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Throwing Out The Master’s Tools And Building A Better House By Rebecca Solnit 13 November, 2011 Zcommunications.org Violence Is Conventional Violence is what the police use. It’s what the state uses. If we want a revolution, it’s because we want a better world, because we think we have a bigger imagination, a more beautiful vision. So we’re not violent; we’re not like them in crucial ways. When I see a New York City policeman pepper-spray already captive young women in the face, I am disgusted; I want things to be different. And that pepper-spraying incident, terrible though it was for the individuals, did not succeed in any larger way. In fact, seen on Youtube (704,737 times for one posted version) and widely spread, it helped make Occupy Wall Street visible and sympathetic to mainstream viewers. The movement grew tremendously after that. The incident demonstrated the moral failure of the police and demonstrated that violence is also weak. It can injure, damage, destroy, kill, but it can’t coerce the will of the people, whether it’s a policeman assaulting unarmed young women or the US Army in Vietnam or Iraq. Imagine that some Occupy activists had then beaten up the cop. That would have seemed to justify him in the eyes of many; it would’ve undermined the moral standing of our side. And then what? Moral authority was also that young Marine veteran, Shamar Thomas, chewing out thirty or so New York cops in what became a Youtube clip viewed 2,652,037 times so far. He didn’t fight them; he told them that what they were doing is wrong and dishonorable. And brought the nation along with him. Which violence wouldn’t do. Violence Is Weak As Jonathan Schell points out in his magnificent book The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People, violence is what the state uses when its other powers have failed, when it is already losing. In using violence the state often loses its moral authority and its popular support. That’s why sometimes their visible violence feeds our victory, tragic though the impact may be. It’s also telling that when the FBI or other government agencies infiltrate a movement or an activist group, they seek to undermine it by egging it on to more violence. The state would like us to be violent. Violence as cooptation tries to make us more like them, and if we’re like them they win twice—once because being unlike them is our goal and again because then we’re then easier to imprison, brutalize, marginalize, etc. We have another kind of power, though the term nonviolence only defines what it is not; some call our power people power. It works. It’s powerful. It’s changed and it’s changing the world. The government and mainstream-to-right media often create fictions of our violence, from the myth that protesters were violent (beyond property damage) in Seattle in 1999 to the myth of spitting in returning soldiers’ faces in the Vietnam era to generally smearing us as terrorists. If we were violent, we’d be conventionally dangerous and the authorities could justify repressing us. In fact, we’re unconventionally dangerous, because we’re not threatening physical violence but the transformation of the system (and its violence). That is so much more dangerous to them, which is why they have to lie about (or just cannot comprehend) the nature of our danger. So when episodes of violence break out as part of our side in a demonstration, an uprising, a movement, I think of it as a sabotage, a corruption, a coercion, a misunderstanding, or a mistake, whether it’s a paid infiltrator or a clueless dude. Here I want to be clear that property damage is not necessarily violence. The firefighter breaks the door to get the people out of the building. But the husband breaks the dishes to demonstrate to his wife that he can and may also break her. It’s violence displaced onto the inanimate as a threat to the animate. Quietly eradicating experimental GMO crops or pulling up mining claim stakes is generally like the firefighter. Breaking windows during a big demonstration is more like the husband. I saw the windows of a Starbucks and a Niketown broken in downtown Seattle after nonviolent direct action had shut the central city and the World Trade Organization ministerial down. I saw scared-looking workers and knew that the CEOs and shareholders were not going to face that turbulence and they sure were not going to be the ones to clean it up. Economically it meant nothing to them. We Are Already Winning The powers that be are already scared of the Occupy movement and not because of tiny acts of violence. They are scared because right now we speak pretty well for the 99%. And because we set out to change the world and it’s working. The president of Russia warmed at the G20 Summit a week or so ago, ?"The reward system of shareholders and managers of financial institution should be changed step by step. Otherwise the 'Occupy Wall street' slogan will become fashionable in all developed countries." That’s fear. And capitulation. And New York Times columnist Paul Krugman opened a recent column thus: “Inequality is back in the news, largely thanks to Occupy Wall Street….” We have set the agenda and framed the terms, and that’s already a huge victory. This movement is winning. It’s winning by being broad and inclusive, by emphasizing what we have in common and bridging differences between the homeless, the poor, those in freefall, the fiscally thriving but outraged, between generations, races and nationalities and between longtime activists and never-demonstrated-before newcomers. It’s winning by keeping its eyes on the prize, which is economic justice and direct democracy, and by living out that direct democracy through assemblies and other means right now. It’s winning through people power direct-action tactics, from global marches to blockades to many hundreds of Occupations. It’s winning through the creativity of the young, from the 22-year-old who launched Move Your Money Day to the 26-year-old who started the We Are the 99% website. And by tactics learned from Argentina’s 2001 revolution of general assemblies and politica afectiva, the politics of affection. It’s winning by becoming the space in which we are civil society: of human beings in the aggegate, living in public and with trust and love for one another. Violence is not going to be one of the tools that works in this movement. Violence Is Authoritarian Bodily violence is a means of coercing others against their will by causing pain, injury, or death. It steals another’s bodily integrity or very life as property to dispose of as the violator wishes. Since the majority in our movement would never consent to violent actions, such actions are also imposed on our body politic against our will. This is the very antithesis of anarchy as an ideal in which no one is coerced. If you wish to do something the great majority of us oppose, do it on your own. But these small violent bands attach themselves to large nonviolent movements, perhaps because there aren’t any large violent movements around. As Peter Marshall writes in his history of anarchism, Demanding the Impossible, “Indeed the word violence comes from the Latin violareand etymologically means violation. Strictly speaking, to act violently means to treat others without respect…. A violent revolution is therefore unlikely to bring about any fundamental change in human relations. Given the anarchists’ respect for the sovereignty of the individual, in the long run it is non-violence and not violence which is implied by anarchist values.” Many of us anarchists are not ideological pacifists; I’m more than fine with the ways the Zapatistas rebels in southern Mexico have defended themselves and notice how sadly necessary it sometimes is, and I sure wouldn’t dictate what Syrians or Tibetans may or may not do. But petty violence in public in this country doesn’t achieve anything useful. Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory In downtown Oakland, late on the evening of November 2 after a triumphant and mostly nonviolent day of mass actions, a building near Occupy Oakland’s encampment was seized, debris was piled up as if to make barricades that were only show barricades to set afire, not defend, trash cans were set on fire, windows broken, rocks thrown, and then there were altercations with the police. If the goal was to seize a building, one witness pointed out, then seize it secretly, not flamboyantly. The activity around the seizure seemed intended to bait the police into action. Which worked; police are not hard to bait. Activists and police were injured. What was achieved? Many other activists yelled at the brawlers because they felt that the violence-tinged actions did not represent them or the Occupy movement and put them in danger. It was appalling that the city of Oakland began, a week earlier, by sending in stormtrooper police before dawn rather than negotiating about the fate of the Occupy Oakland encampment. But it was ridiculous that some people tried to get the police to be violent all over again. And it was tragic that others bore the brunt of that foray, including the grievously injured veteran Kayvan Sabeghi—another veteran, a week after Scott Olson. Earlier this fall, the publishing group Crimethinc issued a screed in justification of violence that’s circulated widely in the Occupy movement. It’s titled “Dear Occupiers: A Letter from Anarchists,” though most anarchists I know would disagree with almost everything that follows. Midway through it declares, “Not everyone is resigned to legalistic pacifism; some people still remember how to stand up for themselves. Assuming that those at the front of clashes with the authorities are somehow in league with the authorities is not only illogical…. It is typical of privileged people who have been taught to trust the authorities and fear everyone who disobeys them.” If nonviolence/people power is privilege, explain this eyewitness account from Oakland last Wednesday, posted on the Occupy Oakland site by Kallista Patridge: “By the time we got to the University building, a brave man was blocking the door screaming "Peaceful Protest! This is my city, and I don't want to destroy it!" He cracked his knuckles, ready to take on an attack, his face splattered in paint from the Whole Foods fiasco [in which downtown Oakland’s branch of the chain store was spraypainted and smashed up based on a rumor that workers were told they’d be fired if they took the day off for the General Strike]. Behind the doors were men in badges. I was now watching a black man shield cops from a protest. The black flag group began pointing out those attempting to stop them, chanting ‘The peace police must be stopped,’ and I was, personally, rather disgusted by the strategy of comparing peacefully pissed people to police….” This account is by a protestor who also noted in downtown Oakland that day a couple of men with military-style haircuts and brand new clothes put bandannas over their faces and began to smash stuff. She thinks that infiltrators were part of the property destruction and maybe instigated it, and Copwatch’s posted video seems to document police infiltrators at Occupy Oakland. One way to be impossible to sabotage is to be clearly committed to tactics that the state can’t coopt. If an infiltrator wants to nonviolently blockade or march or take out the garbage, well, that’s one more of us. If an infiltrator sabotages us by recruiting for mayhem, that’s a comment on what those tactics are good for. What Actually Works The language of Crimethinc is empty machismo peppered with insults. And just in this tiny snippet, incoherent. People who don’t like violence are not necessarily fearful or obedient; people power and nonviolence are strategies that are not the same as the ideology pacifism. To shut down the whole central city of Seattle and the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting on November 30, 1999, or the business district of San Francisco for three days in March of 2003, or the Port of Oakland on November 2, 2011—through people power—is one hell of a great way to stand up. It works. And it brings great joy and sense of power to those who do it. It’s how the world gets changed these days. Crimethinc, whose logo is its name inside a bullet, doesn’t actually cite examples of violence achieving anything in our recent history. Can you name any? The anonymous writers don’t seem prepared to act, just tell others to (as do the two most high-profile advocates of violence on the left). And despite the smear quoted above that privileged people oppose them, theirs is the language of privilege. White kids can do crazy shit and get slapped on the wrist or maybe slapped around for it; I have for a quarter century walked through police lines like they were tall grass; people of color face far more dire consequences. When white youth try to bring the police down on a racially diverse movement—well, it’s not exactly what the word solidarity means to most of us. Another Occupy Oakland witness, a female street medic, wrote of the ill-conceived November 2 late-night antics, “watching black bloc-ers run from the cops and not protect the camp their actions had endangered, an action which ultimately left behind many mentally ill people, sick people, street kids, and homeless folks to defend themselves against the police onslaught was disturbing and disgusting in ways I can't even articulate because I am still so angry at the empty bravado and cowardice that I saw.” She adds, “I want those kids to be held accountable to the damage that they did, damage made possible by their class and race privilege.” And physical fitness; Occupy Oakland’s camp includes children, older people, wheelchair users and a lot of other people less ready to run. As Oakland Occupier Sunaura Taylor put it, “A few people making decisions that affect everyone else is not what revolution looks like; it's what capitalism looks like.” How We Defeated the Police The euphemism for violence is “diversity of tactics,” perhaps because diversity has been a liberal-progressive buzzword these past decades. But diversity does not mean that anything goes and that democratic decisionmaking doesn’t apply. If you want to be part of a movement, treat the others with respect; don’t spring unwanted surprises on them, particularly surprises that sabotage their own tactics—and chase away the real diversity of the movement. Most of us don’t want to be part of an action that includes those tactics. If you want to fight the police, look at who’s succeeded in changing their behavior: lawyers, lawmakers, police watchdog groups like Copwatch, investigative journalists (including a friend of mine whose work just put several New Orleans policemen in prison for decades), neighborhood patrols, community organizers, grassroots movements, often two or more players working together. You have to build. The night after the raid on Oakland, the police were massed to raid Occupy San Francisco. About two thousand of us stood in and around the Occupy encampment as helicoptors hovered. Nonviolence trainers helped people prepare to blockade. Because we had a little political revolt against the Democratic money machine ten years ago and began to elect progressives who actually represent us pretty well, five of our city supervisors, the public defender, and a state senator—all people of color, incidentally-- stood with us all night, vowing they would not let this happen. We stood up. We fought a nonviolent battle against four hundred riot police that was so effective the police didn’t even dare show up. That’s people power. The same day Occupy Oakland took its campsite back, with people power, and the black bloc kids were reportedly part of the whole: they dismantled the cyclone fencing panels and stacked them up neatly. That’s how Occupy San Francisco won. And that’s how Occupy Oakland won. State troopers and city police police refused to break up the Occupy Albany (New York) encampment, despite the governor’s and mayor’s orders. Sometimes the police can be swayed. Not by violence, though. The master’s tools won’t dismantle the master’s house. And they sure won’t build a better house. People Power Shapes the World Left violence failed miserably in the 1970s: the squalid and futile violence in Germany and Italy, the delusional Symbionese Liberation Army murdering Marcus Foster, Oakland’s first black school superintendent, and later gunning down a bystander mother of four in a bank, the bumbling Weather Underground accidentally blowing three of its members up and turning the rest into fugitives for a decade; all of them giving us a bad name we’ve worked hard to escape. Think of that excruciating footage in Sam Green’s Weather Underground documentary of the “days of rage,” when a handful of delusions-of-grandeur young white radicals thought they’d do literal battle with the Chicago police and thus inspire the working class to rise up. The police clobbered them; the working class was so not impressed. If you want to address a larger issue, getting overly entangled with local police is a great way to lose focus and support. In fact, the powerful and effective movements of the past sixty years have been almost entirely nonviolent. The Civil Rights Movement included the Deacons for Defense, but the focus of that smaller group was actually defense—the prevention of violence against nonviolent activists and the movement, not offensive forays. Schell points out that even the French and Russian Revolutions were largely nonviolent when it came to overthrowing the old regime; seizing a monopoly of power to form a new regime is when the blood really began to flow. I think of the Sandinista Revolution of 1979 as the last great armed revolution, and it succeeded because the guerrillas with guns who came down from the mountains had wide popular support. People power. People power overthrew the Shah of Iran that year, in a revolution that was hijacked by authoritarians fond of violence. In 1986 the Marcos regime of the Philippines was overthrown by nonviolent means, means so compelling the army switched sides and refused to support the Marcos regime. Armies don’t do that if you shoot at them, generally (and if you really defeated the police in battle—all the police, nationwide?--you’d face the army). Since then dozens of regimes, from South Africa to Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland to Nepal to Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Tunisia have been profoundly changed through largely nonviolent means. There was self-defense in the Deacons for Defense mode in the Egyptian uprising this year, but people power was the grand strategy that brought out the millions and changed the country. Armed struggle was part of the ongoing resistance in South Africa, but in the end people power and international solidarity were the fulcrom of change. The Zapatistas used violence sparingly as a last resort, but “our word is our weapon,” they say, and they used other tools in preference, often and exquisitely. The powerful and effective movements of the past sixty years have used the strategy of people power. It works. It changes the world. It’s changing the world now. Join us. Or don’t join us. But please don’t try to have it both ways. Rebecca Solnit is the author of 13 books, including A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disasters and Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas. Copyright 2011 Rebecca Solnit

Well, here we go again. Another group of wealthy, elitist supporters of gun control have come together, spending their own money to form a new organization to pursue their personal, pet agenda. This would be unremarkable, except that this time they are using the rare gambit of pretending to be a group that actually supports the Second Amendment. Note I said rare—not unprecedented. You would think that a group of self-styled entrepreneurs would perform some basic market research before launching this charade. If they had, they would have found they are not the first to mount such a deception. They would have discovered the remnants of both “Americans for Gun Safety” (AGS) and the “American Hunters and Shooters Association” (AHSA) within the trash heap of history. “Americans for Gun Safety” was precisely one American, a billionaire from New York City (sound familiar?) named Andrew McKelvey, who hired a half-dozen Democratic staffers and operatives to lobby for gun control at both the state and federal level. These operatives recognized a gravy train when they saw one and they milked it for as long as they could, but their sponsor eventually tired of funding the group after years of failing to pass his personal gun control agenda. The operatives didn’t miss a beat, however, and turned themselves into a think-tank with the name of “Third Way.” They still exist, now taking funding from a much broader array of left-wing interest groups to pursue a broader agenda. And one of their staffers has re-appeared on the gun control scene, recently drafting a lengthy report for the Brookings Institution calling for new gun control. “American Hunters and Shooters Association” had broader support—this time, it was a group of about six gun control supporters who banded together to push for new restrictions under the guise of supporting our rights. And, according to a deposition given by a staffer, AHSA far eclipsed AGS in member recruitment, eventually arriving at the vast total of “fewer than 150” individual members. The leader of AHSA was a former Washington Redskins football player named Ray Schoenke. He liked to shoot ducks on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, so he considered himself well equipped to be a national policy and political leader for all hunters. Schoenke also had a lengthy history of making publicly disclosed donations to groups like Handgun Control, Inc. (now the Brady Campaign) and political candidates who supported gun control. Like McKelvey, Schoenke hired gun control lobbyists to work at both the state and national level, but he also liked to put his own skin in the game. In 2008, Schoenke traveled extensively to battleground states, making public appearances to say why gun owners and hunters should vote for Barack Obama. The Obama campaign paid handsomely for his support, but after the election the group dried up and blew away. Schoenke later claimed the group had to fold because of a lack of support for its agenda from the Obama administration. Maybe Schoenke’s happy now that Obama has finally revealed his true gun-ban agenda. Now comes the “American Rifle and Pistol Association” (ARPA). Founded on July 4, the group bills itself as an “independent third voice to the highly polarized national firearms conversation, a voice of reason and responsibility.” But what do their leaders really think? ARPA’s CEO Waylan Johnson told U.S. News that the reason for their founding is because “The NRA represents the firearms industry. There’s not a lot of member input.” That sound bite is straight from the Obama/Bloomberg playbook, and there’s a reason for that. Another founder, group chairman Peter Vogt, had a lengthy online trail of social media postings in support of Bloomberg’s mayors’ group, as well as the newer gun control group “Moms Demand Action.” Once discovered, Vogt quickly and quietly took down his postings. In short, there’s nothing new about elitist gun control supporters banding together to push their agendas—there’s safety in numbers, and they can hide behind the veil of secrecy that many such groups drape around their funders. But the idea of attempting to conceal the anti-gun agenda behind a pro-gun façade has already been tried, repeatedly, and has always failed. —– Join the NRA – Click here for a full year membership for $25.

