanics and 20-somethings, began singing "We Shall Overcome," the anthem of the civil rights movement. As I listened along with other reporters, bystanders, tourists and groups of schoolchildren there to inspect the Capitol, I felt something like hope tinged with defiance, even as SB 1070 sits poised to rend Arizona's social fabric, bringing forth a new order that is odious -- and un-American. Nine brave young men and women just stood in the way of that injustice, in an outcry they hope their nation hears. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Stephen Lemons. Will others follow Arizona's lead on immigration?

NEW YORK — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is asking CNN to donate to veterans the proceeds from advertising sold to air during next week's Republican debate. In a Tuesday letter to the cable news network, the billionaire says he is the reason the network sharply increased its rates ahead of the Sept. 16 debate in Simi Valley, California. Trade publications have reported that CNN is asking for up to $200,000 for a 30-second ad, and that typical rates run as low as $5,000. Trump writes that the spike in viewer interest "is due 100 percent to Donald J. Trump." Trump angered some veterans in July when he mocked Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP's 2008 nominee and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam.

Randy Falco, head of the nation's No. 1 Spanish-language network, set out to more narrowly define Univision's charity work two years ago. In 1988, when Randy Falco's daughter, Jessica, was 2 years old, she was diagnosed with a genetic condition called Marfan syndrome. It's sometimes referred to as "Abraham Lincoln disease" because victims tend to be unusually tall and lanky-limbed, but it can have other, potentially deadly symptoms, including defects of the heart valves and aorta. "She went though many surgeries and spent a lot of time in hospitals," says Falco. "But they didn't really know what to do. They didn't give much hope. We just went through hell." Those years of hardship as he and his wife of 38 years, Susan, struggled with a special-needs child left a powerful imprint on the TV executive. So, when he signed on as CEO of Univision in 2011 -- after 31 years at NBC, rising to network president in 1993 -- he decided to take a look at how the No. 1 Spanish-language broadcaster in the U.S. handled its philanthropic programs. "It's so impor­tant for people to know that there are other people who actually care," he says. One of the first things he did at his new job was make sure Univision was reaching out as smartly as it possibly could. The company already had numerous philanthropic programs in place, but Falco, 61, found them too scattered to be of maximum benefit, so he decided to give the network a more narrowly defined mission. "Rather than try to do a hundred different things, I tried to focus on four things that I thought were really important in providing service to the community," he says. Those four were education, health care, prosperity (promoting financial literacy) and civic participation, which Falco gathered under an umbrella program called Univision Contigo (or Univision With You). Since the new initiative began in 2013, it has launched innovative programs like the Univision Farmacia discount, which has helped 1.9 million participants save an estimated $32 million with prepaid cards that can be used at local pharmacies. It also is teaming with Steve Jobs' widow, Laurene, for an early education program in Silicon Valley and with The Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation for an early reading program for underprivileged children called Too Small to Fail. "Kids," says Falco, "are the great common denominator among all cultures. All parents want what is best for their children." Jessica, by the way, is now 29 and recently graduated with a degree in speech pathology.

John Martinkovic was three-time Pro Bowl selection at defensive end and one of oldest former Packers players. GREEN BAY – John Martinkovic, one of the oldest surviving former Green Bay Packers players, died Thursday at 91. Martinkovic, who played defensive end for the Packers from 1951-56, was a three-time Pro Bowl choice and a 1974 inductee into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. He turned 91 on Feb. 4, Super Bowl Sunday. Drafted by Washington in the sixth round in 1951, Martinkovic was acquired by the Packers in a trade for offensive end Ted Cook. He finished his career in 1957, playing one year for the New York Giants, where he met then-assistant coach Vince Lombardi. Green Bay Packers historian Cliff Christl pointed out the Packers used the third-round draft pick they got for Martinkovic to draft future Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke. Martinkovic did not miss a game in his career, playing 84, including 72 in Green Bay. Martinkovic was a native of Hamilton, Ohio. He served three years in the U.S. Navy before graduating from Xavier University in Cincinnati. He was a member of four halls of fame, including Badin High (Hamilton Catholic), Butler County and Xavier University, all in Ohio, and the Packers Hall of Fame. He was a member of the NFL Players Association, the NFL Alumni Association, Knights of Columbus Council #617, Green Bay Moose Lodge #801 and Green Bay Retired Men's Club. He is survived by wife, Clare, four daughters, seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Friends may call at St. Agnes Catholic Church, 1484 Ninth St., from 9–11 a.m. Friday, followed by a funeral service.

2015 NBA Power Rankings: Who's on Top Heading into Playoffs? No, Jim Mora. We're not kidding you. We, too, are excited for the NBA playoffs. After five-and-a-half months of back-to-backs, TNT Thursday nights and countless hours debating who's better and who's best, it's finally time to let the players and coaches decide a true champion. To be sure, you'll hear no complaints from me about the season that was. The 2014-15 campaign was arguably the most exciting and intriguing one the Association has seen in some time. From the rise of the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks to the depth of competition out West to the scramble to fill out the Eastern Conference bracket, there was nary a dull moment from start to finish in the league's schedule. That being the case, it might seem like a tall order for the playoffs to live up to the regular season that just transpired. But without a clear-cut favorite to take home the Larry O'Brien Trophy, this postseason is shaping up to be every bit as captivating as the slate that preceded it, if not more so. Before we get wrapped up in all the best-of-seven series to come, let's look back to see how the NBA as a whole finished up by ranking each of the 30 teams based on how they played down the stretch and which players they had available. Another year, another sad slate of basketball for the Minnesota Timberwolves. An incessant spate of injuries—from Kevin Martin's wrist to Kevin Garnett's knee to Shabazz Muhammad's finger to the ankles of Ricky Rubio and Nikola Pekovic and beyond—doomed the Wolves to their 11th straight trip to the lottery from start to finish in 2014-15. LaVine might (eventually) be one of those teammates. The UCLA product nearly averaged 19 points, five rebounds and five assists while shooting better than 40 percent from three over his final 18 games (17 starts). The Wolves can look forward to a summer marked by growth from their youngsters, rather than one consumed by the inevitable ouster of an anxious franchise cornerstone. That, in itself, could be enough to ignite a productive offseason in Minnesota, along with whatever the team yields from its latest lottery pick. And if the Wolves can exterminate their infestation of injury bugs before October, they just might make something meaningful of 2015-16. Nerlens Noel won't likely wind up as the NBA's Rookie of the Year, but unlike last year's winner (Michael Carter-Williams), the Kentucky product can probably count on a long-term future with the Philadelphia 76ers. Noel did plenty to make up for lost time after missing what would have been his maiden campaign in 2013-14 while recovering from a torn ACL. He led all rookies in double-doubles and was the only player in the league to finish in the top 10 in both steals and blocks, all while missing a mere six of his team's 82 games. Each game, eight Sixers staffers would track different metrics, including shot contests, hustle plays and how quickly players attacked different areas after an offensive miss and filled sections of the court defending in transition. After the game, the overall team and each player would receive a grade, 1-20, with the latter being the highest. Brown said more than 60 percent of the time in games this season, the team finished at a respectable 16. As for Noel, more than 60 percent of the time he was better than 12 in games. But the most significant number is this: When he was an 18 or higher, the Sixers won 15 of the 18 games. Noel may not be the star of the future for the Sixers, but if everyone else plays as hard as he does, the team should still be in good shape long-term. The Orlando Magic were never likely to so much as sniff the playoffs this year, even in the weak East. From the get-go, their roster was more smorgasbord of useful pieces than cohesive whole and wasn't likely to move much from the former toward the latter under the uninspired auspices of Jacque Vaughn. The team's decision to can Vaughn during the season confirmed as much. Whoever fills Orlando's void on the bench more permanently will be charged with that same daunting but doable task—of molding the likes of Victor Oladipo, Elfrid Payton, Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon and the fruit of the Magic's lottery pick into an honest-to-goodness team. James Borrego, who replaced Vaughn on an interim basis, will get a look at the gig, following a so-so second-half audition. "I absolutely believe that I can do this," Borrego told NBA.com's John Denton. "My confidence is very high, and this position has forced me to get there. Give our players credit and our staff credit because they have helped me get through this." Granted, Borrego isn't out of the woods just yet. According to the Orlando Sentinel's Brian K. Schmitz, Michael Malone, who was one of the finalists to succeed Stan Van Gundy three years ago, is among those eager to interview for the gig. If there's any consolation for Orlando's post-Dwight Howard doldrums, it's that the team's job opening could be the most desirable one in the NBA this summer. If the Los Angeles Lakers didn't, in fact, hit rock bottom this season, then they're going to need some sturdier digging equipment. After losing a then-franchise-record 55 games last year, the purple and gold managed to fall even further in 2014-15. They registered their first 60-loss campaign and their lowest single-season winning percentage while logging more games lost to injury than 2013-14's snakebitten bunch. Steve Nash was done before the schedule began. Rookie Julius Randle broke his leg in Game 1. Kobe Bryant's shoulder gave way in January. By the time the Lakers made it to the finish line, four more guys (i.e., Nick Young, Ronnie Price, Wayne Ellington and Dwight Buycks) would suffer season-ending injuries. Lin really wanted this to work, entering this season with one of the most unstable career paths in sports history. And in search of feel-good stories in an unquestionably dry spell for the franchise, the Lakers hoped bringing Lin back to his birthplace would spark the sort of special stuff we all know he's had in the past. Instead, Lin was downright disappointing night after night early in the season. He was unnerved by Lakers coach Byron Scott's lack of belief in his game and discouraged by the rising negativity all around him. Chances are that Lin will find employment elsewhere this summer. In his place, the Lakers will likely turn to rookie Jordan Clarkson, the lone bright spot amid this year's cloudy misery, or a high-priced free agent of some sort to run point. And, with any better luck, the Lakers will have the pieces in place to restore some of their signature shine next season. Like the Lakers, the New York Knicks came into the 2014-15 season intending to win, even though the circumstances were ripe for failure. Injuries and roster turnover all but assured the Knicks of a return trip to the lottery, as did the 5-36 start that the instability precipitated. Carmelo Anthony's decision to undergo knee surgery after the All-Star Game was merely another nail in New York's orange-and-blue coffin. As miffed as many folks in the Big Apple may be with the job Phil Jackson and Derek Fisher have done in leading the Knicks so far, not everyone in town is so down on the team's prospects. Nobody expected the season to be like this. We all expected at least to somewhat compete in the Eastern Conference. At the end of the day we wanted to make a playoff push, but that's not how the season played out. This next season for me and for the organization and for Phil this is where we earn our money. This is where it starts. We got to put our money where our mouths (are) at. We've been put in a situation where the pieces are broken and a lot of things have been changed around here. Now we got a clean plate. We got a chance to get a top draft pick. We got a lot of money in the cap. So we got to put that to work. We got to put something together. The Charlotte Hornets could have easily blamed their 5-16 finish to the 2014-15 season—and the playoff shortfall it sealed—on the incessant spate of injuries, but they didn't. "This is a disappointing year. We took a step back," head coach Steve Clifford admitted, per The Charlotte Observer's Rick Bonnell. "We weren't as disciplined, we made too many mistakes, more nights when we weren't ready to play. We're not a 33-win team. And I'm primarily responsible for that." The players, to their credit, aren't running from their failures. Lance Stephenson, for one, doesn't intend to shoot 17 percent from three forever. "My three-point percentage was the lowest ever in history. That's terrible," Stephenson said, per The Charlotte Observer. "I have to come in and figure out how to be a better shooter. Being a good shooter will help my overall game. When people sag off of me (playing him to drive), it's harder for me to be successful. "It's confidence—just wanting the shot to go in so bad and then you lose your confidence. That plays a major part when you don't have confidence in your shot. This summer I'm going to find my confidence." While Stephenson spends his offseason trying to gain confidence, Al Jefferson will be doing his darndest to lose weight—before and after he officially opts into the final year of his contract. "I've got unfinished business here. That's not even an option for me," Jefferson said, per The Observer. "Unless something dramatic changed, I can't see myself opting out, and leaving that bad taste in my mouth. And in the Charlotte Hornets' mouth. I can't walk away from that." What could be worse than a ninth straight year without playoff basketball for the Sacramento Kings? How about another tumultuous summer, perhaps one featuring DeMarcus Cousins' departure? Rumors are already swirling about Boogie's availability, courtesy of head coach George Karl's candid comments on Monday. "I've had some great players and I've never had one player that I have said is untradeable," Karl said, according to CSNBayArea.com's Bill Herenda. "You always got to be ready for the possibility of a great trade that could come your way. "I know I respect him (DeMarcus Cousins) a tremendous amount...I think our give and take and our communication has been almost on a daily basis...until we can really get to a special place together, I think we've got to continue to communicate, what he wants and what I want." The relationship between star player and coach will be crucial to the Kings' fortunes going forward. Cousins and the Kings seemed ready to thrive early on, when they got off to a 9-6 start under Mike Malone. But Boogie's 10-game absence on account of viral meningitis gave Sacramento's higher-ups the daylight they needed to part ways with Malone. That move ushered in two months of rote mediocrity under interim coach Tyrone Corbin, before Karl came aboard during the All-Star break. Though a lukewarm convert to a faster tempo, he has thrived in a system that emphasizes spacing, passing and movement, not unlike Mike Krzyzewski's philosophy last summer with Team USA. It isn't a coincidence that Cousins had triple doubles in two of his last three games and is ranked fifth in the league in scoring (24.1), third in rebounding (12.7) and 11th in blocks (1.75). And, of course, first in the hearts of Sacramentans. Coaching played a pivotal role in the Denver Nuggets' ongoing doldrums this season. Head coach Brian Shaw continued to push his square-peg/round-hole approach by playing slow with a team and in a city for which a faster pace would have made more sense. His philosophy backfired, to the tune of a 20-39 start and a subsequent pink slip. According to Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, the Nuggets' search for a long-term replacement is already underway. Melvin Hunt, the Nuggets' interim coach, will get a crack at it, though he'll hardly be the only one to get an interview. His competition will likely include former head coaches (Michael Malone, Mike D'Antoni, Alvin Gentry, Scott Skiles), current NBA assistants (Portland's David Vanterpool) and eager college guys looking to make the jump (Florida's Billy Donovan, Iowa State's Fred Hoiberg). "I'm not a coach, but I do think we're Denver," said general manager Tim Connelly, per The Denver Post's Chris Dempsey. "We've got to play with pace, we've got to play uptempo basketball. And uptempo basketball can take on various styles. We're certainly looking for a coach that understands how we've been successful in the past and probably how we'll be successful in the future, with fast basketball and playing with pace." Whatever hopes the Phoenix Suns had of battling for the West's No. 8 seed for the second year in a row went right out the window during a 1-10 stretch over the final three weeks of the 2014-15 season. "I don't think that truly reflects where we are and the season we had," said Suns president Lon Babby during the team's exit interviews, according to AZCentral.com's Paul Coro. Perhaps not, though the fact that Phoenix bobbed its way into and out of the playoff race as often as it did was reflective of an unsteady situation on the court and in the locker room. "We didn't have all guys that were just concerned with winning," head coach Jeff Hornacek said, per Coro. That much was clear once Goran Dragic publicly demanded a trade (and got his wish) and Isaiah Thomas followed him out the door at the February deadline, albeit to a different destination. All told, the Suns' point guard experiment didn't pay off like they'd hoped. Fortunately for folks in Phoenix, the team will be flush with cap space to restock the roster, once the front office decides how to spend its fifth straight lottery pick. "This year was more of a humbling experience," said general manager Ryan McDonough, per Coro. "I think we'll all learn from it and get better from it and bounce back." A busy season will give way to an even busier summer for Detroit Pistons head coach/team president Stan Van Gundy. The shocking decision to cut Josh Smith in December breathed new life into the slumping squad. The trade-deadline arrival of Reggie Jackson eventually did the same, albeit after a slump in the wake of Brandon Jennings' Achilles tear. "We made some progress—not enough—but some progress at both ends of the floor," Van Gundy said during his exit interview, according to MLive's Brendan Savage. "Going forward, we feel like we've established a base of good young players. Over the last two-thirds of the year, which is not a small sample size, we played .500 basketball, which would have put us in the top five in the East over that time period. "So we think things are looking up going forward." How Detroit's fortunes fare from here on out will depend on what Van Gundy is able to accomplish from his front-office post this summer. Come July 1, Greg Monroe will be an unrestricted free agent, Jackson will be restricted, and Andre Drummond will be eligible for a sizable contract extension. Those three aside, the Pistons figure to make a pitch to at least one Michigan native: Golden State's Draymond Green. If Van Gundy plays his cards right, his Pistons might (finally) be in position to snap their six-year playoff drought next spring. Last year, the Miami Heat finished up in the NBA Finals, fighting an ultimately futile battle for their third straight championship. This year, their summer will start two months earlier, without a seventh straight playoff appearance. The biggest difference, of course, is LeBron James. He left South Beach; therefore, the sands aren't quite as warm as they otherwise would be for the Heat. But the story of Miami's demise is much broader than that. Between Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Josh McRoberts, Luol Deng and Hassan Whiteside, the Heat racked up frequent flyer miles going to and from the training room to cover the cost of travel for their summer vacations. "It's just tough, man," Deng told Bleacher Report's Ethan Skolnick. "It's just been that type of year. It seemed like the whole year, we were always fighting and dealing with something, instead of staying consistent and just kind of playing our game. I'm not making excuses or anything, but no one on this team can tell you that they've had a consistent rhythm the entire year. It's been tough to be consistent. We've had guys in and out. You have different roles." Those roles may be more defined next season if Pat Riley has his way in the coming months. With better health and the retention of Goran Dragic and Deng, both opt-out candidates, the Heat could field one of the best starting fives not only in the East but in the entire league. Lose either or both of those guys, though, and Miami's path back to relevance might not be so smooth. Paul George's comeback from his devastating leg injury serves as an all-too-perfect microcosm of the Indiana Pacers' season as a whole. Like their wounded superstar, the Pacers fought through pain, uncertainty and doubt to put themselves in position to control their own destiny at the end. Aside from George, Indiana had to survive lengthy stretches without stalwarts like David West and George Hill, along with newcomers Rodney Stuckey and C.J. Miles. Against all odds, the Pacers hung around the muck at the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff picture, just in time for George to return to action. His mere presence gave Indiana a much-needed shot in the arm; the Pacers won their first five games with George in the rotation, despite him never playing more than 18 minutes in a given game. But, on the final night of the season, the calf in George's other leg gave way, as did the Pacers' postseason hopes in Memphis. "Just came off a screen and felt a pop, but they looked at it and it's nothing more than just a calf strain," George said afterward, according to The Indianapolis Star's Candace Buckner. "It wasn't a knee injury but it's tough, you work so hard in rehab and have something else pop up. The good thing is, I know we've got a long summer and a lot to look forward to." So do the Pacers, assuming West and Roy Hibbert—both of whom can opt out of their contracts—don't leave Naptown this summer. Russell Westbrook's response to his first scoring title could easily double as the Oklahoma City Thunder's thoughts on this lost season of theirs. "S---. It doesn't mean nothing," Westbrook said after OKC's season-ending win over the Timberwolves, according to ESPN.com's Royce Young (h/t Bleacher Report). "Good job. Hooray. I'm at home, watching other teams play. Doesn't mean nothing." Westbrook's disappointment is understandable, if not downright appropriate. He wound up with career highs in nearly every counting category, including points (28.1), assists (8.6), rebounds (7.3) and steals (2.1). But Westbrook's best efforts weren't enough to overcome devastating injuries to Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka. Nor could general manager Sam Presti's moves make up for those losses, though the additions of Dion Waiters, Enes Kanter, D.J. Augustin and Kyle Singler should serve the Thunder well going forward. With that supporting cast in place and its stars in better shape, OKC should find itself back in the title hunt next season. Whether Scott Brooks is there to guide the Thunder is another story. According to Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski, the team will evaluate its relationship with Brooks, who has one year left on his contract—much like the injured superstar whose absence doomed OKC. Lionel Hollins' assessment of his Brooklyn Nets' chances against the Atlanta Hawks was as harsh as it was accurate. "I don't think we have any advantages over the Hawks," Hollins said, per The Brooklyn Game's Devin Kharpertian. That may sell his team a bit short. Surely, Atlanta doesn't have anyone who can compare with Brook Lopez's size and skill in the post. Lopez finished the season on an absolute tear, averaging 23.7 points and 9.4 rebounds over a 16-game stretch that saw the Nets go 11-5. Nor can the Hawks claim to boast the best individual perimeter player in this series. That distinction belongs to Brooklyn, courtesy of former ATL resident Joe Johnson. Other than those points of contention, Hollins is probably right. By and large, Brooklyn has been mediocre and uninspiring this season. Then again, as much of a sting as Hollins' comments may have carried, they still paled in comparison to the five-alarm fire that spewed out from Paul Pierce's mouth, courtesy of ESPN Boston's Jackie MacMullan. Lost amid the hubbub over Paul Pierce ripping the Nets a new one in public were his comments regarding the Toronto Raptors, the Washington Wizards' first-round playoff opponent. "We haven't done particularly well against Toronto, but I don't feel they have the 'It' that makes you worried," Pierce told ESPNBoston.com's Jackie MacMullan. "There isn't a team I look at in the Eastern Conference that makes me say, 'They are intimidating, we don't have a chance.'" To Pierce's point, the Raptors swept the Wizards in their three regular-season meetings. But the most recent two of those tiffs were decided by a total of six points. And if the games are close between Toronto and Washington, Pierce certainly won't be one to hide from the moment, especially in Canada. Forget about all the usual tropes about how terrible the Eastern Conference is and how that somehow degrades the Milwaukee Bucks' finish as the sixth seed. The fact that the Bucks are in the playoffs at all right now is nothing short of a Wisconsin miracle. Milwaukee won a league-worst 15 games last season and could have plunged back to similar depths this time around in light of all the setbacks this squad suffered over the course of 2014-15. Instead, the Bucks fought through injuries (Jabari Parker, Ersan Ilyasova, John Henson), trades (Brandon Knight) and outright defections (Larry Sanders) to nearly triple their win total from a season ago. And how, pray tell, did they do it? Among other things, behind a long-armed, switch-heavy defense—orchestrated by head coach Jason Kidd—that wound up second in the league in efficiency, per NBA.com. These fans hate each other, too. This isn't a theory — it's scientific fact proven by years of mutual enmity between Bears and Packers fans. Now imagine that same level of anger and hostility, but on a basketball court. Spectacular, right? Joakim Noah calling Giannis Antetokounmpo soft in the playoffs could create our first Internet civil war. Now imagine future battles between Chicago South Side natives and Simeon's own Jabari Parker and Derrick Rose. I can't take it. The Boston Celtics needed quite a bit of outside help to secure a spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs. Between the Cleveland Cavaliers resting their stars during a recent home-and-home with Boston and the rest of the East's fringes falling off, the C's benefited from a conference-wide "effort" to get them into the postseason—in addition to their own 24-12 surge over the final 36 games. But it was another outside assist that might have given a certain Celtic the extra energy he needed to nudge this scrappy squad up the standings. According to The Boston Globe's Adam Himmelsbach, Isiah Thomas—who had his fair share of battles with the C's as a member of the "Bad Boy" Pistons in the 1980s—texted words of encouragement to Isaiah Thomas upon the latter's arrival in Beantown at the Feb. 19 trade deadline. "This is gonna change your career," Zeke wrote. "They're one game out of the playoffs. Lead them to the playoffs." That's precisely what the younger Thomas did while averaging 19 points and 5.4 assists off the bench. Thomas could use a few more texts like that from his almost-namesake in the days to come, as his C's prepare to take on LeBron James' Cavs in the first round of the playoffs. No team did more to boost its collective stock after the All-Star Game than the Utah Jazz. Once the break came and went, the Jazz went 19-10—the fifth-best record in the West—while holding opponents to a league-low 94.8 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com. Enes Kanter's trade-deadline departure and Rudy Gobert's subsequent explosion as a starter had plenty to do with that. For his efforts, Gobert figures to garner plenty of votes for Most Improved and Defensive Player of the Year honors. Of course, Gobert wasn't the sole reason Utah finished with a record good enough to qualify for the playoffs in the East. Gordon Hayward's borderline All-NBA play had plenty to do with it, as did Derrick Favors'. As Grantland's Zach Lowe wrote of that duo, "They've been really good on both ends, and Hayward carried Utah's offense without much help from any perimeter threat until Rodney Hood emerged over the last 25 games." "Clearly we sit here today in a better position than when we started," general manager Dennis Lindsey said during the team's exit interviews, according to The Salt Lake Tribune's Aaron Falk. "The group is moving in the right direction." If three-point shooting is, indeed, all the rage in the NBA, then the Toronto Raptors are as fashionable as any team around. They finished among the top 10 in three-point makes and attempts, went 19-2 when they made more than 10 threes in a given game and became the second team in league history with five players who knocked down at least 100 treys apiece. The only other team to pull that off? The 2008-09 Knicks. Of course, this year's Raptors fared far better than those Knicks did. New York lost 50 games that year. Toronto, on the other hand, fell just one win shy of 50 on the other side of the ledger but still came away with a second straight Atlantic Division title and a franchise record for victories in a single season. Next up: a first-round date with the shooting-averse Wizards, whom the Raptors swept during the regular season. The Portland Trail Blazers aren't short of reasons to worry about their postseason prospects. Their wing depth has been decimated by injuries, with Wesley Matthews, Arron Afflalo, Nicolas Batum, Dorell Wright and C.J. McCollum all falling victim. Worse still, the Blazers will have to begin their playoff push on the road against the Memphis Grizzlies. Halfway through the season, Portland looked like a dark-horse contender — a two-way powerhouse seasoned with rare roster continuity and some playoff experience. Their starters could hit the marks of Terry Stotts's "flow" offense while wearing blindfolds, and they had improbably sharpened into a borderline top-five defensive team. Despite the doom and gloom around Rip City, the Blazers still have two huge factors in their favor: LaMarcus Aldridge and Damian Lillard. Those two carried Portland past Houston in last year's playoffs, combining for 55.3 points, 17.5 rebounds and 8.7 assists in a six-game victory. The Memphis Grizzlies won't exactly be a picture of health for their first-round series against Portland, either. Marc Gasol returned from a sprained ankle in time for the Grizzlies' season finale, but he wasn't joined by Mike Conley and Tony Allen. They've been sidelined by foot and hamstring injuries, respectively, and may remain so for some time, per The Commercial Appeal's Ronald Tillery. Those absences figure to be massively problematic for Memphis, despite the decimation that Portland has suffered. As much as the Grizzlies' universe revolves around Gasol and Zach Randolph in the middle, it's Conley, who would otherwise be charged with checking Damian Lillard, and Allen (aka "The Grindfather") who serve as the heart and soul of this squad. There are many ways to compare the strength of the West to the weakness of the East, but perhaps none is more striking than where the Dallas Mavericks stand at season's end. In the Western Conference, the Mavs' 50 wins were only good enough to snag the seventh seed. Were Dallas an Eastern Conference squad, it would start the playoffs at No. 3, matched up against the Bucks in the first round. Instead, the Mavs will have to face the Houston Rockets in a series whose subplots have their own subplots. "That's for the media to talk about," Dirk Nowitzki said, referring to the off-court drama between Mavs owner Mark Cuban and Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, per Mavs.com's Earl K. Sneed. "That's for fun little side notes, I guess, which the players don't really care that much about. It's about which team comes out at the end. Obviously, they have home-court advantage. We'd love to go down there and steal one or steal the first one, but it's going to be tough." It'll be even tougher if Chandler Parsons—one of the sticking points in the ongoing feud between these two teams—isn't ready to play in Game 1. He missed the last six games of the regular season while resting his swollen right knee. Head coach Rick Carlisle, though, is confident that Parsons will be available. Parsons' offensive versatility and familiarity with Dallas' Texas foe will be vital to the Mavs' attempt to spring the seeded upset. For every transcendent superstar, there is an initial foray into the playoffs, one that sets the stage for the years to come. In 2006, LeBron James averaged about 31 points, eight boards and six assists while carrying the Cleveland Cavaliers to a second-round loss against the Detroit Pistons. In 2010, Kevin Durant poured in 25 points per game (albeit on a subpar 35 percent shooting) in a six-game loss to the eventual-champion Lakers. What will 2015 bring for Anthony Davis? Probably not much in the way of victories. His New Orleans Pelicans will have to contend with a Golden State Warriors squad that is coming off a historically great regular season. However Davis fares from here on out, folks in the Crescent City won't soon forget what The Brow did to put the Pelicans back into the playoffs for the first time since 2011, when they were still the New Orleans Hornets. In what was, to date, the biggest game of his NBA career, Davis dominated the streaking San Antonio Spurs, piling up 31 points, 13 rebounds, two assists, two steals and three blocks in 43 minutes of a 108-103 win for New Orleans. "Honestly, I know I all told ya'll before this game it didn't mean nothing, but I tried to downplay it because I didn't want to get too excited," Davis said afterward, via ESPN. "It meant a lot—and we played like it meant something. "We played our hearts out." Now, they'll have to locate their hearts and put them back in place, lest they let the Warriors stomp them from the get-go. Physically speaking, Derrick Rose may not be the same player he was prior to his three knee surgeries. But from a confidence standpoint, he's as sturdy as ever. "I believe I'm one of the best players in the NBA...still," Rose insisted, even after leaving the Chicago Bulls' season finale early with soreness in his left knee, per ESPN.com's Nick Friedell. The Bulls can only hope Rose's confidence will pay actual dividends in the playoffs. With Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson and Kirk Hinrich all battling injuries, Chicago will need whatever it can squeeze out of the former MVP if it's going to be more than a dark horse in the East. After all the ups and downs, the injuries and roster changes, the Houston Rockets wound up with the No. 2 seed in the West—which probably beats out most preseason predictions. It's one thing to snag such prime seeding on the strength of James Harden's MVP-caliber campaign. It's another thing to capitalize on it. To that end, the Rockets may have help on the way if they can stay alive long enough. Patrick Beverley, who was recently ruled out for the season after undergoing wrist surgery, could be back at point guard in Houston...assuming the team hasn't been eliminated by mid-May. "I don't care about the pain. I can play through pain. I've been playing through all type of stuff the whole year, so I can play with the pain," Beverley told Fox26 Sports' Mark Berman. "I just have to get this cast off. When the cast comes off May 18, May 20th, wrap it up with tape and (I'll) be good to go. I don't care how weak it is. I don't care how strong it is. I don't care about that. "As soon as this cast is off I'm back to business." In the meantime, the Rockets will have to contend with the likes of Rajon Rondo and Tony Parker at the point, with the hope that whatever Harden, Dwight Howard and their supporting cast can do will be enough to see Houston through to the Western Conference Finals. However and whenever the Atlanta Hawks' surprising season winds up, they can take pride in what they've accomplished together. Despite turmoil at the front-office and ownership levels, the Hawks managed to set new franchise records for consecutive wins (19), All-Stars (four) and total single-season victories, among other things. In the bigger picture, the Hawks earned the respect of the rest of the league, which could pay off handsomely (i.e., via free-agent signings) in the years to come. "I think there's been a couple of times during a game, end of games, when we're gonna win, and the other team will come up and say 'man, I love how you guys play,'" Kyle Korver told NBA.com's David Aldridge. "They just got, you can tell, they're like, I would love to play for your team. That's the ultimate sign of respect in the NBA. When you're on a team, and your team's supposedly good, but man, I'd rather be on your team. It feels good to hear that." You know what would beat that? The Hawks' first trip to the penultimate round of the playoffs since 1970. Remember when all the Chicken Littles huddled in northeast Ohio (and across the country, for that matter) were wondering why the sky was falling on the Cleveland Cavaliers and how they'd ever survive it? A second-place conference finish did wonders to erase memories of the panic that set in amid the Cavs' disappointing 19-20 start. Cleveland now looks like the favorite to win the East (and a co-favorite to win it all), thanks in no small part to a second half that saw the Cavs win 34 of 43 games. Well, maybe not right away. The Cavs should make quick work of the Celtics in Round 1. After that, though, Cleveland's path through Chicago and Atlanta will put this team's title-contending chops to the test. There were eight scenarios for a first-round playoff opponent for the Clippers heading into Wednesday’s final day of the regular season. Four of the scenarios had the Clippers playing the Memphis Grizzlies for the third time in four years. Two of the scenarios had them facing Dallas and one had them meeting Houston in the first round. The last scenario – a scenario some would classify as worst-case – had the Clippers, the league’s second-hottest team, facing the San Antonio Spurs, the hottest. And wouldn’t you know it, the worst case became the reality. The Clippers, though, aren't about to complain about their cruel fate. "I'd rather go through them now while we're fresh," said DeAndre Jordan, per ESPN.com's Arash Markazi. They'll have to hope that their own season-ending hot streak (seven in a row, 14 of 15) gives them enough juice to overcome a San Antonio Spurs squad that was riding an 11-game spurt prior to a defeat to the Pelicans in the finale. Has there ever been a stronger sixth seed in any postseason in any sport than this year's San Antonio Spurs? All they did was win 11 games in a row and 21 of 24 prior to the season's final night. They might have made it 12 in a row and 22 of 25 if not for a poor opening to what turned out to be a 108-103 defeat in New Orleans. "That first half was the worst we've played in a long time," head coach Gregg Popovich said afterward, via ESPN. "The Pelicans were on fire. They were committed. They were playing hard. They had a lot to play for and it showed." The Spurs had plenty to play for themselves. A win would have locked them into the No. 2 seed in the West as the Southwest Division champions, with a first-round matchup against the Mavericks. Instead, San Antonio will begin its title defense in L.A., opposite a Clippers team that the Spurs swept out of the second round three years ago. Tiago Splitter's ongoing calf troubles have cast some doubt on San Antonio's chances of repeating. But if the Spurs can get him back in time for the Western Conference Finals, they'll pose a serious threat to Golden State's dream season. A great regular season guarantees the Golden State Warriors nothing more than the No. 1 seed in the West and a pitfall-filled path to the NBA Finals. And, of course, the No. 1 spot in the last power rankings of the regular season. To be sure, the Dubs didn't just coast their way to the top. Rather, they fought to the very end for each of the 67 wins they racked up. Stephen Curry certainly didn't take anything for granted. Over the final 18 games of the season, the presumptive MVP knocked down 52.3 percent of his long-range looks on the way to shattering his own record for single-season three-point makes (286). As easy as Golden State made the regular season seem, the playoffs will look like anything but that. First comes figuring out how to contain Anthony Davis. Then, the Warriors will likely have to contend with the "Grit-N-Grind" Grizzlies. And before the Dubs can book their first trip to the Finals in 40 years, the defending champion Spurs will have a word or two to offer. Golden State had better hope, then, that the same stroke that helped Curry knocked down more than half of his treys over the last month of the season and another 77 in a row in a single practice holds true during the pressure cooker of the playoffs. Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.

