In November 2013, she was the only member of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange who voted against increasing the salary of the health exchange's CEO by 13%.

Exchange board votes to raise CEO's salary | HealthCare Checkup | Seattle Times

Visit Education Lab for the latest news and conversation on Puget Sound area schools.

The Seattle Times health-care team tracks the local impact of the Affordable Care Act.

## Exchange board votes to raise CEO's salary

The board of the Washington Health Benefit Exchange raised the salary of exchange CEO Richard Onizuka by 13 percent.

The increase will boost Onizuka's annual salary from $157,000 to $177,400, retroactive to August.

All of the board members in attendance voted in favor of the pay raise except one.

Teresa Mosqeda, legislative and policy director for the Washington State Labor Council, voted against the motion.

Mosqueda commended Onizuka's performance as CEO.

But she said it seemed inappropriate to raise salaries "when part of the goal of the Affordable Care Act was to decrease costs to the system."

In recommending the raise, board chair Margaret Stanley cited pay equity as a consideration.

She said the board hired an outside consultant to find out how Onizuka's salary compared with the salaries of CEOs at the other state-based insurance exchanges.

The results of the analysis were not immediately available to the public.

But Stanley said the pay increase would bring Onizuka's salary more in line with the salaries of the other CEOs.

According to media reports, the CEO of Oregon's exchange, which still does not have a functioning website, makes $181,000 annually.

The board sets executive compensation for the exchange, which is a public-private partnership separate from the state.

The pay increase came up during the board's monthly meeting at a SeaTac hotel.

After the meeting, Onizuka said the raise was a reflection of the work of the entire staff at the exchange, which has more than 100 salaried employees.

"It's not about me, it's about what we're doing," he said.

"I feel very humbled and honored to be able to do this."

Board members praised the performance of Washington's exchange to date, especially compared with other exchanges that have run into more serious problems.

For now, the exchanges are funded by federal money.

Washington's exchange is on track to spend a total of more than $85 million through the end of 2013, according to Chief Financial Officer Bob Nakahara, who presented budget figures at the board meeting.

The projected budget for 2014 is about $65 million, Nakahara said.

But the exchange recently submitted a request to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for an additional $92 million to be spent on technological enhancements and other improvements in 2014.

Starting in 2015, Washington – like the other state-based exchanges – will have to be financially self-sustaining.

No personal attacks or insults, no hate speech, no profanity.

Please keep the conversation civil and help us moderate this thread by reporting any abuse.

The opinions expressed in reader comments are those of the author only, and do not reflect the opinions of The Seattle Times.

HealthCare Checkup is a new blog dedicated to helping readers understand the Affordable Care Act and how the federal health-care law affects everyone – insured or not.

Reporters in Seattle, Olympia, and Washington, D.C. contribute.

The editors are Beth Kaiman and Mark Watanabe.

The blog is produced through a partnership with Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy research and communication organization that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Teresa Mosqueda is an American politician and labor activist from Seattle, Washington. She was elected to the Seattle City Council in 2017 to represent the at-large position 8.


Jasmine Waltz is an American model, actress, and reality television personality from Las Vegas, Nevada.

(meta data) TITLE: Jasmine Waltz | Celebrity Big Brother 2017: Jedward join James Jordan & Callum Best in the house - TV

(meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 2019-08-18T10:00:00

# Celebrity Big Brother 2017: Jedward join James Jordan and Callum Best in the house

An American model and actress who previously appeared on the 2014 series of Big Brother, where she became notorious for her frequent nudity and romance with Blue's Lee Ryan.

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Howard lives in Camden, London with his wife Cerys, a doctor, and their dog, a Jack Russell Terrier named Archie.

(meta data) TITLE: Russell Howard: 'I have crippling low self-esteem'

(meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 2019-08-14T10:00:00

# Russell Howard: 'I have crippling low self-esteem'

Comedian Russell Howard has been approached by two political parties for advice on how to appeal to the young

When he was 18 years old, stand-up comedian Russell Howard had a formative moment.

His previous five performances had gone uproariously well, so his confidence was high when he climbed on to the stage at Jesters comedy club in Bristol.

But his opening joke – something about Captain Kirk flicking Spock's ears – bombed.

Howard repeated it, assuming no one had heard him properly; they had, they just didn't think it was funny.

He crashed on for five minutes then finished early, visibly shaking.

It was like nothing I'd ever experienced.

I remember thinking: 'I'm going to have to work a lot harder because that can't happen again.'

Rather than running away I thought: 'Right, I need to rebuild the machine…'"

Howard is the most popular British comedian on Facebook with more than 3.2 million followers

Even if dying on stage comes with the territory for fresh stand-ups, none has gone on to rebuild the machine quite like Howard.

At 36, he has achieved what many stand-ups twice his age couldn't.

Thanks to appearances on panel shows such as Mock the Week, on which Howard is more regular than clockwork, he is the most popular British comedian on Facebook, with more than 3.2 million followers (Michael McIntyre has only 2.8 million).

His BBC Two show, Russell Howard's Good News, is regularly the most-viewed programme on iPlayer.

And in just two years, he earned £4 million by filling arenas, selling DVDs and TV deals; his next tour, Round the World, in 2017, will see him visit 30 UK cities and headline the Royal Albert Hall for 10 consecutive nights.

His latest project – a second series of Russell Howard's Stand Up Central, which begins this week on Comedy Central – puts him in charge of a roster of comedians, including Jimmy Carr and Sara Pascoe.

His natural audience sits between 16 and 24, although he says he is increasingly appealing to fiftysomethings.

Two political parties have approached him for advice on how to appeal to the young; he won't say which.

For someone whose critics dismiss his humour as puerile, repetitive and annoying – he has been known to impersonate a talking vagina – he has certainly had the last laugh.

He looks sheepish, embarrassed by his own dizzying heights.

Like most comedians, I have crippling low self-esteem, so I always think that what I've just done is rubbish.

You are always moving on to the next thing."

We meet in pub in Camden, his local since moving from Leamington Spa to London with his medic girlfriend.

("I'd rather not speak about her because she has a proper job and I am a clown.")

Dressed down, as usual, in a T-shirt and jeans, he looks a bit like the missing errant member of Westlife, all spikey blond hair, blue eyes and white teeth.

Unlike the rocket-propelled mega-watt Howard viewers and audiences see on screen and stage, today Howard is comparatively subdued.

He is thoughtful, serious, almost shy, and makes only one outright joke (quite a funny one, about being stung on the backside by a jellyfish on holiday), preferring the slipstream of anecdote.

Born in Bristol, Howard grew up in a vicarage in Hampshire.

His mother was a dinner lady and his father designs call centres.

He has twin siblings two years younger than him: Kerry, a successful actress soon to play the young Hyacinth Bucket in a BBC prequel to Keeping Up Appearances, and Daniel, who works in IT.

He flew them all to Australia this year for his father's 60th: "It is really rare to be sat around with everyone you love and you think, jokes did this.

But I would never say that because I would look like a tool."

His childhood was surrounded by a barrage of 40 cousins and uncles and aunts.

"My comedic education was seeing all these crazy, wild gatherings.

You'd look around and see your uncle do something funny.

I was like a wallflower before, watching people.

I've always been fascinated about them."

Seeing Howard perform, where he tears around mimicking people, improvising and – often – shouting, it is hard to reconcile him with a wallflower but, he says, the limelight has a transformative effect.

"When you are doing stand up, it is the most glorious hour, when you are an X Men version of yourself, with lasers coming out of your eyes.

In that moment, there isn't a feeling like it.

Genuinely, the first gig I did when I was 18, it felt like the world shifted.

I realised that I had stumbled upon a mechanism through which you could view life.

Everything could be pushed through this thing.

When he was 12 he was cycling with Daniel, then 10, when the battery from Howard's bike light flew out and got stuck in his brother's spokes.

Daniel was knocked unconscious and a month later he had his first epileptic fit.

For a long time, Howard blamed himself for the accident but he now recognises it wasn't his fault.

Comedy helped him process events and now he incorporates jokes about his brother and his condition into his routines.

Daniel certainly doesn't mind; he once even appeared on stage at the O2 dressed as a bear to surprise him.

"He is amazing, my brother," says Howard.

Mock the Week: Russell Howard, Dara O'Briain, Hugh Dennis, Andy Parsons

Not everyone is drawn to Daniel, but I just love him.

Howard studied economics at the University of West England, but filled his time with student comedy gigs, making the final of So You Think You Are Funny? at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival against Jimmy Carr and Josie Long.

Stand up had been the dream ever since he turned 15 and began writing jokes in his bedroom to surreptitiously slip into conversation.

He went to London after graduating (one per cent off a first), spurred on by his father who thought he should make a go of it, and spent the next six years playing beer-soaked clubs before his big break on Mock the Week.

Howard has since appeared on 58 episodes of the news quiz, as well as myriad other TV panel shows.

Some argue such regimented formats are a cheap and easy form of comedy, pushing more creative programmes such as sketch shows from our schedules.

"Some comedians are great at them, some aren't.

It is just a place where you can go on and be quite funny.

People might watch you and think you are funny and then go and see you live.

His fans certainly don't mind and, on the subject of his gargantuan online social media following, he has a surprise confession: "I don't do it," he says, with a shrug.

There is a man at Avalon [his agency], who is wonderful.