A lot about Iron Fist has been pretty head scratching. That tradition of “What?!” continues with some new attempts to do viral or subversive marketing from Netflix and Marvel. The ideas are interesting but seem to be lacking in execution. Two have come to our attention here at the MCUExchange. First of all is the “New York Bulletin” video which is embedded above. The concept is very similar to some of the Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War videos featuring WHIH news shorts. Generally, these videos try to make a news clip from the world of the MCU, something you might see on TV if you lived in the world of heroes. As with the WHIH clips, this video is relatively lacking in production caliber. The script is stiff. Why is the narrator directly asking questions to the Meachums? Some of the relevant background information is heavy on exposition, but make a nice little primer for the show for new fans. What’s truly odd about the clip as a marketing tactic, however, is how it was rolled out. The clip wasn’t published until March 23rd, a week after release. Many fans were done with the show by then and new fans likely had their first taste of the program already. It’s also an unlisted video. The results are that only about 1,000 people have seen it. While the WHIH pieces were for movies with larger audiences and have been out a while, it’s hard not to compare that 1,000 viewers to the 5 million plus views on some of the predecessor’s videos. Also, Netflix bought a domain and published a website for Colleen Wing’s dojo, over at http://thewingway.com. Very little content is on the site, save for a little basic cable style commercial for Wing’s classes. The site also name drops Claire Temple in the reviews section. In a way this is charming. In a world with squaresapce and wordpress, however, one wonders why Colleen has a website that apparently was designed in 1999. Again, it doesn’t seem like this “viral” attempt at marketing has been particularly viral. For one more easter egg click on the Rand advertisement at the bottom of the screen and check out Ward Meachum’s Linkedin page. These forms of advertising have become important ways for studios to promote their properties without spending heavily on traditional advertising avenues. These particular two attempts seemed to fall pretty flat, however. The chatter about the site and video have been minimal. It would be awesome to see these ideas fleshed out with a little more energy and ability than these two particular examples. If you still have not seen Iron Fist it is available on Netflix right now. Sources: Youtube, thewingway, and Linkedin

Home European Tribune Your Page Recent Comments Diaries Donate West Midwest South East Cafe/Lounge Too Weak to Be President by BooMan Mon Aug 20th, 2012 at 10:16:18 PM EST Steve Benen and Greg Sargent are trying to goad the press into confronting Mitt Romney about his campaign of complete falsehood. Today, the issue is the ads Romney is running that falsely accuse the president of stripping the work requirement out of Welfare Reform. Romney's actually telling this lie on the stump, too. But the Welfare work requirement is actually a bit peripheral compared to the $716 billion lie that Romney and the Republicans have been telling about Medicare. Benen makes a good point that if Obama's presidency has really been so bad, it should be easy to attack him with truthful statements. So, why are the two biggest points of attack we are seeing right now based on complete lies? It's no wonder that the president can't stand Romney: It is Romney himself who provides a rallying point for both the candidate and his team. Obama really doesn’t like, admire or even grudgingly respect Romney. It’s a level of contempt, say aides, he doesn’t even feel for the conservative, combative House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the Hill Republican he disliked the most. “There was a baseline of respect for John McCain. The president always thought he was an honorable man and a war hero,” a longtime Obama adviser said. “That doesn’t hold true for Romney. He was no goddamned war hero.” Time and again Obama has told the people around him that Romney stood for “nothing.” The word he would use to describe Romney was “weak,” too weak to stand up to his own moneymen, too weak to defend his own moderate record as the man who signed into law the first health insurance mandate as Massachusetts governor in 2006, too weak to admit Obama had done a single thing right as president. Maybe Romney is weak. But I know for certain that his arguments are weak. So, how should the press deal with this complete departure from reality? Follow @BooMan23

Shadow home secretary responds to figures showing more referrals for neo-nazism than Islamic extremism in parts of UK Prevent strategy failing to rein in rise of UK's far right, says Diane Abbott The government’s controversial counter-radicalisation strategy, Prevent, has failed to change the attitudes of those on the far right, the shadow home secretary has said in response to figures showing the number of referrals linked to neo-nazism is overtaking Islamic extremism cases in some parts of the UK. Diane Abbott said the figures reflected “the alarming rise of far-right activity across the country”. “It also reflects the increasing confidence of far-right groups to air their views publicly,” she said on Monday. “These figures are useful in proving what we already know, but the Prevent programme has failed to change the attitudes of those on the far right.” UK's Prevent counter-radicalisation policy 'badly flawed' Read more Ben Wallace, the security minister and MP for Wyre and Preston North, has highlighted the increase in far-right radicalisation in England and Wales. Figures show that almost 300 under-18s were referred to officials under the Prevent strategy last year. Of these, at least 16 involved children under the age of 10. “The Prevent strategy is seeing a growth in far-right referrals,” Wallace told the House of Commons recently. “In some areas of the country, these Prevent referrals outnumber those about the other parts we are worried about.” Data released by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) under a freedom of information request from the Sunday Times shows that the number of far-right referrals in England and Wales has increased by 74%, from 323 cases in 2014-15 to 561 in 2015-16. About 292 cases, or 52%, involved under-18s. “The Prevent strategy is misconceived because it limits legitimate safe spaces for discourse, places like classrooms and lecture theatres,” Abbott said. “We urgently need an anti-extremism strategy that addresses the subversive and veiled far-right activity that is allowed to fester in private.” The NPCC figures come as Merseyside police investigate the appearance of stickers around Liverpool declaring that people were entering “Nazi-controlled zones”. The stickers, posted by a neo-Nazi youth movement called National Action, were timed to coincide with Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday. Facebook Twitter Pinterest One of the neo-Nazi stickers that appeared in Liverpool to coincide with Remembrance Sunday. Photograph: Patrick Hurley/PA “It’s the politics of hate. We’re seeing the rise of this sort of thing across the country, across the western world and it’s of huge importance that we all stand united against it and make sure there is no place for this sort of thing in Liverpool or anywhere,” Patrick Hurley, a Mossley Hill councillor said. Britain’s Muslim communities have criticised the Prevent strategy as a toxic brand and a “big brother” security operation, but it was recently revealed that the programme is to be toughened up rather than scaled back as part of the government’s wider reworking of its counter-terrorism strategy. The chief constable of Leicestershire police, Simon Cole, who is in charge of Prevent, said earlier this year that far-right extremists made up half of all cases in Yorkshire and 30% of the caseload in the east Midlands. Prevent strategy to be ramped up despite 'big brother' concerns Read more Nationwide, however, Islamic extremism is still the most common referral, with 2,810 cases making up 70% of those flagged up under Prevent. The NPCC said it was worth noting that the Prevent duty, which sets out the obligations of public-facing bodies under the strategy, was introduced in July 2015 and has resulted in a significant increase in referrals of all types. Ibrahim Mohamoud, a spokesman for Cage, an independent advocacy organisation, said on Monday: “What these figures suggest is that Muslims are still far more likely to be referred to Prevent in England and Wales. “There still seems to be a great deal of dissonance between the way the authorities understand the role of ‘extremist ideology’ or ‘radical fundamentalist thought’ in the case of Muslims, and the subscription to far-right ideology.” Yvette Cooper, the chair of the home affairs select committee, has said the fallout from the 23 June vote to leave the EU and Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election should serve as a warning about the dangers of whipping up hatred and prejudice in political campaigns, as MPs prepare to examine a spike in hate crime in the UK. Police recorded 41% more hate crimes in July 2016 than in the same month the previous year, with a peak on 1 July, records show. Several high-profile attacks occurred in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, including the vandalising of the Polish community centre in Hammersmith, west London, and the death of Arkadiusz Jóźwik, a Pole who was attacked in Harlow, Essex. Rashad Ali, a senior fellow specialising in extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue thinktank, told the Times that in some areas of Wales, the proportion of Prevent referrals from the far right were “well over” 50%. Ali said the rise in far-right extremism could be linked to the “loss of the centre ground” in today’s politics. “Whether it’s on the left or the right, the fringes are now leading the debate and the discussion,” he said. Instead of fighting terror, Prevent is creating a climate of fear | Amrit Singh Read more Ali argued that Trump’s election, with the endorsement of the KKK, and the rhetoric of Marine Le Pen, the Front National presidential candidate in France, were helping to “legitimise the world view” of fascists. National Action is believed to have fewer than 100 members, but the group has a strong presence on social media, where it has celebrated Trump’s election with images of him captioned “white power”. Matthew Feldman, the co-director of the centre for fascist, anti-fascist and post-fascist studies at Teesside University, said the radical right was “starting to mainstream its narrative following the decline of the BNP as the main party-political vehicle for radical right ideas”. “This led to a proliferation of other groups like the Defence Leagues and Britain First – both of which are much more anti-Muslim than the more developed neo-fascist policies advocated by the BNP, including antisemitism and biological racism,” Feldman said. “So it is a time of change for the far and radical right in the UK, although like the US, 2016 has been a very different year than most. The Brexit vote, like that of Trump’s election, seems to have sparked, at least for some, a kind of ‘celebratory racism’ whereby some hate incidents are apparently legitimated by the ‘trigger’ event of an enormous and unexpected victory.” Feldman added, however, that the immediate context can obscure longer term developments, which may be driving the increasing far-right Channel referrals and Prevent cases over recent months and years. “Over the last decade, governmental and media focus has been overwhelmingly concentrated upon the threat from jihadi Islamist extremism and terrorism,” he said. “Given finite resources and time, this has necessarily meant that less attention has been trained upon the radical right, which has increasingly turned to the lowest common denominator of anti-Muslim bigotry since 7/7. “In this, as the BNP had already recognised in 2005, turning away from racial to religious hatred was a potential issue that could break into the mainstream. Unlike in the past, the lowest common denominator of Islamoprejudice has allowed a number of different types of radical right groups, such as the counter-jihad movement, which are street-based and party political, to work together locally in places like Dover, Swansea and Newcastle. “The increase in far-right referrals therefore comes as little surprise to those monitoring the radical right during these years of upheaval, both for radical right groups and domestic politics in Britain.”

Sabine Scheckel / Getty Images A European financial watchdog will issue a stern warning Friday about the risks associated with unregulated Internet currencies like Bitcoin. The European Banking Authority statement will highlight the “violent fluctuations in [the value of] electronic currencies,” the danger that digital wallets may be hacked, and the lack of legal protections for users, the Financial Times reports. The value of Bitcoin has fluctuated wildly in recent months, swinging between $340 and $1240 this week alone. The move comes after the People’s Bank of China ruled this month that Chinese banks will not process or insure Bitcoin transactions. Many financial investors have been enthusiastic about the usefulness of the stateless, digital currency, which can cut down on transaction fees and facilitate anonymous financial transactions online, but regulators fret over the ease with which Bitcoin, and other digital currencies, can be used for money laundering and other criminal activity. The online illegal drug marketplace Silk Road, which was briefly shut down by authorities after the arrest of its founder, operated entirely on Bitcoin. [The Financial Times]

Wednesday’s big news on Wall Street wasn’t that for yet another year its average wage and bonuses put finance employees in the top 1 percent. It was that the Federal Reserve’s third interest rate hike in a decade was fueling a stock rally — meaning there was more money for the already wealthy to grab. Advertisement: The Wall Street Journal’s website was filled with reports on the Fed’s action. Nowhere in its fixation on the changing investment landscape did it note that its frontline readers, the traders and brokers working in New York’s financial industry, were once again the poster boys for economic inequality in America. But this overwhelmingly white and male cadre are the most visible concentration of America’s economic elite, according to 2016 employment, wage and annual bonus data released on March 15 by the New York State Comptroller’s office. When analyzed by progressive economists, it showed how last year’s average bonuses alone—forget about the six-figure base salaries — could more than offset the demands by millions of low-wage workers nationwide to earn $15 an hour, which would translate into $31,200 in annual pay. “For Wall Street employees, annual bonuses come as an extra reward on top of their base salaries, which averaged $388,000 in 2015, the most recent year for which data are available,” the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a progressive Washington think tank, noted in a report Wednesday. “The average Wall Street bonus increased by 1 percent last year to $138,210. Since 1985, the nominal value of the average Wall Street bonus has increased 890 percent, whereas the minimum wage has risen only 116 percent.” Taken together, that average salary and bonus equates to $526,000 in income. That stunning figure is just above the $518,000 threshold to be in the top 1 percent of New York State’s earners, according to a study released last June by the Economic Policy Institute, another progressive Washington think tank. As the Institute for Policy Studies noted, the $24 billion paid in bonuses to 172,400 Wall Street employees could have more than paid for raising wages to $15 a hour for 3.1 million restaurant servers and bartenders (a $17 billion cost), or 1.7 million home health and personal care aides (a $13 billion cost) or 3.2 million fast food prep and serving workers (a $23 billion cost). But that’s not how the exploitive American economy works, is it? These wage disparities are also followed by gender and racial disparities, IPS said, as women and people of color dominate the bottom rungs of the economic ladder while Wall Street’s mostly male white ranks fill the ever-prospering top. Advertisement: “The much faster increase in Wall Street bonuses [than minimum wages] has contributed to racial and gender inequality, since workers at the bottom of the wage scale are predominantly people of color and female, whereas those in the financial industry’s upper echelons are overwhelmingly white and male,” IPS noted. “The average Wall Street bonus increased by just 1 percent last year. But the nominal value of the average bonus has grown by 890 percent since 1985, from $13,970 to $138,210. Meanwhile, the [federal] minimum wage has risen only 116 percent, from $3.35 per hour to $7.25. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage was nearly 3 percent lower in 2016 than in 1985, whereas the average bonus was about 343 percent higher.” The big questions raised by these trends remain what should or could be done about this vast disparity. Progressive politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have assailed elected officials who are determined to keep bending laws to reward their wealthiest constituents. One of Sanders’ latest examples came after President Donald Trump’s recent address to Congress, where he replied, “I did not hear President Trump tonight mention — mention the words ‘income and wealth inequality’ or the fact that we now have the widest gap between the very rich and everyone else since the 1920s . . . How could you give a speech to the nation and not talk about that enormously important issue?” How? The answer is simple. The defenders of the wealthiest Americans — such as the Wall Street Journal and The Economist—keep perpetuating the myth that successful capitalists are the best exemplars of human ingenuity and evolution. Thus, because they’re superior to more ordinary individuals, or have figured out how the financial world works, they deserve their outsized rewards. (That same logic, by the way, is why most incumbents in Congress will never reform the campaign finance system: they figured it out and won. What’s the problem?) In many respects this tension over redistributing wealth — upward, downward or more equally—is the unspoken backdrop to the Obamacare repeal effort now in Congress. Obamacare’s taxes, which the Republicans uniformly despise, is the law’s way of getting the richest Americans and health industry segments to help pay for insurance premium subsidies for lower wage households. The House GOP doesn’t want Americans who can afford it to contribute more toward the nation’s health; they want to let them keep more money for themselves. Advertisement: What’s missing in the GOP-led Obamacare debate, and also absent in many economic policy debates, is the basic idea that giving middle- and lower-income households more spending money, via higher wages, contributes more to overall economic growth than making the already rich richer. That point doesn’t get overlooked in IPS’s report on the latest Wall Street bonus data. “Shifting resources into the pockets of low-wage workers would give the American economy a much bigger bang for the buck than increases in Wall Street bonuses,” the report said. “To meet basic needs, the low-wage workers who prepare our food and take care of the elderly tend to spend nearly every dollar they earn, creating beneficial economic ripple effects. The wealthy, by contrast, can afford to squirrel away more of their earnings.” This observation keeps emerging every time new statistics surface confirming the growing gaps between America’s rich and everyone else. If the question is what to do about deepening inequality, to progressives the answer is clear: share the wealth. Advertisement: “Forty-four percent of U.S. workers still earn less than $15 per hour. This is the wage level needed to cover basic living costs in most areas of the country,” the IPS report said. Wall Street’s $23.9 billion in bonuses last year “amounts to 1.6 times the combined earnings of all 1,075,000 Americans who work full-time at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.” Those bonuses are in addition to a $388,000 average base annual salary.