Next up is the point & figure chart for GLD, the gold exchange traded fund. It shows a bullish trend with a significant upside price projection. Below is one of our favorites: the long term chart of gold going back to 1975. As you can clearly see, prices peaked in the late 70's at over $750.00, and have recently rallied up to $730.40. In the process a cup formation has been constructed on the chart. Presently gold has been in a trading range just below the rim of the cup on the right hand side of the chart. If the POG rallies back up through its $730.40 high and on through $750.00 - a very strong cup with a handle formation will be in place with a break out that would signify the gold bull is very strong and entering a new phase. We expect that to happen this year, possibly within a few months time. Next is the industrial metals compared to the price of gold. Since late October of 2006 gold has been out performing the industrial metals, which prior to that time had been the leader. Since the peak in late October of 2006, gold has been out performing until about mid-Feb. of 2007. From mid-Feb. to mid-March the industrial metals rallied back to their fib retracement level of 61.8%, and have since started to fall once again, meaning gold has been out performing as of late. Below is the chart of the silver exchange traded fund (SLV). It is presently right at the top of a resistance band and is trying to break out above. A close above 135 that holds would be bullish. The second chart below is the point and figure chart for silver, which shows a bullish price projection of $21.50. The Hui Index was down 3.20 for the week, closing out at 337.66 (-0.94%). The daily chart below shows a symmetrical triangle that is getting narrower by the day. Price will soon break out to the upside or downside. Notice the series of higher lows that have been kept in place. Significant resistance resides overhead just over the 360 level. Next up is another daily chart of the Hui; this one has a much shorter time frame, and tends to focus in on the more recent price action. Notice the Bollinger bands on the chart. The upper BB is at 348.67 and the lower one is at 315.60. In between the two is the middle band at 332.17. The index just recently banged up against the upper BB line and has since retreated to 337.66, which is 5 points above the middle BB. If prices do not hold right around the middle band then the lower band will become a target. Stochastics are turning over and down. Below is the point and figure chart for gold that shows a bullish price project of 412. Readings of 5 or higher have coincided with oversold levels and market bottoms. A spike back above 5 from which the ratio has recently fallen would most likely give a good entry point. Below are some gold stocks that we own or have owned in our portfolio and are watching for further possible accumulation. We are cautious with the overall stock market and sense there is more downside to come. We prefer to stay on the sidelines except with selected precious metal and energy stocks. Even with the pm and energy stocks one most remain cautious, as any serious downdraft in the overall market will most likely affect all stocks. We do not see any imminent danger, but storm clouds on the distant horizon. Any surprises with interest rates will be to the upside. This is because of the derivative mess and carry trade orgies, which when they start to unwind will cause quite a stir. The world is afloat with paper fiat debt money. The sub-prime problems will get worse before they get better, not only in the US but elsewhere as well. The Fed and other CB's will react to these events as they do to all events: they create more credit and debt. This will not be unseen by gold, as a matter of fact gold will sound the warning before hand. Short term the gold stocks appear overbought and in need of a bit more rest/consolidation before beginning a sustainable leg up. We look to accumulate selected stocks on weakness that holds above previous lows. Stop by our website and check out the complete market wrap, which covers most major markets. There is also a lot of information on gold and silver, not only from an investment point of view, but also from its position as being the mandated monetary system of our Constitution - Silver and Gold Coins as in Honest Weights and Measures. There is also a live bulletin board where you can discuss the markets with people from around the world and many other resources too numerous to list. Drop by and check it out. Good luck. Good trading. Good health. And that's a wrap.

The Model 3, expected to launch in July, is the handiwork of Tesla's chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen. When it was unveiled in March 2016, it set a slightly new direction for the carmaker. The front fascia, for example, lacked any conventional automotive cues, such as a grille — an unnecessary element, of course, because Teslas don't need to inhale air to burn gasoline.

Why unemployment in IT sector is on rise? In January 2015, Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest software services firm, fired approximately 25,000 software engineers. This event inaugurated a new trend in India’s globally-connected IT industry. In 2017, growing layoffs finally sparked a national debate. News reports and interviews with IT employees confirm that leading companies, that only a few years ago were aggressively recruiting new employees, are not only hiring in relatively small numbers but are actively pushing employees out. A drop in the hiring rates will affect the tens of thousands of engineering graduates who aspire to enter the IT workforce as they encounter firms that are reluctant to hire in the volumes of the preceding two decades. The claims and findings presented below are based on ongoing research that commenced in 2014 and relies on over 100 in-depth interviews. Downsizing is not temporary The era of labour-intensive growth in IT is over and job creation will occur at a decelerated pace. The expansion of India’s IT sector has depended on the IT investments that large American and European companies make into their own IT systems. Quantitative and qualitative shifts in the “IT spend” of client corporations instantly affect the firms to which IT development and maintenance tasks are subcontracted. Simplifications in the way enterprises organise, develop and maintain their IT infrastructure implies an erosion of back-office IT work that typically has been offshored. Cloud computing centralises IT infrastructure and enables companies to share computing resources. Secondly, new software programmes automate certain labour-intensive tasks such as software testing and IT helpdesk functions. Restructuring contributing to job losses New employees (1-5 years of experience) do not receive the quick promotions and salary hikes that have defined the IT industry. However, their jobs are (relatively) protected by the fact that to the firm they represent cheap labour at the bottom of the pyramid. Mid-career professionals who joined the industry roughly in the 2000-2010 period bear the brunt of the cost-cutting drive that grips today’s firms. Despite the industry’s attempt to cast the irrelevance of the middle managers as an issue of skill-deficiency, the fact is that middle managers are expensive in the eyes of the company. making project requirements ever-changing. Many interviewees discussed the dual pressure they face from their clients as well as their own managers (who themselves are at risk of losing jobs). The pressure, they say, to produce ‘more from less’ has never been greater. New areas are not labour-intensive. The boom in technology-intensive start-ups (both consumer and business facing) has opened up a new area of employment for an educated, upwardly mobile, young workforce, particularly for highly-skilled software engineers – but also recruits for sales, marketing and product management divisions. Large IT companies are also looking to make specialised, targeted hires, particularly in areas like cloud security and data analytics. With the erosion of labour-intensive tasks of software testing, integration and maintenance, hiring will always be modest compared to the ‘golden years’ of expansion. Start-ups are of course much smaller (in terms of employees) and aim for high labour productivity (revenue per employee). Moreover, it is widely acknowledged that this is a volatile sector, fueled by venture capital and business models that privilege sales and user growth over profitability and therefore we can presume that many fledgling companies will fail, merge or be acquired.

Three downtown churches are coming together to sponsor the Downtown Trinity Fall Festival from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday on Broad Street between Fourth and Fifth streets. First United Methodist Church of Gadsden, First Baptist Church of Gadsden and First Presbyterian Church of Gadsden are hosting the event that is free and is open to the community. Activities include a hay ride, giant slide, moon bounce, games, face painting, karaoke for kids, popcorn, cotton candy and a pumpkin-carving contest. There also will be free hot dogs and chili as well as trunk-or-treat, with cars parked on Broad Street where congregants will be giving out candy to children. Participants are encouraged to wear costumes. The churches sponsored a joint tailgate party in September, and later took part in a Bible study that concluded with a celebration dinner at First Methodist.

Method or Madness? Jury Decides Hamlet's Fate Was Hamlet criminally responsible for killing his ex-girlfriend's father, Polonius? That is the question argued in a mock trial, part of a Shakespeare festival in Washington, D.C. Lawyers Abbe Lowell and Miles Ehrlich presented oral arguments before a jury. Was Hamlet criminally responsible for mistakenly killing his ex-girlfriend's father, Polonius? That is the question argued in a mock trial Thursday, as part of a Shakespeare festival in Washington, D.C., where lawyers Abbe Lowell and Miles Ehrlich presented oral arguments before a jury. The defense, represented by Lowell, argued "no." Hamlet, they maintained, suffered from something called psychotic affective disorder, and he was a bit bipolar. The prosecution, represented by Ehrlich, maintains that Hamlet was perfectly sane, knew that killing was wrong, and was in control of his actions. The Shakespeare in Washington festival continues through June of 2007.

New Scotland striker Oli McBurnie retains hope he might one day play for Rangers after a move to Ibrox broke down suddenly on transfer deadline day in January. The 21-year-old Swansea player moved instead to Barnlsey, where he has scored six goals in his last seven appearances and was the Championship Player of the Month for February. Despite living all his life in England, he is a passionate Rangers fan, following in a family tradition. Just as he was always Scottish at school, he was always a Rangers supporter. McBurnie said he wore both Scotland and Rangers tops on dress-down days at school in Leeds. His Ibrox heroes were Kris Boyd and Nikica Jelavic, pictured left. He even has a shirt with No 26 on it, as worn by current Rangers striker and friend Jason Cummings.

sticker, and warranty info. Plus a small bracket adapter in case you need it. bracket painted black, but still, the drive looks great. The back of the HyperX Predator SSD. they are labelled as Kingston NAND. in M.2 2280 and also with a PCIE Gen 2.0 x4 adapter. HyperX simply by clicking this link.

Spain's new parliament convenes after the June 26 general election, but absent from the chamber will be either a parliamentary majority or a working cross-party agreement. As David Pollard reports, the political deadlock raises new questions over a fragile economic recovery. Spain's acting prime minister Mariano Rajoy has survived two inconclusive elections in seven months but his party's parliamentary majority has not. As the house gathered to nominate a new speaker, the Popular Party is still the largest. But without a cross-party agreement, little progress appears possible. Especially as the opposition Socialists are still holding out - and refusing to endorse a Rajoy-led government. (SOUNDBITE) (English) CMC MARKETS ANALYST, JASPER LAWLER, SAYING: "This political mix where no party really comes ahead is probably something we're going to see for the next re-election as well and Spain's going to stuck here without any real political direction." There was one boost for Rajoy. Public works minister Ana Pastor of the People's Party was nominated as parliamentary speaker. Rajoy's government has enjoyed support from investors for his reform programmes. And though crippling high unemployment still blights its recovery, growth this year is seen coming in at 2.7 per cent or above. Fears that Spain's political deadlock could result in an economic logjam could, say some analysts, be overdone. (SOUNDBITE) (English) CMC MARKETS ANALYST, JASPER LAWLER, SAYING: "Uncertainty is a bad thing ... The other line of thought is that without a government meddling too much, maybe the market forces are able to take over, the people in Spain given a bit more confidence to go out there and act in their own economic best interests, and that eventually Spain can just muddle forward." Rajoy could face a first vote of confidence on any new proposals next month - if he can get the backing he needs beforehand.