I email him tweets and he puts them on Twitter.

It usually takes, like, 10 gigs before a thought becomes something publishable.

If I was to put my first thoughts on Twitter, it would be terrible.

Russell Howard's Stand Up Central is on Comedy Central UK, Wednesdays, at 10pm

Edinburgh Festival's funniest joke of the year 2004-2015

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(meta data) TITLE: Russell Howard interview: 'Twitter isn't useful to my soul' - Telegraph

# Russell Howard interview: 'Twitter isn't useful to my soul'

## In his BBC TV show Russell Howard's Good News, the comedian 'chews up' current affairs for the internet generation.

Will his 2014 Wonderbox world tour make him the king of all media?

Russell Howard announced his new tour: 'There's no point having me on Question Time trying to crack jokes' Photo: Rii Schroer

A while ago, the comedian Russell Howard sat on a plane watching the DVD of Adele performing at the Royal Albert Hall.

He was struck by how beautifully incongruous it was to see the south London singer effing and blinding away, winning the crowd over with her 'awwright, haaw ya going?' banter in this regal setting.

Next March, Howard will become the first comic to play four consecutive nights at the hallowed hall as part of his 2014 Wonderbox world tour, which also travels to the United States and Australia.

Although it's early days, we may as well append a 'sold out' to that; it surely will be.

For the Royal Albert Hall, as he has for every other show, he will wear just a T-shirt and jeans; Howard has never worn a suit, and to start wearing one now would be 'peculiar... too dressed up'.

Russell Howard tickets go on general sale this week for the 2014 Wonderbox Tour and will be available at Telegraph Tickets.

If reading the above has you rushing to the window to see if the sky has turned blood-red, chances are you're over 30.

Howard himself, ridiculously well-preserved at 33, seems fairly astounded too.

'Is that true?' he asks when told what a trailblazer he is.

That he's surprised is surprising in itself; with little fanfare and even less controversy, Howard has become one of the most successful stand-ups of his generation.

A clean-cut, Bristol-born economics graduate turned respected stand-up (Perrier nominated at 26) who proved himself in the 'bear pit' of 'Mock the Week', he was given his own topical clip show, Russell Howard's Good News, by BBC Three in 2009.

Filleting 24-hour news through a caffeinated pop culture filter, it was eminently internet-ready, shareable television before that was even a thing.

'Good News' is now BBC Three's most popular show, second only to Doctor Who on iPlayer, with a viewership of up to 5 million a week.

While the rest of us were squinting at Michael McIntyre through our monocles, Howard built up a social media army (2.5 million Facebook friends and counting, over 500,000 followers on Twitter), and in 2011 sold over 300,000 arena tickets to people who, we're often told, expect to get all their entertainment for free: the young.

Ben Elton has always been a Middle Englander

Russell Howard's Wonderbox: comedian announces 2014 world tour

Russell Howard: 'the world churns out lunacy'

A colleague tells me that her 13-year-old son mainlined episodes of 'Good News' while recuperating from an appendectomy, but had to be stopped when he literally began busting a gut.

Howard's stand-up is a smutty yet charming mix of Inbetweeners-style reminisces involving his or his brother's backside, withering observations ("Some families in England have to wait two weeks for their wheelie bins to be collected.

Their suffering is unimaginable") and stories about his family

The first time she saw him perform, Howard's mother perfectly summed up why he's so beloved: "You're a bit like a child telling people about a day at the zoo," she said.

Russell Howard's 2014 world stand-up tour, Wonderbox, will include four nights at the Royal Albert Hall

Howard describes Good News, which returns for an eighth series this week, as "good, disposable telly which you can watch while you're doing the ironing or eating your tea.

If you don't like one joke, there's another one just around the corner..."

We're sitting in the show's writers' room, and the walls are full of whiteboards covered with hundreds of neatly written notes that may or not may not become part of the show.

Next to obvious headers such as 'Thatcher funeral', 'Kim Jong-un' and 'Justin Beiber Anne Frank', others leap out: 'Liquid ass', 'porn star flapjacks', or 'Lesley Garrett fisting tips'.

("That one's been there a while," says Howard of the latter.)

Across the courtyard, in Howard's news bureau, 20 or so researchers sit glued to screens spewing feeds from across the globe – Russia, Australia, Rotherham.

This mini CNN collects clips or viral videos falling within the Good News remit – animals, pranks, kids, weird technology, sports, music, Boris Johnson reaction shots – and presents hours of footage to Howard and his co-writers, Steve Hall, Steve Williams, Karl Minns and Matt Forde, at the end of the week.

They whittle it down to the best 20 stories, write jokes over the weekend, it's filmed on the Tuesday, then hits BBC Three on Thursday.

On stage he's wide-eyed and bouncy, but today he's softly spoken and subdued – a bout of food poisoning certainly isn't helping, and nor are this week's stories.

He admits he has no idea how Good News will handle Baroness Thatcher's funeral, given the show's light-hearted brief.

"With a situation like that you have to look at the way the news is presented," he says.

"We've had stories in the past, like the floods, or any bad weather stories, which don't seem funny or interesting, but sometimes the way the news presents them is."

With last year's floods, Howard had fun with Sky News' footage of a family of voles found clinging to life in a Yorkshire village, then cut to the contrasting situation in Malaysia – a reporter talking to camera with his head barely visible above the water.

Looking at how your news sausage is made, he explains, "moves you away from causing offence when it's a contentious issue.

Some people are pro-Thatcher, some are anti-Thatcher – you just have to navigate your way through that."

In turn, Howard helps his viewers navigate their way through the news by serving it up in bite-sized, easily digestible chunks.

The frivolous (funny cat photos) and the serious (Syria) are given equal weight and sit quite happily next to each other.

Older viewers might find this juxtaposition jarring, but for a generation used to getting their current affairs via their smartphones from websites such as Buzzfeed, 'Good News' makes perfect sense.

He's Left-leaning ("most comics are, aren't they?"), yet he doesn't go in for Tory-bashing or expressing any political opinions at all.

When the Italian comedian Beppe Grillo stood for election earlier this year, promising to "open parliament like a tuna can" and doing so by winning one in four votes, the online magazine – and bible for hipsters – Vice ran a piece asking if any British comic could ever do the same.

With his sizeable online following, likeability, and status as the kids' most trusted news sources, Howard was the obvious choice.

While not entirely serious, Vice's piece had a point.

Howard, to his credit, finds it hilarious that anyone could think he has even a sliver of that power, and seems disturbed that two political parties – he won't say which – have approached him for advice on how to grab the youth vote.

Also, I just wouldn't be able to do the show.

It's for the same reason I've been asked to go on breakfast TV, but because we've done so many jokes about them it'd be awful to meet them.

Similarly, if I went and had a chat with Cameron and Milliband and Clegg, I could never do jokes about them."

All he does, he says, is "chew the news up and then present it to people.

That's a huge difference from being in politics."

He's even refused to fill the 'funny one' seat on Question Time (previous occupants include Dom Joly, Steve Coogan and Will Young): "Question Time is a nice forum for reasoned political debate.

There's no point having me on there trying to crack jokes."

Howard is also tickled by the common perception that he's some kind of social media maven, marshalling his youth army with a carefully selected hashtag.

"I'm a Luddite!" he says, his Bristolian burr rather emphasising his point.

"It's odd, because I've never aimed myself at, or tried to corner that market.

My brother has to plug the Xbox in for me."

This doesn't appear to be part of his act.

The day before we meet, Howard's Twitter account had whipped his fans into a frenzy by posting a 'teaser' for the Wonderbox tour showing a series of seemingly random, meaningless numbers; a few soon worked out that they were map coordinates.

Except he has no clue what I'm talking about; someone in his management team was responsible.

Whether he planned it or not, Russell Howard is the best British example of a comedian whose career would be very different without the internet.

In the US there's Rob Delaney, a stand-up whose 'funniest man on Twitter' moniker lead to his own TV show.

Or Marc Maron, a respected comic whose nosediving career was transformed when he began a podcast of soul-searching (ie, not very funny) interviews with other comedians; he now has a TV sitcom, an autobiography on the way and stars queuing up to talk to him.

But the movement's hangdog, middle-aged poster boy is Louis CK, a brilliant stand-up who turned out to be an equally brilliant businessman; he's driven down his ticket prices by cutting out middlemen and selling through his own website, and in 2011 made over $1.1 million by offering downloads of a comedy special for just $5.

None of these men is a household name, yet they can sell out tours with a few keystrokes (CK, who barely has a profile at all in the UK, filled the O2 Arena in minutes last month).

Howard admires CK ("everything's geared towards quality, or making things as good for his audience as possible") but is wary, to say the least, of engaging with the public directly.

"When you first appear on TV you go through the self-googling phase.

There's such hatred, and I can't see beyond that," he says, wincing at the memory.

"You get 20 people saying kind things and one person saying something horrible.

You train yourself for a year not to do it.

If I was to get into Twitter I'd expose myself to people who adore me or people who absolutely hated me.

Neither of those are useful to my soul."

He's even more depressed by the "window into the illness of society" that is the average internet comments thread: "If you look at something like the Boston marathon, an awful tragedy – even on that there are idiots who'll write [in idiotic voice] 'what were they even doing running in the first place?'

Howard's sensitivity is both a blessing and a curse.