The Venture Bros. entered into its fifth season with its characters in a state of uncertainty. Dean Venture, the oft-cloned son of Dr. Rusty Venture, had discovered his past as a freak of science with dubious claims to reality; Rusty was struggling with how to raise his sons the right way after years of adventuring and fatalities; Sgt. Hatred, the family’s former arch-nemesis and current bodyguard, had to face shifting physical realities; and Hank Venture was, well, Hank Venture. But the fifth season also found Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, the creative team behind the series, at the top of their game. Mixing a rich, complex mythology inspired by comic books and pulp serials with complex, vulnerable leads, the co-writers managed to find a new balance for show’s ongoing storylines without betraying anything that had come before. With its teen angst, super-villain conspiracy, gender-bending, and robot dating, the fifth season could get a little messy, but the core concern with character, one of The Venture Bros.’ hallmarks, remained. The A.V. Club talked to Publick and Hammer recently about how the shorter episode order affected their approach to writing for the show, their views on best way to serialize, and how to find the success inside of failure. The A.V. Club: At nine episodes, this season was the shortest the show has done so far. What prompted that? Advertisement Jackson Publick: It was shorter by design and as part of our new contract once we decided to do a fifth and sixth season. We actually asked to do only 10 episodes each time, because 13 was kind of killing us, and other shows seem to do them in, like, nine- or 10-episode spurts. So we figured that would be a better way to not get us overwhelmed during the season, and also to try to shorten the space between seasons. But then we ended up airing one of them early, and we ended up combining two of them into an hour-long episode, so it looks like it’s eight. But it’s still 10 half-hours. And it was easier to produce. But we ran out of episodes. We kind of wished we could’ve had 12, honestly. By the time we got to the end, we were like, “Shit, we’ve got a huge thing we want to do that would take two episode slots.” Doc Hammer: If we’d had 12, people would’ve said, “How come there are only nine episodes?” JP: [Laughs.] Yeah, yeah. Because that one would’ve been an hour long also. DH: So, we’d still get yelled at. AVC: Did the shorter episode order change your approach to structuring the season? Advertisement JP: A little? I don’t think it had anything to do with the 10-episode thing, but we did kind of plan out the season a little more than we usually do. We had the big board going. And also knowing that we had a season six kind of planned—because we knew where we wanted to go with season six, even before we started season five—and where that sort of midpoint is, and where the changes happen, is something we thought about. But when you’re actually going and you’re writing, it’s like, a script is always due, and there’s a lot of pressure, and once you’re actually in production, you’ve just got to write the one you can—not the one that necessarily should be next. So we write out of order. One or two stories sort of popped up out of nowhere, and we did them, and they weren’t necessarily part of the “plan,” but they were writable, and we wanted to write them. AVC: Like what? JP: “Bot Seeks Bot” was like a joke, you know? It was almost a dare. It was something we had joked about wanting to do an episode about. We didn’t have a story. We were like, “Wouldn’t it be funny to get those two robots together, and just drag people through a whole episode of them?” It was just kind of a running joke with us. And then one day, a story literally popped into my head, and I went, “Oh my God, I got it.” [Laughs.] So that one had to be written. Advertisement AVC: How important to the season was letting Dean know that he was a clone? DH: Well, Jackson and I had it written out on the big board, which is just a giant dry-erase board in the AstroBase, that Dean finds out early, and Hank finds out near the end. That was how we did it. The Halloween episode was written to be an early episode, but it ended up being a special. So Dean found out before the season started that he was a clone. But in our original concept, in the way we were writing it, Dean found out very early. JP: Because of what we did with him in the prom. We knew that Dean was going to spend the season in a black speed suit being really upset. And it seemed natural to give him a better reason than just he had his heart broken in the prom episode. Advertisement DH: It helps to have a really dividing motivator for Dean. Our constant battle is turning the boys into very separate entities. If you watch the pilot, they’re the exact same person. Throughout the first season, they’re very similar. They’ve just been kind of dividing ever since. So this season, there’s a clear division between these two boys. Hank’s got a very steady voice, and Dean now has a steady voice. So when we go into the sixth season, the boys can be separate, which is fun for us. JP: Yeah, Hank had his rebellion season in season four, and then came back around to who he always was in a way. DH: Yeah, this is Hank’s try-out season. JP: But he is two minutes older, so of course he’d go through his rebellious phase first. Advertisement AVC: Given how much of the show’s humor has come from the Venture brothers’ obliviousness, how did you decide to leave that behind? DH: It’s hard to keep it around. I mean, that is something that’s hard to write for forever. The show evolved as we evolve. JP: I mean, we did make a conscious decision at the end of season one to start making them much more individual. But as far as pulling them away from some of the dopiness, or at least finding a different angle on it, that was just natural; you just don’t want to write for two idiots all the time. And also, they’re teenagers—like, you want them to be capable of sarcasm and stuff like that with each other. They’ve got to feel like real people, even if they’re heightened. Advertisement DH: You get a lot of space when you murder them. [All laugh.] At the end of season one, we actually killed them, so at that point— JP: Right, so when we bring [Henchman] 24 back, he’ll be a very different character. He’ll have grown a lot. DH: Yeah. In season six, which is all prequel. [Laughs.] AVC: Dean was more negative this year than he’s ever been on the show: dressing in black, being openly sarcastic to his dad, while still being the same old Dean. How hard was that to balance? Advertisement DH: I wouldn’t call it “hard,” but we had a lot of discussions about that. JP: It’s the same thing with, like, Henchman 21. We made him a badass, and we put him through his shit, but he’s still who he is underneath it. It’s how we naturally write for these guys; we’re just shading their circumstances a little different and letting them breathe just a little more. DH: And with 21, he had a whole season to become competent, badass, and then eventually leave. Then [he] spent this season returning to who he is, so you never get this sense that he just changes who he is and becomes a completely different person. He’ll always be that person. Dean’s the same thing. When people go through rebellion, they don’t change and become somebody else. They just take all those things that have happened and incorporate it into who they are. They’re still the same person. Dean is systemically the same person. Advertisement JP: Joe Piscopo became a bodybuilder, but he stayed funny. DH: Same with Carrot Top. They’re hilarious. When Dean works out, that’s the end of Dean. [Both laugh.] He’ll hit 40 and start working out. AVC: Did you ever consider having Dean confront his father about the fact that he’s a clone? Advertisement DH: Oh, it’s been considered, but we’re not finished writing the show. I mean, his rebellion is going to keep moving forward, and I’m sure it’s going to start settling, because you’re not always in a stage of rebellion. JP: Right. And now that Hank knows … There was a scene from one episode that got cut, actually, where there was a bit of a confrontation. But it just wasn’t time yet. AVC: One of the season’s best episodes, “Momma’s Boys,” brought back Myra, the former bodyguard convinced she’s Hank and Dean’s mother. The lack of maternal presence in this show has been important in shaping these characters. Do you think you’ll ever reveal who the Venture brothers’ mother is? Advertisement JP: Well, I’m not going to answer that— DH: See, what we’re going to do in the future is impossible for us to answer. But we like other motherless worlds. It comes from this kind of ’70s-cartooning motherlessness. Like Jonny Quest just had a lack of females, and any female that was there was just somebody’s love interest and vaguely—even those that weren’t voiced by a man, you watch them, you get a sense they might as well have been voiced by a man. JP: [Laughs.] Right, like Jade from Jonny Quest. DH: Yeah, anybody could just go, “Ohhhhh.” It isn’t necessary to have a female show up. Advertisement JP: I think there’s a lot going on with that. It’s inspired by the boy-adventure stuff when there were no moms around, but once we became aware of it, I mean, it’s part of why these people still live in this kind of adolescent world. They’re unsupervised, and they grew up like that. DH: Rusty had no mom, and his boys have no mom, and that’s two generations. And Jonas, we haven’t said yet. That’s not a lot of moms, and the women that are in the Venture universe are either completely unhinged or the most stable characters on the show. Everything is very schmucky and middling with these guys, and the women just bookend it. It’s a strange thing. I don’t even think we did it intentionally. It’s just where a woman’s voice plays into our stories is to be either very dominant or a really upheaving voice, like Myra. She comes in and makes a complete fucking mess and then disappears. JP: Because if there were any genuine women in this world, if any of them got real wives or girlfriends, they’d stop doing this stuff, with the exception of the Monarch, the way the rest of us stop reading comic books when that happens. [Laughs.] But now it’s cool for girls to read comics, so. Advertisement DH: The strange lack of women—we have a very strange dominance of gender-role-shifting. Three of our characters have breasts; we have a large homosexual cast. The amount of just messing around with stereotypical gender roles without women there—we do it to a degree that’s strange. I’m surprised more people don’t speak of it. We really do mess with masculinity and femininity, even with the women. Our biggest female character has an incredibly masculine voice that people seem to be okay with. People seem to be okay with Hunter’s removing of his penis and putting his penis back, missing being a woman; Hatred’s sexuality is a complete catastrophe. It’s not just the obvious women or lack thereof on our show. It really is just the gender roles on our show are insane, and therefore very sane, in my opinion. JP: It’s a sexual Lord Of The Flies. [pagebreak] AVC: Would Hank’s use of the “sexy” female body armor, starting in “SPHINX Rising,” be part of this? Advertisement DH: Oh that falls into both Hank having breasts and Hank completely not caring about his gender role. And the fact that Hank plays dress up more than anybody. JP: It’s also like getting the best bike ever. It just happens to be a lady’s bike. He doesn’t need that bar in the middle; he’s fine with it. DH: When you’re a Hank, and somebody gives you a new bike and it’s super cool and it’s a lady’s bike, he buys a dress so he can make it fit. [JP laughs.] Because he has the area. He doesn’t care. “Now I can wear a dress. It’s fine.” Advertisement JP: “I can wear a kilt and a dress.” DH: “I can double my wardrobe, and have the convenience of a dress. It’s a one-garment wardrobe, like a speed suit with no legs, that you can poop out of.” AVC: By the end of the season, Hank comes across as the most together guy on the show in a lot of ways. That seems to connect with the way the season overall had more success for the characters. Was that a choice, to have more success in a show about failure? Advertisement DH: I don’t think Hank comes off as the most successful. Hank is the most balanced person on the show, but he’s still Hank. He’s still the kind of person that, when the chips are down, he dresses up as Batman. That’s not exactly the most successful. JP: He’s not sane, but it’s that insane response to an insane world. That was kind of a revelation that we had. We enjoyed writing for Hank because he could be crazy, but then we did realize one day, Hank’s just cool with everything. Probably mostly when we were talking about what’s up with Dean. We realized, you know, what a good kind of counterbalance Hank’s just level-headedness about everything is—his crazy level-headedness. He rolls with the punches. He does enjoy the adventure aspects of their life that Dean is so sick of, and that Rusty hates, that he thinks are a drag; those are the best part. DH: Hank’s just all in. JP: He’s in. DH: It doesn’t matter what the event is. Hatred shares a lot of that with Hank. That Hatred’s excitable, and he’s in. Advertisement JP: That’s probably why they got along after a while. DH: And why Hatred feels especially affectionate towards Dean, because he is so different. That’s the challenge for Hatred. Hatred’s affection for Hank is incredibly friendly; they’re very similar people. But if you watch the episode, even from when Hatred first shows up, he’s very protective and affectionate towards Dean, because he registers that Dean is kind of a broken kid. And Hatred, of course, has no ability to fix that, which is the joke. JP: But as far as what you’re saying, that this is just an upbeat season, a little more successful—I don’t know. Advertisement DH: Were you conscious of that, Jackson? JP: Yeah. I think there were moments where we wanted… I think you and I are both sick of every interview mentioning the “It’s a show about failure” from five years ago. I don’t think we made a conscious effort to fight that or anything, but every year, we push what we do as writers a little more. An area we hadn’t gone into very much was positivity. I mean, all our victories are still satiric, but there are definitely places where we said, “I want to see these guys do something. I don’t want to just have everything fall on its face all the time.” Am I wrong? DH: No, I get that sense too. But there are still these moments of playing with what failure is. I don’t think our failure was ever, “These people are incompetent.” I think our failure was they’re so terribly human in a world of comic book inhumanness, and that’s kind of our long joke. These people are stuck in a world that could only exist in an inhuman Saturday morning show, and they’re real. It’s a big mess. So you have 21, who I don’t think really succeeded, but you get a sense at the end of the season that he’s a good person, that he’s good at things, and at the end, he just goes back to what he knows. He goes back to what he loves. I don’t see that as a failure, but I don’t see it as a success. I see it as a guy being real in an unreal world. Advertisement JP: I would say we were celebrating humanity a little more? Maybe that’s what you detect is a slight tone of kind of celebrating the humanity, or celebrating the beauty of failure, to go back to that quote. I think the tipping point for us might have been the prom episode, when we realized we could just have kind of a nice ending where everybody was together, and not go, “Here’s a cliffhanger,” or “Here’s a big, horrible thing.” Yes, the fly women are freaking out, and Dean says “Fuck you,” but there was a sweetness to the ending of the prom—a really compromised, Venture-style sweetness. DH: Yeah, for “Dean’s accidentally in the KKK,” it’s adorable. [Both laugh.] AVC: “Spanakopita!”—the episode that has Dr. Venture going back to a Greek island where the natives made up a festival for him—seemed like a great expression of this. It’s neither success nor failure; it’s just sort of acceptance. Advertisement JP: Yeah. We were excited about episodes like that, particularly because there’s a deep tragedy to that, at the heart of that episode. [Rusty] was abandoned by his dad, and nobody came to get him, and these poor bastards who kidnapped him tried to make the best of it, in that Life Is Beautiful kind of way, and this idiot kept believing it for 30 years. But he gets to have it. They let him have it. DH: It’s a sweet delusion. A lot of Doc’s life is a sweet delusion. Ted [the talking teddy bear toy Doc believes is his best friend in “Momma’s Boys”] was a sweet delusion. The Ted episode and “Spanakopita!” were very similar; they both ended with that sense that we lost everything, but it seems to be okay. Also, the sweet delusion. Dr. Venture really is deluded. He’s barely a successful scientist; he’s living off the back of his father, and he always has been, but at the same time, his father threw that crap at him, he destroyed his life, and Doc is doing what he can with it. He’s not a wholly tragic character. AVC: The Guild versus the O.S.I. seemed to heat up this season. DH: We would’ve loved to keep going with that, but we ran out of time. AVC: There was a big buildup that was left hanging by the last episode. JP: Well, we knew what we were going to do with it, and we were going to do it in the next episode, but there was no next episode. The next episode you see, we’ll deal with that, I think. Advertisement DH: The episode that aired last, which works in a weird, ersatz version of a finale—but that was written as the penultimate episode. We were going to do three that just kind of dovetailed into each other. We keep doing something new every year, do something that we didn’t try before, and our last three episodes were picking up after the last one. So the last two you got to see, it ends, and then it picks up right where it ends, and we were going to do that three times and have a big ending. And then, well, we had to write the première, and the première turned out to be an hour, and there goes an episode. JP: We had two half hours left, and our options were write a half-hour première and a half-hour finale, write an hour première, or write an hour finale. We had a bunch of business we hadn’t written for the première yet that just had to be done, so we definitely had to do that. Then that story got huge, so it was a more sensible option than trying to cram the finale into a half hour, or trying to write two totally different stories when we were getting really close to the end of our deadlines. DH: We got okay with the idea that the heat up between The Guild and O.S.I., which is secondary to the show—the show’s really about the Venture family—we figured it would be okay to let that build up and then walk away from that until next season when people can be anticipating the buildup. Advertisement JP: The last episode is really the next day. Whatever shit’s going to go down as a result of the “Bot Seeks Bot” stuff would take more than a day. It was good to bring the focus back to the family for the very last episode, because not a lot of episodes this season were about Doc, Hatred, Dean, and Hank as all carrying equal screen time. DH: Jackson and I think in episode flows, too. We intentionally write episodes that feel breezy and a little less intensive of plot. We will intentionally write an episode that really moves forward this long arc plot that we have. Some people understand what we’re doing; other people watch it and be like, “I don’t care about this episode,” because it’s not about the long story that we’re telling. But we do it intentionally. It’s the way we like to watch our show is to have it kind of go up and down and flow and return to basics and get heated up and give you things to follow over the long course, and then give you just a small story when you get to see the Monarch again. We’re interested in our show like a book. It has its chapters that go in and out. JP: Yeah, and we’re not interested in making a 10-part miniseries, just like we’re not interested in making 10 standalone sitcom reset episodes. It’s the mixture of the two that we get off on. When you look back at a full season and you see that, you’re cool with it. Maybe while you’re watching it, you’re like, “Oh man, this episode doesn’t answer my questions.” But as a whole, the seasons work really well. They’re nicely balanced. Advertisement AVC: Serialization has become increasingly prevalent on television in the last two decades. Are there shows you look to as a model for what you do, or do you just follow your own way? DH: I think we’re more of a part of it than we are using them as a model. I think we just have the same opinion. It’s not necessary that shows have to be like I Love Lucy, where it starts again like it’s the first episode. It’s just not necessary. So we can tell longer stories. At the same time, we don’t write a soap opera. This is not Falcon Crest. So we don’t feel we have to pick up where it goes. There are stories from somebody’s life. You have days where your story is just being right there, it’s what happened that day, and then you have another day when it’s picking up with a story that started earlier. We run it just like life. We pulled out a character who was a semi-main character this season that was in our show six years ago. That’s like life. People come in and out of your life. JP: We’ve always implied how much shit is going on off-camera. That was part of the joke of the show at one point, which was like, probably the coolest adventures we’re not going to get to see, we’re seeing some of the in-between time. A lot of that was just inspired by the boys’ adventure novels that inspired me early on. It’s as if you’re grabbing book 29 of the hundred-volume Venture Bros. adventure series, and then you don’t necessarily grab book 30 after that. You skip around. Advertisement DH: Sometimes book 29 is the one that they spend all of the time at the kitchen table building a robot. AVC: This show has a complex mythology. In “O.S.I. Love You,” Monstroso tells Brock Samson that the Sovereign is, in fact, not the real David Bowie, but a shape-shifter who takes on David Bowie’s appearance. Would this count as a retcon? And how much do you try and keep the mythology consistent? JP: First of all, you don’t even know if he’s lying. So we can’t really talk about it. Advertisement DH: You’ve got to remember that, the first thing when you found out that David Bowie is the Sovereign, he also turned into a bird. I’m a huge Bowie fan, but I’ve never seen him turn into a bird. That just never happens. To say that he’s “David Bowie,” is he David Bowie only from Labyrinth? How is that possible? It’s not a “retcon” at all. And also Jackson is a hundred percent correct. It took us four years for people to stop wondering if Dr. Girlfriend actually had a baboon’s uterus because somebody was mouthing off at a yard sale. What we clearly said was spinning rumors, and our audience, instead of making a comment on rumors, goes, “Fact! It’s a fact!” We have a bunch of real people, and they’re going to say whatever they want to say. Sometimes they lie, and sometimes they’re just plain wrong. JP: Retconning is the name of this game, man. [All laugh.] In the bigger picture, we’re constantly doing it. As long as we do it smart—you have to keep surprising people, and things are never what they seem, and stuff like that. We’ve done a lot of stuff that we knew a long time ago was going to turn out the way it did, and it just took us forever to reveal things little by little. We’ve built new mythologies inside of what we already did. I’m not going to tell you which ones are which. DH: I doubt there isn’t an author who doesn’t retcon. Even nature herself retcons. Evolution is based on the idea that you have to roll with the punches and change shit when it works better. Advertisement JP: Ah, evolution’s a theory, my friend. DH: No, evolution’s been proved by genetics, my friend. Oh, I don’t want to offend all the people who—oh, whatever. [Both laugh.] The way it works, even the normal evolution of a life—that has nothing to do with how the world started, how you evolved as a person—is full of retcon. The only time I think we should talk about retcon is when somebody has a change that becomes impossible because they had stated that that was impossible early on. We’ll try to avoid that. But yeah, we fuck up the show constantly. Any time somebody gets on the Internet and says, “I bet it’s this,” Jackson and I phone each other and go, “Well, it’s not that anymore.” JP: Yeah, when they guess something we haven’t revealed yet correctly, we look for the nearest way around that. Advertisement DH: And happily consider it a challenge. AVC: Do you have any idea when the show will be back for season six? DH: We’re shooting for somewhere in 2015. We don’t want it to go too long. We were trying to get it in the end half of 2014. Advertisement JP: We’re trying to get it to mid-fall of 2014. Very early 2015 might be more realistic, but we may end up with something like we did this time, where we release a special, or we release one earlier, and then rest comes on early the next year. We’re starting production next month. I think we get our first takes of episodes back from Korea in June or July of next year, and you’ve got to go through three takes and 10 episodes, and all of post-production. I think we only start turning finished episodes in to the network in September, so that makes it tricky to put on before the end of the year. DH: We’re trying. JP: We’ll figure something out. I would say, the smart money is on January/February of 2015, maybe with some surprise earlier than that. Advertisement DH: That people can remove entirely from our canon and yell at us that our season’s short. JP: Yeah, and tell us that it doesn’t exist, and that it was five years between seasons. DH: That we went out of our way to make sure they had something, and then they can tell us, “Unnnnh.” Advertisement JP: We know it was a long wait. DH: When they complain, we know it really means that they love us, and we like that. We like that they complain that it’s a long time, because it means that there are a bunch of people waiting for us to do it, and that’s kind of a nice compliment.

Now in its 11th year, the annual Race to Wrigley will feature a new course this year, giving participants their first chance to experiencing running through the new bleacher concourse that opened last year. The race, which starts at Addison and Racine, takes runners through the Wrigleyville and Lakeview areas, heading west to Ravenswood and east on Irving Park. This year, runners will continue on Irving Park all the way to Sheridan, which will eventually lead them to the center outfield of Wrigley Field for a final stretch through the field’s concourse before ending at Clark and Addison. “It’s always been a race that reflects the fact that we are in a neighborhood and yet a major league ballpark,” Mike Lufrano, executive vice president of community affairs and chief legal officer for the Chicago Cubs, says. “It’s the third largest tourist attraction in Illinois. We started a race that would combine the two, [allowing runners] to see a bit of the neighborhood and community and reflect the fact that we are part of the community as well.” The 5K race, which will start at 8 a.m. on April 23, also serves as a crucial fundraiser for Cubs Charities. Runners can also choose to individually raise money for Advocate Children’s Hospital, with the first 100 who raise $500 receiving an autographed baseball from a current Cubs player. “[The money raised] all goes back into the community here,” Lufrano says. “It supports youth sports, building baseball fields, health and fitness programs for kids, provides scholarships for kids to go to college. Last year, we donated about $3.4 million total and the race is part of that.” Registration for the race will remain open online through April 22. To sign up, visit either cubscharities.org or racetowrigley.com.