Fulstow Primary Academy recently hosted a leavers' prom. Leaving Year 6 pupils at Fulstow Primary Academy recently celebrated the end of their schooling days with their own mini prom. Andy Carr provided the entertainment and all of Key Stage 2 were invited to attend.

PORT ELIZABETH - ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa launched the ANC’s political school named after struggle stalwart, Oliver Reginald Tambo, at an event held at Gallagher Estate in Midrand on Thursday. In honouring the memory of the late leader of the organisation, the OR Tambo School of Leadership said in a statement that it would embrace the values of humanity, selflessness and foresight that underpinned his revolutionary leadership. "It brings attention to his combined exceptional leadership quality and total dedication to make South Africa a better country through education. He was renowned for his fair, inclusive and embracing leadership. It said that Tambo was a "revolutionary intellectual leader who valued the power of persuasive argument and ideas". “This is a significant step towards the renewal of the ANC. It is consistent with the historical role of the ANC in building its members and leaders to be agents of change. It is only through ethically and intellectually grounded members that the ANC can continue to lead society” chairperson of the OR Tambo School of Leadership, Kgalema Motlanthe, said. Board members of the school are Kgalema Motlanthe, chairperson, as well as David Masondo who is a Board member and Principal of the school. Other members are Alison Bengtson, Aubrey Mokadi, Cassel Mathale, Derrick Swartz, Douglas Ramaphosa, Jabulani Sithole, John Pamapallis, Joshua Maluleka, Kwazikwenkosi Mshengu, Mahlengi Bhengu, Fébé Potgieter-Gqubule, Ronald Lamola, Sarah Mokwebo, Shafee Verachia and Thandeka Ntshangase. “The Board is composed of individuals with strong background in design, curriculum development and delivery of political education. This team has strong strategic and technical expertise in adult basic education, accreditation, quality assurance and legal framework governing education,” the ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule said. Principal of the school Dr David Masondo said the school will facilitate education on strategic studies, policy as well as organisational skills, and offers 13 courses that will be offered on different platforms including face-to-face interactions between students and facilitators and e-learning . The courses include Political Economy, Gender and Women Emancipation, as well as Global Economy and the Developmental State. “The course content and methods of delivery are designed in such way that they will be accredited in the medium term.” Masondo said. The school is open to members of the ANC and the democratic movement, as well as anyone keen on understanding how the world works and how to change it. ANC regional, provincial and national leaders will be required to attend the school. A wide range of stakeholders who will be associated with the school attended the celebratory launch event including leaders of the ANC and its alliance partners, academics, business and the media. Fraternal organisations across Africa were also represented, including Swapo, Frelimo, Zanu-PF and the Jubilee Party from Kenya.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is “moderate” and “pragmatic,” while Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu leads a “radical” and “extremist” government. These descriptions are all from the news pages of the largest and most influential newspaper of the Spanish-speaking world, El País, and represent its approach to reporting on the region. El País claims Hamas leader is moderate and Netanyahu’s government is extremist. The year 2009 marked a turning point. The newspaper changed its approach to the region with more balanced reporting. Tel Aviv ceased to be incorrectly identified as the capital of Israel and articles from the Middle East began to include viewpoints from both sides of the conflict. Over the past year, however, El País has drifted back to its previous pattern, disregarding the voice of one of the parties in the conflict. It is now rare to see the perspectives of any Israeli who does not sharply condemn his or her own country in the newspaper. For example, for the 49th anniversary of the “occupation,” El País published a series of articles, graphics and photographs over the course of a month that were authored by the paper’s correspondent, as well as other envoys to the area. Because these were not time-sensitive, breaking news stories, journalists had the opportunity to contextualize and delve into the background of the conflict. Yet none of the articles included a single voice explaining the situation from an Israeli viewpoint. The day after an Israeli 13 years old girl was assassinated, El País dedicated its front page to the “Ravages of the Occupation”. With the death of Hallel, there are already 33 Israelis killed in the wave of violence that began last October and which also killed two Americans, an Eritrean immigrant – lynched in Beer Sheba, having been mistaken for an assailant – and about 220 Palestinians. The newspaper gives no indication that most of the 220 Palestinians were attackers. When the newspaper does include an Israeli viewpoint in its reports, it is generally in the form of a press release or an official statement. This is entirely different from the frequent first-person testimonies and interviews with Palestinians or organizations representing them. An exception to this is the newspaper’s citing of Israeli organizations that focus on attacking their own country. For example, Breaking The Silence, an Israeli-based NGO whose mission is to “expose” alleged war crimes by Israeli soldiers, invited journalists and executives from El País to visit the area, guided by the organization’s ideologically- biased point of view. This organization’s voice became a prominent one in the newspaper’s reports –mentioned in about twenty articles published in the last two years. But nowhere in all that coverage, did the newspaper mention the fact that the NGO is mired in controversy. There is nothing about the fact that the “testimonies” that form the foundation of the organization’s exposés are anonymous and unverifiable, based on hearsay, which gives rise to much skepticism about the veracity of the allegations. Thus, the only Israeli voices given room in El País are those that reinforce an anti-Israel narrative. Between the offices of the young Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Tzipi Hotovely in Jerusalem, and the one of the historic Palestinian leader, Hanan Ashrawi in Ramallah, there are less than 20 kilometers, but the distance separating their political speeches is unbridgeable. Hotovely reflects the mentality of a broad sector of Israeli society that aspires to control all disputed territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Ashrawi, who has spent her entire adult life under the Israeli occupation, like most Palestinians, wields the international resolutions that protect the rights of her people, although they have not been fulfilled. In fact, polls show that a majority of Israelis support a two state solution, while a minority of Palestinians do. It is not uncommon to read opinion columns in the newspaper that promote the work of openly belligerent, anti-Israel organizations. Recently, the daily published one such piece followed by a request for readers to financially support UNRWA, an agency that caters exclusively to those they classify as Palestinian refugees, as well as their descendents. Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC), an organization that boycotts Israel, was also given a platform in El País to spread its message. Both organizations were presented as neutral actors or observers – without any mention of their anti-Israel agenda. El Pais asks its readers to support UNRWA at the botton of an op-ed. This call to action was removed after complaints. One wonders, especially if he is Andalusian, what would have been our response had the heirs of the Syrian Umayyads decided, following the tragedy they are suffering, to settle in Andalusia, the homeland of their ancestors. It is not necessary to go very far to predict the violent rejection that this would have generated. Of course, Andalusia was never the homeland of the Umayyads. But at El País, truth is apparently expendable in the pursuit of demonizing Israel. In another example of uncorrected error, El País published a piece claiming that the new Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation provides no news because of a Knesset law forcing the channel to split into two departments (El País called it “segregated news”). This is false. The Israeli Supreme Court overturned that law and the channel did in fact provide news programming. The newspaper was alerted to the error but issued no correction, and the false information remains on its website. At left, wrong information that can still be read in El País‘ site claiming the news department was “segregated” in KAN. At right, the Jerusalem Post explains this did not occur. A special mention should be made of the partisan lexicon that is routinely used. “Occupied Palestinian Territories,” “1967 borders,” “illegal occupation under international law,” etc., all terminology that is generally avoided –for good reasons- in the mainstream English-speaking media. , and which conceals from its readers the nuances and subtleties of the story. It is important to remember that all binding agreements and resolutions call on the parties to resolve the conflict –including the territorial conflict- through negotiation. Until that happens, those territories are not (as they, in fact, never were) Palestinian. The 1967 dividing lines were simply armistice lines, never a border. The word “border” implies legality, political significance, and permanence, none of which applies in this case. CAMERA`s Spanish department contacted the paper to inquire about their refusal to change the erroneous language, but didn’t receive a response. Unfortunately, the combination of a narrow selection of sources (without fact-checking) along with the biased and unprofessional way of covering events taking place in the region is a very common phenomenon in Spanish media, but in the case of El País, the leading newspaper in the Spanish-speaking world, it is especially worrisome. Taking into account that Spanish is the second most-spoken language in the world, the unilateral and misleading message that fills its pages on a daily basis reaches a good part of the global population. In fact, the newspaper defines itself as “the global newspaper,” and not in vain does it have its own “America” edition. Reading the articles of El País conveys the impression that the occupation appeared by spontaneous generation, always framing it as the cause of the conflict. Actually, there is almost no mention of any responsibility that Palestinian leaders might have for the suffering of their own people and for the continuity of the conflict. In short, Palestinians are portrayed in El Pais‘ coverage as objects irremediably exposed to external action: always reacting to Israeli actions. It is true that from time to time the newspaper publishes an isolated op-ed in which the author tries to show another perspective — perhaps an article about Israeli start-ups or one about the success of agricultural technology. But one wonders how many cherry tomatoes are needed to offset the constant rain of errors, distortions, and omissions like the ones that are disseminated to the massive Spanish-speaking population across the world. A shorter version of this article was originally published in the Gatestone Institute. Masha Gabriel Masha Gabriel is Director of ReVista de Medio Oriente (CAMERA's Spanish Language Division). Born in Argentina and raised in Spain, Masha monitors the Spanish-language media in monitors media from Spain, Latin America, and the U.S. and tries to ensure that reporting about Israel and the region is balanced and accurate. With a background in journalism, television, and film, Masha has intimate knowledge of Spain's journalistic world. In her previous capacity as director of a Madrid radio program, she interviewed journalists and politicians from around the world.

Three people were killed Saturday night in an automobile accident when the driver of a pickup truck lost control on rain-slick pavement in Wayne County, crossed the center line and slammed head-on into their car. Pronounced dead at the scene were Ryan C. Bell, 19, driver of a Pontiac Grand Am, and passengers Joshua W. Thompson, 31, and his wife, Kayla M. Thompson, 27. All were from Monticello. Driver of the pickup, a Ford F250, was Stanley David Carr of Somerset. Officer Greg Reams with the Kentucky State Police said Carr was traveling east on Ky. 90 where the road widens to three lanes going up a hill. As Carr started to pass another vehicle, he lost control of his truck on slick pavement, crossed the center line and struck the car, which was traveling west, head on.

Reply to post: Re: Legislation can save lives. Re: Legislation can save lives. @ Pen-y-gors:"Someone elsewhere in a lovely bit of whataboutery said that 10,000+ people are killed in car incidents involving drunk drivers, but no-one is calling for a ban on cars or alcohol. Actually really not a good example. In the UK we decided to leave cars and alcohol alone, but come down hard on the combination. Drink driving was explicitly banned in the UK in 1967. By 1979 (first year of statistics) there were 1640 deaths on the road where one driver was drunk. Last year it was 200. And it's been down to a consistent 230-240 for the last six years." The US has similar rules governing alcohol in combination with both cars and guns. The former were enacted during roughly the same period that you mention, albeit with less extreme results: We used to attribute roughly half of fatal auto accidents to alcohol, but by the time the total number of deaths peaked several years ago, it was down to a third. It's complicated to estimate because US states use different definitions of intoxication, and reporting is inconsistent both geographically and over time. Where I am, it's illegal to carry a pistol if you have any detectable alcohol in your blood. (The standard for driving is 0.08%.) It's also illegal to carry one in public without a permit.

Sometimes, she says, she is out on Dublin bay in her Laser and wonders why she didn’t pick a team sport, asks herself why it has ended up like this? There are no regrets, no second guessing her choices, no criticism of the sport she loves. Just passing thoughts on how things become the way they become? How it is she ended up a solo sailor, alone for hours trimming fractions from her boat and from the wind and two stone from her body to coax her Laser to go faster? Here in Dun Laoghaire they fondly call her Annalise, an Olympian who carries her status lightly. People know her name, know what she looks like. After Rio they hung a giant poster of her down the side of the National Yacht Club and each morning the commuters driving to into the city and the people walking the east pier, could share the pride. Around here the Murphy is silent. She is simply Annalise like Sonia remains Sonia and Katie has always been Katie. She says she is naturally gregarious and that doing it on her own, the hours on the water in Rio or Dublin Bay and recently in Lisbon, can get lonely. Talking up her success and position in sailing is anathema to her and if she does, it is guarded and almost begrudging. She is tough on herself. She has anxiety about her ability, questions whether she can do the things people expect of her, will it all be a success or a big flat belly flop? And all this after Rio. “I’m still the same person,” she says. “I don’t think the Olympic Games changed me that much. I still have the exact same fears that I had before. “I’ve got a little bit more confidence in my sailing ability, but not that much more. I still have fears that that I’m not going to be good enough. It’s an eternally searching position from a sailor who dramatically fell off the podium in London 2012, then turned a crisis of confidence into a silver medal. When she knew everyone was watching to see if she would fall, she rose. Rio and Irish Olympic history now define her. Still, the confidence wanes and grows with each achievement, the doubt an incitement to drive and build. Her internal disposition is a steady stream of self provocation. It never allows her stay still. Today though, she has her eyes on the world and all of its water in the Volvo Ocean Race. The name alone is majestic in its breadth and sweep. From her solo success, Annalise has ‘crewed up’. For almost a year, the boat will own her. As one of 10 she has now declared herself a team player. “I get lonely all the time,” she explains. “I don’t really like being by myself. Generally I like to be around people, hang out with people. Chat away. She has more plunged than dipped her toe into the high end of muscle boats, the Ocean going Volvo 65 designed specifically for the race. No paint on the inside, just a black carbon canvas. Spare. “It’s dark downside,” she says. A coat of paint to brighten it would be another layer of weight. Too much. All seven teams in the 45,000 nautical mile journey have exactly the same boat, one design and an allowance of two sets of sails for the entire race, a restriction to stop money talking too loudly. The bunk beds are sweet, she says. They are rigged to a pulley system so if it’s rough the crew can haul themselves the whole way up and wedge against the carbon fibre wall, snug like a burrito on a grill. It means in their four hours on, four hours off around the clock roster they don’t flip into the water sloshing around inside the sleeping quarters. Prior to her recent stints of training she had never slept overnight on a boat. Whether it was racing her Olympic Laser, or against men in the foiling Moths, she has been successfully sailing, but until now it had always been a few hours on the bay then back to shore. “I’ve only ever slept on this boat. I’d 48 hours, the longest I’ve been on it,” she says, coolly pocketing that challenge. “Being thrown into this team is refreshing. It’s a whole group of people doing the same thing and all wanting the same outcome. “It’s cool. It’s different. It’s terrifying, the whole race. It’s so hard. I think it’s going to make me feel that Olympic sailing was the easiest thing in the world. Not in terms of the technical preparation but in terms of the mental attitude. The first leg from Lisbon in Portugal to Alacante in Spain is a sprint, 700 nautical miles, the same as around Ireland and only few days ride. Leg three, Cape Town to Melbourne is 6,500 miles and leg seven, Auckland to Itaja in Brazil may define their race. It’s the longest leg and cruel, 7,600 nautical miles and almost all of it through some of the coldest, roughest ocean in the world. The fleet leaves Auckland on March 18th and heads south past New Zealand’s East Cape and into the Southern Ocean. Once far enough south they will turn and race from west to east, catching the low pressure systems circulating around Antarctica. There will be big seas. There will be big winds. And there will be icebergs. Once across that vast expanse of wilderness the boats take on the legendary Cape Horn and turn north, following the coast of Argentina, Uruguay and finally Brazil and Itajaí. “Excited. Terrified,” says Annalise of the challenge ahead. “Worried about the dangers involved in the race . . . I’m looking forward to what our team can do . . . we are young and enthusiastic. “I guess my family are excited for me. They are definitely worried. But they’ve done mad things as well in their life. For all of her wise cracking and underplay she is the most successful female sailor Ireland has ever had. Those who watch carefully know that her natural cheer is authentic and the gallows humour her way of deflecting from a talent and success that keeps moving forward. Ocean racers are not Olympic racers. Like frontiersmen, mountaineers or free divers they bear the miles of endurance like battle scars. The moulded unadorned fibreglass interiors are not so much a disdain for comfort as preparedness for sacrifice. She throws a pitying smile when hardship is mentioned. It’s as though comfort is the most virulent kind of serial killer. She is empathetic, benevolent and kindly to a land lubber. But unflinching. “I think people have dealt with worse than not showering for three weeks. I don’t think it’s going to be a deal breaker,” she says calmly. “I guess we’ll all be smelly together. “I feel it’s going to be the best thing I can do. This is the first time I have thought I could actually do professional sailing. It’s hard when you are just an Olympic sailor. You are so well skilled but if you want to get onto a big boat, to be a tactician . . . this gives me opportunity. “I mean Olympic sailing is so hard and I’m hard on myself. “I found it very difficult between London and Rio because I started to sail badly in 2014 and then my whole idea of an Olympic medal began to disappear. I thought maybe it’s not going to happen for me, that I’m going to work so hard over the next years and I’m just not good enough. “I couldn’t even see the light at the end of the tunnel. All I could see was three more years. Do I have to do three more years of this? Feeling that I’m not good enough. That I’m never going to get to where I want to get to. This gives me a perfect 10 month break even though I’ll be sailing 24 hours a day. The boat ‘Turn The Tide On Plastic’ has an overt environmental theme as well as gender equality. There is an even split of five men and five women. Most of the crew are under 30. Veteran Irish sailor Damian Foxall is also in the race and part of the Vestas team. He has competed in five Volvo Ocean Races and won it as part of Groupama in 2011-12. He also set a round-the-world speed record onboard G-Class catamaran Cheyenne. Kerry of course, he is a Derrynane boy gripped with ocean fever. Foxall has fallen overboard in the race only to be picked up by a boat that was coincidentally taking the same course. In five-metre waves 1,200 miles from land, Dutch friend Hans Horrevoets was fatally washed away from ABN AMRO. Death is there and all the sailors know it. But it is not what the race is about. It is an eye opening, life changing voyage. “Oh,” Murphy adds. “I’m the medic too.” She raises her arm in the air to show the veins running from her wrist along the inside of her forearm and describes her efforts to insert a canella. The simple medical procedure becames a splatter movie with blood fizzing into the air like a shaken bottle of cola. She recites the drill as if by rote. “We have a camping gas stove. We have a kettle. Pour it into the freeze dried. Mix the freeze dried. Leave it to rehydrate. Eat it. Make sure you leave it for 15 minutes. Otherwise it will make you sick. “It will be hard for me mentally every day to get through each day,” she adds more earnestly. “When you are on each leg you have to think that it is never going to end. You can’t be counting down the days. It’s an endurance test. You have to think like that. That’s mentally very hard. Asked for five words that define what she is doing, how she feels about casting off and she gives back 59. Ideas and emotions swim in her head, almost in overload, banging off each other. And off she goes rubbing her lower forehead for the imaginary lost eyebrows. Off she goes, infectious, self deprecating, talented, doubting, conquering. Off she goes to discover a new world. The total distance for the 2017-18 edition will be 45,000 nautical miles and is the longest route in the history of the race that was formerly known as the Whitbread Round the World Race. It typically sailed a distance of about 32,000 nautical miles. A total of 12,500 nautical miles will be raced in the Southern Ocean, a hostile, freezing environment renowned for boat-breaking storms and gruelling conditions. Most stages of the race range in length from 700 to 6,500 nautical miles. Port stopovers are usually less than two weeks in duration but there are also several ‘pit-stops’ of just a few days at key locations. The fleet comprises seven teams while an eighth - for which a brand-new boat is available - did not materialise. Out of 77 sailors, there are a total of 18 female sailors, the biggest proportion ever following a concerted effort by the organisers to ensure teams would be mixed. As an incentive, teams opting for an all-male line-up must race with fewer crew; none have taken this option. Teams are also required to have under 30’s included in their crew panel. There are 28 sailors participating for the first time and 14 sailors across the seven teams that have won the race before. There will be 18 nations represented in the total crew line-up. Annalise Murphy is one of several Rio 2012 Olympic medallists selected to compete in this race. Her inclusion required a crash course in offshore sailing including Sea Survival training, Yachtmaster theory courses as well as medical training as she is also the designated medic on board “Turn the Tide on Plastic”. She has not previously competed in an offshore/trans-oceanic race. Ireland has been represented in the race on winning teams on three separate occasions. Cork sailor Justin Slattery won the race in 2005-2006 on board ABN AMRO 1 with skipper Mike Sanderson. He also won the last edition of the race with Ian Walker on Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing. Kerryman Damian Foxall won the race in 2011-12 with French skipper Franck Cammas on Groupama, lifting the trophy on home turf as that edition of the race finished in Galway. Murphy is only the third Irish woman to compete in this round the world race. Previously, Susan Kavanagh raced on Norsk Data in the 1985-86 Whitbread. Angela Farrell raced in the first all-woman team with Tracy Edwards on Maiden in the 1989-90 race. Ireland has had two previous flagged entries in the race. NCB Ireland was the Irish designed and built 82-foot maxi skippered by the late Joe English that competed in the 1989-90 Whitbread race. Green Dragon skippered by Ian Walker competed in the 2008-09 Volvo Ocean Race. Both projects were conceived by Galway’s Enda O’Coineen who mounted his own Vendee Globe solo ocean race entry last year that ended prematurely with a dismasting close to New Zealand’s South Island.

MUCH-LOVED comedy duo The Chuckle Brothers bring their new show to Southport Theatre this weekend. Barry Potty, along with his best friend and brother, Paul, accidentally arrive at Pigsnorts School of Magic. They were on their way for an interview at a different school as handymen and now they are totally confused! Strange things start to happen with magical illusions, in a story that could be an episode of ChuckleVision! A strange man, by the name of Lord Fonterall, tries to take over the magic school in order to cause trouble and he isn’t happy that the two bumbling brothers have arrived, he even tries to stop them – with cunning consequences! Will he win and stop the Brothers Chuckle? The Chuckle Brothers in Barry Potty and his Full Blood Brother Paul in The Ghostly Shadows comes to Southport Theatre this Sunday (April 10) at 2.30pm. To book call 0844 847 2380.