His heart-on-sleeve anti-cynicism is a huge part of his appeal and the reason fans, even male ones, are constantly trying to hug him.

Each show of his last tour ended with a list of things that bring him joy – 'stationary', 'watching a goth laugh', 'the noise old women make when someone puts food in front of them' – and his favourite part of 'Good News' is the closing 'good news story', an unashamedly heart-warming clip of triumph over tragedy that sometimes causes Howard's eyes to moisten on camera.

He admits that a lot of people around him were against that segment because "it didn't belong on a comedy programme".

But giving the show a touch of "warmness" was important to him.

"It's a really nice way to send people to bed – something sweet," he says.

'When you first appear on TV you go through the self-googling phase,' says Howard.

'There's such hatred, and I can't see beyond that'

In 2011, a year in which Howard is reported to have earned £4 million from touring, the respected stand-up Stewart Lee devoted a routine to Howard's part in a charity bike ride, which raised £1 million for Sport Relief.

If Howard rode his bike every day, Lee argued, he would raise £13,357,014.30p for starving African children.

"And yet he chooses not to do that," Lee went on.

"He chooses instead to make £4 million for himself...

Russell Howard's as good as murdered those kids."

Though Lee had warned him and tried to assure Howard it wasn't personal, the routine stung.

"I couldn't work out why I'd been selected.

He was trying to make out that all I was interested was making money for myself.

I do get what he was trying to do, but when it's about you it's very difficult to be rational.

I felt like I was being bullied by the cool kid at school.

Because Stu's so revered, it was exactly like being in the sixth-form common room and the smartest and most popular kid is sneering at you."

Anyway, Howard insists that the £4 million isn't true.

The perks of his lavish multimillionaire lifestyle include a collection of guitars, long holidays with his family, and a nice house in Leamington Spa, where he lives with his doctor girlfriend, Cerys, and their Jack Russell, Archie.

His parents, Ninette and Dave, live nearby in Bath; has he paid off their mortgage?

I'm pretty sure my mum wants me to buy her a hot tub."

While his relationship with Cerys is off-limits in Howard's stand-up act ("she's got a proper job, she doesn't need me spoiling her life"), his family is a bottomless well of material.

"They're just so big and wild," he says of his 40 cousins, three of whom once interrupted a party at his house in order to exorcise a ghost they'd seen walking up and down.

"They were saying, 'He's a right nasty ------- but you don't have to worry about him any more.

Howard's life is comically un-starry, and in 'Wonderbox' he plans to talk about those inevitable awkward moments when two worlds collide: taking his mother to the opening of 'I Give It A Year' (his first film premiere, and he only attended because his actress sister Kerry has a role), or being recognised just as Archie decides to defecate in the street.

His best friends are still stand-ups he began his career with, Daniel Kitson and John Oliver among them.

As a group they were once known as the 'Chocolate Milk Gang' thanks to their fondness for drinking milkshakes before Edinburgh shows instead of getting blind drunk like everyone else.

He's no teetotaller, but a sweetly considerate attitude to his audience prevents him drinking when working.

"If you're doing 70 gigs in a tour, there's a lot of responsibility," he explains.

"People need a big night out, and you're providing it.

You can't have your blade dulled by booze.

Have a drink in your own time – that's their time."

Marc Maron's podcast interviews are famous for allowing comics to open up about their demons: Robin Williams and Russell Brand were fascinating on substance abuse; Onion writer Todd Hanson spoke movingly about depression and a suicide attempt; one comedian, Todd Glass, used his interview to come out as gay.

But if Russell Howard ever meets Maron, it will be a short encounter.

The cheery, happy-go-lucky persona that perhaps led Stewart Lee to see him as an easy target is very real; Howard's demons were exorcised a long time ago, possibly by his cousins.

Nothing makes him angrier, he says, than people who throw their money down on the counter in a shop: "I literally want to beat their face in."

Then he remembers getting angry last week over a joke that wasn't working, and doing something he's ashamed of.

Now we're getting somewhere; what did he do?

Russell Howard begins his world stand-up comedy tour, Wonderbox, on February 23, 2014.

The new series of Russell Howard's Good News is on Thursday nights on BBC Three at 10.00pm.

For tickets and details go to russell-howard.co.uk

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A 2013 Oxford University radio carbon dating study of the Predynastic period, however, suggests a much later date beginning sometime between 3,800-3,700 BC.

(meta data) TITLE: Carbon dating shows ancient Egypt's rapid expansion | New Scientist

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# Carbon dating shows ancient Egypt's rapid expansion

Early Egypt might have been ruled by individual kings, some of their names are inscribed on the Palermo Stone

(Image: courtesy of the Petrie Museum, UCL)

The powerful civilisation of ancient Egypt took just a few centuries to build, according to a radiocarbon dating study that sets the first solid chronology for the period.

Five thousand years ago, Egypt became the world's first territorial state with strict borders, organised religion, centralised administration and intensive agriculture.

It lasted for millennia and set a template that countries still follow today.

Archaeologists have assumed it developed gradually from the pastoral communities that preceded it, but physicist Mike Dee from the University of Oxford and his colleagues now suggest that the transition could have taken as little as 600 years.

The early history of ancient Egypt is murky because although there are plenty of archaeological finds, including royal tombs, there is no reliable way to attribute firm dates to the various reigns and periods.

Radiocarbon dating has previously been of limited use because dating individual objects gives ranges of up to 300 years.

To improve on that, Dee and his colleagues used a computerised statistical approach known as Bayesian modelling.

They compiled radiocarbon dates from nearly 200 artefacts, including hair, plants and bone, from known reigns or periods during Egypt's First Dynasty and the Predynastic period before it.

They entered these into a computer model to estimate the most likely dates of transition between the different periods.

It is illegal to remove archaeological samples from Egypt, so the researchers dated items from museum collections in Europe and North America, as well as freshly excavated seed samples from Tell es-Sakan on the Gaza Strip, which was an outpost of ancient Egypt.

For the First Dynasty, the estimated reign lengths match the human lifespan, which was around 30 to 40 years at the time.

This suggests that Egypt was ruled by individual kings right from the start, rather than by clans, as some experts have suggested.

The researchers used carbon dating to estimate with 68 per cent probability that the first ruler, King Aha, took to the throne between 3111 and 3045 BC, and died between 3073 and 3036 BC.

They also concluded that the Predynastic period began in 3800-3700 BC, so it lasted just 600-700 years, several centuries less than previously thought.

"This is a period during which Egypt goes through a major transition," says Dee.

It started with small, cattle-owning communities who migrated with the seasons.

"All the important things that our societies do were invented then," says Günter Dreyer who, until recently, was the director of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, and has led excavations at Abydos, one of ancient Egypt's oldest cities, for more than 30 years.

"We're still standing on their shoulders."

He is sceptical about the accuracy of radiocarbon measurements when it comes to absolute dates, but agrees the technique gives a valuable indication of the lengths of different historical periods.

During the Predynastic period, progress "becomes faster and faster, so much happens", he says.

"In the last two centuries, around 3200 BC, it is breathtaking."

Dee hopes that archaeologists will now reappraise the period, to start to understand what triggered such dramatic changes.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society A, DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2013.0395

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Coordinates: 25°57′00″N 32°44′00″E / 25.95000°N 32.73333°E / 25.95000; 32.73333
The Naqada culture is an archaeological culture of Chalcolithic Predynastic Egypt (ca. 4400–3000 BC), named for the town of Naqada, Qena Governorate.


On April 20, 2018, the station switched to Long Island's "Real-FM", with a mix of classic hits, 1970s–1980s rock, pop and new wave hits.

(meta data) TITLE: 107.1 WLIR Flips To Classic Hits Real-FM - RadioInsight

(meta data) PUBLISHER: https://www.facebook.com/radioinsightcom

RadioInsight - Radio Industry News Commentary Discussions

# 107.1 WLIR Flips To Classic Hits Real-FM

After launching with a retrospective of the original 1980's Alternative 92.7 WLIR-FM Garden City NY and its later incarnation in the late 90s/early 2000s, VMT Media's 107.1 WLIR-FM Hampton Bays and 96.9 W245BA Manorville NY flipped to Classic Hits "107.1/96.9 Real FM".

Positioning as "Long Island's Real Mix of Classic Hits", the station is focusing on hits of the 1970s through 90s with an emphasis on the 1980s.

The first songs played were Van Halen's "Jump", Huey Lewis & The News "Heart of Rock and Roll", J Geils Band "Centerfold", and Spin Doctors "Two Princes".

Listen to the launch of Real-FM at FormatChange.com.

After running a placeholder music format since New Year's Day, VMT Media's 107.1 WLIR-FM Hampton Bays and 96.9 W245BA Manorville NY will debut its new format on Friday, April 20 at 11:45am.

VMT Media purchased Richard Anderson's Holding Out Hope Church's 51% share of the station last May for assumption of debt and a three year non-compete agreement that started on January 1.

AJ Sonnick will serve as Director of Operations and Marketing for WLIR-FM.

The World Famous WLIR-FM broadcasting on 107.1 and 96.9 to Long Islanders, and online at wlir.com, has been stunting since before the new year.

This Friday, April 20th, at 11:45AM, the station encourages everyone to tune in as they will end the "wheel of formats" and debut a new format.

Station management has been stunting, playing anything and everything, using the tagline, "something real is coming to this frequency", for several months.