The following story was originally published in Grimscribe (1991) but can now be found in a new collection from Penguin Classics called Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe . Instructor Carniero was holding class once again. I discovered this fact on my return from a movie theater. It was late and I thought, “Why not take a short cut across the grounds of the school?” This thought led to a whole train of thoughts that I often pondered, especially when I was out walking at night. Mainly these thoughts were about my desire to know something that I was sure was real about my existence, something that could help me in my existence before it was my time to die and be put into the earth to rot, or perhaps have my cremated remains drift out of a chimney stack and sully the sky. Of course, this desire was by no means unique to me. Nonetheless, I had spent quite a few years, my whole life it seemed, seeking to satisfy it in various ways. Most recently, I had sought some kind of satisfaction by attending the classes of Instructor Carniero. Though I had not attended his classes for very long, he seemed to be someone who could reveal what was at the bottom of things. Lost in my thoughts, then, I left the street I was walking along and proceeded across the grounds of the school, which were vast and dark. It was quite cold that night, and when I looked down the front of my overcoat I saw that the single remaining button holding it together had become loose and possibly would not last much longer. So a short cut on my return from that movie theater appeared to be the wise move. I entered the school grounds as if they were only a great park located in the midst of surrounding streets. The trees were set close and from the perimeter of that parcel of land I could not see the school hidden within them. Look up here, I thought I heard someone say to me. When I did look up, I saw that the branches overhead were without leaves, and through their intertwining mesh the sky was fully visible. How bright and dark it was at the same time. Bright with a high, full moon shining among the spreading clouds, and dark with the shadows mingling within those clouds — a slowly flowing mass of mottled shapes, a kind of unclean outpouring from the black sewers of space. I noticed that in one place these clouds were leaking down into the trees, trickling in a narrow rivulet across the wall of the night. But it was really smoke, dense and dirty, rising up to the sky. A short distance ahead, and well into the thickly wooded grounds of the school, I saw the spastic flames of a small fire among the trees. By the smell, I guessed that someone was burning refuse. Then I could see the misshapen metal drum spewing smoke, and the figures standing behind the firelight became visible to me, as I was to them. “Class has resumed,” one of them called out. “He’s come back after all.” I knew these were others from the school, but their faces would not hold steady in the flickering light of the fire that warmed them. They seemed to be smudged by the smoke, greased by the odorous garbage burning in that dark metal drum, its outer surface almost glowing from the heat and flaking off in places. “Look there,” said another member of the group, pointing deeper into the school grounds. The massive outline of a building occupied the distance, a few of its windows sending a dim light through the trees. From the roof of the building a number of smokestacks stood out against the pale sky. A wind rose up. It droned noisily around us and breathed a crackling life into the fire in the decayed metal drum. I tried to shout above the confusion of sounds. “Was there an assignment?” I cried out. But they appeared not to hear me, or perhaps were ignoring my words. When I repeated the question they briefly glanced my way, as if I had said something improper. I left them hunched around the fire, assuming they would be along. The wind died, and I could hear someone say the word “maniac,” which was not spoken, I realized, either to me or about me. Instructor Carniero, in his person, was rather vague to my mind. I had not been in his class very long before some disease — a terribly serious affliction, one of my fellow students hinted — had caused his absence. So what remained, for me, was no more than the image of a slender gentleman in a dark suit, a gentleman with a darkish complexion and a voice thick with a foreign accent. “He’s a Portuguese,” someone told me. “But he’s lived almost everywhere.” And I recalled a particular phrase of reproof he used to single out those of us who had not been attending to the diagrams he was incessantly creating on the blackboard. “Look up here,” he would say. “If you do not look, you will learn nothing — you will be nothing.” A few members of the class never needed to be called to attention in this manner, a certain small group who had been longtime students of the instructor and without distraction scrutinized the unceasing series of diagrams he would design upon the blackboard and then erase, only to construct again, with slight variation, a moment later. Although I cannot claim that these often complex diagrams were not directly related to our studies, there were always extraneous elements within them which I never bothered to transcribe into my own notes for the class. They were a strange array of abstract symbols, frequently geometric figures altered in some way: various polygons with asymmetrical sides, trapezoids whose sides did not meet, semicircles with double or triple slashes across them, and many other examples of a deformed or corrupted scientific notation. These signs appeared to be primitive in essence, more relevant to magic than mathematics. The in structor marked them in an extremely rapid hand upon the blackboard, as if they were the words of his natural language. In most cases they formed a border around a familiar diagram allied to chemistry or physics, enclosing it and sometimes, it seemed, transforming its sense. Once a student questioned him regarding what seemed his apparently superfluous embellishment of these diagrams. Why did Instructor Carniero subject us to these bewildering symbols? “Because,” he answered, “a true instructor must share everything, no matter how terrible or lurid it might be.” As I proceeded across the grounds of the school, I noticed certain changes in my surroundings. The trees nearer to the school looked different from those in the encompassing area. These were so much thinner, emaciated and twisted like broken bones that had never healed properly. And their bark seemed to be peeling away in soft layers, because it was not only fallen leaves I trudged through on my way to the school building, but also something like dark rags, strips of decomposed material. Even the clouds upon which the moon cast its glow were thin or rotted, unraveled by some process of degeneration in the highest atmosphere of the school grounds. There was also a scent of corruption, an enchanting fragrance really— like the mulchy rot of autumn or early spring — that I thought was emerging from the earth as I disturbed the strange litter strewn over it. This odor became more pungent as I approached the yellowish light of the school, and strongest as I finally reached the old building itself. It was a four‐story structure of dark scabby bricks that had been patched together in another era, a time so different that it might be imagined as belonging to an entirely alien history, one composed solely of nights well advanced, an after‐hours history. How difficult it was to think of this place as if it had been constructed in the usual manner. Far easier to credit some fantastic legend that it had been erected by a consort of demons during the perpetual night of its past, and that its materials were pilfered from other architectures, all of them defunct: ruined factories, ravaged mausoleums, abandoned orphanages, penitentiaries long out of use. The school was indeed a kind of freakish growth in a dumping ground, a blossom of the cemetery or the cesspool. Here it was that Instructor Carniero, who had been everywhere, held his class. On the lower floors of the building a number of lights were in use, weak as guttering candles. The highest story was blacked out, and many of the windows were broken. Nevertheless, there was sufficient light to guide me into the school, even if the main hallway could hardly be seen to its end. And its walls appeared to be tarred over with something which exuded the same smell that filled the night outside the school. Without touching these walls, I used them to navigate my way into the school, following several of the greater and lesser hallways that burrowed throughout the building. Room after room passed on either side of me, their doorways filled with darkness or sealed by wide wooden doors whose coarse surfaces were pocked and peeling. Eventually I found a classroom where a light was on, though it was no brighter than the swarthy illumination of the hallway. When I entered the room I saw that only some of the lamps were functioning, leaving certain areas in darkness while others were smeared with the kind of greasy glow peculiar to old paintings in oil. A few students were seated at desks here and there, isolated from one another and silent. By no means was there a full class, and no instructor stood at the lectern. The blackboard displayed no new diagrams but only the blurred remnants of past lessons. I took a desk near the door, looking at none of the others as they did not look at me. In one of the pockets of my overcoat I turned up a little stub of a pencil but could find nothing on which to take notes. Without any dramatic gestures, I scanned the room for some kind of paper. The visible areas of the room featured various items of debris without offering anything that would allow me to transcribe the complex instructions and diagrams demanded by the class. I was reluctant to make a physical search of the shelves set into the wall beside me because they were very deep and from them drifted that heady fragrance of decay. Two rows to my left sat a man with several thick notebooks stacked on his desk. His hands were resting lightly on these notebooks, and his spectacled eyes were fixed on the empty lectern, or perhaps on the blackboard beyond. The space between the rows of desks was very narrow, so I was able to lean across the unoccupied desk that separated us and speak to this man who seemed to have a surplus of paper on which one could take notes, transcribe diagrams, and, in short, do whatever scribbling was demanded by the instructor of the class. “Pardon me,” I whispered to the staring figure. In a single, sudden movement, his head turned to face me. I remembered his pitted complexion, which had obviously grown worse since our class last met, and the eyes that squinted behind heavy lenses. “Do you have any paper you could share with me?” I asked, and was somehow surprised when he shifted his head toward his notebooks and began leafing through the pages of the topmost one. As he performed this action, I explained that I was unprepared for the class, that only a short time before did I learn it had resumed. This happened entirely by chance, I said. I was coming home from a movie theater and decided to take a short cut across the school grounds. By the time I was finished illuminating my situation, the other student was searching through his last notebook, the pages of which were as solidly covered with jottings and diagrams as the previous ones. I observed that his notes were different from those I had been taking for Instructor Carniero’s course. They were far more detailed and scrupulous in their transcriptions of those strange geometric figures which I considered only as decorative intrusions in the instructor’s diagrams. Some of the other students’ notebook pages were wholly given over to rendering these figures and symbols to the exclusion of the diagrams themselves. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t seem to have any paper I could share with you.” “Well, could you tell me if there was an assignment?” “That’s very possible. You can never tell with this instructor. He’s a Portuguese, you know. But he’s been all over and knows everything. I think he’s out of his mind. The kind of thing he’s been teaching should have gotten him into trouble somewhere, and probably did. Not that he ever cared what happened to him, or to anyone else. That is, those that he could influence, and some more than others. The things he said to us. The lessons in measurement of cloacal forces. Time as a flow of sewage. The excrement of space, scatology of creation. The voiding of the self. The whole filthy integration of things and the nocturnal product, as he called it, drowning in the pools of night.” “I’m afraid I don’t recall those concepts,” I confessed. “You’re new to the class. To tell the truth, you don’t seem to understand what the instructor is teaching. But soon enough he will get through to you, if he hasn’t already. You can never know. He’s very captivating, the instructor. And always ready for anything.” “I was told that he recovered from the sickness that caused his absence, and that he was back teaching.” “Oh, he’s back. He was always ready. Did you know that the class is now being held in another part of the school? I couldn’t tell you where, since even I haven’t been with Instructor Carniero as long as some of the others. To tell the truth, I don’t care where it’s being held. Isn’t it enough that we’re here, in this room?” I had little idea how to answer this question and understood almost nothing of what the man had been trying to explain to me. It did seem clear, or at least very possible, that the class had moved to a different part of the school. But I had no reason to think that the other students seated elsewhere in the room would be any more helpful on this point than the one who had now turned his spectacled face away from me. Wherever the class was being held, I was still in need of paper on which to take notes, transcribe diagrams, and so forth. This could not be accomplished by staying in that room where everyone and everything was degenerating into the surrounding darkness. For a time I wandered about the hallways on the main floor of the school, keeping clear of the walls which certainly were thickening with a dark substance, an odorous sap with the intoxicating potency of a thousand molting autumns or the melting soil of spring. The stuff was running from top to bottom down the walls, leaking from above and dulling the already dim light in the hallways. I began to hear echoing voices coming from a distant part of the school I had never visited before. No words were decipherable, but it sounded as if the same ones were being repeated in a more or less constant succession of cries that rang hollow in the halls. I followed them and along the way met up with someone walking slowly from the opposite direction. He was dressed in dirty work clothes and almost blended in with the shadows which were so abundant in the school that night. I stopped him as he was about to shuffle straight past me. Turning an indifferent gaze in my direction was a pair of yellowish eyes set in a thin face with a coarse, patchy complexion. The man scratched at the left side of his forehead and some dry flakes of skin fell away. I asked him: “Could you tell me where Instructor Carniero is holding class tonight?” He looked at me for some moments, and then pointed a finger at the ceiling. “Up there,” he said. “Look up there.” “On which floor?” “The top one,” he answered, as if a little amazed at my ignorance. “There are a lot of rooms on that floor,” I said. “And every one of them is his. Nothing to be done about that. But I have to keep the rest of this place in some kind of condition. I don’t see how I can do that with him up there.” The man glanced around at the stained walls and let out a single, wheezing laugh. “It only gets worse. Starts to get to you if you go up any further. Listen. Hear the rest of them?” Then he groaned with disgust and went on his way. But by that point I felt that any knowledge I had amassed— whether or not it concerned Instructor Carniero and his night classes — was being taken away from me piece by piece. The man in dirty work clothes had directed me to the top floor of the school. Yet I remembered seeing no light on that floor when I first approached the building. The only thing that seemed to occupy that floor was an undiluted darkness, a darkness far greater than the night itself, a consolidated darkness, something clotted with its own density. “The nocturnal product,” I could hear the spectacled student reminding me in a hollow voice. “Drowning in the pools of night.” What could I know about the ways of the school? I had not been in attendance very long, not nearly long enough, it seemed. I felt myself a stranger to my fellow students, especially since they revealed themselves to be divided in their ranks, as though among the degrees of a secret society. I did not know the coursework in the way some of the others seemed to know it and in the spirit that the instructor intended it to be known. My turn had not yet come to be commanded by Instructor Carniero to look up at the hieroglyphs on the blackboard and comprehend them fully. So I did not understand the doctrines of a truly septic curriculum, the science of a spectral pathology, philosophy of absolute disease, the metaphysics of things sinking into a common disintegration or rising together, flowing together, in their dark rottenness. Above all, I did not know the instructor himself: the places he had been… the things he had seen and done… the experiences he had embraced… the laws he had ignored… the troubles he had caused… the fate that he had incurred, gladly, upon himself and others. I was now close to a shaft of stairways leading to the upper floors of the school. The voices became louder, though not more distinct, as I approached the stairwell. The first flight of stairs seemed very long and steep, not to mention badly defined in the dim light of the hallway. The landing at the top of the stairs was barely visible for the poor light and unreflecting effluvia that here moved even more thickly down the walls. But it did not appear to possess any real substance, no sticky surface or viscous texture as one might have supposed, only a kind of density like heavy smoke, filthy smoke from some smoldering source of expansive corruption. And it carried the scent of corruption as well as the sight, only now it was more potent with the nostalgic perfume of autumn decay or the feculent muskiness of a spring thaw. I climbed another flight of stairs, which ascended in the opposite direction from the first, and reached the second floor. Each of the four stories of the school had two flights of stairs going in opposite directions between them, with a narrow landing that intervened before one could complete the ascent to a new floor. The second floor was not as well‐lighted as the one below, and the walls there were even worse: their surface had been wholly obscured by that smoky blackness which seeped down from above, the blackness so richly odorous with the offal of worlds in decline or perhaps with the dark compost of those about to be born, the primeval impurity in which all things are founded, the native putridity. On the stairs that led up to the third floor I saw the first of them — a young man who was seated on the lower steps of this flight and who had been one of the instructor’s most assiduous students. He was absorbed in his own thoughts and did not acknowledge me until I spoke to him. “The class?” I said, stressing the words into a question. He gazed at me calmly. “The instructor suffered a terrible disease, a monumental disease.” This was all he said. Then he returned within himself and would not respond. There were others similarly positioned higher on the stairs or squatting on the landing. The voices were still echoing in the stairwell, chanting a blurred phrase in unison. But the voices did not belong to any of these students, who sat silent and entranced amid the scattered pages torn from their voluminous notebooks. Pieces of paper with strange symbols on them lay scattered everywhere like fallen leaves. They rustled as I walked through them toward the stairs leading to the highest story of the school. The walls in the stairwell were now swollen with a blackness that was the very face of a plague — pustulant, scabbed, and stinking terribly. It was reaching to the edges of the floor, where it drifted and churned like a black fog. Only in the moonlight that shone through a hallway window could I see anything of the third floor. I stopped there, for the stairs to the fourth were deep in blackness. Only a few faces rose above it and were visible in the moonlight. One of them was staring at me, and, without prompting, spoke. “The instructor is holding class again despite his terrible disease. Can you imagine? He is able to suffer anything and has been everywhere. Now he is in a new place, somewhere he has not been.” The voice paused and the interval was filled by the many voices calling and crying from the total blackness that prevailed over the heights of the stairwell and buried everything beneath it like tightly packed earth in a grave. Then the single voice said: “The instructor died in the night. You see? He is with the night. You hear the voices? They are with him. And he is with the night. The night has spread itself within him. He who has been everywhere may go anywhere with the disease of the night. Listen. The Portuguese is calling to us.” I listened and finally the voices became clear. Look up here, they said. Look up here. The fog of blackness had now unfurled down to me and lay about my feet, gathering there and rising. For a time I could not move or speak or form any thoughts. Inside me everything was becoming black. The blackness was quivering in my bones, eating away at them, making everything black within my body. It was holding me, and the voices were saying, “Look up here, look up here.” And I began to look. But I aborted my gesture before it was completed. I was already too close to something I could not endure, that I was not prepared to endure. Even the blackness quivering inside me could not go on to its end. I could not remain where I was nor look up to the place where the voices called out to me. Then the blackness seemed to exude from my being, washing itself out of me, and I was no longer inside the school but outside it, almost as if I had suddenly awakened there. Without looking back, I retraced my steps across the grounds of the school, forgetting about the short cut I had meant to take that night. I passed those students who were still standing around the fire burning in an old metal drum. They were feeding the bright flames with pages from their notebooks, pages scribbled to blackness with all those diagrams and freakish signs. Some of those among the group called out to me. “Did you see the Portuguese?” one of them shouted above the noise of the fire and the wind. “Did you hear anything about an assignment?” another voice cried out. And then I heard them all laughing among themselves as I made my way back to the streets I had left before entering the school grounds. I moved with such haste that the loose button on my overcoat finally came off by the time I reached the street outside the grounds of the school. As I walked beneath the streetlights, I held the front of my overcoat together and tried to keep my eyes on the sidewalk before me. But I might have heard a voice bid me, “Look up here,” because I did look, if only for a moment. Then I saw the sky was clear of all clouds, and the full moon was shining in the black spaces above. It was shining bright and blurry, as if coated with a luminous mold, floating like a lamp in the great sewers of the night. The nocturnal product, I thought, drowning in the pools of night. But these were only words I repeated without understanding. My desire to know something that I was sure was real about my existence, something that could help me in my existence before it was my time to die and be put into the earth to rot, or perhaps have my cremated remains drift out of a chimney stack and sully the sky — that would never be fulfilled. I had learned nothing, and I was nothing. Yet instead of disappointment at my failure to fulfill my most intense desire, I felt a tremendous relief. The urge to know the fundament of things was now emptied from me, and I was more than content to be rid of it. The following night I went to the movie theater again. But I did not take a short cut home. ____ “The Night School” by Thomas Ligotti. From Grimscribe. Copyright © 2015 by Thomas Ligotti. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with The McIntyre Agency.