Kristen Wiig, Katherine Heigl, Clint Eastwood, Aubrey Plaza and Zach Galifianakis are among the stars appearing in films included in the 2015 Outfest Los Angeles LGBT Film Festival line-up, organizers announced Thursday. Wiig stars in Sebastián Silva’s drama “Nasty Baby,” Heigl takes the lead as a gay woman coming out to her family in “Jenny’s Wedding,” and Eastwood is among the talking heads in “Tab Hunter Confidential,” a documentary about matinee idol Tab Hunter’s rise from teenage stable boy to closeted Hollywood star of the 1950s. The nation’s leading LGBT festival, presented by HBO, will feature six world premieres and three U.S. premieres, as well as films from 28-first-time filmmakers, and new work from returning filmmakers. Returning filmmakers and the films they are screening include Jeffrey Schwarz (“Tab Hunter Confidential”), Jamie Babbit (“Fresno”), Sebastián Silva (“Nasty Baby”), Malcolm Ingram (“Out To Win”), Jenni Olson (“The Royal Road”) and Parvez Sharma (“A Sinner in Mecca”). “Tig,” a documentary about gay comedian Tig Notaro, is set to screen during the opening night gala on July 9, while the festival will close on July 19 with François Ozon’s “The New Girlfriend.” The gala screenings include “Nasty Baby” (U.S. Dramatic Centerpiece), “The Summer of Sangaile” (International Centerpiece), “Eisenstein in Guanajuato” (International Centerpiece), “Best of Enemies” (Documentary Centerpiece) and “Out to Win” (Documentary Centerpiece). The festival will also offer a sneak peek at Bill Hader and Fred Armisen’s “Sandy Passage,” a “Grey Gardens” parody episode of IFC’s upcoming comedy series “Documentary Now,” as well as TLC’s “I Am Jazz,” a reality show spotlighting the day-to-day life of transgendered teen Jazz Jennings, a Clean and Clear model. Nick Jonas will join DirecTV’s “Kingdom” creator Byron Balasco for an in-depth discussion on Jonas’ massive queer following, as well as a sneak peek of his role as a gay MMA fighter on Season 2 of the DirecTV series. With the Ford Amphitheatre under renovation, Outfest Los Angeles will be held in three venues: The Montalbán Theatre, Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and The Theatre at the Ace Hotel. Click here for the full schedule of screenings and events, and then watch the trailer for the festival. Dir: Kristina Goolsby, Ashley York, Scr: Jennifer Arnold, 2015, USA, 95 min. Dir: Morgan Neville, Robert Gordon, 2015, USA, 88 min. Dir/Scr: Peter Greenaway, 2015, Netherlands/Mexico/Belgium/Finland, 105 min. Dir/Scr: Sebastián Silva, 2015, USA, 100 min. Dir/Scr: Malcolm Ingram, 2015, USA/Canada, 100 min. Dir/Scr: Alanté Kavaïté, 2015, France/Lithuania/The Netherlands, Lithuanian with English subtitles, 88 min. Dir/Scr: François Ozon, 2014, France, French with English subtitles, 108 min. Dir/Scr: Barney Cheng, 2015, USA/Taiwan, English, Mandarin with English subtitles, 102 min. Dir/Scr: Natalia Leite, 2015, USA, 88 min. Dir/Scr: Joseph Graham, 2015, USA, 93 min. Dir/Scr: Benjamin R. Davis, Dylan Hansen-Fliedner, Dane Mainella, Jay Jadick, 2015, USA, 85 min. Dir: Andrew Nackman, Scr: Aaron Dancik, 2015, USA, 95 min. Dir: Jamie Babbit, Scr: Karey Dornetto, 2015, USA, 85 min. Dir/Scr: Mary Agnes Donoghue, 2015, USA, 94 min. Dir/Scr: Philipp Karner, 2014, USA, English, 90 min. Dir: Kristin Hanggi, Scr: Amy Andelson, Emily Meyer, 2014, USA, 89 min. Dir/Scr: Jay Dockendorf, 2014, USA, 86 min. Dir/Scr: Michelle Ehlen, 2015, USA, 80 min. Dir/Scr: Carlos Ciurlizza, 2014, Peru/USA, Spanish, English with English subtitles, 108 min. Dir: Jorge Torres-Torres, Scr: Jorge Torres-Torres, Jason Banker, 2015, USA, 74 min. Dir/Scr: Suzanne Guacci, 2015, USA, 98 min. Dir: William Sullivan, Scr: William Sullivan, Derek Dodge, 2015, USA, 97 min. Dir/Scr: Joey Kuhn, 2015, USA, 89 min. Dir: Jim Hansen, Scr: Jim Hansen, Jeffery Self, 2015, USA, 88 min. Dir/Scr: Louise Wadley, 2015, Australia, 97 min. Dir: Anucha Boonyawatana, Scr: Anucha Boonyawatana, Waasuthep Ketpetch, 2015, Thailand, Thai with English subtitles, 97 min. Dir: Rigoberto Perezcano, Scr: Rigoberto Perezcano, Edgar San Juan, 2014, Mexico, Spanish with English subtitles, 80 min. Dir: Dean Francis, Scr: Stephen Francis, 2015, Australia, 96 min. Dir: Marçal Forés, Scr: Marçal Forés, Vicente de la Torre, 2014, Spain, Spanish with English subtitles, 69 min. Dir/Scr: Mauricio López Fernández, 2014, Chile/Argentina, Spanish, 82 min. Dir/Scr: Pat Mills, 2015, Canada, 80 min. Dir/Scr: Zoe Berriatúa, 2015, Spain, Spanish with English subtitles, 98 min. Dir: Claudio Marcone, Scr: Rodrigo Antonio Norero, 2015, Chile, Spain with English subtitles, 101 min. Dir/Scr: Fina Torres, 2015, Venezuela, Spanish with English subtitles, 100 min. Dir/Scr: Christina Zeidler, John Mitchell, 2014, Canada, 83 min. Dir/Scr: Marcio Reolon, Filipe Matzembacher, 2015, Brazil, Portuguese with English subtitles, 83 min. Dir: Jim Chuchu, Scr: Jim Chuchu, Njoki Ngumi, 2014, Kenya, Swahili and English with English subtitles, 60 min. Dir/Scr: Maureen Bradley, 2014, Canada, 77 min. Dir: Catherine Stewart, Scr: Vanessa Herman, Amy Jephta, Matthew Krouse, Nodi Murphy, 2015, South Africa, 75 min. Dir/Scr: Nils Bökamp, 2014, Germany, German and Polish with English subtitles, 85 min. Dir/Scr: Michael Gough, Cammie Pavesic, 2014, USA, 79 min. Dir/Scr: Marjorie Sturm, 2014, USA, 90 min. Dir: Hillevi Loven, 2015, USA, 75 min. Dir/Scr: Daniel F. Cardone, 2015, USA, 80 min. Dir: David Thorpe, 2014, USA, 77 min. Dir/Scr: Alex Berry, 2015, USA, 83 min. Dir: Sharon Shattuck, Scr: Frederick Shanahan, Martha Shane, Sharon Shattuck, 2015, USA, 75 min. Dir/Scr: Sophie Deraspe, 2015, Canada, 84 min. Dir: Marq Evans, Scr: Marq Evans, Jeff Gilbert, 2015, USA, English, 80 min. Dir: Randall Wright, 2015, UK, 112 min. Dir/Scr: Avigail Sperber, 2014, Israel, Hebrew with English subtitles, 90 min. Dir/Scr: Jenni Olson, 2015, USA, 65 min. Dir: Michael Stabile, 2015, USA, 72 min. Dir/Scr: Ron Nyswaner, 2015, USA, 80 min. Dir/Scr: Parvez Sharma, 2014, Saudi Arabia/India/USA, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, English with English subtitles, 79 min. Dir: Jeffrey Schwarz, 2015, USA, 90 min. Dir/Scr: Pablo García Pérez de Lara, Marc Serena, 2015, Spain, Cape Verdean Creole with English subtitles, 95 min.

Newark Symphony Hall last month completed $1.5 million in roof repairs and safety upgrades that made the 84-year-old deteriorating building on Broad Street habitable as a rental facility. But the work falls far short of a more significant investment needed to address years of neglect and return the building that once hosted such artistic greats as Marian Anderson and George Gershwin to its former stature. To rebuild Symphony Hall, its nonprofit operators will launch a $40 million capital campaign by next spring to generate public and private philanthropy for the needed renovations, which include new stage lighting; sound, heating and air-conditioning expansions; and other infrastructure improvements. Carl Miller, a maintenance worker, at the Sarah Vaughan Concert Hall's new theater at Newark Symphony Hall, which has undergone a $1.5 million renovation. Combined with city, county and state funding, the building's managers hope enough money is raised to complete the kind of renovations seen in recent years at the Union County Performing Arts Center in Rahway and the Welmont Theater in Montclair. "It's legacy needs to be preserved for future generations. We should be trying to maintain the historical venues that we have in the City of Newark, as opposed to let them deteriorate and become inactive," said Philip S. Thomas, executive director of the Newark Performing Arts Corp. On Saturday, the public is invited to help the city, which owns the building, and the hall's operators design the venue's future at a daylong conference billed as "Newark Symphony Hall Reimagined." Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who spurred symphony hall's renewal, said people have an interest in preserving the building that was once a gem in the city's downtown. "That facility has a very strong hold on the spirit and the imagination of a lot of residents here, and many residents have great stories about seeing shows and concerts or just going to events there as well," Booker said. Despite the recession, City Council President Mildred Crump said she is confident the campaign to raise funds will be a success. "Mindful of the fact that these are very difficult times, there are still people out there who were around when Newark Symphony Hall was where you went," said Crump, who serves on hall's board of directors. The building, also known as the Mosque and originally built by the Shriners as a Masonic Temple in 1925, had been the state's premier venue for a variety of famed entertainers and theater groups. Marian Anderson, William Warfield, George Gershwin, Tony Bennett and Patti LaBelle were among the major stars whose names went up on the marquee. The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, New Jersey Ballet, New Jersey State Opera and African Globe Theater also have used the building. In addition, two television stations -- WNET Channel 13 and the Spanish-language WNJU Channel 47 -- have made their home in the hall. Changing priorities for the city, however, brought an era of deferred maintenance to the building, leaving it to deteriorate over the past two decades. With increasing competition from other area venues, fewer groups rented the Sarah Vaughan Concert Hall, Terrace Ballroom and a second-floor theater. Tenants who leased office space on the third and fourth floors also departed when water damage from a leaking roof made the spaces uninhabitable. Over the years, periodic repair work was done, but it wasn't enough, Thomas said. "If you're making constant repairs to the building, then it's going to start looking shabby. And if you're not replacing broken or worn-out or outdated mechanical systems, then they're going to break down." he said. In 2007, the Newark Performing Arts Council hired Thomas, a former vice president at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, to manage Newark Symphony Hall. Thomas reduced a deficit in annual operating expenses from more than $400,000 in 2007 to just over $65,000 last year, according to an update he prepared for the city council in February. He said he reduced costs by making hard decisions, such as canceling a summer program for about 100 Newark children one year and cutting his staff from 19 to 15 employees. Symphony Hall operates on a $2.1 million annual budget and relies on rentals of the building, tenant leases, concession revenues and a $650,000 donation from the city each year. Last year, the city invested $1.5 million for the roof repair and to help to bring the building up to city codes. Electric exit signs, emergency lighting, panic bars on doors and a computerized fire and smoke alarm system were installed for the entire building. Thomas said the work was the minimum for making Symphony Hall safe and that it was now primed for a major renovation. Symphony Hall has already received a $30,000 grant from PSEG Foundation to create a strategic plan. Crump said she also hopes to gain state support this week from New Jersey's Secretary of State Nina Wells and Jason Tramm, maestro of the New Jersey State Opera. The opera, she said, expects to return to Symphony Hall in 2010. Saturday's conference, featuring NJPAC President Lawrence P. Goldman and Newark historian Clement Price as speakers, begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 5:30 p.m. Registration forms are available at the box office. Crump said she already has her vision of how the building should be reimagined. "It takes me back to the day when you walked the red carpet as you entered Newark Symphony Hall," she said. "It takes me back to the day when every seat was filled." "Historic music hall has brighter days ahead"

Political surveys and their results consume a large part of the political discourse. Political officials at many different levels of government have come to rely on them as representing their constituents' preferences on current issues. However, research indicates surveys may have shortcomings which can affect valued democratic qualities (equality, for one). This brings into question their ability to accurately represent the public view. Many United States citizens do not feel that they can affect government actions. Voting is the citizen's domain, often after the candidates have been chosen. Political scientists have recognized and bemoaned the voter ignorance and apathy displayed prominently in survey research, but have for the most part ignored the causes. While they admit the shortcomings of surveys, they have not evaluated their use by politicians or attempted to measure surveys' effects relative to conceptions of democratic ideals within the broader society. This thesis does not seek to establish our dependence on surveys as the origin of voter apathy; there are many contributing factors to political culture. It is the intention of this thesis to examine the shortcomings of surveys, how they are used, and the ways in which they result in undemocratic effects. A proposed plan for change is then introduced with the hope that it can remedy some of these ills. Kagan, Nancy H., "An Evaluation of Political Surveys and Their Consequences for Democracy" (2009). Master's Theses. 286.

MARCH 6--Fearful of an impending zombie apocalypse, an agitated Illinois allegedly man stole a car, rammed the vehicle into an airport terminal, and then made his way onto the tarmac, where he boarded a vacant plane in an apparent bid to escape the undead invaders. Justin Deemie, 27, was indicted today on several felony charges related to a bizarre drug-fueled spree last month in Peoria. Locked up in lieu of $500,000 bond, Deemie is charged with burglary, home invasion, criminal damage, and possession of a stolen vehicle. Pictured at right, Deemie faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of the felony counts. According to investigators, Deemie was under the influence of narcotics on February 17 when he became convinced that a zombie invasion was nigh. Deemie is accused of breaking into the home of a neighbor, Larhonda Gonzalez, around 3 AM and stealing the keys to her Ford Escape. Deemie then drove the stolen SUV to the Peoria airport, where he sought to crash into the terminal. He then somehow bypassed security and got aboard an empty plane parked on the tarmac. Deemie subsequently fled the stationary plane and, with the aid of a brick, tried to break into a Peoria County Sheriff’s Office squad car that was parked nearby. As first reported by the Journal Star, Deemie planned to drive the cop car to Florida.

Copper Mountain Resort opens Friday morning with 275 acres of skiable terrain based out of East and West villages. A snowboarder with a cellphone make turns on the opening day of 2018-2019 season Friday, Nov. 16, at Copper Mountain. Skiers enjoy the groomers on the opening day of 2018-2019 season Friday, Nov. 16, at Copper Mountain. A skier enjoys the groomers on the opening day of 2018-2019 season Friday, Nov. 16, at Copper Mountain. Snowboarders make turns on the opening day of 2018-2019 season Friday, Nov. 16, at Copper Mountain. Fresh snow on opening day Friday, Nov. 16, at Copper Mountain. First chairlift riders of the 2018-2019 ski season tear through the banner Friday, Nov. 16, in Copper Mountain's East Village. Betty the Yeti rallies the first chairlift riders of the 2018-2019 ski season Friday, Nov. 16, in Copper Mountain's East Village. Copper Ski Resort Chief Operations Officer Jesse True high fives first chairlift riders of the 2018-2019 ski season Friday, Nov. 16, in Copper Mountain's East Village. Copper Mountain resident Frank Walter, 96, greets the first chairlift riders of the 2018-2019 season Friday, Nov. 16, at Copper Mountain. Copper Mountain Resort opens on Friday at 9 a.m., with 275 acres of skiable terrain via seven lifts and 27 trails spread across the resort’s East and West villages. Despite continuing construction on Copper’s new American Eagle and American Flyer lifts in Center Village, the Super Bee lift will be the home base for Copper’s first chair festivities Friday at 9 a.m. Use #CopperLive on Twitter and Instagram to have your opening day photos featured. And check out this article for more info on Copper’s skiable terrain and opening weekend festivities scheduled for the coming days.

The eccentric PayPal billionaire doesn’t just invest in Silicon Valley tech companies. He’s giving money for crazy projects that do everything from get power from the weather to find ways to program human cells like computers. Paypal Co-Founder Peter Thiel isn’t the kind of guy who invests in mindless smartphone apps that make lots of cash. He’s not anti-software by any means; he has sunk millions into accounting software company Xero. But Thiel also doles out cash to companies doing things that aren’t just world-changing–they seem insane (in a good way). Could we expect anything less from the guy that’s funding a floating startup incubator for foreign entrepreneurs? Thiel’s latest investment–a $300,000 bet–is in AVEtec, a startup from Canadian engineer Louis Michaud that wants to harness the energy created by tornados. Michaud doesn’t want to chase tornados a la Twister; he plans to generate man-made tornados that can be safely switched off if necessary. Michaud’s design features warm air blown into a hollow cylinder, where it turns into a “controlled vortex” (aka a tornado) that’s supported by the temperature difference between the heated air in the cylinder and the atmosphere. No carbon emissions are produced, no energy storage is required, the device can produce 200 megawatts of electrical power (the same as a coal power plant) and power can potentially be produced at just three cents per kilowatt hour. Now Michaud just needs to build the proof of concept–a project that will be helped along by Thiel’s cash. He’s working on a 131-foot-tall, 26-foot-in-diameter prototype at Lambton College in Ontario. AVEtec is one of 12 startups that Thiel is funding through Breakout Labs, a program of the Thiel Foundation that the organization calls “a revolutionary, revolving funding model through which successful projects fund the next generation of daring scientific exploration.” Some of our other favorites are listed below. An alligator purse that doesn’t require killing an animal. A burger that keeps cows intact. That’s the far-out dream of Modern Meadow, a startup that could have test tube leather ready for large-scale production in five years. To make leather, the startup biopsies a living animal, isolates the necessary cells, multiplies them in a bioreactor, centrifuges them into spheres of thousands of cells, layers and fuses cell aggregates, matures the cells in a bioreactor, and harvests the skin tissue. All for your guilt-free leather accessory. “At this point, the goal is to create products that are both biomimetic–very, very similar to real leather–and also to look at ways that we can improve upon it and make products that are superior to traditional leather,” CEO Andras Forgacs told Co.Exist in an interview earlier this year. Down the line, Modern Meadow will move into test tube meat. Why buy a cow when you can get the meat from a lab? This company has the ambitious goal of creating a universal system for gathering and identifying airborne toxins. The research for the project is being conducted at the Northwestern University Department of Biomedical Engineering. Inspirotec is working on two different models: a portable air collector that collects samples which can be analyzed in a lab (available in 2013), and a more-ambitious sounding next-generation portable collector that allows for real-time monitoring. The Inspirotec website explains that “It is based on well-established biological detection methods and connects with smart devices allowing for mobile applications.” Funding from Breakout will be used to create a proof-of-concept device. This startup, founded by a computer security expert, is taking a programmer’s approach to disease treatment: The company wants to program patients’ cells to become tiny drug factories. The website explains: “Within 50 years, we will program human cells like we program computers. Envision a stand-alone device capable of modifying a patient’s cells to manufacture biologic-based therapies for a wide range of disease including cardiovascular disease, cancers, infectious diseases, and lysosomal storage diseases. Programming a patient’s cells to manufacture their own treatments could dramatically reduce therapy costs.” With the price for certain cancer treatments hovering over $100,000 per year, that’s a big deal. Within 50 years, we will program human cells like we program computers. Immosoft is testing its methods first with a rare genetic disease called MPS I. If the company is successful, it will program the human immune system to generate cells that secrete enzymes to treat the disease, first in genetically modified mice before moving on eventually to humans. Immusoft has already conducted a proof of concept for its treatment where B cells were modified from a healthy human to create antibodies that neutralize HIV. Organ transplants are tricky, time-sensitive things–if an organ isn’t transplanted within hours, there’s a decent chance it will be rejected. That doesn’t bode well for patients, who may have a perfectly good organ waiting for them–on the other side of the world. Arigos Biomedical is working on high-speed methods to cool organs for long-term preservation. One day, patients may be able to receive organs that have been preserved for months or even longer. Arigos doesn’t have a website (that we can find, anyway), but co-founder Tanya Jones told the Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal: “We’ve done all the math that we can do to prove that this method will work … now it’s a matter of actually beginning to use organs. We are hoping to basically have all the pictures and all the proof necessary.” First up: testing the technology with animal organs. Check out all of Breakout Labs’ investments here.

Housing secretary James Brokenshire announced today (29 November) that under new legislation, combustible materials will not be permitted in the external walls of new buildings over 18m tall and containing housing. The Ministry of Housing confirmed the ban would also apply to new hospitals, residential care premises, dormitories in boarding schools and student accommodation over 18m tall. The new regulations will limit the use of materials in the external walls to products achieving a European fire-resistance classification of Class A1 or A2. The ban, which only applies to new buildings, will come into effect on 21 December. The government has also gone some way to clearing up confusion over which parts of the buildings the ban will apply to, and in particular, what it means by ‘external wall’. In the amended legislation, external wall is defined as anything ‘located within any space forming part of the wall’ and any decoration or finishes applied to external surfaces. It also comprises windows or doors, roofs pitched at an angle of more than 70 degrees as well as balconies, devices for deflecting sunlight and solar panels. The AJ understands this definition is likely to have implications for timber-frame high-rises and architects and developers using the cross-laminated timber (CLT) construction method. The government’s impact assessment of the policy points out it ’prohibits the use of timber materials in the external wall of buildings within the scope’. Brokenshire also announced that local authorities would get the full backing of the government, including financial support, to remove combustible cladding from privately owned high-rise blocks. The ban comes after months of warnings issued to building owners not to pass on costs of removing unsafe cladding to leaseholders. The government is already fully funding the replacement of unsafe ACM cladding on publicly owned blocks above 18m. Brokenshire said: ‘Everyone has a right to feel safe in their homes and I have repeatedly made clear that building owners and developers must replace dangerous ACM cladding. And the costs must not be passed on to leaseholders. This is indeed an interesting move that should have been introduced from the outset in the design of high rise structures. Bearing in mind that 40% of fires Worldwide are caused by electrical cable malfunction it is imperative that the electrical cable is also taken into account. Cables are taken the length and breadth of every building and cables have been frequently known to assist in the spread of fire in highrise buildings. Most electrical cables will burn and emit smoke and toxic fumes. 1. How about existing high-rise blocks, built in the 70-ties, 80-ties etc. 2. Who will pay for the removal of such cladding materials if the building is owned by a local authority? Leaseholders?