With the release of the most recent documentary, it shows how important the WLIR call letters are and how important the history is to many people.

The station owners want to keep the integrity, pride, and trust of those who have cared for the WLIR call letters over its 59 year history and expand its reach unlike ever before.

WLIR-FM will certainly be something exciting and real again as of April 20th.

With a population of over 1 million people, the East-End will have something new to listen to.

This is momentous because of WLIR's long history.

Making its debut in 1959, WLIR has gone through several owners, formats, many changes and a long battle with the FCC.

Famously known for discovering artists such as Prince and Depeche Mode who were not played on the airwaves before, WLIR has been a big part of radio history and an even bigger part of the lives of many Long Islanders.

Lance Venta is the Owner and Publisher of RadioInsight.com and a consultant for RadioBB Networks specializing in integration of radio and the internet.

Lance has two decades of experience tracking the audio industry and its use of digital platforms.

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They mention the legacy of WLIR, and they they harken back to " The World Famous WLIR".

If they don't go to alternative, the y are once again, circle jerking

This 107.1 facility has been constant change for over 20 years.

The WLIR that was profiled in the documentary was in Nassau County and thus couldn't be heard in the Hamptons.

So classic hits it is which is a REAL disappointment for those who REALLY thought the REAL 'LIR was REALLY coming back.

I know it's VMT but is RJ Morey is back in town?

Is it REALly possible that a format and branding that hasn't been used OTA for nearly 14 years – and on a signal that absolutely pales in comparison to the original 92.7 signal – could be revived?

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On January 1, 2018, the station dropped "Hope Radio" and began broadcasting a mix of oldies and classic rock, simulcasting on 96.9 W245BA.


She provided guest vocals for Tim McGraw's song "Highway Don't Care", featuring guitar work by Keith Urban.

OFFSTAGE: Taylor Swift Covers Fall Out Boy | CMT

# OFFSTAGE: Taylor Swift Covers Fall Out Boy

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that's happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

"There's a song that was all I listened to my freshman year in high school," Taylor Swift told the crowd at her sold-out concert in Chicago last night (Aug. 9).

"And the band who sings it is from Chicago.

I feel like if you knew it, it'd be amazing if you'd sing along.

Then she launched into a quiet little take on Fall Out Boy's 2005 pop punk hit, "Sugar, We're Goin Down," which is actually a really pretty song when she sings it.

Except that part about the loaded God complex, cock it and pull it.

But Swift did the song from the revolving stage at the back of the arena floor, where she sat under a lighted tree, with just her voice and a guitar.

That's enough to make any song sound sweet.

Fall Out Boy, by the way, was one of my predictions

since Swift started doing these city-specific tributes at her shows.

And it was a much better fit for her and her acoustic guitar than, say, a Styx song.

That said, she plays Chicago again tonight, so maybe she'll throw in a "Come Sail Away" cover.

Alison makes her living loving country music.

She's based in Chicago, but she's always leaving her heart in Nashville.

CMT and all related titles and logos are trademarks of Country Music Television, Inc.

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Life and career.:2010–2014: "Speak Now" and "Red".

This marked the highest opening sales in a decade in the United States, and made Swift the first female to have two million-selling album openings, a record recognized by the "Guinness Book of World Records". The Red Tour ran from March 2013 to June 2014 and grossed over $150 million; the tour broke the ticket sales record in China with all 18,000 tickets sold in 60 seconds. "Red" earned several accolades, including four nominations at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. Its single "I Knew You Were Trouble" won Best Female Video at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Swift was named Best Female Country Artist at the 2012 American Music Awards and Artist of the Year at the 2013 ceremony. She received the Nashville Songwriters Association's Songwriter/Artist Award for the fifth and sixth consecutive years in 2012 and 2013. Swift was also honored by the Association with a special Pinnacle Award, making her the second recipient of the accolade after Garth Brooks. During this time, she had a short-term relationship with British singer Harry Styles.
 In 2013, Swift co-wrote and co-produced "Sweeter than Fiction" with Jack Antonoff for the "One Chance" soundtrack, and received a Best Original Song nomination at the 71st Golden Globe Awards.


He was waived on November 5, 2018 and was re-signed to the practice squad.

(meta data) TITLE: Raiders sign defensive end Kony Ealy

ALAMEDA, Calif. – The Oakland Raiders have signed free agent DE Kony Ealy, the club announced Monday.

A former second-round pick (60th overall) of the Carolina Panthers in the 2014 NFL Draft, Ealy now enters his fifth year in the league after making stops with the Panthers (2014-16) and New York Jets (2017).

At 6-foot-4 and 275 pounds, the defensive end has appeared in 62 games over his career with the two clubs, making 19 starts and compiling 90 tackles (53 solo), 15 sacks, two interceptions, 14 passes defensed, six forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries.

In postseason action, Ealy has appeared in five contests and made one start, notching 11 stops (five), three sacks, one pass defensed, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery.

A native of New Madrid, Mo., Ealy played in 38 games at Missouri and made 25 starts, earning first-team All-Southeastern Conference honors as a junior in 2013.

Over his career, he registered 93 tackles, including 27.5 for loss, 14 sacks, one interception, 13 passes defensed and four forced fumbles.

In a corresponding move, the Raiders have waived LB James Cowser.

-signed free agent Cameron Hunt, the club announced Saturday.

### Raiders sign Dorleant and Holsey, waive Cheevers and Townsend

The Oakland Raiders have signed Makinton Dorleant and Joshua Holsey, the club announced Tuesday.

### Raiders claim cornerback Hamp Cheevers

The Oakland Raiders have claimed CB Hamp Cheevers via waivers from the Atlanta Falcons, the club announced Sunday.

### Raiders sign tight end Brandon Barnes

The Oakland Raiders have signed Brandon Barnes, the club announced Friday.

### Raiders sign running back Mack Brown

The Oakland Raiders have signed free agent RB Mack Brown, the club announced Saturday.

### Raiders claim wide receiver Jordan Lasley

The Oakland Raiders have claimed WR Jordan Lasley via waivers from the Baltimore Ravens, the club announced Thursday.

### Raiders sign defensive tackle Anthony Rush

The Oakland Raiders have signed free agent DT Anthony Rush, the club announced Thursday.

### Raiders sign defensive tackle Ethan Westbrooks

The Oakland Raiders have signed free agent DT Ethan Westbrooks, the club announced Tuesday.

The Oakland Raiders have signed free agent James Butler, the club announced Sunday.

The Oakland Raiders have made the following transactions, the club announced Friday.

All three players count towards the 90-man roster.

### Raiders sign wide receiver De'Mornay Pierson-El

The Oakland Raiders have signed free agent WR De'Mornay Pierson-El, the club announced Thursday.

The Oakland Raiders have signed free agent Jonathan Cooper, the club announced Monday.

Tickets iconAdd to calendar iconNFC icon

Cowser signed with the Oakland Raiders after going undrafted in the 2016 NFL Draft. On September 3, 2016, he was waived/injured by the Raiders and placed on injured reserve. On September 10, he was released from the Raiders' injured reserve. He was signed to the practice squad on October 4, 2016. He was promoted to the active roster on November 26, 2016.
 On September 1, 2018, Cowser was waived by the Raiders. He was re -signed to the practice squad on October 22, 2018. He was promoted to the active roster on October 30, 2018.


In 2014, Evans was involved in a debate with Michael Gove, the British education secretary, about the content and style of history teaching and the way that the curriculum is structured and how the First World War should be portrayed.

(meta data) TITLE: Richard J Evans: Michael Gove shows his ignorance of history – again | Books | The Guardian

(meta data) AUTHOR: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/richard-j-evans

(meta data) PUBLISHER: https://www.facebook.com/theguardian

(meta data) PUBLISHED DATETIME: 2014-01-06T09:23:05-0500

Available for everyone, funded by readers

# Richard J Evans: Michael Gove shows his ignorance of history – again

The education secretary's attack on first world war historians is no way to conduct the debate he claims he wants to encourage

First published on Mon 6 Jan 2014 09.23 EST

'Gove has again shown his preference for mythmaking over scholarship,' says Richard Evans.

For the second time in a few months, Michael Gove, the education secretary, has singled me out for personal attack, this time in an article in the Daily Mail headed "Why does the Left insist on belittling true British heroes?"

According to Gove, I have demeaned the memory of the British soldiers who fought in the first world war and "attacked the very idea of honouring their sacrifice as an exercise in 'narrow tub-thumping jingoism'".

Actually, of course, I have done nothing of the kind.

What I did say, in an article in the Guardian on 13 July 2013, was that the broad and inclusive plans of Maria Miller, the culture secretary, for the commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war have been "in strong contrast to the narrow, tub-thumping jingoism of Gove" in his redrafting of the national schools history curriculum to force schools to teach an uncritically celebratory narrative of English history.

That redrafting was so comprehensively ridiculed by the historical profession, including such august bodies as the Royal Historical Society, the British Academy and the Historical Association, that it had to be withdrawn and replaced by a much better curriculum that encouraged pupils to think for themselves, allowed teachers wide latitude in their approach to the subject and gave due recognition to the history of other parts of the world.

I wasn't attacking the memory of British soldiers in the first world war at all.

Perhaps Gove should attend some history lessons taught by the professionals he so belittles so that he can learn how to read and cite sources properly.