Chicago faces an epidemic of gun violence. This year alone, more than 2,100 people have been shot, more than 400 killed. The Fourth of July weekend was especially violent. Around 100 people were shot in just over four days. Adriana Diaz gained unique access to some of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods and crews that weekend for "CBSN: On Assignment." Watch this episode of "CBSN: On Assignment" on Monday, Aug. 7, at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS Chicago police have already seized more than 5,000 guns from the streets this year. Young men on the city's South and West Sides told CBS News how easy it is to get illegal guns, and why many never leave their homes without one. "I know people who can't walk from they house to the store without a gun," said Aaron Murph. "Because people getting killed left and right. It's sad." "I got shot twice and I could have been gone but I'm still here so, that scar, that's with me, so," said Tyshaun Grant. "It's hell on earth." Tyshaun Grant's scar from a gun wound. CBS News The problem we heard – and saw – over and over again, was guns. CBS News gained access to several crews on Chicago's South Side. The MAC-10 is a semi-automatic weapon originally designed for military use. It is illegal in Chicago. Asked why anyone would need a gun with that much firepower, one man said, "Protection. It dangerous out here." One South Side crew affiliated with the Titanic Stones told CBS News they actually hate guns. They obstructed their faces to conceal their identities on camera. "I'm just doin' this s*** for survival, bro, until I can pull my family and myself in a better predicament to what I need to do," one member said. "We just trying to keep ourselves protected." Many crews told us they would rather risk the police catching them with a gun than have their rival find them without one. CBS News Asked where he got his .40-caliber gun, he said, "Off the streets, people sell 'em." "Just like that, that's how easy it is," another man said. "It's worth it for you to keep these guns?" Diaz asked. "We felons. You know what I'm saying? Ain't nobody gonna give us no jobs. The cops don't give a f*** about us." But when asked if innocent people dying by those bullets is worth it, they both said, "No." "At the end of the day, it ain't worth it. But you got 'em motherf*****s wanna go through a drive by, you know what I'm saying? And some innocent, little sister get shot. Guess what? Them and them guys coming back in. That's how the confrontation is going to keep going." "So why not just put the guns down?" Diaz asked. "Put the guns down? Probably would happen. Maybe in the near future. No time right now. I don't want to put my gun down. Nine times out of ten the innocent ones get hurt, you know what I'm saying? If they come do a shooting right now we probably won't even get shot. And we got guns. You might get shot. That's how f****** up it is, you know? But it's survive or be killed."

Garry Monk took over Middlesbrough after parting ways with Leeds United New Middlesbrough manager Garry Monk has announced a new five-man backroom team. Ex-England striker James Beattie and former Swansea City coach David Adams have been hired as first-team coaches while Darryl Flahavan has been named goalkeeping coach, having worked alongside Monk at Leeds United last season. In addition, Sean Rush joins the club as head of physical performance, while Ryan Needs comes in as head of performance analysis. All five new members of the coaching staff have previously worked with Monk at Swansea City and Leeds United. "It's important as a manager that you build staff around you to work with you to deliver what is needed to be delivered," said Monk. "We have great experience together as a group - we've worked together for a good period - and they have a good understanding of what I expect and how we work together. "As you go through your career, you're consistently looking to refine and improve things and we're all on that journey together. "The guys have the skill sets that we need to be able to cover all bases and there's also the importance of being able to rely on them with the responsibilities they will have."

Kyle Kondik is managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics. He also directs the center’s Washington, D.C., office. If Republicans capture control of the U.S. Senate, there will be many explanations for their victory: President Obama’s poor numbers, a great Senate map filled with attractive opportunities, a generally strong slate of candidates, the success of establishment-backed Republicans in primaries and others. But one of the biggest factors will have hardly anything to do with the national political climate or, really, the campaign as a whole. Five Democrats, all of whom are old enough to be eligible for Medicare, decided not to run for another term in the Senate. Their decisions, all announced before May 2013, are a huge but largely forgotten boon to GOP hopes. Story Continued Below The five retirements were: Max Baucus of Montana, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, Carl Levin of Michigan and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. (A sixth, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, had announced his retirement, but he later died: Sen. Cory Booker, a Democrat, now holds the seat after a special election last year.) Retirements present a challenge for the incumbent party because it’s easier for a party to hold a Senate seat when an incumbent runs for reelection. Significantly easier. Over the past half-century, about 85 percent of incumbent senators running in the general election were reelected. In open seats, during the same time period, the incumbent party held the seat just about 60 percent of the time. So not having an incumbent in a Senate race substantially reduces the odds of victory. The importance of open seats to GOP Senate hopes is particularly pronounced because of the party’s recent inability to defeat Democratic incumbents. In 1980, Republicans beat an eye-popping nine Democratic incumbents on Election Day to capture control of the Senate for the first time in a quarter-century. Since then, the GOP has not defeated more than two Democratic Senate incumbents in any general election. The party’s best recent Senate years, 1994 and 2010, were built largely on winning open seats (six in 1994, and four in 2010). Democrats, meanwhile, have had more success: They beat seven and six incumbent Republicans, respectively, in recapturing the upper chamber in 1986 and 2006. The latter year, 2006, was notable in that Democrats did not capture a single open seat in netting the six seats they needed to eke out a narrow 51-49 Senate edge. Republicans seem likely to beat more than two Democratic Senate incumbents this November for the first time in almost 35 years: Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas all have less than 50-50 odds of winning, according to the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ Crystal Ball ratings, which I help formulate. Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado is right at 50-50, and Sens. Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire are both in tough races too. But in all likelihood, the foundation for this year’s GOP gains will be built on winning open seats. That’s why the Democratic exits loom so large in the upcoming election. An election where these five senators chose to run for another term would look significantly different: There would probably be more competitive races, and Democrats would have a greater number of redoubts to hold off the Republican advance. Let’s assume, for the purposes of this “what if” exercise, that all five retirees were healthy enough and eager enough to have run for reelection, which is of course a big assumption for a group whose average age is 74 years old: West Virginia: Rockefeller might still be an underdog to Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R), who entered the race before the incumbent retired. But that race would have been much closer, presumably, than Capito’s largely sleepy contest against West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee would not have been able to just take a pass on the race, as it has this cycle. Capito’s strong performance as a candidate is an often overlooked bright spot for Republicans this cycle – she’s done so well, in a state where the GOP hasn’t won a Senate seat in more than a half century, that the race never became obviously competitive – but running in an open seat has made her job easier. The Crystal Ball rating here is Safe Republican; with Rockefeller in the race, we’d probably rate it just Leans Republican or maybe Toss-up. A few polls before Rockefeller retired suggested Capito would have started the race with a narrow lead, and Rockefeller did himself no favors by not being 100 percent pro-coal in recent years, a political problem in a state where coal is still king. Montana: Baucus, like Rockefeller, would have been in for a very tough race in 2014 if he had run. The Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling found him trailing 49 percent to 44 percent in early 2013 against Rep. Steve Daines, who eventually became the GOP nominee. Baucus announced his retirement in April 2013, and then later resigned to become ambassador to China. Gov. Steve Bullock appointed then-Lt. Gov. John Walsh, a fellow Democrat, to fill the vacancy. Walsh’s campaign, of course, fell apart over the summer under the weight of plagiarism. Now Democrats are stuck with little-known nominee Amanda Curtis, a state representative, and Daines is a huge favorite.

Jan Markell dedicated her radio program last weekend to replaying a talk that California pastor Jack Hibbs gave to a conference she hosted in Minneapolis last fall. In the talk, Hibbs warned evangelical Christians against seeking interfaith understanding with Muslims, saying, “Islam is today is being embraced by so-called evangelical churches announcing that we worship the same god and they’re our brothers. Listen: That is not only false, it is a demonic doctrine being propagated by heretics.” He went on to explain that Satan is using Islam as a “vehicle” in the Last Days before the return of Christ, and that Allah is simply the ancient “moon god” Baal, which is why Islam is represented by a crescent moon. “Now look, you may hold that view today simply because maybe you’re not a heretic, but you might be ignorant that this is a war against an ancient doctrine, an ancient god with a little ‘g,’ and ancient system that used to go around by the name of Baal,” he said. “It is the moon god of the ancient Babylonian empire. Babylon had 360 gods. The chief god was the moon god. Don’t you think it’s interesting that all around the world, mosques have a moon symbol, a crescent on top of their buildings?”

Only a few years ago, navigating Paris with a vegan appetite would have been close to impossible. Traditional French fare favors hearty cuts of meat, cheese plates after dinner and food that has been cooked in butter or duck fat, making even the most unsuspecting dishes off-limits for vegans. Only serving to make it worse, there was a lack of understanding as to what falls within a vegan diet—were eggs ok? What about honey? But recent years in the capital have witnessed an abundance of vegan- and vegetarian-friendly restaurants like those you would stumble upon in many Anglophone cities, favoring the seasonal produce that grows so abundantly and crowds the city’s greenmarkets on a daily basis. These restaurants have innovated French techniques and borrowed from other cultures to make vegetables and fruits the highlight of the dish rather than an afterthought, and like many of Paris’ more gastronomic spots, often feature menus that rotate with the season, ensuring fresh, local dishes year round. Though I’m not a vegan myself, I do very much appreciate the vegetable-laden culinary innovation in Paris—it’s a nice reprise from standard café food, and one that ensures more thought has been given to each dish to take it beyond the status quo. I’ve guided several vegan friends through Paris, and these were the spots that made their visit a trip to remember, and finally allowed them to gush about the delicious food in Paris. 1. Wild & the Moon I’m convinced that Wild & the Moon (pictured above) was designed to be an Instagram paradise. The bright, natural lighting paired with an abundance of greenery makes the café the perfect spot to Instagram their signature smoothie bowls, golden lattes and wide selection of vegan lunch bowls, like cauliflower “couscous” with nut cheese, cucumber, parsley, mint, pomegranate and chick peas. They specialize in raw, cold-pressed juices, but sell plenty of tiny treats as well, like homemade energy bars, granola and kale chips. 2. Le Potager de Charlotte Photo by Anne Elder Nearly hidden on a side street in the 9th arrondissement, Le Potager de Charlotte is a cozy restaurant boasting a local selection of natural wines and homemade juices, in addition to their constantly-changing menu of plant-based cuisine. They offer vegan “formules,” allowing diners to try their appetizers, entrées, and desserts at a reasonable price. The must-try dishes here are the “avocat style œuf dur” (a hard-boiled egg style avocado), where an avocado is served filled with a chick pea and turmeric spread, and the chick pea pancakes smothered with cashew cheese. The main dishes rotate with the seasons, and feature flavorful roasted vegetables and vegan gnocchi, which surely must be the holy grail of vegan fare. 3. Miznon Photo by Anne Elder Just off the cobblestone rue des Rosiers in the Marais, Miznon is only steps away from some of the hottest falafel competition in Paris. But this Israeli-run restaurant specializes in homemade pita sandwiches that nearly melt in your mouth, filled with roasted vegetables and a healthy smattering of tahini. Their whole-roasted cauliflower and broccoli heads are both to die for, and the pitas are perfect when to appease both omnivore and vegetarian and vegan eaters. For vegan fare, remember to ask for their popular ratatouille pita sans œuf (without egg). Miznon is closed for all Jewish holidays, so make sure to check your calendar before you head over, and get there early—they get busy fast. 4. Le Tricycle This entryway to this tiny Rastafari restaurant in the heart of the 10th arrondissement is filled with crates of produce, as a team of chefs prepares their signature variety of vegan hot dogs and vegetable grain bowls. They use organic produce, and the bowls are always changing, from vegan “chili” to eggplant marinated in soy over a bed of rice and beets. It is a perfect inexpensive lunch option that will keep you full for hours, where adding avocado is always a good idea. 5. Café Pinson Café Pinson is the go-to spot for when you have a craving for vegetarian comfort food. The ambiance is perfect for dining with close friends, and they serve up a wide variety of vegan appetizers and entrées, from soups and salads to hearty vegetable bowls. A true sign of their innovative nature, though, was a recently spotted ceviche made with mushrooms rather than seafood. Better yet? There are two locations in Paris if you’re tight on time. 6. Le Bichat If you’re hoping to appease omnivore friends, head to Le Bichat near the Canal St. Martin. Here, you make your own bowl, choosing between vegetarian and omnivore-friendly options. As an added bonus, they always keep a vegan dessert on hand, which surely can be justified by a long stroll around the Canal. 7. Bob’s/Shakespeare and Co. 2px); width:calc(100% 2px);"> A post shared by Paris Perfect (@parisperfectrentals) on Feb 6, 2017 at 11:31am PST The Left Bank cheered in 2015 when Bob (of Bob’s Kitchen, Bob’s Juice Bar, and Bob’s Bakeshop) became available on the other side of the Seine at the Shakespeare & Co. Café. Next to the historic bookstore of the same name, they serve up Bob’s famous baked goods, as well as some phenomenal veggie stew that is particularly welcome on Paris’ cold, misty days. While you’re there, it would be a shame to leave without trying the coffee, which is locally roasted by Café Lomi. Anne Elder spends more time talking about food than eating and is currently researching cuisine as a means of integration among refugee chefs in Paris. She can be found via her blog (www.hardlysnarky.com) or on Instagram or Twitter.

The three fastest growing airports in Europe are all in Romania, led by the little-known city of Oradea in the north-west of the country, which experienced nearly 500 per cent growth in 2016. Following in its wake is Iasi, with 131 per cent growth, and Bucharest’s second airport, Aurel Vlaicu, which saw a 122 per cent rise in passenger numbers last year. The Romanian trio spearheaded a surge in arrivals across the continent, according to new statistics released by ACI Europe, with European airports recording two billion passengers for the first time, a five per cent rise on 2015 and a figure that represents more than half of the total number of global fliers. The top 5 fastest growing airports Oradea, Romania - 488 per cent growth in 2016 Iasi, Romania - 131 per cent Bucharest BBU, Romania - 122 per cent Ostend, Belgium - 65 per cent Palanga, Lithuania - 60 per cent Of the continent’s larger airports - taking nothing away from Romania, Belgium and Lithuania - Dublin saw the greatest increase in passenger numbers, with its figure rising 11.5 per cent, followed by Barcelona (11.2 per cent) and Amsterdam (nine per cent). London Heathrow was the busiest airport of the year, according to ACI, with a one per cent growth taking its passenger number to 75.7 million. The top 5 busiest airports London Heathrow - 75.7m (one per cent growth) Paris Charles de Gaulle - 65.9m (0.3 per cent) Amsterdam - 63.6m (9.2 per cent) Frankfurt - 60.8m (-0.4 per cent) Istanbul - 60m (-2.1 per cent) ACI’s figures highlight how Turkey, plagued by instability, has suffered a decrease in arrivals, sending Istanbul’s Ataturk airport from third most busiest to fifth. Across the continent EU countries saw a 6.7 per cent rise in arrivals, while non-EU nations posted an average drop of 0.9, mainly due to falling traffic in Turkey. The country to register the largest increase for the year was Iceland, which boasted a 40 per cent rise in passenger numbers. The countries with the largest passenger growth Iceland - 40 per cent Romania - 24 per cent Ukraine - 23 per cent Bulgaria - 22 per cent Cyprus - 18 per cent How European countries grew their passenger numbers in 2016 Credit: ACI Europe Of Western Europe, Portugal registered the largest increase as holidaymakers sought alternatives to Turkey, Egypt and Tunisia. Its passenger numbers rose 14 per cent. The UK saw a six per cent rise, while Spain posted a 11 per cent rise and France just a three per cent rise. “Europe’s airports broke the two billion passengers mark last year - an absolute record,” said Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe. “While geopolitics and terrorism in particular played an increasing role in shaping the fortunes and misfortunes of many airports, the underlying story is one of continued growth and expansion - with passenger volumes growing in excess of five per cent for the third consecutive year.” Amsterdam Schiphol took third spot in the rankings Credit: Credit: frans lemmens / Alamy Stock Photo/frans lemmens / Alamy Stock Photo He added that Europe’s airports had welcomed an additional 300 million passengers since 2013, citing improving economic conditions, low oil prices and airline capacity expansions as reasons for the rise. ACI Europe’s survey of full 2016 traffic included 216 airports which, it said, accounted for 88 per cent of the continent’s traffic. Away from the likes of Heathrow, Amsterdam and Paris, was Arad International Airport in Western Romania, which welcomed just 375 passengers, according to ACI - a 96 per cent drop. The aforementioned Aurel Vlaicu in Bucharest had the second lowest passenger numbers, but its growth was 121.8 per cent, while Oradea welcomed just 41,723 travellers. The five smallest European airports Arad, Romania - 375 passengers Bucharest BBU, Romania - 4,898 Oradea, Romania - 41,723 Monaco, - 80,836 Mosjoen, Norway - 83,518 Looking ahead at 2017, Mr Jankovec predicted similar growth: “This current growth dynamic is likely to hold up in the coming months, possibly until early spring. “Short-term downside risks related to the price of oil - which is forecasted this year to be almost 30 per cent above its 2016 average - and airlines exerting capacity discipline. “Beyond that, our trading environment is becoming more unpredictable and prone to disruptions, due to mounting geopolitical risks. “These include the permanence of terrorism threats, increasing political instability, both within and outside Europe and Brexit.” The UN’s International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) believes the “global air transport network” doubles in size every 15 years, and that it’s expected to do so again by 2030. Global passenger numbers, registered at 3.77 billion for 2016, have grown at a rapid rate since 2009, following a two-year, post-recession plateau.