Timothy: It is a well-known secret agenda that the authorities want to convert as many Orang Asli and natives in Sabah and Sarawak into Muslims. Many don't even know they have converted until they were shown some documents. Just go to the ground and talk to them. This are just a tip of an iceberg. It is similar in so-called national schools. I witnessed it myself. My children (non-Muslims) have to stand in the open field to endure the doa (Islamic prayer) reading by the ustaz and face regular onslaught from the ustaz questioning their faith at this young age. Is that a national school or an agama (religious) school? Sabahan: Hopefully, this is due to a few teachers who have betrayed the trust given to them by the Orang Asli parents to teach their children. Years ago, my neighbour's daughter, a non-Muslim bumiputera, was given a place in a Mara Junior Science Colleges (MRSM) school in Peninsular Malaysia. During the fasting month, the school has to provide meals for her and a few East Malaysian non-Muslim bumiputeras during the day. Very soon, they were urged by a Muslim teacher to become Muslims as so not to trouble the kitchen staff during the fasting hours. My neighbour quickly removed his daughter from the school. Like I said earlier, these are the actions of a few misguided teachers. Lawan Tetap Lawan: If it was the other way around, there would be street protests aided by the police and MPs calling for the sacking of the teacher. Lamborghini: The Orang Asli has been bullied and intimidated and suppressed for far too long. They are the true native inhabitants, the real bumiputeras of this land and yet they are treated as the lowest and least of our citizens. Because of their ignorance and meekness, their rights have been trampled upon and their lands robbed from them and now their children being forced to convert to a faith not of their choosing. To all of you who are bullying, intimidating and taking advantage of the Orang Asli, stop it for God's sake. We should all instead do our very best to genuinely help them to develop to become more educated, healthy and respected citizens in our country. These true bumiputeras deserve and need our genuine help, compassion and support, not our greed and evil intentions and wicked actions. The teacher concerned and others like him must be brought to justice for their contemptible actions against the innocent Orang Asli children. P Dev Anand Pillai: It will soon happen in other rural areas if we don't fight back. Their next targets will be the Indians, who are now ranked behind the Indonesian Muslims as the fourth or fifth in terms of population. They will never touch the well-connected ones, their target will be the rural ones. So let's change the bargaining position by ensuring that there are at least two representatives from Hindraf and Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) in Parliament this time around. 2zzzxxx: Imagine if they were Muslim children and slapped for not reciting a non-Muslim prayer. Jati president Hasan Ali and Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali and all of Umno will by now have descended on the streets and screaming to have the teacher hung. Chipmunk: This is why all Malays should be taught about respecting other religions. They must know that freedom of religion is part of the constitution. Most SK (sekolah kebangsaan) and SMK (sekolah menengah kebangsaan) schools try to force non-Muslims to recite the doa and this is utterly wrong. Will the education minister and the prime minister take action on this matter or just turn a deaf ear to this? How would you feel if non-Malays forced their religion onto Muslims? Will you like that? So please, for the sake of racial integration, stop this kampung attitude and wake up to reality. 3rdEye: Stop the rot now. Malaysians must be free to choose and Malaysian parents be allowed to decide what is needed for their children. The teacher, Education Ministry and Orang Asli Development Department (JHEOA) must take responsibility, apologise and ensure this does not repeat, both in East and West Malaysia. Geronimo: Now you can understand why the Chinese educationalists are resisting the posting of Malay teachers to Chinese schools. Clearly, there is a bigger agenda here then meets the eye. When PM Najib Abdul Razak studied in St John's Institution, I wonder whether the LaSalle brothers forced him to say grace before he eats. Swipenter: If nothing is done to stop such incidents and proper disciplinary action taken against the offender, one day you would be slapped for not looking like them. Hopeful Doc: If the Muslims dislike being proselytised, why are they doing the same to others? Transferring misbehaving government servants will not solve any problem. They must be suspended and demoted. This is to ensure they will think twice before doing anything. Anonymous #18452573: Bigotry is the by-product of racism. This is just another form of ethnocentrism and xenophobia due to BN's 50 years of racially divided political parties and racist policies. Islam, Christianity and other religions are inherently good and encourage unity against evil. It is people who are brought up with bad policies and divisive politics who are capable of doing bad, regardless of the religion they profess. BujangSenang: "Any man or woman who neglects to maintain inward vigilance, and only makes an outward show of holiness in dress, speech, and behaviour, is a wretched creature. "For they watch the doings of other people and criticise their faults, imagining themselves to be something when in reality they are nothing. "In this way they deceive themselves. Be careful to avoid this, and devote yourself inwardly to His likeness by humility, charity, and other spiritual virtues. In this way you will be truly converted to God." - Walter Hilton.

Video: James Blake "A Case Of You" Here’s the latest video from James Blake‘s Enough Thunder EP. The song is Blake’s version of a Joni Mitchell song, and the video stars the beautiful actress Rebecca Hall, who delivers a subtle but excellent performance. Watch it below.

Are Susanna Reid and Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish getting married, when did she break up with her ex-partner and how much weight has she lost? SUSANNA Reid is best known for co-presenting Good Morning Britain alongside Piers Morgan. How old is Susanna Reid? Where is she from? Susanna Victoria Reid, 48, is from Croydon, South London. She was born on December 10, 1970. She was educated at the independent Croham Hurst School, followed by the independent Croydon High School and then St Paul's Girls' School in London. Susanna studied politics, philosophy and law at the University of Bristol , where she was editor of Epigram, the student newspaper, which was short-listed in 1991 as Best Student Newspaper in The Guardian/NUS student journalism awards. She then undertook a Postgraduate Diploma in Broadcast Journalism at the Cardiff School of Journalism. Is Susanna Reid dating Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish? Are the getting married? Susanna went public with her new boyfriend, Steve Parish, 53, on November 4, 2018 when they were pictured at a Crystal Palace v Chelsea match. A friend said: “They have known each other for several years through their connections to Palace." In January 2019 Susanna revealed she was "very happy" with her new beau, but insisted she didn't want to get married. Has Susanna been married before? The TV star was previously with the former sports presenter Dominic Cotton from 1998 until they separated in February 2014. They have three children together – Jack, Sam and Finn. Where did Susanna Reid start her career? After leaving University, Susanna began her career at BBC Radio Bristol and then became a reporter for Radio 5 Live, as well as a producer before joining BBC News 24, where she spent two years as a reporter. When the 11pm presenter didn't turn up one night, Susanna became a stand-in presenter for an hour (while three months pregnant with her first child), which turned into a permanent position. Before going on maternity leave, she presented on the BBC's online interactive service and then became a reporter for Breakfast News in 1998. After a second maternity break, she became a presenter on the BBC News Channel. From 2003 Susanna became one of the main presenters on BBC Breakfast, with Bill Turnbull on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and previously presented with Charlie Stayt on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. In 2010, Reid stepped down from presenting Breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays to take a role on a new programme Sunday Morning Live. When was Susanna Reid on Strictly Come Dancing? In December 2013, Susanna was a runner-up in the eleventh series of Strictly Come Dancing with partner Kevin Clifton. She lost out on taking the glitterball trophy to model Abbey Clancy. She previously participated in the Children in Need special of the show, pairing with Robin Windsor and eventually winning it in November 2011. How long has Susanna Reid presented Good Morning Britain? In February 2014, it was reported that ITV were attempting to recruit Susanna for their new breakfast programme, with a £1million salary. Susanna had previously rejected claims of moving to ITV in December 2013, during her Strictly Come Dancing stint, claiming she would "bleed BBC" if cut open. But on March 3, 2014, the BBC confirmed her move to ITV to front rival breakfast programme Good Morning Britain, which replaced its former show Daybreak. She now co-hosts the show alongside Piers Morgan and Ben Shephard every Monday to Thursday from 6am to 8.30am. She earns an annual salary of £500,000 a year for GMB. How much weight has Susanna Reid lost? In January 2019 Susanna revealed she lost one and half stone after she ditched alcohol. She said the doctor warned her to cut out the booze after her BMI was dangerously high. A doctor had warned her she had crept up to the "top end" of the body mass index scale. Was Susanna Reid once an actress? Susanna was known for treading the boards when she was younger. As a child, she appeared as an actress in a stage production of Agatha Christie's Spider's Web (1982) with Shirley-Anne Field. She then starred alongside Peter Barkworth and Harriet Walter in The Price (1985) on Channel 4. But her biggest role to date was starring in Dreamworks animation Trolls in 2016 where she lent her voice to the character of Grandma Rosiepuff (UK release only).

SILK Hotel has been shut down until Monday after a successful application from Newcastle police. The Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority imposed a 72-hour closure on the Hunter-Street hotel, meaning it will shut its doors at 5pm on Friday and remain closed until 5pm on Monday. The police application relates to concerns about the hotel’s poor compliance with its licence conditions and recent incidents involving intoxication, violent or quarrelsome conduct and underage patrons on the premises, according to the authority. Police have also raised concerns that the hotel would pose a significant public risk this weekend given the presence of large numbers of young people in Newcastle for the Fat as Butter music festival. SILK Hotel has been shut down until Monday after a successful application from Newcastle police. The Independent Liquor & Gaming Authority imposed a 72-hour closure on the Hunter-Street hotel, meaning it will shut its doors at 5pm on Friday and remain closed until 5pm on Monday. The police application relates to concerns about the hotel’s poor compliance with its licence conditions and recent incidents involving intoxication, violent or quarrelsome conduct and underage patrons on the premises, according to the authority. Police have also raised concerns that the hotel would pose a significant public risk this weekend given the presence of large numbers of young people in Newcastle for the Fat as Butter music festival. The Silk Hotel on Hunter Street.

Because everything is scarier with video artifacts. And with slash marks. The typographic kind, that is.

Michael Heizer, shown in cowboy hat and yellow shirt at LACMA, and his piece "Levitated Mass" are the subject of a new documentary. Artist Michael Heizer's "Levitated Mass" is the subject of a new documentary to be screened as part of Los Angeles Film Festival. Our sister blog, Movies Now, reports that "Levitated Mass: The Story of Michael Heizer's Monolithic Sculpture" will premiere June 20 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Theater. The film chronicles Heizer's life and passion for the piece, which was four decades and $10 million in the making. After it arrived at LACMA last March, the sculpture had its official opening in June. The giant rock straddles a 15-foot deep channel, allowing visitors a seldom-seen sight: the underbelly of a 340-ton boulder. The rock’s 11-day road trip last spring from a quarry in Riverside to the Mid-Wilshire museum captivated residents in Southern California and beyond.

Attendants clean the pool deck at the National Aquatics Centre during Day 6 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Thursday in Beijing, China. Katie Hoff of the United States competes in the Women's 800m Freestyle Heat 3 at the National Aquatics Centre during Day 6 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Thursday in Beijing, China. Michael Phelps of the United States competes in the Men's 100m Butterfly Heat 9 at the National Aquatics Centre during Day 6 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Thursday in Beijing, China. Margaret Hoelzer of the United States competes in the Women's 200m Backstroke Heat 5 held at the National Aquatics Centre during Day 6 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Thursday in Beijing, China. Spectators walk outside the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube as rain falls during the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Thursday in Beijing, China. Japan celebrate after defeating the Chinese Taipei 6-1 during their preliminary baseball game at the Wukesong Baseball Field during Day 6 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Thursday in Beijing, China. South Korea's JungJoo Kim, right, fights against Virgin Islands' John Jackson during their 2008 Olympic Games Welterweight (69 kg) boxing bout on Thursday in Beijing. Asset Mambetov of Kazhakstan (Red) wrestles with Marek Svec of Czech Republic (Blue) to win the bronze medal in the Greco-Roman wrestling 96kg division during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on Thursday. Great Britain's players celebrate after scoring a goal against New Zealand during a 2008 Beijing Olympic Games women's field hockey match in Beijing on Thursday. Great Britain won 2-1. Chinese Taipei cheer their team on against Japan during their preliminary baseball game at the Wukesong Baseball Field during Day 6 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Thursday in Beijing, China. Venus Williams of the U.S. returns the ball to Na Li of China during their 2008 Beijing Olympic Games women's quarterfinal tennis match at the Olympic Green Tennis Centre in Beijing on Thursday. Cedric Burdet of Croatia passes against France during the handball match held at the Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium during Day 6 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on Thursday in Beijing, China. A Mexican supporter watches the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games women's preliminary beach volleyball match Norway vs. Mexico at Beijing's Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground on Thursday.

Who Will Get the Coveted Seats in Michelle Obama's Box at the State of the Union? It's the hottest seat at the State of the Union: the first lady's box. Sitting next to Michelle Obama can have its perks. Beyond having the opportunity to — you know — sit next to the first lady, the dozen or so people chosen will end up on the national stage for the evening. At a speech that outlines President Obama's priorities for the next year, the guest list helps the White House to send a message about the issues the president considers most important. Last year, for example, one of the key themes of Obama's speech was a push to ensure the wealthiest Americans paid their fair share of taxes — the so-called "Buffett Rule." The White House invited billionaire investor Warren Buffett's secretary, Debbie Bosanek, to sit with the first lady. In the speech, the president spoke of her to make his point that it was unfair for a billionaire's secretary to pay a higher tax rate than her boss. Also in the first lady's box last year was former astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was shot in 2011 along with 18 others in Tucson. When Obama entered the House chamber, he stopped to give Giffords a hug, which was met by a standing ovation. Up-and-coming Democrat Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, also got an invite last year. So, in a year when the president is likely to highlight legislative priorities such as gun control, immigration reform, and "balanced" deficit reduction, who will end up on the White House guest list? Newtown families? The latest recipient of the Medal of Honor? An undocumented worker? That's where you, the readers, come in. Tell us who you think will be in the first lady's box at the State of the Union and why the White House would invite them. Leave a comment below or send me an e-mail with your answers. We'll publish your responses on Monday. And for some help, here are the guest lists from 2012, 2011, and 2010.

MUMBAI (REUTERS) - Pakistan all-rounder Mohammad Hafeez has been banned from bowling for 12 months after his action was found to be illegal for the second time since November, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said on Friday. Former Pakistan captain Hafeez was initially reported after the first Test against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi in November and was subsequently banned after an independent analysis found his action to be illegal. He was cleared to bowl in April after changing his action but the part-time off-spinner was again reported by match officials for a suspect action during last month's Test against Sri Lanka in Galle. "Hafeez is entitled to appeal any procedural aspect of an independent assessment that has led to this automatic suspension," the ICC said in a statement.

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver talks with middle and high school students at a NASA forum to encourage students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, March 22, 2011 in New York. Fashion designer Donna Karan's Urban Zen Foundation and the Foundation for Advancing Women Now (FFAWN), founded by singer Mary J. Blige co-hosted the event. NEW YORK – More than 200 students gathered today (March 22) to get a taste of space directly from NASA and an astronaut in orbit. "One of our greatest responsibilities at NASA is inspiring the next generation of explorers to work hard and pursue their dreams," Garver said. "And it is my hope that some of those dreams include careers in science and engineering." The students were also treated to a special appearance by astronaut Cady Coleman, who is currently orbiting 226 miles (363 kilometers) above Earth on the International Space Station. Coleman answered questions from the audience via satellite video link about life in space, and encouraged all the youngsters to work hard and follow their dreams. "When you're thinking about what you'd like to be, you can be anything," Coleman said. "I sincerely believe that. And you don't have to know what it is yet, but this is the time to get ready. By coming to an event like this, you're getting ready." Today's event was part of a collaboration between NASA, fashion designer Donna Karan's Urban Zen Foundation, and the Foundation for Advancing Women Now (FFAWN), which is an outreach charity created by R&B recording artist Mary J. Blige. Melvin spoke about the value of these collaborations and the importance of promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics – the so-called STEM subjects. "The primary focus of NASA's education mission is to use the excitement and wonder of our programs to ignite a spark for all students to follow STEM studies that can lead to exciting career options," Melvin said. "By collaborating with organizations like Urban Zen and FFAWN, whose missions are aligned with ours, we can identify and reach out to students who may not otherwise realize the opportunities that are available. That's important to me and to the agency." Blige's FFAWN foundation previously teamed up with NASA's Summer of Innovation project to encourage young women to pursue STEM studies, and to demonstrate career possibilities in these fields. The students at today's forum represented the Women's Academy of Excellence, the Promise Academy, the New York City Housing Authority, and the General D. Chappie James Middle School of Science.

Last week, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer team announced that a release candidate of IE8 would be issued in the first quarter of next year, followed some time thereafter with a final release of the new browser. But in an interview Friday, Matthew Lapsen, a director of Windows Product Management, insisted that the release of IE8 was not delayed. He declined to state any targets, but did say that the release of IE8 would be independent of any release of Windows. He told me that the bug counts in the second beta of IE8 were “pretty good,” and that there had been “no glaring surprises.” But Lapsen said it was essential that, with Internet Explorer’s dominant market share, the market be ready when the product is released. He also dismissed suggestions that people were not actively choosing to use Internet Explorer and instead using the browser by default. He showed off the Accelerator feature in IE8. Highlight any text on a page and an icon pops up. Click on the icon and a host of different actions (such as Search with Flickr or Map with Google Maps) show up. Here’s an example: Highlight an address on a page, click on the Accelerator icon, select Search with Google Maps, and see a mini-map of that location from within the same page. Another feature, Web slices, lets you track sites from your favorites bar. For instance, you can track an ebay auction or a stock price without having to navigate to a different page. Lapsen also showed me the tab isolation in IE8 (if one site crashes, others don’t), as well as how the domain (like microsoft.com) is highlighted in the address bar when users navigate to a site, so they can more easily identify if they are at a malicious copycat site. Some of those features (such as tab isolation) were released with Google’s Chrome earlier this fall. But Lapsen said that was not surprising.

Massachusetts has always been a source of innovative ideas that change the world, from the revolutionary principles that gave birth to democracy to the technological concepts that founded Facebook. But when it comes to our zoning, subdivision and planning laws, our state is still stuck a half century behind the curve. Yet that could change. There is a growing movement to reform the state’s antiquated and confusing laws that govern development. We aim to create a more predictable set of rules that will encourage good planning and good projects so that our cities and towns can enjoy the kinds of walkable, vibrant places where people want to live and work. To be successful, we need to pass legislation pending on Beacon Hill that will simplify the zoning process for the benefit of municipalities, residents, and property owners across MetroWest and throughout the Commonwealth. Current laws do not promote development that meets the needs of Massachusetts residents in 2013, much less in the years to come. We’re building fewer than half of the homes needed to house current residents, and we’re often building in ways that don’t use our land and resources responsibly. It’s time for some common sense that works in everyone’s interests. Known as House Bill 1859 or “An Act Promoting the Planning and Development of Sustainable Communities,” our reform package has earned 58 co-sponsors since being introduced, including Sen. James Eldridge (D-Acton). The proposal will make it quicker and cheaper for communities to decide where to sensibly grow by making master planning optional and more flexible. It encourages communities to establish districts for prompt permitting of housing and commercial growth while adopting environmental protections. With our proposal, the permitting process would become more rational for developers and the community. Instead of navigating a gamut of local boards individually, developers of major projects could submit a common application to all boards simultaneously and be granted a joint public hearing within 45 days of filing. Let’s take development fights out of the courts. This bill brings our zoning law into the 21st century and clarifies many gray areas of the law so that everyone understands what they mean. A few examples include: inclusionary zoning to encourage affordable housing, impact fees to help offset the costs of development, and form-based codes that promote good design. Furthermore, we eliminate several loopholes that make it possible for developers or municipalities to game the system. Our legislation would create reasonable and standardized zoning protections once a building permit, special permit, or subdivision plan is approved. In the event of a disagreement on land use proposals, there will be an opportunity for a neutral facilitator to come in and settle the dispute instead of enduring costly and time-consuming court battles. The appeal process is streamlined to save everyone time and money. Our antiquated zoning laws hurt our environment as well. Every day in Massachusetts, 22 acres of forest and farmland are converted primarily to low-density residential sprawl. This is due in part to “Approval Not Required” (ANR) development, which is almost unregulated. We are the only state in the nation that allows this. Our reform proposal would enable a city or town to replace that ANR with an expedited review process to minimize haphazard development and preserve important landscapes in our communities. There are also provisions to encourage the sensitive placement of development as well as recharge our aquifers to reduce flooding. One of Massachusetts’ greatest strengths is the diversity of its cities and towns. There are dense urban areas like Somerville, seaside communities like Gloucester, and rural towns like Brimfield. Under these proposed new laws, MetroWest communities and cities and towns in all areas of the state will have the tools they need to lay out their vision for the future while preserving the character that makes them unique. Increasing our stock of moderately priced and affordable homes in a responsible, predictable manner will keep our talented residents here while attracting new people to Massachusetts, strengthening not only our individual towns but the entire Commonwealth. The zoning reform bill is driven by the collective expertise of dozens of organizations including the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, the Massachusetts Public Health Association, the City Solicitors and Town Counsel Association, the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissions, the Massachusetts Association of Planning Directors and many other groups that care about growth and quality of life in our communities. We welcome a public discussion about how to improve development in Massachusetts and we invite you to learn more at the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance website and contact us. We hope you will agree that a more fair and predictable zoning and permitting process will create an attractive environment for investment in our state’s great places. André Leroux is the executive director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance. State Senator Dan Wolf represents the Cape and the Islands.

*Diddy is getting sued by a photographer, not for his camera being broken, but because of an altercation between him and the mogul’s bodyguards. According to the suit, Diddy’s “man handlers” assaulted 30-year-old Jabari Tigham in a Georgia club last October. That night, Combs was hosting a party with Rick Ross following the BET Hip Hop Awards. Tigham and a handful of other photographers were hired to photograph the event, but for some strange reason, he was singled out by security. There is still no word as to why the violence erupted. As strange as it sounds, Tigham’s lawyer, Jeffrey Gewirtz, says a club employee confirms the story.

Paris: Chris Froome is intent on defending his Tour de France title even if the owners of cycling's biggest race want to prevent the four-times winner from appearing in this year's event due to an ongoing doping investigation. The Team Sky rider, who last week said he had every right to defend his title from July 7, tested positive for excessive levels of the asthma drug Salbutamol at last September's Vuelta a Espana. Chris Froome riding last year's L'Etape Australia. France's Le Monde newspaper reported that Froome will be banned from taking part in this year's race citing the race organisers, Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), wishing to protect the image of the event. Le Monde said Team Sky has already lodged an appeal to the court of arbitration of the French Olympic Committee, which will debate the case on Tuesday and is expected to issue a decision on the following day. ASO did not comment on the report and Le Monde quoted a Team Sky spokesman saying "we are confident that Chris will be riding the Tour as we know he has done nothing wrong." Team Sky also hasn't responded to the report, but Froome is confident he will start with his wife and representative, Michelle Froome, telling Reuters: "Chris will ride the Tour." Froome has been racing under the cloud of a potential ban after a urine sample he provided at the Spanish Vuelta in September showed a concentration of the asthma drug salbutamol that was twice the permitted level. Froome's use of asthma medication has been well documented, and the Kenyan-born rider has often been spotted using inhalers during races. An athlete can be cleared for excessive salbutamol use if he proves that it was due to an appropriate therapeutic dosage.