Of course, nobody would wish to demean the memory of the soldiers who fought in the war.

I hope that the commemorations of the conflict beginning this year will find plenty of room to honour their courage.

However, just as he did in his proposals for the national curriculum, Gove has again shown his ignorance of history and his preference for mythmaking over scholarship.

Naturally, Gove thinks he is the scholar, and describes the arguments he wrongly claims I put forward as "more reflective of the attitude of an undergraduate cynic playing to the gallery in a Cambridge Footlights revue rather than a sober academic contributing to a proper historical debate".

Gove wants us all to celebrate the first world war as a "just war", a "noble cause", fought by men "committed to defending the western liberal order".

He seems to forget that one of Britain's two main allies was the Russia of Tsar Nicholas II, a despotism of no mean order, far more authoritarian than the Kaiser's Germany.

Until Russia left the war early in 1918, any talk of fighting to defend "western" values was misplaced.

Britain wasn't a democracy at the time either: until the Fourth Reform Act of 1918, 40% of adult males didn't have the vote, in contrast to Germany, where every adult man had the right to go to the ballot box in national elections.

Gove suggests that "the ruthless social Darwinism of the German elites, the pitiless approach they took to occupation, their aggressively expansionist war aims and their scorn for the international order all made resistance more than justified."

He's right about the elites, but misses the point that they weren't able to carry the majority of the German people with them; the largest political party, the Social Democrats, was opposed to annexations and had long been critical of the militarism of the elites.

By the middle of the war, the Social Democrats had forged the alliance with other democratic parties that was to come to power at the war's end.

German atrocities in the first phase of the war, in France, and the last phase, in the east, were real enough, but you can't generalise from these to say this is how the Germans would have treated the whole of the rest of Europe had they won.

Imperial Germany was not Nazi Germany; the Kaiser was not Hitler.

And who are these people who are peddling "leftwing versions of the past designed to belittle Britain and its leaders"?

Step forward, please, Professor Niall Ferguson, a self-styled right-winger whose book The Pity of War argues that it was wrong for Britain to enter the war in 1914 and claims that the British government of the day should have left the continental powers to slug it out among themselves.

Step forward, please, Sir Max Hastings, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, whose trenchant criticisms of British generals such as Sir John French in his latest book Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914 yield nothing in their severity to the excoriating attacks levelled at Sir Douglas Haig and other leaders of the British army by the late Conservative MP Alan Clark in his book The Donkeys, a term used to describe the British military performance in the war ("lions led by donkeys", was a phrase he attributed to a German commentator but later admitted he had invented himself).

None of these men could remotely be described as leftwing, yet all of them convicted Britain and its leaders either of making the wrong decision in 1914 or of turning the war effort into a "misbegotten shambles" – the words Gove uses to describe the portrayal of the conflict by the likes of Oh! What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder.

The arguments that will rage about the war over the coming months and years have nothing to do with left versus right; anyone who wants proof of this has only to read the comments thread on Gove's article in the Mail Online, where the newspaper's readers, few of whom I would guess would describe themselves as leftwingers, overwhelmingly reject his views.

Defaming historians and others who think and write critically about Britain's role in the first world war by accusing them of seeking to "denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour, and courage" is no way to conduct the debate Gove says he wants to encourage.

• This article was amended on 17 January 2014.

The earlier version used the word "coruscating" where "excoriating" was meant.


The front of the palace measures 355 feet (108 m) across, by 390 ft (120 m) deep, by 80 ft (24 m) high and contains over 830,000 sq ft (77,000 m) of floorspace.

(meta data) TITLE: Royal Residences | Buckingham Palace - Royal.uk

Buckingham Palace has served as the official London residence of the UK's sovereigns since 1837 and today is the administrative headquarters of the Monarch.

Although in use for the many official events and receptions held by The Queen, the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace are open to visitors every summer.

These include 19 State rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms.

In measurements, the building is 108 metres long across the front, 120 metres deep (including the central quadrangle) and 24 metres high.

Today, Buckingham Palace is very much a working building and the centrepiece of the UK's constitutional monarchy, serving as the venue for many royal events and ceremonies from entertaining foreign Head of States to celebrating achievement at Investitures and receptions.

More than 50,000 people visit the Palace each year as guests to State banquets, lunches, dinners, receptions and Garden Parties.

Her Majesty also holds weekly audiences with the Prime Minister and receives newly-appointed foreign Ambassadors at Buckingham Palace.

Receptions are held at the Palace throughout the year to recognise the work of industry, government, charities, sport, the Commonwealth and many more areas of life.

For example, in 2013 The Queen hosted a reception to celebrate the Commonwealth, Youth and Education, which was attended by 350 guests from academic institutions around the world and included a performance by the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra and choir and more recently, in 2015, Her Majesty hosted a reception for players, organisers and supporters of the Rugby World Cup.

Buckingham Palace is often a focal point for significant national celebrations and commemorations.

In 2002, a music concert was staged in the garden of Buckingham Palace to mark The Queen's Golden Jubilee, which included a unforgettable performance of 'God Save The Queen' by Brian May from the roof of the Palace and at Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012 members of the public were invited to have a special picnic in the Buckingham Palace garden.

The balcony of Buckingham Palace is one of the most famous in the world.

The first recorded Royal balcony appearance took place in 1851, when Queen Victoria stepped onto it during celebrations for the opening of the Great Exhibition.

Since then, Royal Balcony appearances have marked many occasions from The Queen's annual official birthday celebrations to watch the RAF Flypast at the end of Trooping the Colour, Royal Weddings, as well as special events of national significance such as the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

Whilst Buckingham Palace is seen as the administrative hub of the Monarchy, it is also very much a family home, in addition to holding The Queen's Gallery and the Royal Mews.

The Queen gave birth to Prince Charles and Prince Andrew at the Palace, and to this day notice of royal births and deaths are still attached to the front railings for members of the public to read.

The christenings of The Prince of Wales, The Princess Royal, The Duke of York and Prince William took place in the Music Room and many Royal Weddings have been celebrated at Buckingham Palace, most recently The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's.

The offices of those who support the day-to-day activities and duties of The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh and their immediate family, such as the Private Secretary's Office and the Privy Purse and Treasurer's Office are located at Buckingham Palace.

George III bought Buckingham House in 1761 for his wife Queen Charlotte to use as a comfortable family home close to St James's Palace, where many court functions were held.

Buckingham House became known as the Queen's House, and 14 of George III's 15 children were born there.

George IV, on his accession in 1820, decided to reconstruct the house into a pied-à-terre, using it for the same purpose as his father George III.

As work progressed, and as late as the end of 1826, The King had a change of heart.

With the assistance of his architect, John Nash, he set about transforming the house into a palace.

Parliament agreed to a budget of £150,000, but the King pressed for £450,000 as a more realistic figure.

Nash retained the main block but doubled its size by adding a new suite of rooms on the garden side facing west.

Faced with mellow Bath stone, the external style reflected the French neo-classical influence favoured by George IV.

The remodelled rooms are the State and semi-State Rooms, which remain virtually unchanged since Nash's time.

The north and south wings of Buckingham House were demolished and rebuilt on a larger scale with a triumphal arch - the Marble Arch - as the centrepiece of an enlarged courtyard, to commemorate the British victories at Trafalgar and Waterloo.

By 1829 the costs had escalated to nearly half a million pounds.

Nash's extravagance cost him his job, and on the death of George IV in 1830, his younger brother William IV took on Edward Blore to finish the work.

Indeed, when the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire in 1834, the King offered the Palace as a new home for Parliament, but the offer was declined.

Queen Victoria was the first sovereign to take up residence in July 1837 and in June 1838 she was the first British sovereign to leave from Buckingham Palace for a Coronation.

Her marriage to Prince Albert in 1840 soon showed up the Palace's shortcomings.

A serious problem for the newly married couple was the absence of any nurseries and too few bedrooms for visitors.

The only solution was to move the Marble Arch - it now stands at the north-east corner of Hyde Park - and build a fourth wing, thereby creating a quadrangle.

The cost of the new wing was largely covered by the sale of George IV's Royal Pavilion at Brighton.

Blore added an attic floor to the main block of the Palace and decorated it externally with marble friezes originally intended for Nash's Marble Arch.

the turn of the century the soft French stone used in Blore's East Front was showing signs of deterioration, largely due to London's notorious soot, and required replacing.

In 1913 the decision was taken to reface the façade.

Sir Aston Webb, with a number of large public buildings to his credit, was commissioned to create a new design.

Webb chose Portland Stone, which took 12 months to prepare before building work could begin.

When work did start it took 13 weeks to complete the refacing, a process that included removing the old stonework.

The present forecourt of the Palace, where Changing the Guard takes place, was formed in 1911, as part of the Victoria Memorial scheme.

The gates and railings were also completed in 1911; the North-Centre Gate is now the everyday entrance to the Palace, whilst the Central Gate is used for State occasions and the departure of the guard after Changing the Guard.

The work was completed just before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

Buckingham Palace is open to the public during the summer months and for a limited number of tours in December, January and at Easter each year.

Find out more about visiting the Palace on the Royal Collection Trust website.

## The Queen hosts a reception for Rio 2016 Medallists at Buckingham Palace

## Royal Collection Trust: What's On in London

## BBC Proms celebrate the 200th Anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth

## Powering the Palace: replacing the boilers at Buckingham Palace

We must ensure that the silence that hides pain and suffering is turned into voices of hope and a reason to continue to act.