Caracas, September 24th 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – North American film director, Oliver Stone, has spoken out on the Venezuelan elections from the San Sebastian film festival in Spain, where he stated that current Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would “win the elections again” in October and that his opponent, Capriles Radonski, was “not a good guy”. “If he (Capriles) won, he would hand the country back to the upper classes,” stated the veteran director, who was invited to the 60th anniversary of the film festival to receive a lifetime achievement award alongside Hollywood actor, John Travolta. Stone, who directed the documentary “South of the Border” which tells the story of Latin America's new wave of elected left-wing presidents, went on to confirm that the Chavez is “in good health,” despite the fact that the Venezuelan leader is currently recovering from an undisclosed form of cancer. The openly left-wing film-maker also used the festival as a chance to make a series of political commentaries, including his desire to see former Spanish president, José Maria Aznar, tried at the Hague due to his collaboration with George W. Bush and Tony Blair in the Iraq war. He furthermore made a series of statements relating to current US politics, and denounced Washington for pursuing Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange. Despite his criticisms of the current US administration, Stone said he would vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming US presidential elections, even though he considers the Democrat leader to be “not a very important leader, and even less so if he cannot change this direction to the right that we are taking”. Stone is currently promoting his new film “Savages,” which focuses on the issue of the narcotics industry in Mexico. During the presentation of the film in San Sebastian, the film-maker strongly criticised the “stupidity” of the Washington sponsored “war on drugs”. “Forty-two years ago we (the US) started the war against drugs... and now there are more drugs, which are cheaper and better than ever... the US doesn't use the war on drugs to fight against drugs and the violence generated by them, but to spy on other countries and to enter other countries, such as Colombia, Mexico, Afghanistan or Pakistan, to put their people there and.. militarise them,” he stated.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy’s new prime minister threatened on Monday to resign if a plan to reduce the powers of the upper house of parliament, a central part of his ambitious constitutional reform agenda, is blocked. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi arrives to attend a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at Villa Madama in Rome March 27, 2014. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi In the latest step of Matteo Renzi’s reform drive, the cabinet is due to approve a draft bill on Monday to transform the Senate into a non-elected chamber stripped of the power to approve budgets or hold votes of no-confidence in a government. Renzi, who became Italy’s third prime minister in a year in February, has said that without a change in the system, the country risks being stuck with a rotating series of short-lived governments incapable of passing meaningful economic reforms. “I have put all my credibility into this reform; if it doesn’t succeed, I can only assume the consequences,” Renzi, Italy’s youngest prime minister at 39, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Renzi, head of the center-left Democratic Party, made a similar threat to quit over Senate reform on March 12 while pushing through a package of tax cuts aimed at reviving Italy’s sluggish economy, the third largest in the euro zone. The former mayor of Florence came to power after a party coup, taking over the unwieldy cross-party coalition formed after last year’s deadlocked election which left no side able to govern alone. BLOATED POLITICAL SYSTEM His bill would scrap the current fragmented system, which grants equal powers to the Senate and the lower house Chamber of Deputies but elects them by different rules which make it hard for any group to win a stable overall majority in parliament. The reform is a key part of a wider drive to slim down Italy’s bloated political apparatus, which comprises 950 Senators and deputies - almost twice as many as the 535-strong U.S. Congress - as well as many thousands of local politicians. But despite loud public calls for change from all sides of the political spectrum, the reform is expected to encounter strong opposition from many in the 320-strong upper house who will have to vote to scrap their own jobs. Another proposal, to cut layers of local government, had to be forced through the Senate last week with a confidence vote after it ran into heavy opposition in committee. Changing the status of the Senate is bound up with a separate reform of the electoral law intended to favour strong coalitions in the lower house which Renzi has said he wants to see approved in parliament by the end of May. Final approval of the Senate reform will require a constitutional change expected to take as much as a year to complete but the bill has already come under fire from politicians and some constitutional experts. On Sunday, the speaker of the Senate, former anti-mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso, criticised Renzi’s proposal to make the upper house a regional chamber of city mayors and insisted it should include directly elected representatives.

Darksiders 2 PC Technical Review Product: Darksiders 2 Author: Sean Ridgeley Editor: Eric Amidon Date: August 16th, 2012 Introduction, setup, requirements Vigil Games is back again with Darksiders 2, an action game that follows the 2010 prequel and lays on the RPG elements thicker this time around. Where the first game was delayed significantly on PC, this time around you get a simultaneous release. If you're curious as to whether or not it's a good time or a poor port, read on for a light technical analysis. Test Setup Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz (Stock) Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB DDR3-1600 (1333 mhZ) Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 3.5" 7200RPM Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6950 2GB (Stock) Driver: 12.8, no CAP Resolution: 1680x1050 Input: Logitech G400 mouse @ 1600dpi, Leopold Tenkeyless Linear Touch Mechanical Keyboard System Requirements

Image caption Microsoft's blog shows how Windows RT computer designs have evolved from an early prototype Microsoft has revealed five manufacturers will offer Windows RT PCs after the operating system launches. It said Samsung, Dell and Lenovo would sell PCs powered by the software, adding to previous announcements about Asus and Microsoft itself. Windows RT is designed to work on chips based on British firm ARM's designs. It is the first version of Microsoft's flagship system made for consumer devices not powered by the x86 chip architectures used by Intel and AMD. Windows RT devices will become available on 26 October alongside the release of other Windows 8 products. But unlike the other versions of the system it will not be offered as a stand-alone purchase, and can only be obtained by buying one of the computers it is installed upon. Publicising partnerships Microsoft's announcement in June that it would offer its own Windows RT tablet - Surface - had led to speculation that the firm's relationship with other manufacturers could become strained. The company acknowledged the risk in a filing with US regulators saying: "Our Surface devices will compete with products made by our OEM [original equipment manufacturer] partners, which may affect their commitment to our platform." But in a blog post announcing the names of the device makers Microsoft was keen to stress the importance of its partnerships. "Our engineering collaboration on these Windows RT PCs has been strong, collaborating with the PC manufacturers, silicon partners, and operators to focus on hardware, software and services integration," wrote Windows chief Steven Sinofsky. "Product designs were informed and revised by our collective efforts through development and testing." Acer has said it intended to release Windows RT devices next year. But Toshiba said it wanted to "monitor market conditions" before making a decision, while Hewlett Packard said it wanted to focus on x86-based alternatives for the time being. Image caption Windows RT will only offer users Microsoft's new touchscreen interface Gaming controversy Windows RT devices will offer full access to the system's touchscreen interface - previously known as Metro - but will not run third-party apps when switched to desktop mode. They are likely to be marketed as offering extended battery life and the ability to turn on in less than a second from standby mode. Microsoft has also signalled that its own Windows RT tablets would be cheaper and thinner than its Intel-based ones. However, the company's decision to limit Windows RT devices to installing software from its store - which is not the case for other Windows 8 computers - has attracted criticism. The move replicates a similar restriction imposed by Apple on its ARM-based iPads, but has still been attacked by video games developers who are unhappy that Microsoft will take a 30% cut of sales. Gabe Newell, chief executive of Valve, which makes the Half Life and Portal series, branded it a "catastrophe". An executive from Blizzard, the firm behind World of Warcraft, said the move was "not awesome", while indie developer Stardock's founder has said Microsoft was pursuing a "wrongheaded approach".

Most of the problems in bioinformatics are now the challenges in computing. This paper aims at building a classifier based on Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata (MACA) which uses fuzzy logic. It is strengthened with an artificial Immune System Technique (AIS), Clonal algorithm for identifying a protein coding and promoter region in a given DNA sequence. The proposed classifier is named as AIS-INMACA introduces a novel concept to combine CA with artificial immune system to produce a better classifier which can address major problems in bioinformatics. This will be the first integrated algorithm which can predict both promoter and protein coding regions. To obtain good fitness rules the basic concept of Clonal selection algorithm was used. The proposed classifier can handle DNA sequences of lengths 54,108,162,252,354. This classifier gives the exact boundaries of both protein and promoter regions with an average accuracy of 89.6%. This classifier was tested with 97,000 data components which were taken from Fickett & Toung , MPromDb, and other sequences from a renowned medical university. This proposed classifier can handle huge data sets and can find protein and promoter regions even in mixed and overlapped DNA sequences. This work also aims at identifying the logicality between the major problems in bioinformatics and tries to obtaining a common frame work for addressing major problems in bioinformatics like protein structure prediction, RNA structure prediction, predicting the splicing pattern of any primary transcript and analysis of information content in DNA, RNA, protein sequences and structure. This work will attract more researchers towards application of CA as a potential pattern classifier to many important problems in bioinformatics. Introduction Cellular automata Pattern classification encompasses development of a model which will be trained to solve a given problem with the help of some examples; each of them will be characterized by a number of features. The development of such a system is characterized as pattern classification. We use a class of Cellular Automata (CA)[1,2] to develop the proposed classifier. Cellular automata consist of a grid of cells with a finite number of states. Cellular Automata (CA) is a computing model which provides a good platform for performing complex computations with the available local information. CA is defined a four tuple Where G -> Grid (Set of cells) Z -> Set of possible cell states N -> Set which describe cells neighborhoods F -> Transition Function (Rules of automata) As Cellular Automata consists of a number of cells structured in the form of a grid. The transitions between the cells may depend on its own state and the states of its neighboring cells. The equation one sates that if ith cell have to make a transition, it has to depend on own state, left neighbor and right neighbor also. ---- Equation 1 Problems in bioinformatics Bioinformatics can be characterized as a collection of statistical, mathematical and computational methods for dissecting biological sequences like DNA, RNA and amino acid. It deals with the design and development of computer based technology that supports biological processing. Bioinformatics tools are aimed at performing lot of functions like data integration, collection, analysis, mining, management, simulation, visualization and statistics. The central dogma shown in the figure 1 of molecular biology was initially articulated by Francis Crick [3] in 1958. It deals with point by point transfer of important sequential data. It states that data can't be exchanged back from protein to either protein or nucleic acid. So once data gets into protein, it can't stream again to nucleic acid. This dogma is a framework for comprehension about the exchange of sequence data between sequential data carrying biopolymers in living organisms. There are 3 significant classes of such biopolymers ie DNA, RNA and protein. There are 9 possible immediate exchanges of data that can happen between these. This dogma classifies these nine exchanges into three transfers (Normal, Special, and Never Happens). The normal flow of biological information is DNA is copied to DNA (DNA replication), DNA information is copied into RNA (Transcription) and protein are synthesized by using the protein coding region exits in DNA/RNA (Translation). Protein coding region identification DNA is an important component of a cell and genes will be found in specific portion of DNA which will contain the information as explicit sequences of bases (A, G, C, T).These explicit sequences of nucleotides will have instructions to build the proteins. But the region which will have the instructions which is called as protein coding regions occupies very less space in a DNA sequence. The identification of protein coding regions plays a vital role in understanding the gens. We can extract lot of information like what is the disease causing gene, whether it is inherited from father or mother, how one cell is going to control another cell. Promoter region identification DNA is a very important component in a cell, which is located in the nucleus. DNA contains lot of information. For DNA sequence to transcript and form RNA which copies the required information, we need a promoter. So promoter plays a vital role in DNA transcription. It is defined as "the sequence in the region of the upstream of the transcriptional start site (TSS)". If we identify the promoter region we can extract information regarding gene expression patterns, cell specificity and development. Some of the genetic diseases which are associated with variations in promoters are asthma, beta thalassemia and rubinstein-taybi syndrome. Literature survey Eric E. Snyder et al. [4,5] has developed a PC program, Geneparser, which distinguishes and verifies the protein coding genes in genomic DNA arrangements. This program scores all subintervals in a grouping for substance facts characteristic of introns and exons, and for destinations that recognize their limits. Jonathan H. Badger[6] et al. has proposed a protein coding region identification tool named CRITICA which uses comparative analysis. In the comparative segment of the investigation, regions of DNA are straightened with identified successions from the DNA databases; if the interpretation of the arranged groupings has more stupendous amino acid than needed for the watched rate nucleotide character; this is translated as proof for coding. David J. States[7] proposed a PC project called BLASTX was formerly indicated to be viable in distinguishing and allotting putative capacity to likely protein coding districts by identifying huge likeness between a theoretically interpreted nucleotide query arrangement and parts of a protein grouping database. Steven Salzberg, et al. [8] has used a decision tree algorithm for locating protein coding region. Genes in eukaryotic DNA spread hundreds or many base sets, while the locales of the aforementioned genes that code for proteins may possess just a little rate of the succession. Eric E.Snyder, et al. [4] has used dynamic programming with neural networks to address the protein coding region problem. Dynamic Programming (DP) is connected to the issue of exactly distinguishing inside exons and introns in genomic DNA arrangements. Suprakash Datta, et al. [9] used a DFT based gene prediction for addressing this problem. Authors provided theoretical concept of three periodicity property observed in protein coding regions in genomic DNA. They proposed new criteria for classification based on traditional frequency approaches of coding regions. Jesus P. Mena-Chalco, et al. [10] has used Modified Gabor-Wavelet Transform for addressing this issue. In this connection, numerous coding DNA model-free systems dependent upon the event of particular examples of nucleotides at coding areas have been proposed. Regardless, these techniques have not been totally suitable because of their reliance on an observationally predefined window length needed [11] for a nearby dissection of a DNA locale. Many authors[10,12-15,16] have applied CA in bioinformatics. Rakesh Mishra, et al. [17] has worked on search and use of promoter region. Look for a promoter component by RNA polymerase from the to a great degree extensive DNA base arrangement is thought to be the slowest and rate-confirming for the regulation of interpretation process. Few immediate investigations we portrayed here which have attempted to accompany the robotic suggestions of this promoter look[18]. Christoph Dieterich, et al. [19] made an extensive study on promoter region. The robotized annotation of promoter districts joins data of two sorts. To begin with, it recognizes crossspecies preservation inside upstream districts of orthologous genes. Pair wise too a various arrangement examinations are processed. Vetriselvi Rangnanan, et al. [20] made a dissection of different anticipated structural lands of promoter [19] districts in prokaryotic and in addition eukaryotic genomes had prior shown that they have a few normal characteristics, for example, lower steadiness, higher curve and less bendability, when contrasted and their neighbouring areas [20]. Jih-Wei Hung[21] has developed an effective forecast calculation that can expand the recognition (power =1 - false negative) of promoter. Authors introduce two strategies that utilize the machine force to ascertain all conceivable examples which are the conceivable characteristics of promoters. Some of the other authors [22-26] has worked on promoter identification and succeeded to some extent. AIS-INMACA(Artificial Immune System- Integrated Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata) Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata which is used in this report is a special class of fuzzy cellular automata which was introduced thirty years ago. It uses fuzzy logic [27,28] to handle real value attributes. The development process / implementation of Multiple Attractor Cellular Automata is administered by AIS technique, a Clonal Algorithm with the underlying theory of survival of the fittest gene. Artificial Immune System is a novel computational intelligence technique with features like distributed computing, fault /error tolerance, dynamic learning, adaption to the frame work, self monitoring, non uniformity and several features of natural immune systems. AIS take its motivation from the standard immune system of the body to propose novel computing tools for addressing many problems in wide domain areas. Some features of AIS which can be mapped with bioinformatics framework are chosen and used in the thesis to strengthen the proposed CA classifier. This paper introduces the integration of AIS with CA which is first for its kind to produce a better classifier which can address major problems in bioinformatics. This proposed classifier named artificial immune system based multiple attractor cellular automata classifier (AIS-INMACA) uses the basic frame work of Cellular Automata (CA) and features of AIS like self monitoring and non uniformity which is potential, versatile and robust. This is the basic motivation of the entire research. The objectives of AIS based evolution of MACA [13,14,28] is 1. To improve the conception of the ways CA performs calculations. 2. To Figure out how CA may be advanced to perform a particular computational job. 3. To follow how advancement makes complex global behavior into locally interconnected cells on a grid. 4. To extract innate classification potential in CA and use Clonal algorithm for producing better rules with fitness. Design of AIS-INMACA The proposed AIS based CA classifier uses fuzzy logic can address major problems inbioinformatics like protein coding region identification and promoter region prediction .Even though some scientists have proposed different algorithms, all of these are specific to the problem. None of them have worked towards proposing a common classifier whose frame work can be useful for addressing many problems in bioinformatics. The general design of AIS-INMACA is indicated in the Figure 2. Input to AIS-INMACA algorithm and its variations will be DNA sequence and Amino Acid sequences. Input processing unit will process sequences three at a time as three neighborhood cellular automata is considered for processing DNA sequences. The rule generator will transform the complemented (Table 2) and non complemented rules (Table 3) in the form of matrix, so that we can apply the rules to the corresponding sequence positions very easily. AIS-INMACA basins are calculated as per the instructions of proposed algorithm and an inverter tree named as AIS multiple attractor cellular automata is formed which can predict the class of the input after all iterations. Algorithm 3.1 is used for creating of AIS-INMACA tree .This tree will dissipate the DNA sequence into respective leaves of the tree. If the sequence is falling into two or more class labels, the algorithm wills recursively partition [29] in such a way that all the sequences will fit into one of the leaves. Every leaf will have a class .Algorithm 2 will be used for getting the class as well as the required transition function. The best fitness rules with a score more than .5 is considered. Algorithm 3.3 [7] uses, algorithm 3.1, 3.2 for predicting the protein and promoter coding regions. Rules of AIS-INMACA The decimal equivalent of the next state function, as defined as the rule number of the CA cell introduced by Wolfram [2], is. In a 2-state 3-neighborhood CA, there are 256 distinct next state functions, among 256 rules, rule 51 and rule 254 are represented in the following equations. The transition function Table 1 was shown for equations 1,2. The tables 2, 3 show the complemented and non complemented rules. Algorithm 3. 1 Input: Training Set S= {S1, S2,…………….., Sx) with P classes Output: AIS-INMACA tree Partition(S, P) 1. Generate a AIS-INMACA with x attractor basins (Two Neighborhood CA) 2. Distribute training set in x attractor basins(Nodes) 3. Evaluate the patterns distributed in each attractor basin. 4. If all the patters say S' which are covered by the attractor basin belong to only one class, then label the attractor basin ( Leaf Node) as the class 5. If S' of an attractor basin belong to more than one class partition (S',P') 6. Stop Algorithm 3.2 (Partial CLA Algorithm) Input: Training set S = {S1, S2, • • • , SK}, Maximum Generation (Gmax). Output: Dependency matrix T, F, and class information. begin Step 1: Generate 200 new chromosomes for IP. Step 2: Initialize generation counter GC=zero; Present Population (PP) ← IP. Step 3: Compute fitness Ft for each chromosome of PP according to Equation Step 4: Store T, F, and corresponding class information for which the fitness value Ft>0.5 Step 5: If number of chromosomes with fitness more than 0.5 are 50 then go to 12. Step 6: Rank chromosomes in order of fitness. Step 6a: Clone the chromosome Step 7: Increment generation counter (GC). Step 8: If GC > Gmax then go to Step 11. Step 9: Form NP by selection, cloning and mutation. Step 10: PP← NP; go to Step 3. Step 11: Store T, F, and corresponding class information for which the fitness value is maximum. Step 11a: Output class, T,F Algorithm 3.3 1. Uses the AIS-INMACA Tree construction Algorithm 3.1 2. Uses the AIS-INMACA Evolution Algorithm 3. 2 3. Trace the corresponding attractor 4. Travel back form attractor to the starting node 5. Identify the start codon 6. Identify the stop codon 7. Report the boundaries of protein coding region. 8. From fist codon of the sequence to start codon Search for TAATAA. 9. Report the promoter boundary located at upstream Experimental Results & Discussions Experiments were conducted by using Fickett and Toung data [30] for predicting the protein coding regions. All the 21 measures reported in [30] were considered for developing the classifier. Promoters are tested and trained with MpromDb data sets[31]. Figure 3 shows the interface developed. Figure 4 is the training interface with rules, sequence and real values. Figure 5 shows the testing interface. Table. 4 show the execution time for predicting both protein and promoter regions which is very promising. Table. 5 shows the number of datasets handled by AIS-INMACA. Figure 6and Figure 7 shows the accuracy of prediction separately which is the important output of our work. Figure 8gives the prediction of extons from the given input graphically. Figure 9. gives the boundary of the location of extons. Figure 10. gives the promoter region prediction and boundary reporting. Conclusion We have successfully developed a logical classifier designed with MACA and strengthened with AIS technique. The accuracy of the AIS-INMACA classifier is considerably more when compared with the existing algorithms which are 84% for protein coding and 90% for promoter region prediction. The proposed classifier can handle large data sets and sequences of various lengths. This is the first integrated algorithm to process DNA sequences of length 252,354. This novel classifier frame work can be used to address many problems in like protein structure prediction, RNA structure prediction, predicting the splicing pattern of any primary transcript and analysis of information content in DNA, RNA, protein sequences and structure and many more. We have successfully developed a frame work with this classifier which will lay future intuition towards application of CA in number of bioinformatics applications.