BRATTLEBORO—The team behind the three-station police-fire facilities upgrades project estimates it has found $400,000 in savings. The town Police-Fire Facilities Building Committee hosted a meeting last week to give the public an opportunity to ask questions about the $14.1 million project. About 20 people attended the presentation in the Selectboard Meeting Room at the Municipal Center on Feb. 27. “I’ve been your watchdog on the budget up to date,” said Steve Horton, project manager on incorporating the oversight committee and town’s input. “The priority being the best value for the money and the outcome being the safety and security for the people of Brattleboro,” he said about the scrutinizing the project budget. Controversy has accompanied the police-fire facilities upgrade project. Bonding for the project has been blamed for a jump in the town’s property taxes for fiscal year 2015. The town’s police station and two fire stations, however, have significant health and safety issues: black mold in the West Brattleboro fire station, and in the police station, which is in the Municipal Center. Modern fire engines are too heavy for the floor and too big for the doors of the Central Fire Station, which also has air-quality issues. The damp of the police station’s basement damages records. The two largest cost savings have come through changes to the West Brattleboro fire station and police station plans. The project team has recommended building a new West Brattleboro station, rather than renovating the existing station. The project team also decided to build the Police Station addition to the Municipal Center without a basement, said Raymond A. Giolitto, architect with Northeast Collaborative Architects, which is based in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The new Station 2 will be constructed on property adjacent to the existing West Brattleboro fire station. The existing station is undersized, and renovating and expanding it would have required the costly relocation of a sewer tank and emergency generators. According to Giolitto and Horton, the oversight committee has not decided whether to demolish the outdated West Brattleboro station or to put the building to new use. The exiting station will continue to house firefighters during construction. Building a new Station 2 will save the project about $200,000. Nancy Miller questioned whether having a station in West Brattleboro was prudent given the town’s tight finances. “I have serious reservations whether we can afford all three sites,” said Miller. Horton answered that before construction starts, the town will obtain from the contractor a guaranteed maximum price to help keep the project within budget. Early plans for the Police Department renovations included renovations and expansion of the existing stone foundation of Municipal Center to the tune of $150,000 to $200,000, explained Horton. “People think basements are cheap, but they’re not,” said Horton. Phillips told the audience that the committee charged Interim Town Manager Patrick Moreland and Horton with evaluating alternative sites for the police station. All the alternative sites proved more expensive than keeping the police station at the Municipal Center, said Phillips. Giolitto and Horton also took questions on how the police station addition will affect the Municipal Center’s parking lot. The town anticipates approximately 40 parking spaces, said Giolitto. The parking lot will also become one-way from Grove Street to Main Street for everything but police vehicles. Horton told the audience that construction on all three building sites will occur simultaneously. The project team anticipates starting construction this summer. Of the three, the West Brattleboro station has the shortest construction schedule and will likely be completed this year. Central Station should be completed by the summer of 2015. The police station project has the longest timeline and should be completed the end of 2015. The oversight committee has approved the plans for the three stations and will recommend the Selectboard approve the plans. Originally published in The Commons issue #244 (Wednesday, March 5, 2014). This story appeared on page A1.

Why is Vectren pushing for an expensive, unnecessary plan that will harm its customers? As an engineer who works at an energy company and a father, I think a lot about the cost of energy. It’s a subject that’s particularly important to me as a lifelong resident of Southern Indiana, where our electric utility, Vectren, has forced consumers to pay the highest electricity rates anywhere in the Midwest — and is now putting forward a plan that would drive those rates even higher. While Vectren proudly points to essentially flat rates since 2011, those rates are still nearly 40% higher than the Indiana average. Since 2011, Vectren rates have been stable at approximately 15.5 cents/kilowatt-hour. But the average rate for the state of Indiana is 11.31 and was even lower in the past. In fact, Vectren rates are nearly 3 times those charged just across the river in Henderson, Kentucky and 30% higher than Indianapolis Power & Light. Energy powers every part of our lives so high electricity costs have a negative impact on virtually everything we do. Residents in Vectren’s area of coverage who are on a fixed income struggle more than those in areas with more reasonable rates. Businesses are less likely to locate in this area. People are less likely to move here. Property values are lower. Now, Vectren is pushing for a plan that would make our electricity prices even higher. It wants to shut down existing generating facilities in order to build a billion dollar natural gas fueled power plant with more capacity. In a time when demand has flattened, excess capacity is not needed. Moreover, Vectren is proposing additional capacity in the form of solar. Of course, solar energy is only available on sunny days and can’t be turned on and off as demand changes. All of this may be great for Vectren’s public image but it's an additional, unnecessary drain on their rate payers. Vectren management has admitted that the result of all these expenditures will be even higher rates. And what will rates be if natural gas prices spike again as they did in 2008? Why is Vectren pushing for an expensive, unnecessary plan that will harm its customers? Being a for-profit monopoly, Vectren’s profits are regulated. The one and only way that utilities like Vectren can increase total profits is through capital expenditures that are passed on to customers in higher rates. Smart meters? You pay for them. Solar farms? You pay for them. Oversized generating facilities? That’s right, you pay for them. It’s time for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to demand that Vectren stop placing profits above its obligation to provide customers with affordable and reliable energy, and reject Vectren’s plan to raise our electric bills.

MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION AMENDMENT CERTIFIED – The Ohio Attorney General’s Office today certified the petition for the proposed Cannabis Control Amendment to the Ohio Constitution. On June 8, the Attorney General’s Office received a written petition to amend the Ohio Constitution, entitled “Cannabis Control Amendment,” from the group Ohioans to End Prohibition. The submission was certified today as containing both the necessary 1,000 valid signatures from registered Ohio voters and a “fair and truthful” summary of the proposed amendment. Once the summary language and initial signatures are certified, the Ohio Ballot Board must determine if the amendment contains a single issue or multiple issues. The petitioners must then collect signatures for each issue from registered voters in each of 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties, equal to 5 percent of the total vote cast in the county for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. Total signatures collected statewide must also equal 10 percent of the total vote cast for the office of governor at the last gubernatorial election. The full text of today’s letter and of the amendment petitions submitted can be found at www.OhioAttorneyGeneral.gov/BallotInitiatives. HUSTED ADVISES ELECTION OFFICIALS OF POTENTIAL REGISTRATION FRAUD – Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted today issued Advisory 2015-03, which instructs the election officials at the 88 county boards of elections to carefully analyze new voter registrations being submitted by The Strategy Network, an organization coordinating the signature and registration drives for the pro-marijuana legalization group ResponsibleOhio. Secretary Husted is urging local election officials to more closely review these forms following reports from boards of elections of an increase in errors and apparent fraudulent registration attempts from the group’s submissions. This fraudulent activity has been identified in conjunction with voter registration efforts The Strategy Network has been conducting while collecting signatures for their ballot initiative. NEW BUSINESS FILINGS RELEASED FOR MAY – Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted announced 7,945 new entities filed to do business in Ohio during May 2015. This number is a slight improvement from the same period last year when 7,820 new entities filed. The bill is now awaiting the Governor’s signature, and once signed, it will mark the first time this fee has been cut in modern history and will make Ohio the least expensive state in the region to start and maintain a new business. Though the most visible role of the Secretary of State is that of chief elections officer, the office is also the first stop for individuals or companies who want to file and start a business in Ohio. While recognizing these numbers can’t provide a complete picture of Ohio’s jobs climate, they are an important indicator of economic activity that Secretary Husted hopes will add to the discussion of how to improve the state’s overall climate for business.

New Zealand’s medal chances at the next Winter Olympic Games have improved after the International Olympic Committee announced on Thursday freeski big air would be one of seven new disciplines at Beijing in 2022. The news is positive for New Zealand, which has a strong history in big air. This year’s Winter Olympic Games featured snowboard big air for the first time, in which Wanaka teenager Zoi Sadowski-Synnott claimed a bronze medal. Likewise, Kiwi freeskiers also have a history of success in the discipline. Both Jossi and Jackson Wells are X Games bronze medal winners. Jossi Wells said he was "thrilled" to hear the discipline would be in the next Olympic Games and believed it showed "great progress in the sport of freeskiing". Fellow freeskier Finn Bilous said he was looking forward to a new challenge and the Winter Games would be a "good chance to gain experience" in big air. Snow Sports New Zealand performance director Ashley Light said the inclusion was "exciting" for New Zealand athletes. "New Zealand already has a strong performance record in the discipline at X Games and World Cups and with a number of proven and upcoming athletes now able to target another discipline at the Olympics the future is bright." "Correlating with the talent of the athletes, the home advantage of world-class big air training facilities at Cardrona with the recently installed landing bag and the World Cup standard competition jump, the New Zealand freeski athletes have every opportunity to progress and reach their goals." Next month’s Winter Games will be the first event to host a freeski big air World Cup as an Olympic discipline. The other new disciplines set to debut in Beijing in four years’ time are monobob, short track mixed relay, and mixed team ski jumping, aerials and snowboard cross. Big air is the only one of those disciplines to feature at next month’s Winter Games.

3 posts categorized "Body image" Take a listen to this two-part report on skin whitening in Asia from PRI's “The World.” In recent years, skin lightening creams, pills, injections and laser treatments have become a big industry in countries such as China, Korea, Japan and India. Though skin whitening can be dangerous, some Asians are willing to risk it to lighten their naturally tan and golden complexions. The idea, said one person in the story, is that “you can cover all of your defective parts if you are white.” Is this a form of self-hatred? Will Michelle Obama help to redefine stereotypes about black women?

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Saks Inc. (SKS), which announced last month it is selling off its Proffitt's and McRae's department stores, on Tuesday reported a lower-than-expected profit for the first quarter as its mid-price department-store business continues to languish. For the first quarter ended April 30, income was $17.1 million, or 12 cents per share. The latest results include a gain of a penny per share from disposing of closed stores, offset by a penny per share related to expenses from an investigation of alleged improper collections of money from vendors at its Saks Fifth Avenue (search) division. On average, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were expecting earnings of 16 cents per share in the latest quarter. Sales totaled $1.55 billion, a slight 0.6 percent increase from $1.54 billion a year earlier and a bit below the $1.56 billion expected from Wall Street analysts. At all of Saks' stores open at least a year, sales grew 1.9 percent last quarter, with a 5.5 percent increase at Saks Fifth Avenue shops offsetting a 0.9 percent drop in its department-store group. Saks did not report its year-ago profit results because it expects to restate financial results for fiscal 1999 through the third quarter of fiscal 2004 due to the investigation of markdown money and other related financial and accounting issues. Markdown money is what suppliers pay to compensate stores when they don't sell products or are forced to take deeper markdowns than expected. Last week, the company announced it fired its chief accounting officer and other top officers as a result of the investigation. The company, which is also the target of an informal inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission (search) and U.S. Attorney's Office in New York, said Tuesday it is working to confirm the amount of total vendor markdown allowances determined to have been improperly collected. As a result, all the results are preliminary and remain subject to change. Last month, Saks said it agreed to sell its Proffitt's (search) and McRae's department stores (search) to privately held retailer Belk Inc. for $622 million in cash. The stores have annual revenue of about $700 million. The company also said it's exploring strategic options for its northern mid-price department store division, which consist of 143 stores under the names of Carson, Pirie Scott, Bergner's, Boston Store, Younkers and Herberger's. Shares of Saks fell 12 cents to $16.82 on the New York Stock Exchange.

As of March 21, 2019, Jimmy Carter is now the United States’ oldest living former president. Carter is now 94 years and 172 days old. George H.W. Bush was 94 years and 171 days old when he passed last November. Not many presidents have lived into their 90s; our first leader, George Washington, only lived until 67 years old. The average age of a person becoming president is 55 years and 3 months old. Carter was 52 years old when he became president.

It’s been just eight months but Norwich City already feels like home for Onel Hernandez – and his first goals won’t hurt either. The winger dragged the Canaries level twice in the final 10 minutes, as Daniel Farke’s men left Birmingham with an opening Championship draw. That impact had been coming after a productive pre-season – alongside several promising performances in his first four months at Carrow Road. Now the £1.7m January signing from Eintracht Braunschweig is happy with his surroundings – and what could lie ahead over the new season. “Of course, from the first moment I felt welcome here,” said Hernandez. “The people were very nice. When I go into the city a lot of people come to me and ask if I like it here and how I am. That’s the supporters here. “I feel very welcome and that this is my new home, and for this I give my all – for my team-mates and for the club. That’s why I like to be here. It was the same scenario 12 months ago as City welcomed freshly relegated Sunderland to Carrow Road, off the back of a late equaliser away from home to open their campaign. The Canaries’ lost against the Black Cats – and their home bow this term will be keenly awaited again. But it’s Norwich ability to battle back twice in such late circumstances at St Andrew’s that offered the brightest spot of Saturday’s draw. “It is what’s normal in football – you never quit,” said Hernandes. “For me, I can never quit. We’ve worked really hard in pre-season and you have to learn in football that you never quit. “We had a lot of time. We still had three minutes (of injury time). We have a good mentality in the team, we will never give up and will always work hard. Fortunately Hernandez made sure he will be available for next weekend, after picking up a booking for taking his shirt off celebrating his first goal – and opting for a somersault instead, come his final contribution. “When I was young I used to go on to the street and jump everywhere,” he added. “On the second goal, I wanted to take my shirt off again but then I thought oh no, it would be a red card. Please don’t do it again!

Wondolowski passed Ronald Cerritos' Earthquakes team mark of 15 goals for a season, set in 1999. He now has scored San Jose's last nine goals. It was the first time San Jose beat Chivas USA since being re-established in 2008. The Earthquakes had four losses and two draws against Chivas before Wednesday. Wondolowski drew a penalty in the 55th minute and converted by going low and to the right of goalkeeper Kevin Guppy, who was making his MLS debut. Wondolowski struck four minutes later from 13 yards out and scored his third with a volley from the edge of the box in the 72nd minute.

The ninth annual Great Long Island Tomato Challenge has begun. Give your plants plenty of tender loving care all summer long, then bring your biggest, heaviest fruit to the event, where it will be weighed and recorded by Newsday garden columnist Jessica Damiano. There is no need to register; just come to Newsday headquarters (235 Pinelawn Rd., Melville) with your biggest, heaviest tomato on Thursday, Aug. 27, at 7 p.m. Enter the Newsday property from Pinelawn Road and follow the red balloons. Tomatoes must be homegrown, fresh and not previously frozen. Stems should be removed before weighing. -- Three youth categories: 6 and younger; 7-12; 13-17. -- Tomatoes do not need to be ripe. As you await the big day, send a photo of yourself with your tomato plants, along with details about your growing techniques and the varieties you're growing, to [email protected], and you might be featured in an upcoming issue of Newsday. Then come back and follow the competition in Newsday every Sunday leading up to the big day.

In the four weeks ending on September 23, homes that sold above asking price dipped below 2016 levels, according to the latest data from Redfin. Redfin Senior Economist Taylor Marr the fact that fewer homes are selling above their asking price is another indication that competition is getting less intense than it has been in recent years. Perhaps underperforming income growth and rising unemployment would suggest low home prices, but Las Vegas is the most overvalued housing market in the nation. Fitch Ratings explained although the city’s price to rent remains lower than buying a home and the population is growing, home prices still have overshot economic fundamentals. Home prices increased across the U.S. in February, picking up the pace in annual price gains. This run, which is still ongoing, compares to the previous long run from January 1992 to February 2007. And with expectations for continued economic growth and further employment gains, the current run of rising prices is likely to continue. Home prices increased in all top 20 U.S. cities, with the highest annual gains seen in Seattle, Las Vegas and San Francisco. However, despite the continually rising home prices, the Case-Shiller report explained affordability is not a concern. Monday Morning Cup of Coffee: Is the way the CFPB handles enforcement about to change? Every day, it seems there’s a new rumor surrounding the apparently looming departure of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray. But regardless of what happens to Cordray, the way the CFPB handles enforcement could be changing as we speak. Plus, the senators from Nevada call on the mortgage business to grant relief to victims of the Las Vegas shooting. All that, and more, in your Monday Morning Cup of Coffee. Fitch: Is there a housing bubble in these hot, hot markets? Texas is hotter than ever, but is it sustainable? Housing in the state of Texas was hotter in 2016 than it’s ever been before, but is real estate in the Lone Star state getting too hot? A new report from Fitch Ratings suggests that Texas is one of a few states where home prices are not only unsustainable, they’re overheating. Well, it turns out that the National Hockey League expansion team helmed by William Foley, the chairman of Fidelity National Financial and Black Knight Financial Services, won’t share a name with one of Foley's companies after all. RIP, Las Vegas Black Knights, we hardly knew ye. Well, now it's official. The National Hockey League announced Wednesday that it will expand in 2017, becoming the first major professional sports league to bring a team to Las Vegas. The league's announcement brings a nearly two-year journey one step closer to reality for William Foley, the chairman of Fidelity National Financial and Black Knight Financial Services, who will lead the Las Vegas team as its owner. A Nevada woman who was once part of the largest mortgage fraud schemes in the history of the state will no longer forfeit $107 million after a federal court of appeals overturned part of her penalty because it violated the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits the government from imposing "excessive fines" and "cruel and unusual punishments."

Delicacy of Japanese techniques matches with the exotic flavors of Peru to wow discerning diners this season at MGM Cotai’s Aji. In the world of Nikkei cuisine, where Japanese concepts of gastronomy influence Peruvian cuisine, Mitsuharu Tsumura is one of the most well-known chefs who has brought his own ideas and passions from his country and introduced them to the world. “To me, Peruvian cuisine is heavy metal music and Japanese cuisine is classical music. The two need to harmonize well together in a perfect combination. It is important that we understand the DNA of both cuisines,” explains Peru’s star chef of the restaurant “Maido” in Lima, a Nikkei concept which ranked seventh in the San Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants 2018. For the new menu at MGM Cotai’s signature Nikkei restaurant, Aji, Tsumura, widely known as Chef Micha, works with his team, led by Chef Edwin Guzman Navarro and Manager Alexandre Santos. Their goal is to elevate the original menu to another level and feature their best efforts and creativity. Additional ingredients from Peru are imported to make the taste profile more complex. The result is an explosion of well-balanced flavors and aesthetics that surprises the senses. Umami takes center stage for creations like Causa: mashed potato filled with yellow chilli, king crab, and salmon roe layered on a bed of black rice cracker. For lovers of beef tartar, Aji’s version of the raw beef delight is enhanced with sea urchin, quail egg, and truffle chapla. Mushroom fanatics will be thrilled by mushroom, shiitake, enoki and king oyster mushroom in broth. Lastly, the Rocoto, a dessert filled with coconut, cinnamon foam, chocolate praline and peanut ice cream, sweetens the palate with its diverse textures, making it the perfect conclusion to a rich meal characterized by sophisticated combinations and innovative artistry. After the tasting, the Times sat down with the Nikkei chefs for a conversation. Macau Daily Times (MDT) – How do you work with Chef Edwin? Chef Mitsuharu Tsumura (MT) – I communicate constantly with Edwin. For the first few months of the first year, I was more involved creatively. Now I give ideas, but I would say that 80 or 90 percent of the job is done by [Chefs] Edwin and Aldo. Actually, they come up with ideas and they ask me, “what do you think about this?” And we take the ideas from there. Edwin and Aldo know what kind of flavors I like. I also give him ideas. So it’s team work, but it’s mostly executed by Aldo and Edwin. MDT – You talk through Facetime? Edwin has always been a very talented and creative chef. He worked with me in Maido. He won the best young chef [award] in Peru, the contest. Edwin has really developed a good relationship with everybody in the hotel, with the team, and outside the hotel. Also in Hong Kong. He is very easy going. When I came this time, I was surprised because everybody knows him and he knows everybody. I feel proud and very happy because before coming here, it was a challenge, but I think he has done very well and engaged with the people. MDT – Can you talk about your experience in Macau? Chef Edwin Guzman Navarro (EGN) – It was a challenge when Mitsuharu made the decision to choose myself and Aldo to come to Macau and develop the concept here in China. It was a challenge looking for products similar to the Peruvian ones and starting to cook with people who don’t know anything about your cuisine and your flavors. But I can say the first year was very good also. We were tired but enjoyed the work. MDT – How do you overcome the problem of importing products? EGN – When the Hong Kong- Macau-Zhuhai Bridge was finished, we were thinking maybe the problem can be fixed because half of the products [can be found] in Hong Kong, but delivery is not easy. We have some ingredients flown directly from Peru, but it’s very expensive. Peruvian cuisine is developing in Asia, more in Hong Kong than in Macau, and the products are going to Hong Kong first and then sent to other places. We are still trying to find new suppliers. MDT – And ingredients from Japan? EGN – I went with Mitsuharu to Japan and tried the food there. I saw the ingredients, but was not very familiar with all of them. Actually, we always ask Mitsuharu how we should cook with those products that we never saw in our life. MDT – What about the kitchen, is it to your liking? MT – It’s a dream kitchen. I said when I open this restaurant in Macau, it has to be the kitchen of my dreams. [MGM] hired a designer and everything, but I want to design it myself. So, I went back to Peru and I drew it there. I want this station here, pastry there, etc. Plunger here, walks here. So, it’s not a typical kitchen, it has many stations. It’s like a fish bowl. MDT – Is the new menu an elevation of the previous menu? MT – We try to make something special for our guests. Engawa, for example, is top quality and a precious part of the fish, but most people don’t know what it is. When I first went to Japan I didn’t know about it because in Peru, we don’t use it; we throw it away because it’s hard [to cook with]. But now they’re using it. Some 17 years ago or so, my boss in Japan said, “Okay cut the fish.” I cut the fish and left the Engawa and he got mad because I threw it away. “Where’s the Engawa? Why not use that? That is the most expensive part of the fish. That’s worth the same amount as the whole fish,” he added. I’m never going to forget that. If you don’t go very well into the bone of the fish, you can lose half of the Engawa. These tough parts of the fish are the best parts for cooking… because they’re very hard when they are raw, but they are very tender when they are cooked. MDT – Who are the clients? Alexandre Santos (AS) – Expat and local Chinese community. They accept the food but it is very new for them. You need to really take an effort to explain what the dish is. After opening up the menu, we try our best to go to the table and start to explain. MT – I was happy to hear that 80 percent or more of the customers of Aji are locals. AS – In the beginning it was like the ‘curiosity stage’ of the whole hotel. It was the first Peruvian and then Nikkei Restaurant in Macau and it was challenging then. […] I got a chance to go to Peru almost a year and a half ago. Chef Micha took me out to many different places, like even fish markets, a French market and different restaurants with different types of cuisine and this overcame a lot of basic challenges, for example, how we can explain the dishes to the guests. MDT – Chef Micha, what is your goal for the future? MT – I take life day-by-day. I don’t like to plan, but I have to plan sometimes because that’s the way my work is. Many people think I’m very organized, but I am not. When I wake up every day, I try to make my day perfect. But when I plan something too much, it doesn’t work. That has happened to me. So the best things in my life have happened without planning. So, I really don’t know what I’m going to do. One of the things I know I’m going to do is that I’m going to close my restaurant in Lima. Maido is going to close in approximately three or four more years. My concept in Chile and China are basically the only two concepts that are this elaborate. What I open in the future will be very casual. I am not looking to be in a ranking, just [to make] good food at a good price. I want to make my food more democratic. I want to open more concepts where everybody can go. That is happiness. We can make tasty food without it being so expensive. The future of food is informality. Do whatever you want. If you want to eat with your hands, eat with your hands. No dress code. There’s no better way to eat than the way you feel comfortable. I never wear suits, for example. If you tell me I have to dress up to go to a restaurant, I don’t go. I never wear a shirt, that’s the way I am. MDT – When did you first hear the word ‘Macau’? MT – The first time I heard the word ‘Macau’ was when I was in college because I had two friends from Macau. That was 20 years ago. I said, “Where are you from?” “Macau.” “Where’s Macau?” Macau was not like [it is] now 20 years ago, so he talked about gambling. He said, “We have casinos there and the Portuguese influence and this is Macau.” So, from that time I always remembered Macau in that way and said, someday I’m going to go.