A speech by The Countess of Wessex at a reception for Women Peacebuilders, Buckingham Palace

## The White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace

## Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace

## The Grand Staircase at Buckingham Palace

## Inside the Kitchens at Buckingham Palace: Christmas Ginger Bread Biscuits

## The Queen and The Duchess of Cambridge visit the wedding dress exhibition at Buckingham Palace

## The Earl and Countess visit Sri Guru Singh Sabha in Southall

## The Countess of Wessex celebrates the 10th anniversary of the London College of Fashion's 'Better Lives' campaign

## Decant of the East Wing at Buckingham Palace

## The Royal Family joins celebrations for The Royal Air Force's 100th Anniversary

What you are doing, what The Royal Marsden is doing, is immeasurably important.

A speech by The Duke of Cambridge at a reception for the Royal Marsden Trust

## The Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award Presentations at Buckingham Palace

## Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace 2018

## Princess Alexandra attends a concert to celebrate the power of music on people suffering with dementia

Members of the public can visit Buckingham Palace from July to September each year.

This State Visit is an expression of the deep respect and friendship that describes relations between Spain and the United Kingdom

The Queen's speech at the Spanish State Banquet

## The Queens Awards for Enterprise 2017

## The Duke of Edinburgh celebrates London Youth's 130th anniversary

## The Queen presents new colours to the Scots Guards

## Party at Buckingham Palace to be held for Armed Forces families

## The Prince of Wales and Prince Harry present medals to the Gurkhas

## The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry to host 'Party At The Palace'

## Receiving my Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award at Buckingham Palace

Shannon's story of her day out to receive her Gold DofE Award at Buckingham Palace

A look behind the scenes as Buckingham Palace prepares to host a Garden Party

A look behind the scenes at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party

I am sure of a shared, bright future for both of our countries as long-standing allies working together towards global peace and prosperity

The Queen's Speech at the State Banquet in honour of the President of the Republic of Colombia

## The Queen celebrates the success of TeamGB and ParalympicsGB medallists

## Setting up a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace

Each year The Queen welcomes over 30,000 guests to garden parties...

## United for Wildlife Taskforce Declaration

Then Christmas comes, and once again we are reminded that people matter, and it is our relationship with one another that is most important.

## State Visit by the President of the People's Republic of China


This company is also home to historic imprints including Verve Forecast Records, Impulse! Records and Decca Records.

(meta data) TITLE: Verve Label Group - UMG

(meta data) PUBLISHER: https://www.facebook.com/universalmusicgroup

The Verve Label Group (VLG), a division of Universal Music Group based in New York City, is home to many of the most acclaimed artists in jazz and classical music, while also strongly focused on championing emerging talent across all genres.

Verve Label Group is home to Universal Music Classics US, as well as Verve Records, Impulse!, and Verve Forecast.

VLG's current roster includes J.S. Ondara, Jon Batiste, Tank and the Bangas, Diana Krall, Yuna, Blake Mills, Shabaka Hutchings, Madison Cunningham, Max Richter, Andrea Bocelli, Daniil Trifonov, Lang Lang and more.

Verve Records, founded in 1956, holds the world's richest jazz catalogue and features seminal recordings from legendary artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Stan Getz and Billie Holiday among others.

Verve also served as the original home of pioneering acts The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa.

The revitalized Verve Records is once again home to historic imprints including Verve Forecast (Richie Havens, Laura Nyro, Captain Beefheart), Impulse! (John Coltrane, Charles Mingus) and Decca Records.

Decca Gold is the new U.S. classical music label based in NYC.

It will serve as the American home for all new classical artists, continuing the rich tradition of a historic legacy dating back to 1956 with artists such as Andrés Segovia, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Arrau, and Dave Brubeck.

The revitalized imprint has recently forged new partnerships with the New York Philharmonic and The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, as well as artist signings with the acclaimed Emerson String Quartet and rising star soprano Nadine Sierra.

Universal Music Classics is the US home for European imprints Decca, Decca Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, ECM, and Mercury KX, as well as the US-based label Decca Gold, which serves as the American home for new classical and crossover artists.

The revitalized Decca Gold imprint has forged partnerships with the New York Philharmonic, The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition and Carnegie Hall's Lullaby Project, as well as new artist signings with Bill Murray, Jan Vogler and Friends, Sarah Brightman, Shulem, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Vocal Point, Il Divo, Nadine Sierra and more.

The present roster for all of Universal Music Classics in the US includes Andrea Bocelli, Lang Lang, Max Richter, Renée Fleming, Cecilia Bartoli, Daniil Trifonov, Anna Netrebko, Tori Amos, Ólafur Arnalds, and more.

Decca Broadway, recently relaunched as an imprint of Verve Label Group, is the industry leader in musical theater recordings.

In addition to having released some of the best-selling cast albums of all time including Wicked, MAMMA MIA!, The Phantom of the Opera, Rent and more, Decca Broadway has received the most GRAMMY awards of any label for "Best Show Album."

Decca Broadway's catalog features over 55 Tony Award winning performances for "Best Musical."

Founded by producer Manfred Eicher in 1969, ECM soon established an early reputation with standard-setting jazz recordings by artists such as Keith Jarrett, Paul Bley, Jan Garbarek, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, before expanding the program to include contemporary compositions in the late 1970s.

The ECM New Series was launched in 1984, originally to introduce Arvo Pärt's "Tabula Rasa", and has since become a broad platform for a wide variety of composed music from the pre-baroque era to the present day.

Eicher's own background, as a musician active in both jazz and classical music, provided an unusually broad vantage point from which to survey the genres, and the producer has been credited with helping to bring form to improvised music and a sense of 'improvisational' flexibility to recordings of contemporary composition.

#### MASS APPEAL AND UNIVERSAL MUSIC INDIA TO LAUNCH MASS APPEAL INDIA

#### UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP AND DAKIA GLOBAL ENTERPRISE FORM JOINT VENTURE TO DEVELOP NEW MUSIC-BASED EXPERIENTIAL HOSPITALITY CATEGORY

#### MAREN MORRIS SIGNS WITH UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP FOR EXCLUSIVE ADMINISTRATION DEAL

#### MIKE BIGGANE TO JOIN UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP AS EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF MUSIC STRATEGIES AND TACTICS

#### QUEEN'S ICONIC "BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY" VIDEO REACHES HISTORIC 1 BILLION VIEWS MILESTONE ON YOUTUBE

#### UNIVERAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP SIGNS IDRIS ELBA TO GLOBAL PUBLISHING DEAL

#### TROY TOMLINSON NAMED CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP NASHVILLE

#### Universal Music Publishing Group's Jackie Alway To Be Recognised in The Queen's Birthday Honours with an Order of The British Empire

#### UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP AND SUPER HI-FI PARTNER TO ENHANCE LISTENING EXPERIENCES ON DIGITAL MUSIC SERVICES

#### UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP SIGNS ROSALÍA TO GLOBAL CO-PUBLISHING DEAL

#### Dolby Atmos Music – Experience Music Like Never Before

#### LOGIC SIGNS WITH UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP FOR EXCLUSIVE GLOBAL ADMINISTRATION OF SONG CATALOG

#### BRITTNEY RAMSDELL PROMOTED TO SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, FILM & TV SYNCHRONIZATION FOR REPUBLIC RECORDS, DEF JAM RECORDINGS, ISLAND RECORDS AND VERVE LABEL GROUP

#### WILL TANOUS PRESENTED WITH THE PRESTIGIOUS ELLIS ISLAND MEDAL OF HONOR

#### UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP ANNOUNCES STRATEGIC EXPANSION WITHIN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND APPOINTS CALVIN WONG AS CEO FOR THE REGION

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Verve Records, also known as The Verve Music Group, founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue and includes recordings by artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Bill Evans and Billie Holiday, among others. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier labels, Clef Records, founded in 1946, Norgran Records, founded in 1953, and material previously licensed to Mercury Records. Verve also served as the original home of rock music acts such as The Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. The restructured Verve Records is now part of the Verve Label Group, which is owned by Universal Music Group.


In 1890, Dr. Alexander Bondurant, later the dean of the Ole Miss Graduate School, rallied Ole Miss students to help form an athletic department to encompass the sports of football, baseball and tennis.

(meta data) TITLE: Department of Classics | The Bondurant Years - Department of Classics

One of the most prominent names in the Classics Department's history is that of Professor Alexander Lee Bondurant.

Bondurant received his B.A. and M.A. at Hampden-Sydney and took a second M.A. at Harvard.

He did additional graduate work at the Universities of Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.

During the 1910-11 academic year he was granted leave to study at the Universities of Berlin, Munich and Rome.

He first joined the faculty in 1889 and succeeded to the Chair of Latin in 1893 when Professor Hogue resigned to become Professor of Greek at Washington and Lee University in Virginia.

While Bondurant was Chair of Latin, the standards for admission were once again elevated to pre-war levels.

Four years of high school Latin were required.

The curriculum was also expanded to include courses in Methods of Teaching Latin, Advanced Latin Composition, Roman Comedy, Roman Satirists, Catullus and Pliny.

Between 1894 and 1910, the number of students enrolled in Latin classes rose from 70 to 160.