Sixty animals 'butchered' in two months since crackdown was suspended after inquiry uncovered murder, rape and extortion Elephant deaths in Tanzania have risen dramatically since the government abandoned a shoot-to-kill policy against poachers, officials admit. Lazaro Nyalandu, the deputy minister of natural resources and tourism, said 60 elephants were "butchered" in November and December, compared with two in October. Soldiers, police, game rangers and forestry officers had been involved in a month-long crackdown on poachers, codenamed Operation Terminate, in October. But the operation was suspended after an inquiry by MPs uncovered a litany of arbitrary murder, rape, torture and extortion of innocent people. Mizengo Pinda, the prime minister, told Reuters: "The anti-poaching operation had good intentions, but the reported murders, rapes and brutality are totally unacceptable." The inquiry's findings – including the killing of 13 civilians and arrest of more than 1,000 people – led to the sacking of the tourism minister Khamis Kagasheki, who had called for perpetrators of the illicit ivory trade to be executed "on the spot",as well as the defence minister Shamsi Vuai Nahodha, the home affairs minister Emmanuel Nchimbi and the livestock development minister David Mathayo. Nyalandu said that, with the operation on hold, the government would appeal to foreign donors to help Tanzania's wildlife department and ranger service. "Those to be approached include the European Union and Asian countries," he was quoted as saying in media reports. "Asian countries are reportedly the main consumers of elephant tusks and byproducts." There is huge demand for elephant tusks in many Asian countries, where they are used to make ornaments. In August 2011, Tanzanian authorities seized more than 1,000 elephant tusks hidden in sacks of dried fish at Zanzibar port and destined for Malaysia. Recent research by the International Union for Conservation of Nature found that 22,000 elephants were killed in 2012 and Africa will lose one-fifth of its elephants in the next decade if the poaching crisis is not arrested. There were around 10m African elephants at the start of the 20th century, but that number has fallen to 500,000 owing to poaching and habitat loss. The international trade in ivory was banned in 1989 but it has been dubbed the "white gold of jihad" by activists who say it is funding armed rebel groups including al-Shabaab, the militia behind the siege of the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, that left at least 67 people dead. With 70,000-80,000 elephants in 2009, Tanzania is believed to be home to nearly a sixth of all African elephants. A recent census at one of the country's biggest wildlife parks, Selous Game Reserve, showed elephant populations had plummeted to just 13,000 from 55,000 previously. Last year a Tanzanian MP said poaching was out of control with an average of 30 elephants killed for their ivory every day. Media reports have alleged that some MPs and other officials are involved in and benefiting from the lucrative ivory trade.

Before premiers, liquor unions and corporations start falling all over each other in an effort to cash in on legal cannabis sales, let's remember the real reasons we should be ending cannabis prohibition in Canada. Yes, we should be legalizing cannabis in Canada, but not because of the tax revenue it will generate, and not because legalization a better way to keep cannabis from kids, and not even because polls show that most Canadians now support changing the law. We should be ending cannabis prohibition in Canada because the war on cannabis and cannabis users has always been unjustified, immoral and harmful to individuals and society. Let us remember that cannabis prohibition was founded solely on racism and ignorance. There was never any valid scientific, health, or social reason to ban cannabis and punish cannabis users in the first place. As a society, we need to acknowledge these truths before we can start talking about tax rates and points of sale. The first step must be to immediately end all arrests for possession and personal cultivation, nationwide. That must be at the top of the agenda for any cannabis reform in Canada. These days, Canada's cannabis community is feeling like the Little Red Hen from the classic fairy tale. We remember what happened when we asked, "Who will help us fight against cannabis prohibition?" "Not us," said the unions. "There are a lot of jobs for us in arresting and jailing cannabis users." "Not us," said the corporations. "Legal cannabis would hurt our investments in pharmaceuticals." "Not us," said the politicians. "Instead, we're going to pass stricter laws than ever, because that gets us more votes!" So we did it by ourselves. Canada's cannabis community opened bong shops and seed shops, we created cannabis magazines and websites, we held cannabis rallies and opened medical dispensaries, all in peaceful civil disobedience and in defiance of these unfair laws. When some of us were raided by police and ended up in front of a judge, we asked "Who will help us fund these important court cases, to defend our rights and change these unjust laws?" "Not us," said the unions. "All these new prisons mean jobs, jobs, jobs!" "Not us," said the corporations. "We can't patent cannabis medicines, so we don't care." "Not us," said the politicians. "In fact, we will fight you in court every step of the way!" So the cannabis community raised the funds ourselves. We used the money from our openly illegal bong shops, seed banks and dispensaries to pay lawyers and cover court costs, chipping away at prohibition one case at a time. It was through the courts that we forced the government to first create a medical cannabis program, and every single improvement and expansion of the program has come as a result of lengthy and expensive court battles funded by grassroots activists. Now that we have mostly beaten the laws in court and on the street, with cannabis gardens and dispensaries spreading into every city and town across the country, we ask, "Who will help us sell cannabis and profit from legalization?" "We will sell it to you for profit!" say the unions. "We know how to sell liquor, and it's all the same thing, right?" "We will sell it to you for profit!" say the corporations. "We will sell it to you for $15 a gram, as long as the police shut down all the illegal dispensaries first." "We will sell it to you for profit!" say the politicians. "We will keep the taxes high, so we can pay for all the harm that you cannabis users are causing society." To which we say, "Get lost! We will keep growing it and selling it ourselves. We already have hundreds of dispensaries across the country that are providing great quality cannabis. We already have dozens of court precedents which have forced your police to stop arresting our people. We already have a thriving culture and a vigorous, successful and diversified cannabis industry. We don't need your help, but thanks anyways." The moral of the story? Those who show no willingness to contribute to a product do not deserve to share it. Canada's cannabis community doesn't need the liquor unions, or the corporations, or the politicians to take over our industry. We know what we're doing when it comes to growing, distributing and enjoying cannabis. The groups that have oppressed our culture and fought against legalization should not be the groups that get to regulate and profit from our sacred plant. Just get rid of your ridiculous prohibition laws, stop arresting and hassling peaceful people for pot, and leave the rest to us. MORE ON HUFFPOST:

Today, for reasons only known by Donald Trump, Trump decided to file suit against his former Senior Consultant, Sam Nunberg, as Caleb reported, and subsequently I wrote about the beans having been spilled on the alleged Lewandowski/Hicks love affair. But the Huffington Post picked up on yet another angle. Sam Nunberg has now alleged in a court document what many conservatives have thought for a long time … Donald Trump set up fake business entities to augment his actual campaign, allowing him to maneuver around the restrictions put upon most campaigns. From HuffPo: Nurnberg says in his answer to the lawsuit that the Trump campaign illegally created a fictitious company, called Trump 2012 PCA. The company is listed as a plaintiff in the suit against Nurnberg, along with Trump’s formal campaign. snip Nurnberg also claims the campaign “may very well” have violated campaign finance laws by using Trump company resources for Trump’s political campaign. This is probably a stock example for lawyers involved in elections on why you don’t file a lawsuit during an election: You don’t get to control how the guy on the other end of the law suit reacts, and you better hope he doesn’t have the dirt on you, discovery is hell. Nunberg just seems eager to start with the pineapples.* TRUMP 2012 PCA IS VIOLATING GENERAL BUSINESS LAW § 130 AND THEREFORE THIS ACTION MUST BE DISMISSED Trump 2012 PCA is neither a legal entity authorized by the Department of State to do business in the State of New York nor an assumer name for a legal entity or individual authorized to do business in the State of New York under the provisions of General Business Law § 130. Nor has Trumpv2012 PCA filed required certificates in the county clerk’s offices as required for its principal to legally conduct business under that assumed name. Of course, this hell will be of Trump’s own creation, as have been most of his hiccups this election cycle, despite his protestations to the contrary. Seriously, have we ever had a candidate whine so much about how they are treated by the press? But I digress, there is more goodness to be found in the HuffPo report. Like, who convinced Trump it was a good idea to take on this lawsuit, and for what reason? The simple answer is Lewandowski needed to cover his … um … assets. Lewandowski advocated the suit as a way to make sure his relationship with Hicks ― which Nunberg’s filing calls a “sordid and apparently illicit affair” ― didn’t become public, the adviser said. “Corey egged him on this suit,” the adviser said, adding that once it was filed, Trump was not interested in dropping it. “Trump never backs down.” “Nunberg will go for Trump’s throat. This is going to be all-out war,” the adviser predicted. “This is going to be ugly.” I have to say, as one of the original #NeverTrump people out there, this feels exceptional. But get some more popcorn, because the show is just about to begin. Nunberg is bringing the heat in the suit, explicitly leaving a trail of crumbs for the FEC to follow if they so choose. During this entire period, the Trump Campaign may very well have violated Federal Election Law by co-mingling corporate resources and failing to file the costs and expenditures the Trump Campaign has already incurred this past May and June. Nunberg also noted in his filing that he believes this entire suit is due to Trump still being incredibly butt hurt over Nurnberg’s endorsement of Ted Cruz. The Trump Campaign is seeking in excess of $10,000,000.00 and punitive damages because Mr. Nunberg endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz and allegedly used “a serious of derogatory remarks concerning Mr. Trump.” This is especially hypocritical for a candidate who frequently describes his opponents as “losers,” “crooked,” “child molesters,” and “liars.” Even this past weekend the Trump Campaign compared the 20123 Republican Presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, to a “dog.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for this to go to court, because we know Trump never backs down. Never settles. * Google “Little Nicky, Pineapple” … it’s a classical reference.

The nation’s leading coal companies are increasingly filing for bankruptcy, leaving behind enormous tracts of scarred terrain and rising doubts that they will ever meet their legal commitments to repair the earth. Concern is growing that the companies and their debtors will use Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to force the costs of mine reclamation onto taxpayers, despite the industry’s standing obligations to pay. The profits of Big Coal have been plummeting in a shifting energy market. Abundant supplies of cleaner natural gas have replaced coal as the fuel of choice in an increasing number of power plants, while the industry has been disappointed in its plans to expand overseas into China and other markets. Jobs have disappeared, a major topic on the campaign trail. Also at stake in the more than three dozen bankruptcies declared in the last three years are hundreds of millions of dollars in cleanup obligations, primarily in the Appalachian coal fields. Companies insist they will not shirk their reclamation duties. Unfortunately, their track record is not good in West Virginia, where the mining method called mountaintop removal — the systematic dynamiting of summits to get at underlying coal seams — has devastated the Appalachian landscape, polluted waterways and driven entire hamlets into retreat. “Lipstick on a corpse,” was how Ken Hechler, a former West Virginia congressman, described the industry’s cosmetic repairs to the state’s mesa-like remains of mountains. The court fights are focusing on a loophole, called self-bonding, in the 1977 federal surface mining control law. This allowed state regulators to recklessly let companies, in profitable times, offer a mere promise to cover reclamation costs instead of requiring that they purchase bonds as insurance. The fear is the industry will use bankruptcy to see their obligations to banks and hedge funds paid first, leaving little for environmental cleanups.

Michele Bachmann over Mitt Romney? In the 2012 GOP Debate in New Hampshire? Well, perhaps we can say that on Monday night Hell did freeze over, and because while Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann didn’t trip up former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, she did outshine both he and Texas Congressman Ron Paul by not being what most of America has come to expect her to be, and that’s the just plain crazy pol I talked about in this video… And, in part, because of that, “Michele Bachmann” is the number one Google Trend, and has been for several hours since the CNN GOP Debate ended. Plus, “Michele Bachmann” managed to become the ninth most popular Twitter Trend during the debate telecast. By contrast, Ron Paul’s the tenth highest Google Trend, didn’t appear on Twitter Trends, and Mitt Romney was no where to be seen. The truth is, Michele Bachmann really did look “Presidential,” up there, and Romney better not get comfortable with the idea that he’s got a safe lead. No. While Congresswoman Bachmann can’t even come close to the other-worldly cool and now POTUS experience of President Barack Obama, who’s title of ‘silent assassin’ was cemented when he ordered the successful take-out of Osama Bin Laden, she can scare the hell out of the GOP just enough to create sufficient votes to damage Romney’s path to the Republican Nomination. And just what did Michele Bachmann do? Frankly, Congresswoman Bachmann scored on two major points regarding President Obama. First, that Obama voted against raising the Debt Ceiling in 2006, and she stated the debatable view that we don’t have enough good intelligence to be fighting in Libya. Those two points are easy to bat off, first, by Obama himself, who admitted his vote was “a mistake,” and regretted his 2005 stance. Second, Obama has held fast to his reasons for going into Libya as being borne of seeing Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi have his own military go after his own people. Obama, who gave Moammar Gadhafi fair warning, had enough, and in engineering a way around Congress, started a private little war against Gadhafi’s forces. Because of that, Bachmann can’t have it both ways: calling Obama as something less than a leader, but then, herself, showing fear in making the right call to intervene in Libya. Obama would smoke her on that issue, no pun intended. The Substantive Bachmann Because we’re talking in policy details about key decisions of POTUS, and because of Bachmann’s GOP Debate statements, means that, agree or disagree, we’re going to see a more substantive and less bombastic Bachmann. While I’m not yet ready to say we’re not going to get the bat-shit crazy Bachmann, it’s too early to tell, I wouldn’t bet on it. I think Bachmann realizes that, for now and perhaps the entire future of this 2012 Presidential Race, she’s got the upper hand over her opponents as the only female candidate, and who’s got the happy burden of not being the embarrassment we expect her to be. The Tea Party Movement never really entirely warmed to Ron Paul. And while Rep. Paul has done a good job of parroting a narrow, ideological point of view that’s become his personal brand, he’s also trapped by it. There’s no way to go – no new form of behavior – that would cause Congressman Paul to gain points and the cement the GOP Presidential Nomination. And there’s Romney and Sarah Palin standing in the way. Palin? Yes, even though I don’t think she will run, Palin will cast a large enough shadow to steer which GOP voters go to what candidate. But Palin’s not wanting to stomach what it takes to put her family under the gaze of the modern media smear machine. Stay tuned.

WASHINGTON — The number of American workers filing new jobless benefit claims unexpectedly jumped above 600,000 last week to a fresh 26-year high, signaling that the nation's recession is widening and deepening. Separately, U.S. productivity growth -- a measure of how much workers produce per hour of labor -- more than doubled between the July-through-September quarter and the final three months of the year. But instead of seeing the data as evidence of improvement, analysts said the jump from an annual average of 1.5% to 3.2% was yet another sign of trouble. In essence, companies reacted to the economy's sharp contraction by cutting workers at a faster pace than output, making it appear that those who remained on the job were growing more efficient. The latest economic soundings bode ill for today's January jobs report, which many forecasters now say could show a monthly loss of 500,000 or more positions.

We want our 100in1Day projects to temporarily improve a public space in Edmonton and demonstrate how a community might achieve more lasting positive change. It may be led by an individual, community-based group, or an organization. Projects can be practical, like planting trees or pop-up street furniture. They can be social, like hosting a block party. They can be artistic, like flash mobs or yarn bombing. They can challenge us or fix a problem. They can be as big or small as you want. All projects must be safe, legal and inclusive. Examples of placemaking include: Art installations or street art Public performances or storytelling Planting community gardens or cleaning up a park Screening films outdoors Hosting a community potluck or BBQ Playing games such as soccer, jump rope or hopscotch Setting up a free lemonade stand and talking to passersby Need some more inspiration? Browse all the projects people organized for 100in1Day 2016.

Mayor Ed Murray sent legislation to Council this week aiming to increase racial equity in housing to ensure everyone has access to opportunity. Among other steps, Fair Chance Housing would prevent landlords from screening applicants based on criminal convictions more than two years old, and prohibit the use of advertising language that categorically excludes people with arrests or conviction records. Today’s announcement is a recognition of years of work by the community supporting a policy that will increase racial equity in access to housing, help keep families together, and build stronger, more inclusive communities. “The growth in the number of Americans with criminal records has created a crisis of housing inaccessibility that is disproportionately felt by people of color,” said Mayor Murray. “Not only has our criminal justice system punished Black Americans disproportionately, they continue to be punished by barriers to housing that cut off access to opportunity. Ensuring people have fair access to housing is about equity and about ensuring everyone has the ability contribute in our society, including getting a good job and raising a family.” An estimated 1 in 3 Americans has a criminal record and nearly half of all children in the United States have at least one parent with a criminal record. It is estimated that 30 percent of Seattle residents over 18, or more than 173,000 people, have an arrest or conviction, with 7 percent having a felony record. Each of these people face significant barriers to housing because of current policy, denying them access to a basic need that would help them be successful. One study found that 43 percent of Seattle landlords are inclined to reject a tenant with a criminal history. All Home, which coordinates homelessness services for King County, found that 1 in 5 people who leave prison become homeless shortly after. The Fair Chance Housing ordinance would prevent landlords from screening applicants based on criminal convictions older than two years; arrests that did not lead to a conviction; convictions that have been expunged, vacated or sealed; juvenile records; or status of a juvenile tenant on the sex offender registry. Landlords will not be able to use language in advertisements that categorically excludes people with arrests or conviction records and must provide a business justification for rejecting an applicant based on their criminal history. Fair Chance Housing is one of the dozens of recommendations in Mayor Murray’s Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda (HALA) meant to address public safety and racial equity in housing by lowering barriers for those re-entering society, who are disproportionately people of color. “You can’t say everyone has a fair chance to succeed when we have a criminal justice system that disproportionately arrests and convicts people of color,” said Councilmember Lisa Herbold (District 1, West Seattle & South Park). “Fair Chance Housing is about giving people fair opportunities. This legislation is about addressing a homelessness crisis that we have created ourselves because we are not giving everyone a fair chance.” Seattle has previously taken steps to lower barriers to housing, a key recommendation in HALA after years of community advocacy, and an essential component of the City’s plan to address homelessness, Pathways Home. These include Source of Income Discrimination legislation that protects people using alternative sources of income to pay rent and the coordination with funders of homeless services to reduce and standardize screening criteria for programs. People impacted by previous policies have advocated for the City to address these barriers for years, including hundreds of who spoke at community forums and the Fair Chance Housing Stakeholder Committee convened last year. Today’s announcement is the culmination of that work, as the City works to lower barriers to housing and ensure Seattle remains affordable and accessible. “If part of the American Dream is to own a home, what message are we sending to people who cannot even rent, even after they have paid their debt to society?” said Augustine Cita, Workforce Development Director, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle. “We need to fix that.”