EXCLUSIVE: Ed Zwick is in talks to helm Pawn Sacrifice, the drama that will star Tobey Maguire as troubled chess wiz Bobby Fischer, the prodigy who captured who captured the world’s imagination when he won the World Chess Championship over Russian Boris Spassky in a Cold War-era match that drew international media attention. Fischer had a rougher time after that as he straddled the line between genius and madness. He faded from view, living abroad and surfacing to make anti-American and anti-Semitic statements. He lived in exile in Iceland until he died. Maguire is producing through his Material Pictures banner with Gail Katz through Gail Katz Productions. Steven Knight wrote the script. Zwick replaces David Fincher, who had developed to direct the film. Zwick had been expected to direct The Great Wall for Legendary East, a project that is somewhat up in the air as a new backer in Asia is being secured. The film is being prepped to begin production next year, and Maguire’s Material partner Matt Plouffe is shepherding. Zwick is repped by CAA. Maguire is filming Jason Reitman’s Labor Day, and stars in the Baz Luhrmann-directed The Great Gatsby next summer. He’s repped by WME and Management 360.

OCCK Transportation announced Monday that bicycle racks will be available on all five local CityGo bus routes, beginning April 15. The racks will be available on every bus on both Peak and Regular routes for free customer use. The permanent installation of the racks is part of OCCK's plan to improve transit in Salina, improve bus service and increase ridership by focusing on customer service and needs, according to a news release by OCCK Transportation. "Bike racks are a great amenity for customers who want to increase their mobility and take advantage of the city's growing network of bike lanes and trails," said Michelle Griffin, OCCK Transportation director, in a statement. "The racks help customers transport bikes over a long distance, and our buses provide a vital connection for people who need or want to use public transit." The bicycle racks will be mounted to the front of the buses, providing space for two bicycles on each bus. Racks will be available on a first come-first serve basis. Customers who wish to transport their bicycles must wait for a bus with an available rack and must be able to load and unload the bicycle safely and securely. There is no age restriction, but parents or guardians are asked to use caution when allowing minors to use the racks. Any customer who cannot safely operate the bicycle rack may be restricted from using the service. A video instructing customers on the safe and proper use of the bicycle racks, as well as additional information, is posed at salinacitygo.com under Passenger Information/Bike & Go. For more information about CityGo and OCCK Transportation, go to salinacitygo.com or call 826-1583.

Mohammed bin Salman’s selection as crown prince to King Salman bin Abdul Aziz is a positive move for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and U.S.-Saudi relations. While the precise timing of this event was uncertain, the move itself was inevitable given the steady expansion of the now-Crown Prince’s domestic and international portfolio and his role in spearheading the Kingdom’s push toward economic diversification, reform, and answering President Trump’s call for U.S. allies to play a more proactive role in providing for their own security and defense. The transition, occurring under the auspices of King Salman who is, perhaps, the last of the sons of the Kingdom’s founder, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, with the prestige, stature, and influence to adeptly orchestrate such a significant move, was executed quickly, smoothly, and elegantly and, most importantly, with the strong backing of the Royal Family and the influential clerical establishment. Significantly, former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who had been next-in-line to the throne, quickly and publicly swore baya’a (the oath of allegiance) to Prince Mohammed, a symbolic but significant gesture given by members of the Royal Family and key pillars of Saudi society to signify their support for a new leader. The designation of Mohammed bin Salman as Crown Prince eliminates uncertainty over who would succeed the 81-year-old King Salman. Speculation in the press and on social media, the latter serving as the Kingdom’s public forum, on a looming succession “competition” or, among more histrionic observers, a “crisis” which could have jeopardized the Kingdom’s push for reform, have been put to rest. Crown Prince Mohammed’s youth and charisma have made him a popular figure in a country where the median age is approximately twenty-seven. The quick consolidation of the Royal Family behind Crown Prince Mohammed is a clear vote in favor of continuity of current policies; most importantly, the Kingdom’s concerted push toward economic diversification and gradualist political reform, which includes modernizing and restructuring the religious establishment and greater empowerment of women. It is also the clearest indicator that the ongoing generational transfer of power within the Kingdom is permanent. Crown Prince Mohammed’s youth and charisma have made him a popular figure in a country where the median age is approximately twenty-seven. It is also a clear win for the United States. Prince Mohammed is very pro-American and places a premium on the military and security relations – economic and trade relations as well – the two countries enjoy. Following the election, he moved quickly to forge a close connection with the Trump administration; the president’s decision to travel to Riyadh for his first overseas visit happened, in large measure, thanks to the success of Prince Mohammed’s outreach to the White House. The burgeoning relationship between President Trump and the Crown Prince has helped initiate a reset of U.S.-Saudi relations, which had reached a nadir under the Obama administration. This has yielded dividends for the Kingdom – most notably the Trump administration’s decision to expedite a potentially $110 billion arms sale – and for the United States as well. During the Riyadh Summit, President Trump outlined a new foreign policy vision which would not only see key regional allies play a greater role in providing for their own security and defense, but in which regional powers like Saudi Arabia would take the initiative in moving decisively to tackle sources of extremism and terrorism. The Kingdom’s decision, with the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, to cut diplomatic ties with and isolate Qatar, which has long openly backed anti-American Islamist groups, can be seen, at least in part, as a move by the Crown Prince to support the president’s call. The Kingdom’s decision, with the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain, to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, which has long openly backed anti-American Islamist groups, can be seen in part as a move by the Crown Prince to support President Trump's call to take the initiative in tackling sources of extremism. Crown Prince Mohammed is not an unknown quantity. Since becoming Deputy Crown Prince in April 2015, he has effectively served as the Kingdom’s CEO on both foreign and domestic policy. He was the chief architect behind Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia’s blueprint for economic diversification and reform. As chairman of Saudi Aramco, he is playing a key role in restructuring one of the globe’s largest companies and in paving the way for the state-run entity’s IPO later this year. As chairman of the Public Investment Fund, he drove the decision to transform that sleepy institution into the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. Prince Mohammed also curbed the powers of the religious police, established the General Authority for Entertainment (part of a larger initiative to promote tourism), introduced new measures to roll back subsidies and levy taxes and established an anti-terrorist alliance of Islamic countries. He first entered government in 2009 as a special advisor to the Governor of Riyadh Province. In 2011, he joined his father, then Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense’s court as a special advisor, serving, over the next few years, as head of the Crown Prince’s Court, Advisor to the Minister of Defense, Governor of Eastern Province, and Minister of State. In 2015, he was appointed Minister of Defense where he oversaw Operation Decisive Storm, the Kingdom’s move to counter the advances of Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. In that year, he also became Secretary-General of the Royal Court and, critically, chairman of the newly-established Council for Economic and Development Affairs. In this context, this appointment is the next logical step in what has been a steady accumulation of responsibilities stretching back eight years. It is a signal of continuity, a win for stability, a win for Saudi reformers, and a win for the United States. Ali Shihabi is the executive director of the Arabia Foundation (www.ArabiaFoundation.org), a Washington, DC-based think tank focused on the geopolitics of the Arabian Peninsula.

What is Obama's End Game on Israel? President Barack Obama has made it impossible for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to accept a negotiated settlement with Israel. President Obama's decision to engineer passage of U.N. Security Council 2334 in the final weeks of his presidency wasn't a bid to revive the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process," a "parting shot" at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or any of the other characterizations splashed across cable news chyrons over the weekend. Rather, it was intended to irrevocably destroy the viability of the very "two-state solution" the president claims to be protecting. Read the rest of this article at The Hill.

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Michael Rapaport is not establishing a good rapport between the Arianators. The ‘Atypical’ actor said there’s ‘hotter women working the counter at Starbucks’ than Ariana Grande, and fans are putting him on blast. For whatever reason today, Michael Rapaport, 48, felt the need to belittle Ariana Grande’s looks on Dec. 19. The Atypical actor posted a throwback photo of the 25-year-old singer to his Instagram with the caption, “‪Ariana Grande is 27 acts 12, you take off those boots she hides her legs in, the cat eye make up and the genie pony tale and I think there’s hotter women working the counter at Starbucks no disrespect to Starbucks.‬” Fans were quick to put the comic, who notably got Ari’s age wrong, in his place. In light of the backlash, Michael resorted to the “snowflakes” defense, as it usually goes with such cases. “When I talk vicioulsy [sic] about The Leader of the Free World aka D*** Stain Donald Trump or Tiki Torch Tough Guys in Virginia, I’m a Social Media HERO, but a joke about Ariana Grande is SHAMING. EAT Dwycks SnowFlakes. Stay Disruptive Stay Disruptive,” he tweeted afterwards. He was especially upset with Buzzfeed’s headline about his post, which originally read, “People Are Calling Out Actor Michael Rapaport After He Posted A Sexist Message About Ariana Grande.” It appears that the news outlet has changed its headline since. “You Buzzfeed f***s. People are calling out — what people, you f***s? What people, you f***ing clowns? And then I say dwycks, I say dwycks you give out a f***ing shoutout to Nice & Smooth, you f***ing clowns,” Michael said in an Instagram Story video, referring to the ’90s hip hop duo. How dare she have a picture taken without being in full makeup! It’s like she’s a real person sometimes. HollywoodLife has reached out to Michael Rapaport’s and Ariana Grande’s reps for comment.

Famous astrophysicist and host of StarTalk Radio Neil deGrasse Tyson was surprisingly sassy in his review of the sci-fi epic "The Martian." "The Martian" follows the story of astronaut Mark Watney who must rely on science to survive after he gets stranded on Mars. NASA then pulls out all the stops to get him back to Earth alive. Most scientists have praised "The Martian" for its attempt at scientific accuracy and realism. In "The Martian," NASA has a lot of autonomy and scientists are calling all of the shots. This is not always the case in the real world. For example, senator Ted Cruz, a climate change denier, is the current chairman for the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness that oversees NASA. In 2011, Congress actually expressly forbid NASA from working with any Chinese citizen or anyone affiliated with the state. It cited alleged security concerns as the reason. It will take a big policy shift to change that sentiment. "The Martian" is out in theaters right now.

Volkswagen joined the sport utility vehicle market a little late, waiting until the 2004 model year to jump in with the Touareg, named after a nomadic desert tribe in the Saharas. Though the vehicle never threatened to knock the Ford Explorer and other more mainstream products off the top of the sales perch, it was and remains a solid, well-conceived SUV that genuinely takes its designation seriously. There's sport, and there's utility, in equal measure. As a five-passenger vehicle, a lot of customers who need a third-row seat pass the Touareg by, but for the rest of us, there's an adequate 31 cubic feet of cargo space, which turns into 71 cubic feet with the rear seat folded down. Inside, the Touareg is roomy up front, reasonably spacious for two rear-seat passengers. Instruments and controls are among best in class, and the upholstery and trim has a genuinely premium look and feel. It should because the Touareg isn't, and has never been, cheap. Starting at more than $40,000, our test model topped $53,010, and it didn't have all the available options. One option it did have that raised the price about $3,500: The 3.0-liter, 225-horsepower turbocharged diesel engine. Diesels typically cost more to build and almost always get better mileage than gasoline-powered engines, but with the added cost plus the fact that diesel seems to average about 40 to 50 cents a gallon more than regular gasoline, a lot of Touareg customers might stick with the standard 3.6-liter, 280-horsepower gas engine. That said, the diesel does get better mileage — the EPA rates it at 17 mpg city, 25 mpg highway, while the gasoline engine is rated at 14 mpg city, 19 mpg highway. We averaged nearly 23 mpg in the diesel Touareg, which seems pretty good for a vehicle that weighs 5,304 pounds. Really, though, the Touareg is startlingly light on its feet. Handling is typically German, which means precise and controlled, but the ride is smooth, even on uneven surfaces. Where the Touareg has always surprised is off-road. Though it's not a dedicated rock-crawler, the Touareg can take on all but the worst terrain. It has low-range gearing for extra power, and the torque supplied by the diesel engine make it pull like a freight train. It's limited by the tires, though, which are understandably more designed for a quiet highway ride than mud-bogging. The Touareg can also tow more than 7,700 pounds, a lot for a vehicle this size. While the base-model Touareg has a lot of standard equipment, our tester had a $2,600 luxury package, a $5,200 technology package and a $500 tow hitch that, with shipping, upped the price to $53,010. A lot of those features I could happily do without, especially with so much equipment standard, including a power sunroof, Sirius satellite radio and walnut interior trim. All the safety equipment you'd suspect is standard, too. Volkswagen is updating the Touareg for 2011, so it could be a good time to make a deal on a 2010 at a hungry VW dealer. A year-end discount could fix the only real problem I've ever had with the Touareg — the window sticker. Nutshell: Plenty of sport, lots of utility.

With Easter a month away and grass an easy crop to grow, why not consider a hand-painted terra-cotta pot filled with a bed of real grass? Finished off with a cloth ribbon handle, it's the perfect place to rest Easter treats and eggs decorated with natural dyes. If you decide to create a ribbon handle, you'll need to drill holes in to the terra-cotta. Wearing safety goggles, drill two holes, one on each side of the pot, about 1/2 inch from the edge of the rim. As you drill, use light pressure to prevent the pot from cracking. Dust away powder. Cover the inside of the pot with two to three coats of a water-based polyurethane sealant. While it dries, apply two to three coats of acrylic or latex base paint to the outside of the pot and the 2-inch lip inside the pot. There are a variety of painting techniques to use when designing your basket. Regardless of the technique used, apply a few coats of a water-based polyurethane sealant over your finished design and allow to dry overnight before proceeding to the next step. Place shard or gravel at the bottom of the pot and over the hole to allow for water drainage. Fill soil just up to 2 inches below top and work in a small amount of fertilizer. Sprinkle seeds onto soil, rake seeds with fork, and water with a spray bottle. Use this watering method until seeds sprout and roots are established. Place in a window and water every couple of days, keeping the top of the soil moist at all times. Once the roots have been established, adjust the watering schedule to once or twice a week. Growing time for grass is around four to five weeks. The sun will fade the ribbon and possibly your painted design, so attach the ribbon after the grass has grown and protect the design by wrapping it with cloth. To attach ribbon, cut along the edge forming a needle. Insert ribbon into the first hole; bring enough through to tie a large knot at the end. Repeat the process on the other side of the pot. Adjust ribbon as needed. On larger, heavier pots ribbon is only ornamental. If unsure about using the ribbon as a handle, carry the basket from the bottom. To ensure your sweet treats stay that way, don't water the basket the day before you'll use it because the grass and soil will retain moisture. For added protection, wrap candy and food in cellophane bags. Several fruits, vegetables and spices can create natural dyes. There are two methods for dyeing eggs: boiling raw eggs with dye agent (hot) or dipping hard-boiled eggs in cold or room-temperature dye (cold). Each approach will yield different results. Hot boiling method: To create dye, use 2 tablespoons of white vinegar per quart of water, add dye ingredients and bring to a boil. To remove ingredients, strain solution into bowl and return solution to pan. Place eggs in pot; add additional water to cover. Bring dye solution and raw eggs back to a full boil, reduce heat and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes. Leave in pot longer for darker colors. Use spoon to remove eggs from solution, rinse with lukewarm water and allow to dry. Alternatively, you can boil the ingredients and the raw eggs simultaneously. Hot-dyed eggs are purely decorative and should not be eaten. Cold dipping method: Boil eggs and dye ingredients separately. Cool and strain dye into small bowls. Dip eggs for five, 10, 30 minutes or overnight. As with the hot method, the longer the eggs sit in the solution the more intense the colors. Remove eggs from solution with spoon and allow to dry. Eggs that last: Hollow eggs allow you to keep them from one year to the next. To create hollow eggs, thoroughly clean them with hot soapy water. Carefully hold egg in hand or steady in an eggcup and use small paring knife or thumb tack to make two small holes on both ends of egg. Remove egg white and yolk by blowing egg over the kitchen sink. Rinse eggshell under hot water and soak in hot water for 15 minutes. Allow water to drain, before placing in dye solution. Be sure the egg fills with liquid so it is submerged during the dyeing.process. The natural dyes will fade overtime; keep the color by applying gloss acrylic spray varnish. Blue painters tape and removable stickers are perfect for creating smooth lines, as well as striped or polka dot patterns. Apply first coat of paint and allow to dry; next, place tape around pot and apply second coat of paint. Allow last coat of paint to dry and remove tape to reveal the previous layer of paint. Create designs with rubber cement, it protects the area where you wish to keep specific colors. Apply cement to the area and allow to dry. Paint pot with next color. Allow second coat of paint to dry before removing the rubber cement. Do so by gently rubbing it with your fingers. Decorate with decoupage. Use decoupage glue to attach and seal cut outs and stickers to your pot. Or, use rubber stamps and stencils to embellish your pot. Red: Boil 4 cups chopped beets or for light pink boil a can of beets. Blue: Boil 1/2 head of chopped red cabbage to 2 quarts of water. Light violet: Boil 1 cup of blackberries. Green: Boil 1 cup of fresh spearmint leaves. Or, boil 2 cups fresh rosemary leaves. Yellow: Boil 2 tablespoons ground turmeric. Orange: Boil 3 cups of yellow onion skins. Brown to dark brown: Use 1 quart coffee, omit additional water.

More nations beating UK’s stagnant school system | City A.M. VIETNAM, Poland and South Korea are among the countries ranked higher than the UK in a major survey of the world’s education systems, released by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) yesterday. Out of 65 countries, the UK ranks just 26th in maths and 23rd in reading. In science the UK managed 21st place, the only discipline in which Britain is above average. In previous years, the UK has been ranked in the top 20 countries for at least one subject. The poor performance comes despite education spending in the UK being higher than the OECD average, with $98,023 (£59,715) spent on each child between the age of six and 15. The typical level for the industrial democracies in the group is $83,382. The UK is also home to a startling gender gap: in science, male pupils outperform female pupils by 13 points, while the gap is only one point in favour of boys in the OECD generally. Despite the unimpressive result for the UK, countries like France, Ireland and New Zealand get broadly similar results. The top of the table is dominated by east Asian countries, with ranked highest in each discipline. Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan follow, with small numbers of low-achievers. “We need more practical education in technology at all levels, it is vital for everyone in nearly all careers to be tech-savvy,” he added.