Between 1893 and 1908, 84% of students taking any B.A. degree at the University had studied Latin for two years.

All Rhodes scholars from Mississippi had taken Latin at the University.

Graduate-level offerings were also expanded to include Lucretius, Ovid and Roman Antiquities.

Bondurant was a prominent faculty member and active in numerous enterprises.

He established the first football team and served as its first coach in 1893.

He was also the first Dean of the Graduate School from 1927 to 1936 and served as Acting Chancellor briefly in 1921.

It was Professor Bondurant who selected the colors Red and Blue for the university (the red from Harvard, the blue from Yale).

He was President of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in 1924-5, Vice-President of the American Classical League and a member of the famous CAMWS advisory committee on revision of classical studies chaired by the redoubtable Professor Andrew Fleming West of Princeton.

He was active in the Mississippi Classical Association, the Mississippi Historical Society and Eta Sigma Phi.

He even served as the first president of the Oxford Rotary Club.

In 1930, Bondurant was awarded the Order of the Crown of Italy and in 1935 he was created a colonel on the staff of Mississippi Governor Hugh White who had been his student.

Professor Bondurant edited a newsletter for Latin teachers in Mississippi which was appropriately entitled Vox in Desertis Clamans.

For many years the department sponsored a competition for Latin students in Mississippi high schools and the winner received the Alexander Bondurant Cup.

Bondurant published A Short Latin Grammar and articles on Plautus, ancient athletics, Roman schoolmasters and Roman humor.

Assisting Professor Bondurant in teaching Latin were three younger scholars: Paul H. Saunders, Ph.D. who was Assistant Professor from 1892 to 1895 and Professor of Greek from 1895 to 1905, James W. Bell in 1903-4 who was later Dean of Commerce and Business Administration, and Christopher Longest in 1908-9 who later became Professor of Modern Languages and served as Acting Chancellor in 1930.

Saunders received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Mississippi and later retired from teaching to become President of the Commercial Bank & Trust Co. of Laurel, Mississippi.


In 2012, Sullivan sentenced Vitaly Borker, who threatened to rape and murder customers under the belief that negative reviews of his online eyeglass store would increase its Google PageRank, to four years in prison.

(meta data) TITLE: Eyeglass Vendor, Imprisoned for Terrorizing Consumers, Is Accused of Fraud - The New York Times

(meta data) AUTHOR: http://www.nytimes.com/by/david-segal

Skip to contentSkip to site indexBusinessBusiness|Eyeglass Vendor, Imprisoned for Terrorizing Consumers, Is Accused of Fraud

# Eyeglass Vendor, Imprisoned for Terrorizing Consumers, Is Accused of Fraud

ImageInvestigators at a home in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, served a warrant in 2010 to arrest the owner of DecorMyEyes.

Vitaly Borker, the owner, served a three and a half years in prison for threatening to stalk, maim and murder his customers.

CreditCreditRobert Stolarik for The New York Times

Vitaly Borker served a three-and-a-half-year stint in prison for threatening to stalk, maim and murder customers of his online eyeglass store, DecorMyEyes.

But the court-ordered timeout, it seems, did little to convince him to take a new approach to sales.

Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York announced on Thursday that Mr. Borker had been arrested and charged with wire and mail fraud while running OpticsFast.com, an eyewear site that authorities said hassled consumers mercilessly.

"Borker's shameless brand of alleged abuse cannot be tolerated," Joon H. Kim, the acting United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a news release, "and we are committed to protecting consumers from becoming victims of such criminal behavior.

Mr. Borker's lawyer, Dominic F. Amorosa, said in an email that his client would "plead not guilty and defend himself against the charges."

Both charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

OpticsFast customers told Postal Service inspectors that rather than the luxury brands advertised on the site, they were sold cheap knockoffs, and then badgered and bullied when they asked for refunds.

One buyer, a woman in California identified in a criminal complaint as Victim-1, said that someone had called her 35 times a day after she complained online about a fake and damaged pair of Ray-Bans she bought from the site.

She was called a "total degenerate" and "stupid, stupid lady" in emails, according to the complaint.

She later received a call from a man who identified himself as a police officer and said that OpticsFast had filed a "civil harassment suit" against her.

Another customer, identified in the complaint as Victim-8, clicked on an OpticsFast link that generated a shipping label to mail in glasses for repair.

When he decided against using the label and refused to pay for it, OpticsFast sent him hundreds of emails, including 456 in a single day.

Hundreds of them had "I WIN!!!" in the subject line.

Mr. Borker appears to have toned down his previous approach, according to the complaint.

None of the victims identified by the government, nor any of the dozens of OpticsFast customers who posted complaints on Yelp, mentioned physical threats.

A call to OpticsFast in March, as complaints on Yelp piled up, was answered by a woman who said she had never heard of Vitaly Borker.

Asked where the company was based, she snapped "That's none of your business."

Efforts to reach Mr. Borker at the time were unsuccessful, although he was not keeping a particularly low profile.

Earlier in the year, he posted a GoFundMe plea for $1,000 to buy long skis for an April trip to Utah.

His short skis, he said, would not suffice in deep-powder snow.

"Clearly, I don't want to pay for this upgrade," he wrote, in what by his standards qualified as a charm offensive.

The government's complaint also states that Mr. Borker recently posted a photo collage on his Facebook page showing him atop an enormous pile of eyeglasses.

Next to the photos was what sounded like a job posting.

"I am looking for a responsible fast paced person who can assist me at my Brighton Beach office doing various projects for my eye wear e-Commerce business," he wrote.

"Project one will be to help me sort this mess."

Mr. Borker, a 41-year-old immigrant from Ukraine, stands about 6 feet 5 inches tall.

In 2010, when he was terrifying customers of DecorMyEye, which was based in Brooklyn, there was a method to his noxious technique: He believed that Google's search algorithm could not distinguish between positive and negative feedback.

The more people griped about his company, his theory went, the more prominently his site appeared in Google search results.

"I've exploited this opportunity because it works," he told a reporter for The New York Times who visited his home in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn.

"No matter where they post their negative comments, it helps my return on investment.

So I decided, why not use that negativity to my advantage?"

In essence, Mr. Borker believed that the internet allowed him to turn upside down long-cherished verities of commerce, most notably that treating customers well enhances one's bottom line.

Using aliases such as Stanley Bolds and Tony Russo, he threatened to chop off the legs of one customer.

He wrote a letter to the office of yet another in which he said the customer was gay and sold drugs.

A week after postal inspectors learned about Mr. Borker's methods through an article in The Times, he was arrested.

Soon, Google said in a blog post that it was "horrified" by his conduct and had already tweaked its algorithm so that "being bad to your customers is bad for business."

At his sentencing, in 2012, Mr. Borker told Judge Richard J. Sullivan of Federal District Court in Manhattan, "As I stand before you today, I am genuinely and deeply sorry for the threats that I made.

To say that I am ashamed of myself is an understatement."

But the sense of remorse may have been short lived.

There were complaints about OpticsFast while Mr. Borker was still imprisoned.

The volume of online groans only seemed to increase when he was freed.

One Yelp commenter from St. Louis recently summed up her experience this way: "If you want to wait 34 days for a repair, be charged almost twice the estimated price for repair, be charged 2-3 times the price of return shipping, and receive your product back in a dirty and less than satisfactory condition then please by all means, use OpticsFast.com."

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: New Charges for Purveyor Of Eyeglasses and Threats.

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## U.S. Arrests Online Seller Who Scared Customers

## Online Seller Who Bullied Customers Pleads Guilty

Federal judicial service.:District Court service.

On February 15, 2007, Sullivan was nominated by President George W. Bush to the seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York vacated by Judge Michael Mukasey, who assumed senior status on August 1, 2006. Sullivan was confirmed by the United States Senate by a vote of 99–0 on June 28, 2007, and received his commission on August 1, 2007. His service on the district court terminated on October 25, 2018, upon elevation to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Sullivan was among the "Judges to Watch" named in the September 2012 issue of "The American Lawyer".
 Sullivan sits on the executive board of the New York American Inn of Court and is an adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law, where he teaches courses on white collar crime and trial advocacy, and Columbia Law School, where he teaches a course on sentencing.


In 2011, Michaels contributed to the Bush Theatre's 24-hour performance of "Sixty-Six Books" to mark the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, providing 66 playwrights, poets, songwriters, and novelists - of all faiths and none, from over a dozen countries and across five continents - the opportunity to respond to some of the oldest stories ever told.

(meta data) TITLE: Sixty-Six Books – Bush Theatre

Sixty-Six Books, One Hundred Artists, One New Theatre

This October, the Bush Theatre will open the doors to its new home with Sixty-Six Books, an epic performance cycle featuring over 100 artists from across the globe.

From Jeanette Winterson to Jack Thorne, Carol Ann Duffy to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Billy Bragg to Wole Soyinka, sixty-six writers from a huge range of backgrounds and disciplines have made a contemporary response to some of the oldest stories ever told.

In 2011, the 400th anniversary year of the publication of the King James Bible, each book of this great English work is spoken to by a remarkable range of playwrights, poets, songwriters and novelists from all faiths and none, from over a dozen countries and across five continents.