In mid-October 2008, even as the Reserve Bank was dousing the system with rupee and forex liquidity, Finance Minister (P) Chidambaram had suo moto constituted a committee on liquidity management, with Finance Secretary Arun Ramanathan as the chairman. The Reserve Bank was asked to nominate a representative on the committee. I was annoyed and upset by this decision. Chidambaram had clearly overstepped into the RBI turf as liquidity management is a quintessential central bank function. Not only did he not consult me, but he had not even informed me of this before the notification was issued. Coming as it did amidst a lot of suspicion in those early weeks of my tenure that I was a government lackey sent to the Reserve Bank to act at the government’s bidding, the constitution of this committee only reinforced the view. I called up Chidambaram and let him know in unequivocal terms that his action was totally inappropriate, and requested firmly that he dissolve the committee. His argument was that when liquidity management was such a central concern, getting advice from external market participants would help us understand and respond to the ground reality in the market faster and better. I granted that, but if he wanted external experience to be tapped, he could have advised me informally to constitute such a committee rather than taking the Reserve Bank for granted. The call ended with my telling him that the Reserve Bank would not participate in the committee. This skirmish with Chidambaram, who I believed pushed my candidature for the governor’s job, so early in my tenure upset me a lot. Little did I know that this set the tone for what would be an uneasy relationship between us in the last year of my term. There was constant and decidedly unhelpful friction between the ministry of finance, under both Pranab Mukherjee and later Chidambaram, and the Reserve Bank on what the government saw as the Reserve Bank’s unduly hawkish stance on interest rates, totally unmindful of growth concerns. The distilled version of their argument went as follows. All the government’s efforts to kickstart the supply response in the economy were being stymied by the high-interest regime of the Reserve Bank. If only the Reserve Bank relaxed on the interest rate, investment would take off and launch the economy into a virtuous cycle of increasing growth and declining inflation. When Chidambaram was asked in a media interaction in July 2013 why he was frustrated with the Reserve Bank when all it was doing was pursuing its mandate of price stability, he admitted that the Reserve Bank’s mandate was indeed price stability but that ‘mandate must be understood as part of a larger mandate of promoting growth’. The clear implication was that the Reserve Bank was mistaken in interpreting its mandate. I believe both Pranab Mukherjee and Chidambaram had erred in seeing the Reserve Bank as being fixated on inflation, unmindful of growth concerns. On the contrary, the Reserve Bank interprets its mandate exactly as Chidambaram had said, although not as he implied. The Reserve Bank was targeting price stability precisely because it is a necessary condition for sustained growth…. The burden of my argument both in the public domain as well as internally to the government was that the Reserve Bank was running a tight monetary policy not because it did not care for growth but because it did care for growth. But the government remained unpersuaded or chose to be unpersuaded. In order to defend his position vis-a-vis the Reserve Bank and possibly to sound a conciliatory note, in a media conference in July 2013, Chidambaram had generalized this divide between governments and central banks by saying that ‘governments are for growth and central banks are for price stability’. This stereotyping was misinformed not only with reference to India but even from a broader experience…. Although the high-interest-rate regime would be the main area of difference between the government and the Reserve Bank, there were other issues that stoked the friction even deeper. One such issue which was almost always a point of contention in my pre-policy meeting with the finance minister was the estimate for growth that the Reserve Bank would be putting out in its policy document. The government’s pet peeve was that the Reserve Bank was being too cynical in its forecasts. Either the secretary of economic affairs or the chief economic adviser (CEA) would contest our estimate with their assumptions and estimates which I thought were par for the course. What used to irritate me, though, was that almost seamlessly the discussion would move from objective arguments to subjective considerations, with one of the senior officers suggesting that the Reserve Bank must project a higher growth rate and a lower inflation rate in order to share responsibility with the government for ‘shoring up sentiment’. Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram went to the extent of saying in one meeting that ‘whereas everywhere else in the world, governments and central banks are cooperating, here in India the Reserve Bank is being very recalcitrant’. I was invariably discomfited and annoyed by these objections and insinuations. I was also often dismayed that the ministry of finance would seek a higher estimate for growth while simultaneously arguing for a softer stance on interest rate without seeing the obvious inconsistency between these two demands. I used to take a consistent and firm position that the Reserve Bank cannot deviate from its best professional judgement just to doctor public sentiment…. Another constant source of friction used to be the position taken by the Reserve Bank on the government’s fiscal stance. The government’s large fiscal deficit was one of the prime drivers of inflation, and its inability to roll back expenditure undermined the Reserve Bank’s anti-inflation stance. There was no way the Reserve Bank could tell a credible inflation story without pointing this out. The finance ministry used to be irritated by the Reserve Bank making an issue out of its fiscal stance, and Pranab Mukherjee was always miffed about it; he clearly showed it even though he never said anything. But for me, skirting around this issue was neither appropriate nor advisable. It was my standard practice to apprise the prime minister too of our statement on the government’s fiscal stance. He understood the economic logic but always seemed uncomfortable with the Reserve Bank pointing it out. He never intervened directly with me, but in early 2012, he told Rangarajan, the chairman of his Economic Advisory Council and my former boss when I was secretary to the council, to convey to me that he did not expect Subbarao, ‘who was finance secretary in the government and understood its political compulsions’ to take such a strident stand on the fiscal stance. I certainly had sympathy for this point of view but was unwilling and unable to show any accommodation…. There is a price to pay, of course, for not falling in line. The government has several ways of showing its displeasure, and the way it chose to do so with me was by going against my recommendations in the reappointment of deputy governors in the Bank. As the head of the Reserve Bank, enjoined with a public responsibility, the governor should have the privilege of selecting his team just as the prime minister has the prerogative of choosing his Cabinet. There is no question, of course, that under law, it is the government that has the authority to appoint the governor and deputy governors of the Reserve Bank. There are rules about eligibility and tenure, which have to be complied with, and the system of selection has to be fair, transparent and contestable. Within that framework, a healthy convention should be to defer to the governor’s recommendation on the appointment of deputy governors. That privilege was denied to me. R Gopalan, called one evening to say that the finance minister had approved the constitution of a committee to select Usha’s successor. I was pained that even if the government had decided to deviate from the standard practice of consulting the governor on the reappointment of an incumbent, they had not even told me about it before constituting a selection committee. There was speculation that Pranab Mukherjee was irked by some regulatory decision taken on Usha’s watch which, of course, came on top of his general unhappiness with me. I sought a meeting with Pranab Mukherjee — incidentally one of only two occasions when I met him one-on-one — and requested that Usha be reappointed because of her competence, track record and because she met the eligibility criteria for reappointment. He knew that he could not call into question Usha’s competence or track record; it would have been presumptuous on his part to override my judgement on this issue with his own. He pleaded rules instead, but I was prepared for that point. I told him that the government had reappointed Shyamala Gopinath, another deputy governor, an identical case, under the same rule, and added for effect that he was the finance minister who had approved it. He didn’t budge and Usha became a part of the price we had to pay for asserting the autonomy of the Reserve Bank. We had a replay of the same story in the case of reappointment of Subir Gokarn whose three-year tenure as deputy governor was expiring in December 2012. By this time, Chidambaram had returned as finance minister. As early as in August 2012, I requested Chidambaram to reappoint Subir for two more years and told him and that I would send a formal recommendation accordingly. I reiterated the request in October 2012. Chidambaram was clearly disinclined to accede. The reason he gave was that all of us who entered the Reserve Bank laterally had become hostage to the technocrats in the Reserve Bank and the government felt it necessary to bring some fresh thinking into the Reserve Bank. He was firm that we should go through a de novo selection process. I reminded him that according to the rules framed by none other than him, Subir was eligible for reappointment; the question of opening up the position to other candidates would arise only if Subir was not recommended by the governor, which obviously was not the case. Chidambaram did not budge and insisted that we go through a process of selection. He agreed though that Subir could be considered by the selection committee along with other candidates. The selection committee, under my chairmanship, went through the due process and agreed on a panel of three candidates, with Subir Gokarn at the top of the list. A couple of days later, P K Misra, secretary of the Department of Personnel, who was also a member of the selection committee, called me up to say that the minutes had to be redrafted since the rules did not allow for the committee to rank candidates in order of preference. I was surprised because he, as the ‘minder of rules’, had not said so when we met in the committee. I told him that I could not agree to the redrafting of the minutes through a bilateral, oral arrangement and that we should follow the due process. He should write to me explaining the rule position, then we should reconvene the committee to review the decision, and if agreed, dispense with the ranking. I did not hear from him again on this. Subir’s tenure was coming to an end on 31 December 2012. But even after Christmas, there was no news from the government. I was hoping that since his name was on top of the list, the finance minister would, even if reluctantly, acquiesce. We had a farewell function planned on 31 December to bid farewell to a couple of senior officers who were superannuating that day. My staff asked if we should cover Subir too under this farewell. I said ‘no’ in the hope that the reappointment would come through literally even at the eleventh hour. In the event, I underestimated Chidambaram’s desire to bring ‘fresh thinking’ into the Reserve Bank. Later that afternoon, we got the news that Subir’s appointment was not being renewed. Another mischievous, if also clumsy, attempt by the government to assault the autonomy of the Reserve Bank came by way of appointing the directors on the central board of the Bank. As per law, it is the government’s prerogative to appoint the directors but the law also guarantees the directors so appointed a four-year term. In other words, the government cannot recall any director at will during the four-year tenure. Presumably, the intent behind this provision was to ensure that the directors acted independently without any threat of the government ‘showing its displeasure’ by terminating their appointment. PRANAB MUKHERJEE.WHO MOVED MY INTEREST RATE? Prev » Is Radhika Apte India's best actress?

The Diamonds have struggled to get back to reality in League One after the glamour tie with the Hoops in January. Kyle Wilkie believes Airdrieonians have finally recovered from Scottish Cup defeat to Celtic with a result over Forfar. The Diamonds had been in free-fall since their trip to Celtic Park picking up just one win since January, but a strike from midfielder Wilkie secured the three points against Loons. The Penny Cars Stadium outfit currently sit seven point behind fourth-placed East Fife, with The Fifers having played a game more, but he reckons things are clicking at a key time in the season. Wilkie said: “We played well and we knocked it about the park well from the midfield to the top. It was a really composed performance. “It’s true that we had fallen down the table a bit, but it’s a good spirit with the boys despite the run we have been on. “We all get on with each other in the dressing room and it’s just maybe taken time for a few different things to click. “We have a talented changing room in there and sometimes these things take time. “The main thing was to get the win and start looking up the table. “We’ve been in a situation before where we have had a good run of games, and probably that wee bit of luck as well. “After the Celtic game we never really kicked on as well as we thought we were going to. “The boys heads aren’t down. Normally you think when these things happen the boys heads would go down but we’re all right at it still."

German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble looks on as Greece finance minister Yanis Varoufakis speaks. Greece’s new SYRIZA government submitted its list of proposed economic reforms to the Eurogroup (the finance ministers of eurozone nations) on February 23 as a precondition for its international creditors to approve a four-month loan extension. The deal was signed on February 20. With Greece’s existing loan arrangement expiring on February 28 and bankruptcy looming, a last-minute deal was finally agreed after three weeks of intense negotiations. The talks had been characterised by daily — sometimes hourly — twists and turns, claims and counterclaims, leaks and threats. SYRIZA was elected on January 25 on a wave of hope and rejection of the crippling austerity measures imposed on Greece in return for economic “bail-out” programs by the “Troika” — the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Union (EU). The deal represents a significant compromise on its election platform. Any discussion of debt write-offs, “hair-cuts” or renegotiation has been postponed until the next round of negotiations. Funds earmarked for bank recapitalisation will have to be used for that purpose, rather than redirected towards meeting Greece’s desperate social needs. Greece no longer has to accept the unilateral diktats of the Troika and is able to negotiate with each body separately. But the new funding still comes with conditions. These include oversight by those same bodies, now referred to as “the institutions”, and restrictions on how the money can be used. The SYRIZA government is required to refrain from any “rollback of measures and unilateral changes to the policies and structural reforms that would negatively impact fiscal targets, economic recovery or financial stability, as assessed by the institutions”. Although less than specific, this restriction includes any privatisations already completed, as well as those now underway. Depending on interpretation, this may also impact on measures promised by SYRIZA to improve social welfare, such as raising the minimum wage and restoring collective bargaining rights. On the other hand, the agreement also includes measures that will improve SYRIZA’s ability to fund solutions to the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Greece. To gather funds, the government is able to crack down on corruption, tax avoidance, tax immunity (Greece’s powerful shipping owners, for instance, currently pay no tax) and smuggling. Such measures target the vested interests of Greece’s powerful oligarchy — something previous governments deliberately avoided — and strengthen the revenue-raising capacity of the Greek state. This approach has already achieved success, with a reported €500 million already raised. It still remains to be seen if enough revenue can be raised to address social needs while repaying Greece’s short-term debts — several billion euros are due for payment in the coming months. The SYRIZA government has described the agreement as a qualified success. Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis described it as “a small step in the right direction”. Varoufakis said that Greece is now the “co-author” of its own fate, no longer the victim of “autopilot austerity” where it meekly takes economic and policy directives from its creditors. In a marathon 10-hour session on February 25, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras advocated the deal to his fellow SYRIZA MPs as a small but tangible win. Acknowledging the restrictive conditions in the interim agreement, Tsipras said that while it is an extension of pre-existing loan arrangements, it is not a continuation of the Memorandum of Understanding that accompanied the previous tranche of loans. Tsipras said the new deal frees up the government from unrealistic primary surplus targets and “asphyxiating” policies of austerity. While “things remain difficult”, the prime minister said the conditions replace the previous government’s measures with targets based on SYRIZA’s “Thessaloniki program”, which it took into January’s election. SYRIZA’s leaders have faced severe internal criticism over the deal, however. It has mostly come from members of the party’s Left Platform, who consider the deal a near-capitulation to Greece’s creditors on the questions of debt and austerity. About 30 of SYRIZA’s 149 MPs, and four government ministers, belong to the Left Platform. A Left Platform leader and member of SYRIZA’s central committee, Stathis Kouvelakis, said SYRIZA had carried out a major retreat caused by a “mistaken strategy”. He said the deal showed it was impossible to break with austerity and Greece’s debt burden “within the existing European framework”. On February 25, Greek energy minister and Left Platform supporter Panagiotis Lafazanis said the privatisation of Greece’s main energy company and energy grid operator would not go ahead, a statement that appears at odds with the deal’s conditions. The SYRIZA government has emphasised that its promised social measures will go ahead. In a CNN interview on February 23, Varoufakis insisted “there will be no pension cuts, there will be no increases to Value-Added Tax, there will be a series of poverty-alleviation moves. Varoufakis conceded that Greece was forced into significant compromises, admitting on February 20 that he was asking Europe to meet Greece “not half-way, but one-fifth of the way”. In the event, that was a lot more than powerful forces in Europe wanted to give them. SYRIZA was elected with a mandate to end austerity, resolve the country’s social crisis and rebuild the Greek economy. The humanitarian crisis caused by austerity has led to a widespread drop in living standards, with about one in four people unemployed (60% of youth) and an average 20% cut in wages for those in work. The negotiation process, therefore, exposed the open contempt for democracy that lies at the heart of the European Union and the financial interests that it represents. Schäuble took this uncompromising stance into negotiations, using Germany's dominance within the Eurogroup to demand Greece’s total and unconditional capitulation. If Greece was hoping for support from other countries suffering from austerity, however, it was disappointed. Spain, Ireland, Portugal and Finland — all facing rising political challenges to their pro-austerity governments — sided firmly with Germany, as did France and Italy, leaving Greece isolated. Meanwhile, Greece was faced with possible bankruptcy. A run on the banks led to an estimated €3 billion withdrawn in the week before February 20, on top of a further €12 billion withdrawn in January. In the final days before the agreement, the ECB was preparing for a possible “Grexit” — a Greek exit from the eurozone, and therefore the EU. Varoufakis had already ruled out a voluntary Grexit on the basis of the economic damage it would cause and the boost it would give to the neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn, already the third largest party in the Greek parliament. A series of compromise drafts were rejected by Schäuble, who accused the Greeks of trying to present a “Trojan horse”. The claim was echoed in an increasingly nationalistic German media, which blames “lazy Greeks”, rather than a predatory and poorly regulated banking system, for the crisis. However, SYRIZA won exactly what Schäuble insisted so strenuously it would not get — a short-term loan extension, with a degree of control over spending to alleviate the worst elements of austerity. Differences about the exact nature of the agreement appear to be emerging already. On the one hand, the Greek government has presented the interim arrangement as a break from the Memorandum and its austerity policies. After the deal was struck, Schäuble exulted that “the Greeks certainly will have a difficult time explaining the deal to their voters”. For its part, the IMF is concerned about the lack of “clear assurances that the [Greek] Government intends to undertake the reforms envisaged in the Memorandum on Economic and Financial Policies”. Even if the list of reforms is accepted by the Eurozone parliaments, the institutions have until the end of April to “refine” it. Key elements may yet be rejected.

On Tuesday, Apple refreshed its MacBook Pro line, reconfiguring the laptops with the latest Core i5 and Core i7 processors based on its Haswell architecture, replacing previous chipsets with an Intel graphics processor dubbed "Iris," and putting the new models on a modest diet. The 13-in. MacBook Pro is 5% thinner and 3% lighter, for example. Apple also reduced prices by $200, from $1,499 to $1,299 for the least expensive 13-in. laptop, and from $2,199 to $1,999 for the 15-in. model. Those cuts represented price decreases of 13% and 9%, respectively. Since the start of the year, Apple has slashed the price of the entry-level 13-in. Retina MacBook Pro by 24%. The MacBook Pro was Apple's second notebook line this year to see price cuts. In June, Apple rolled out tweaked MacBook Airs at prices 7% to 8% lower than their predecessors. Historically, the Cupertino, Calif., company has rarely lowered Mac prices, preferring instead to keep those stable but swap newer, faster processors for older CPUs, add more memory or increase storage. But times are different, said Stephen Baker of the NPD Group. "Apple's very high premium pricing is getting more difficult to sustain in this environment," said Baker, talking about the historic slump in the personal computer industry, now into its sixth straight quarter. "They needed to bring the pricing more in line with the overall market." Apple has been having a harder time selling Macs, just as has virtually every other computer maker. In the quarter that ended June 30, Apple sold 7% fewer Macs than it did during the same period the year prior, for instance. The price cuts were also an admission by Apple that tablets continue to cannibalize sales of laptops, said Baker. "Apple's portion of the $1,000-plus PC market is not quite as big as it used to be," he noted. "They've had some cannibalization in their higher buckets." That cannibalization has come from both tablets and lower-priced notebooks, including Apple's own MacBook Air line, said Baker. And also, in a small way, from touch-based Windows portables and the even more radical designs known as "convertibles," "hybrids" or "2-in-1s." "In the past year, premium-priced Windows [devices] have seen pretty decent growth," said Baker. "They're starting from very low volumes, but that's still growth." Unlike Windows OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), Apple has an advantage when it comes to tablet cannibalization: It can sell its own iPad and at least keep customers within its garden. Apple has actually reveled in the trend. "I see cannibalization as a huge opportunity for us," said CEO Tim Cook during a January 2013 conference call with Wall Street. "One, our base philosophy is to never fear cannibalization. If we do, somebody else will just cannibalize it, and so we never fear it. We know that iPad will cannibalize some Macs [so] that doesn't worry us." Baker thought that was smart. "They get retail, and one of the key pieces of retail is that products get cannibalized," said Baker. "But it's always better to cannibalize your own rather than let someone else do it, even if it costs [you] some margin." On Tuesday, Cook reaffirmed Apple's stake in the personal computer market, perhaps responding to talk over the last several weeks that Apple might -- and in some analysts' minds, should -- mimic Microsoft and force the iPad into 2-in-1 duty as a light-weight laptop by adding a keyboard. "Our competition is different. They're confused. They chased after netbooks. Now they're trying to make tablets into PCs, and PCs into tablets," Cook said at the rollout of the new iPads. "[But] we have a very clear direction and a very ambitious goal. We still believe deeply in this category [of traditional notebooks] and we're not slowing down on our innovation." Apple also dumped the 15-in. non-Retina MacBook Pro from its sales list on Tuesday, leaving only the 13-in. model as a not-with-Retina choice. That notebook relies on a 500GB platter-style hard disk drive rather than an SSD (solid-state drive) and is the last of Apple's laptops to include a built-in DVD drive. The 13-in. MacBook Pro starts at $1,199, now just $100 less than the bottom-end 13-in. Retina MacBook Pro.

Micron Technology (MU) stock is climbing Tuesday after the company reported third-quarter earnings and revenue above analysts' estimates. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Micron Technology (MU - Get Report) stock is climbing Tuesday after the company reported third-quarter earnings and revenue above analysts' estimates. Over its May-ended quarter, the semiconductor specialist earned 79 cents a share, 9 cents higher than what analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expected. Revenue of $3.98 billion beat forecasts of $3.89 billion. By early afternoon, shares had popped 5% to $32.83. "We rate MICRON TECHNOLOGY INC (MU) a BUY. This is driven by a few notable strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its robust revenue growth, solid stock price performance, impressive record of earnings per share growth, compelling growth in net income and notable return on equity. Although the company may harbor some minor weaknesses, we feel they are unlikely to have a significant impact on results."

Lorraine Santschi Dove passed away peacefully on November 19, 2016 in her 100th year. Lorraine was born in Chicago and was attracted to dance at an early age. She studied at the acclaimed Merriel Abbott School of Dance performing in London, Paris, New York and was featured at the Empire Room, Palmer House, Chicago. Lorraine relocated to Honolulu in 1950 at the urging of fellow Merriel Abbott dancer, Jo Flanders, who was associated with the Punahou Dance School. Lorraine went on to seven starring roles both in song and dance at Diamond Head Theatre from Oklahoma to South Pacific. Lorraine became a board member of Honolulu Theatre for Youth and retired as Managing Director. She was active in many community activities until she and husband, Harry Dove, moved to Waimea, Hawaii. Lorraine assisted Richard Smart in establishing the Kahilu Theatre Guild. Dance and theatre remained the love of her professional life. On her return to Honolulu, she maintained her cultural interests, community activities, and was an active member of St. Clements Episcopal Church in Makiki. "Who do I tell myself I am? I am someone grateful for the experiences and even the challenges I've had-----and for the opportunity to keep learning -----and to contribute." Lorraine is survived by Mary Dove Bogust (Chris) and Billy Dove (Irene), 2 grandchildren and lifelong friend, Neva Rego, and many other friends. A private burial is planned.

Connect for Health Colorado, the state health insurance marketplace, is touting its new and improved enrollment website for customers shopping for private health insurance. Open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act begins Nov. 15 and runs through Feb. 15, 2015. More than 148,000 individuals are covered through plans purchased on the Marketplace in 2014. All this week, customers could compare policies offered in their area, research eligibility for tax credits, choose coverage and begin the enrollment process. Applicants this year can use a single application process directing consumers to either complete enrollment in private health insurance through Connect for Health Colorado or with Medicaid with the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. An Avatar/Guide named “Kyla,” a virtual assistant who can help customers through some key steps of the enrollment process. A Medication Look-Up Tool, or formulary, which lets customers compare prescription coverage under various policies. A Provider Directory to help customers check whether their doctor is in the network of a health plan. Whether renewing or enrolling for the first time, exchange customers must complete enrollment by Dec. 15 to have coverage Jan. 1, 2015, and avoid a gap in insurance.

Lizz Winstead—the TV producer, stand-up comic, and writer who co-created Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, and whose comic sensibilities defined it in its early, pre-Jon Stewart years—has announced that she’ll be broadcasting an end-of-year satirical wrap-up on December 31. Titled Controversy, in honor of the late Prince, the pay-per-view special will cover the entire national garbage fire that was 2016. “I have been doing political comedy for 25 years and this year was the biggest avalanche of material I have ever had to dig out from under,” Winstead said in a press release describing the show. The comic’s credits include both Comedy Central and MSNBC; she’s also the author of an essay collection, Lizz Free Or Die, and has hosted a weekly live satire show, Don’t Shoot The Messenger, in New York since 2007. Winstead will be filming the special on December 30, ensuring that no last-minute tragedies or low-key awfulness manage to slip through the cracks. You should be able to pre-order the special at this link soon, via a $9.99 donation to Winstead’s Lady Parts Justice League, a non-profit organization that raises awareness about legislation impacting women’s reproductive rights.

There’s about to be a new homebuilder on the market, and it’s a name that you’re likely familiar with – Airbnb. Yes, the short-term rental platform, which to this point has specialized in helping people rent out their houses or apartments, is going to start building homes of its own, ones that are designed to be shared. The consolidation of the homebuilding industry continues. Last week, Taylor Morrison announced that it is acquiring fellow homebuilder AV Homes in a deal valued at nearly $1 billion. Next up is Century Communities, which announced Friday that it is acquired the remaining 50% of Wade Jurney Homes in a deal that creates the nation’s 10th largest homebuilder. CalAtlantic Homes, which is set to be acquired by Lennar in a $9.3 billion deal that will create the nation’s largest homebuilder, is not done acquiring other homebuilders yet. The homebuilder announced that it acquired the homebuilding operations of Utah’s Candlelight Homes.

"No, you keep it," I told students, as they tried to hand me their papers at the end of class. "Why did I do it if you're not even going to collect it? What kind of teacher are you?" students replied, before balling up their papers and throwing them on the floor. Did I appreciate students responding like this? No, but I did appreciate why they responded like this. It was early in the year, and they'd been conditioned for years to see it as a teacher's duty to collect every assignment. There was no incentive for students to lift a finger unless they knew an assignment was going to be collected. To give them feedback that will help improve their understanding. Design tests and other graded activities so that earnest effort on class work (and homework if you assign it) ensures success/improvement on those graded activities. Assign grades for class work (and homework) based on effort rather than accuracy. Just a couple of ways to establish why students should lift a finger even when they aren't being graded: it'll lift their performance when they are being graded.

SPARTAK MOSCOW have found themselves in trouble with UEFA yet again after incidents during Tuesday's 1-1 draw with Liverpool in the Champions League. Fans let off smoke bombs and fireworks at the Otkritie Arena and displayed illicit banners that read 'UEFA Mafia', while also blocking stairways and singing provocative chants. The Russian club are already in hot water with Europe's governing body for their supporters actions against Maribor two weeks ago. A flare set off from one of the Spartak fans in their Group E clash in Slovenia narrowly missed the referee. While police also fought with the Moscow faithful against Maribor. Massimo Carrera's side have already had their away tickets allocated for the away match against Sevilla stripped. And they have found themselves facing more punishment from UEFA for fan behaviour against the Reds. A huge banner read "Win or Die" behind one goal, though thankfully there was not any violence between both sets of supporters. UEFA's control, ethics and disciplinary body will decide on October 19 if Spartak will face any action. Jurgen Klopp's side returned from Russia with a point, after Philippe Coutinho equalised for Liverpool. Spartak have drawn their opening two Champions LEague matches 1-1 and sit third in the group.