Curated by Artistic Director Josie Rourke in collaboration with Associate Director Christopher Haydon, Sixty-Six Books brings together a team of the country's most exciting emerging and established directors, designers, performers and artists to create an immersive experience that inaugurates the Bush's new home before spreading to a host of other venues across London including a twelve hour vigil at Westminster Abbey on 21st October.

Click here to see the sixty-six writers involved.

Sixty-Six Books will begin and end with two exhilarating 24-hour performances during which you can experience all 66 responses with a 24 Hour Pass.

You can experience a selection of responses during the week when the Bush will be open from 7.30pm.

More information on the individual responses including times will be available at a later date.

Sixty-Six Books is presented by the Bush Theatre in association with the King James Bible Trust and supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Foyle Foundation, the National Theatre and the South Bank Centre

Jeanette Winterson (Genesis), Anne Michaels (Exodus), Caroline Bird (Leviticus), Neil Bartlett (Numbers), Maha Khan Phillips (Deuteronomy), Daisy Hasan (Joshua), Tom Wells (Judges), Stella Duffy (Ruth), Andrew Motion (1 Samuel), Wole Soyinka (2 Samuel), Roy Williams (1 Kings), Sam Burns (2 Kings), Salena Godden (1 Chronicles), Tim Rice (2 Chronicles), Naomi Foyle (Ezra), Mandla Langa (Nehemiah), Jackie Kay (Esther), Neil LaBute (Job), Kwame Kwei-Armah (Psalms), Toby Litt (Proverbs), Nancy Kricorian (Ecclesiastes), Carol Ann Duffy (Isaiah), Luke Kennard (Jeremiah), Owen Sheers (Ezekiel), Jack Thorne (Daniel), Nick Payne (Hosea), Yemisi Blake (Joel), Michael Rosen (Amos), Nancy Harris (Obadiah), Nick Laird (Jonah), Adam Foulds (Micah), Moira Buffini (Nahum), Trevor Griffiths (Habbakuk), Helen Edmundson (Zephaniah), Suheir Hammad (Haggai), Elinor Cook (Zechariah), Molly Naylor (Malachi), Laura Dockrill (The Gospel according to St Matthew), Steve Waters (The Gospel according to St Mark), Billy Bragg (The Gospel according to St Luke), Rowan Williams (The Gospel according to John), Lachlan Mackinnon (Acts), Amy Rosenthal (Romans), Matt Charman (1 Corinthians), Wena Poon (2 Corinthians), Deirdre Kinahan (Galatians), Marks & Gran (Ephesians), Chris Goode (Philippians), Zukiswa Wanner (Colossians), DC Jackson (1 Thessalonians), Christopher Shinn (2 Thessalonians), David Edgar (1 Timothy), James Graham (2 Timothy), Anya Reiss (Titus), Kamila Shamsie (Philemon), Anthony Weigh (Hebrews) Brian Chikwava (James), Helen Mort (1 Peter), Suhayla El-Bushra (2 Peter), David Eldridge (1 John), Nathalie Handal (2 John), Enda Walsh (3 John), Anne Carson (Jude) and Kate Mosse (Revelation).

A collaboration with John Berger led to the development of "Vanishing Points" (2005), a profound meditation on railways, love and loss, directed by Simon McBurney, produced by Complicite and presented in the historic German Gymnasium in King's Cross. This work was later published as "Railtracks" (2011). She also contributed the libretto to Canadian composer Omar Daniel's "The Passion of Lavinia Andronicus" (2005), offering a new dimension to the tragic figure at the centre of one of Shakespeare's most harrowing plays in a performance by the Hilliard Ensemble and Tafelmusik Chamber Choir. Michaels would not publish "The Winter Vault" until 2009, thirteen years following the release of "Fugitive Pieces" which, likewise, took nearly a decade to write. Like "Fugitive Pieces," her second novel considers deeply the "complicated relationship between huge historic events and intimate, domestic events; the relationship between historical grief and personal grief; how we remember privately, and how we remember - and memorialize – publicly, collectively. Each community, each nation, faces this question and answers it in its own way, according to its own needs."
 Connecting three historic events - the dismantling and reconstruction of Egypt's Abu Simbel Temple; the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada and the drowning of towns, villages and graves; and the rebuilding of Warsaw after World War II - the novel considers whether a temple, taken apart stone by stone and rebuilt, is the same temple; a river barraged, the same river; a city reconstructed, the same city; and whether the heart can be repaired and rebuilt after a profound personal loss. "The Winter Vault" went on to garner international praise and was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Trillium Book Award and the Commonwealth Prize, and was also long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award.


He was recalled by the Wizards a week later.

(meta data) TITLE:  Wizards Recall McClellan from Rio Grande Valley | Wizards Today

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## Wizards Recall McClellan from Rio Grande Valley

Washington Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld announced today that rookie guard Sheldon McClellan has been recalled from the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA Development League.

In McClellan's second assignment to the NBADL, he appeared in three games with the Vipers and averaged 19.0 points on .633 shooting and 3.2 rebounds in 30 minutes per game.

The former Miami Hurricane tallied 33 points and seven rebounds on April 10 against the Los Angeles D-Fenders.

McClellan has appeared in 29 games for the Wizards this season.

The Wizards defeated the LA Clippers last night 100-91 to split the season series.

The Wizards square off with the Los Angeles Clippers tonight to complete their season series with the Clippers.

After going undrafted in the 2016 NBA draft, McClellan signed with the Washington Wizards on September 23, 2016. He made his debut for the Wizards in their season opener on October 27, 2016, recording seven points and two steals in four minutes off the bench in a 114–99 loss to the Atlanta Hawks. With starting shooting guard Bradley Beal out injured on November 12, 2016 against the Chicago Bulls, McClellan made his first career start and subsequently scored a season-high 15 points in a 106–95 loss. On December 6, 2016, he was assigned to the Delaware 87ers of the NBA Development League, pursuant to the flexible assignment rule. On December 18, 2016, he was recalled by Washington. On April 4, 2017, he was assigned to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.


Their frames can be made out of wood, metal or a combination of wood and metal.

(meta data) TITLE: What to Look for in a Daybed

(meta data) AUTHOR: https://www.facebook.com/thespruceofficial/

The top reason so many people buy a daybed is the functionality it offers.

It can be used as both a sofa and a bed.

The space underneath can house a storage drawer or an extra trundle bed for even more functionality.

It sometimes even acts as a space filler when people don't know what to do with a spare room.

Since daybeds come in a variety of styles, configurations, materials, and price points, you might find it helpful to look at some of their different features and aspects before making a decision on which type is right for you.

The most common use for a daybed is in a spare room or home office.

While it can be used as a sofa or chaise lounge in these rooms, it is often added to accommodate guests.

It can transform a home office or sewing room when there is no separate guest room when overnight visitors arrive.

Daybeds are also often used in a child's room for sleeping, and the trundle can be conveniently pulled out from under the bed for a sleepover.

The trundle effectively hides an extra bed underneath, opening up space to be used for play.

Daybeds come in wood, metal, or a combination of wood and metal.

You can also find daybeds in wicker or upholstered in leather, although these are not as common as wood or metal.

The material you choose has a lot to do with your own needs and preferences.

Metal daybeds tend to be used more for sleeping, while wood daybeds are thought to look more like sofas and may also be used for sitting and lounging.

Metal daybeds are also generally considered to be a more traditional style than wood ones, which are often thought to be more contemporary.

However, it is possible to find contemporary-looking metal daybeds and traditional wood ones.

The important thing to consider is your own preference for a material or a style and what feels comfortable to you.

Choose a style that complements the rest of your interior decor.

Just to give you an idea, daybeds are available in the Mission style, sleigh style, or Victorian.

And you can find as many choices in contemporary styles as traditional ones.

Choices include daybeds with small, simple profiles; larger and more elaborate ones; or styles with intricate carving, which complements a formal and traditional look.

Along with style, you have plenty of choices when it comes to choosing a color.

Light, dark or painted wood is available, along with choices in metal, too.

Choose from chrome, silver, or brass and non-traditional colors.

You will find daybeds in a range of different levels of quality and price points.

You should always go for the best quality you can afford You might have to assemble the furniture yourself, but consider the quality of the material and look at the finish.

The material will give you some clues, too.

For instance, an iron daybed is superior in quality to many other metal daybeds.

There is a difference in the quality of different woods, too.

You probably will find quality differences reflected in the price.

Trundles are pull-out beds on casters that can be stored under a daybed.

Not all daybeds come with trundles, but it is a good option to explore because you get two beds that use the space of a single one most of the time.

The hidden bed can be pulled out when needed and put back when not in use.

A trundle can be left low to the ground or lifted up to the same level as the daybed.

An advantage to this feature is that you can roll it up to the daybed so that the two together form a large bed that is only slightly smaller than a king-size bed.

Daybeds usually come in twin-size and use regular twin-size mattresses.

The daybed mattresses are supported on wood slats or link spring.

Select a mattress type and firmness that you find comfortable.

If the daybed will get heavy use, it makes sense to buy a good-quality mattress.

While you can easily use regular twin-size sheets and pillows with a daybed, you might want to pay extra attention to the cover and add extra pillows if it is to be used for sitting and lounging as well as sleeping.

You could opt for just a fitted cover for the mattress if the bed will primarily be used for sitting.

A cover with a tailored look is a good option for this purpose.

Daybeds are used as beds as well as for lounging, reclining and seating in common rooms.