FIFA U17 World Cup: Controversy in Kolkata about ticket distribution, police complaint lodged A group of locals, known as the Golden Card numbers, registered a police complaint on Saturday. When the West Bengal government started constructing the Salt Lake Stadium in 1982, they floated an offer for the local sportslovers. A non-profit organization, named Society for Sports and Stadium (SSS), offered a chance to become a 'golden card-member' of the new infrastructure, by donating 10,000 Rs. (close to 1,25,000 Rs now adjusting for inflation) to the cause. The golden card-members are entitled to get free tickets for every match held at the venue. Everything went fine for the next 35 years, but the U-17 FIFA World Cup has become the first aberration of the rule, not offering tickets to the initial patrons of the venue. This has not gone well with some of those fans, who gathered at the local police station on Saturday to launch a police complaint. While they wanted to document their protest, they didn't want it to be a spoilsport to the grand event, one of the protesters informed. "We have, hence not lodged an FIR, but a general diary," he added. With the SSS organization now defunct, the long-time workers of the stadium complex used to send the tickets out of goodwill, but the LOC has not followed the process, a well-placed source informed. There is disappointment also among the former footballers of the city, who have contributed for years to the lively footballing scene of the city. While Indian Football Association (IFA) asked for almost 200 tickets, they were granted only 85. Fifteen Arjuna, Padmashree and Dronacharya award winners have been handed season tickets, while a lottery would decide which footballer gets a pass for which match. The lottery was done at the IFA office by former footballers Manoranjan Bhattacharya, Dipendu Biswas, Jamshid Nassiri and Kartik Seth. Article continues below The demand of tickets was high in Kolkata from the moment the sale started, and the organizers are hoping that spectators will come out in numbers on Sunday.

A photo of The Boring Company's tunneling machine. Screenshot Serial entrepreneur Elon Musk said his latest venture, The Boring Company, just got "verbal government approval" to build a Hyperloop connecting New York City with Washington DC. Musk didn't clarify who exactly gave the company verbal approval and whether or not it came from different state representatives. But he said the company will build an underground tunnel that will connect the two major cities. The Hyperloop could shuttle people between New York and Washington DC in 29 minutes, Musk said. It would make stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore. New York and Philadelphia city representatives said Musk has not made any contact with officials about the Hyperloop Project. The Department of Transportation referred Business Insider to a White House spokesperson, who sent the following statement: "We have had promising conversations to date, are committed to transformative infrastructure projects, and believe our greatest solutions have often come from the ingenuity and drive of the private sector." Musk visited the White House on three separate occassions this year when he sat on President Donald Trump's economic advisory board and Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. He left both advisory councils after the US withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement in June. It's no secret that Musk has been in talks with different city representatives about his tunnel-boring ambitions, but this is the first time he's mentioned an East Coast project. Musk said in late June that he has had "promising conversations" with LA Mayor Eric Garcetti about building a tunnel between Los Angeles International Airport and Union Station, a main transit hub that connects Los Angeles to distant suburbs. Garcetti said he was considering using Musk's tunnel to support a high-speed rail connection. The Boring Company will work on the Los Angeles tunnel and East Coast tunnel at the same time, Musk said Thursday. Musk has also been in "preliminary" talks with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel about digging a tunnel that would connect downtown Chicago with O'Hare International Airport, CNBC reported. The Boring Company Musk said on Twitter in December that he wanted to build a tunnel boring machine because LA traffic was driving him "nuts." A few months later, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO launched The Boring Company. The venture is being led by SpaceX engineer Steve Davis. Musk has traditionally said the tunnel will be used to transport people and cars via an electric skate. Although the tunnel in Los Angeles would support a high-speed rail, Musk's Thursday announcement marks the first time the company has teased digging a tunnel to support a Hyperloop. Musk first outlined his plan for a Hyperloop in a 2013 "white paper," but hasn't seriously pursued the high-speed transportation system. Tunnel-boring is a notoriously expensive process, but the company is looking to cut down costs by building a machine that can dig and place reinforcements in the wall at the same time, Musk said during an April TED Talk. Tunneling machines traditionally dig for half the time and then go back to add reinforcements, a longer and costlier process. The Boring Company has already completed its first tunnel segment in Los Angeles on SpaceX's property. For any of Musk's plans to be fully realized, he will need to secure permits through city and state representatives. This article was updated Thursday afternoon to include comments from New York, Philadelphia, and White House representatives.

RESPECTED election analyst Antony Green is predicting the Coalition will get the seats it needs to form government. While the official seat count still sits at 63 for the Coalition, the ABC analyst said he thought he could “pretty accurately predict” the Coalition would achieve between 75 to 77 seats. “All the seats which are in doubt are starting to trend towards the Coalition so 76 may be an underestimate, it may be 77, we’ll see,” Mr Green said during an appearance on the ABC 7pm news bulletin. He said the Coalition definitely had 73 seats and it needed to gain three of the six seats still in play, to form government. The seats of Capricornia, Herbert and Flynn were the seats to watch as the Labor Party was well ahead in these seats a week ago, but they were all “line-ball” now. “All the trend in the postal votes has been towards the Coalition and at this stage they will certainly overtake Labor on the remaining postal votes and then it comes down to absent and pre-polls,” Mr Green explained. “At this stage it looks like the Coalition should get to 76 though I must say on the chamber it is 76 plus or minus one so we’re saying between 75 and 77.” ABC’s election computer updated its seat election guide to predict the Coalition on 76 seats, compared to 69 seats for Labor. ABC election analyst @AntonyGreenABC predicts Coalition will win between 75 and 77 seats #ausvotes https://t.co/yhsqQSI0PM — ABC News (@abcnews) July 8, 2016 Insiders host Barrie Cassidy also appeared and said Australians could now say the country had a government. “Technically, even though Forde in Queensland is still in doubt, both sides of politics concede that Forde will go to the Coalition,” he said. In another promising sign, the Australian Electoral Commission removed Forde from its list of close seats on Friday night. “We can for the first time this week, tonight, we can say we have a Prime Minister, we have a Government,” Cassidy said, adding “we have one at this point relying on the independents Cathy McGowan and Bob Katter”. The two independents have said they would back a Coalition government, ensuring Malcolm Turnbull will continue to be Prime Minister. But Cassidy said if Mr Turnbull had been able to declare victory on Saturday night it would have avoided an uncertain and unstable week. It comes as Labor’s lead in the seat of Flynn dropped to just seven votes, and its lead in Capricornia fell to 175 votes indicating the seats were likely to go to the Coalition. The Coalition has already won 63 seats, and is ahead in one other. It only needs three more to form a majority government. INDEPENDENTS GUARANTEE SUPPLY While the Coalition is looking increasingly likely to hit its 76 seat target, Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership is looking secure after three independents said they would back him if the Coalition falls short. Yesterday, independent Kennedy MP Bob Katter said he would guarantee supply and confidence for the Coalition if there was a hung parliament. Today he was joined by Indi MP Cathy McGowan. Denison MP Andrew Wilkie has also said he would not vote against a Budget supply bill. Ms McGowan appeared before the media today after meeting with the PM and confirmed she would support the Coalition, although she will continue to vote on legislation based on its merits. Andrew Wilkie released a statement saying: “I will continue to vote on parliamentary business on its merits, and consequently not support a vote against budget supply or confidence in the government unless clearly warranted, for example in a case of malfeasance”. He said there was “no conceivable way” that Bill Shorten would be in a position to form government and his focus had turned to doing what he could to foster stable government. “To be absolutely clear, I remain steadfast that I will not enter into any deal with any party in order to help them form government,” he said. “But nor will I be destructive, especially at a time like this when more than ever the country needs level heads and certainty.” Earlier Cathy McGowan, who defeated the Liberals’ Sophie Mirabella in the seat of Indi, said she would offer supply and confidence. “While maintaining my complete independence, I am prepared to contribute to the stability of the 45th parliament by continuing with my past practice of supporting the government of the day,” Ms McGowan said. This means she will guarantee supply and confidence for the government, but will still consider each piece of legislation on its merits. When asked whether she had asked for anything in return for her support, Ms McGowan said: “I asked for goodwill, I asked for regularly being in touch with each other, I asked for good governance and stability,” she said. ABC election analyst Antony Green said this morning there was no doubt Malcolm Turnbull would be returned as prime minister. “Malcolm Turnbull is the Prime Minister and will continue as Prime Minister,” he told ABC. “In that sense, they have won, it’s just simply a matter of whether they have got a majority or not.” BILL SHORTEN HOLDS ON TO LEADERSHIP Meanwhile, Bill Shorten has kept the Labor leadership after a vote today. The Labor caucus passed a motion of confidence in Mr Shorten and his leadership team. The motion, moved by Anthony Albanese at a meeting in Canberra on Friday, also authorised the leadership team to “negotiate with crossbench members to advance Labor’s agenda in the 45th parliament”. It applauded Mr Shorten and the Labor team for holding the coalition to account “for their extreme right wing agenda” while also advancing Labor’s positive agenda. Earlier Mr Shorten named the remaining “close counts” as being in the seats of Hindmarsh, Capricornia and Herbert. “This caucus can gather in a spirit of some reasonable optimism,” he said. “We are united, we are determined and we are most certainly positive. Unlike our opponents, we fought this election as a team.” He said the campaign had delivered the second-biggest swing against a first-term government in Australian history. WHY THE COALITION IS ACTING SO COCKY Looking at the seat count it all seems pretty close but numbers can be very misleading. Even though the Coalition seems short of declaring victory, this didn’t stop one minister from trumpeting that the election was in the bag. “We have won again. That’s our sixth victory out of eight in the last 20 years,” Mr Pyne declared on Channel 9’s Today this morning. “We will form a majority Government and we’re also making arrangements with some of the crossbenchers for supply and confidence, so we will have a solid Government.” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has not repeated the claims, although he has always maintained confidence in the Coalition forming a majority government. The two party preferred count this morning showed there were just eight votes separating the Coalition and Labor. While this has grown to 450 votes, it still seems very close. But ABC election analyst Antony Green has explained why the Coalition has reason to be confident. According to the ABC election calculator, the Coalition has 73 seats in the bag. On paper that’s three seats short of a majority and there’s only six seats still in play. Even more worryingly, Labor is ahead in all of these seats except the Queensland seat of Forde. So why the bluster? In three of the seats where Labor is leading, it does so by less than 700 votes. So with postal and other votes favouring the Coalition, it could get over the line in the Queensland seats of Capricornia, Flynn and Herbert. It only needs to win two of these three seats to form government. Then there’s the independent factor. The veteran north Queensland MP Bob Katter met with Mr Turnbull on Thursday and said he would support the Coalition for budget supply and confidence when parliament returned in August. He was joined by Indi MP Cathy McGowan and Denison MP Andrew Wilkie today. This basically means they will support the Coalition in forming government, and puts three extra votes in their pocket. As Mr Green pointed out, if the Coalition is leading in the seats of Capricornia, Flynn and Herbert by the end of today’s counting, it all but guarantees a majority government. “I have 73 seats (for the Coalition), I have them ahead in another and I have them well on track to win — possibly winning two of the other three seats which would give them majority,” he said. “Maybe if they win all three, it would be 77.” CURRENT SEAT COUNT Here is the current vote count as of Friday 7.57pm AEST from the Australian Electorate Commission website: • Forde, Queensland — Liberal National Party’s lead has doubled to 783 votes • Flynn, Queensland — Labor’s lead of 674 votes has dropped to just seven votes • Herbert, Queensland — Labor leading by 348 votes • Capricornia, Queensland — Labor’s lead of 476 votes has dropped to 175 votes • Cowan, Western Australian — Labor’s lead narrowed to 488 votes • Hindmarsh, South Australia — Labor’s lead has grown to 177 votes Although Cowan and Hindmarsh are also close, the postal and other votes are not strongly swinging to the Liberal party. WHAT DOES GUARANTEEING SUPPLY MEAN? Two independents have publicly supported the Coalition forming government, saying they will “guarantee supply and confidence”. This means they will vote with the Coalition on key bills authorising the government to spend money and keep paying its staff. They will also vote to support the Coalition if a “no-confidence motion” is introduced by the Opposition. If the government doesn’t survive a no-confidence motion this means the PM has to resign or call for the House of Representatives to be dissolved. PYNE 19 Mr Turnbull’s leadership may be safe today, but could a new challenger for his crown have already emerged? On Today on Friday morning, host Ben Fordham suggested the success of the ‘Kevin 07’ election campaign could be repeated with ‘Pyne one-nine’. Albo even got in on the joke holding up a poster emblazoned with Pyne 19 and claiming Parliament was plastered with them. Hottest item in #auspol is #Pyne19 shirts. If you want 1 tell us how much you adore @cpyne 140 characters or less pic.twitter.com/Azr33Ke3XA — BenFordham (@BenFordham) July 7, 2016 Asked if he might consider a challenge to whoever was Liberal leader in 2019, Mr Pyne said: “I am a very loyal team man. I strongly support Malcolm Turnbull going forward as Prime Minister and I look forward to being part of his team in the leadership group in Canberra.” It may have been a dry answer but even Mr Pyne couldn’t help but eventually chuckle at the prospect of Pyne one-nine. ‘BACK AT THE POLLS SOON’ A brutal Labor Opposition is likely as Mr Turnbull prepares to create a minority Government or one with a puny majority. And senior Labor figures are warning the instability is likely to produce yet another election — soon — as the Coalition struggles to deal with the cross bench member and its own internal dissent. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we are back at the polls very soon,” Labor front bencher Anthony Albanese told ABC radio. “Definitely much, much sooner than three years, because of (the Coalition’s) failure to provide that leadership.” Labor Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek said “a very unstable” Turnbull Government would probably be returned. “This is a pretty great result” from the election for Labor, Ms Plibersek told ABC radio. She said: “We’ve got a deeply divided unstable Government and we need to be prepared to back to the polls sooner rather than later.” LABOR LEADERSHIP Mr Shorten’s position as Opposition Leader is expected to be reconfirmed on Friday as the Labor caucus meets in Canberra in a sign the party is close to conceding it will not be able to form Government. Party rules dictate that the leadership is thrown open in the event of an election loss and a ballot of grassroots and caucus members is held if there are two contestants. Despite speculation immediately after Saturday’s election that Mr Albanese might challenge, he now won’t be standing and will instead throw his weight behind Mr Shorten. However, Mr Shorten will face pressure to deliver the Left an extra frontbencher. In preparation for opposition, Labor figures are threatening to treat a minority Turnbull administration in the same way the Labor Government of Julia Gillard was treated after the 2010 election. She was ranked the head of an “illicit image” administration without authority by the Coalition Opposition of Tony Abbott. On Thursday, Mr Shorten also acknowledged that a Coalition Government was shaping up as the most likely outcome. “What I am making very clear here is that if Mr Turnbull is dragged across the line narrowly, his problems, and unfortunately Australia’s, are only just beginning,” he said. KEY INDEPENDENT BACKS TURNBULL Despite increasing confidence he can reach the magic 76 number, Mr Turnbull is still preparing for a hung parliament. On Wednesday, he met with potential kingmaker Nick Xenophon in Sydney and yesterday spoke to re-elected MP Bob Katter and other independents in Queensland, also taking the time to pose for selfies with Brisbane locals — a smile we haven’t seen in days. On Thursday, Mr Katter declared his support for the government after “amicable” talks with Mr Turnbull. But the independent said he maintained his right to change his position at any time and his support depended on several political issues. Asked if he thought Mr Turnbull was listening to him yesterday, he laughed: “When you’re on 74 seats and you need 76, I thought he was listening very closely.” His promise will make the Prime Minister feel even more comfortable in his position. CREDIT RATING CONCERNS “I am very confident, very confident indeed that we will form ... a majority government in our own right, but I am, of course, talking to the crossbenchers as well,” Mr Turnbull told reporters, referring to the independent and minor party politicians who sit between the two main parties and could hold the balance of power in a divided parliament. “But so far the counting trends are very positive from our point of view.” Whether other independent MPs will support the Coalition is not yet certain. Senator Xenophon told the ABC that he, Katter and Jacqui Lambie, “share a concern about Australian jobs and Australian manufacturing and Australian farming land ... when it comes to our foreign investment.” Counting in the Senate also continues with a possible outcome looking like the Coalition on 30 seats, Labor 27, Greens nine, Nick Xenophon Team three and other independents seven. The state of the nation is still far from stable, with Standard & Poor’s downgrading Australia’s triple-A long term credit rating outlook to negative on Thursday, thanks to growing fiscal vulnerabilities. Mr Shorten said the S & P statement was a vote of no confidence in the PM. Treasurer Scott Morrison, who has said he’s confident the Coalition won’t need crossbenchers to form a minority government, admitted yesterday that “the report has been issued on the basis of the election, they have made that very clear.” Nevertheless, Mr Morrison insisted the government’s focus on a strong economy was the correct response. “It would not be the responsible thing to do in this environment to take policy decisions that increase the deficit,” he said, in a clear dig at Labor’s budget. “I have no intention of postponing the pace of fiscal consolidation. “What the Australian people want to be reassured of is that there is a clear plan.” Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen saw it differently, saying the report was “a vote of no confidence in this Government’s ability to deal with the Budget situation.” He also criticised Mr Turnbull’s decision to call a double dissolution election, saying it had increased the likelihood of political instability. — with AAP

The library covers a broad swath of applications that range from the highly technical Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems File Delivery Protocol, which transfers large files between the NASA ground systems and a spacecraft's control unit, to the whimsical like the Spacewalk game, which is exactly what it sounds like. There's everything from autonomous control packages to life-support system programs. There are also a number of tools that can be applied to Earth-based photography, like JPL's Stereo Vision Software Suite for calibrating stereoscopic camera setups or the Video Image Stabilization and Registration program. The catalog also has 3D models and textures available. For drone enthusiasts, there's the Autonomous Precision Landing Navigation System, which was originally developed for use in cruise missiles, and the Formation Flying System for UAVs and Satellites if ever want to recreate Lady Gaga's Super Bowl Halftime show. These are just a few of the numerous utilities available in the new catalog. You can find a searchable list of them here, at the NASA software page.

(Optional Musical Accompaniment To This Post) The remarkable story of how we have come to privatize political corruption in this country reached another milestone today as the Supreme Court, John Roberts presiding, handed down its decision in McCutcheon v. FEC, effectively demolishing the aggregate, two-year limit on contributions by individuals, and taking a big chunk out of Buckley v. Valeo, the misbegotten 1976 decision that got the ball rolling in the first place. It was a 5-4 vote, with the court split exactly as it had in the Citizens United case. In writing the opinion for the court, Roberts further emphasized the equation of money with speech, and also seemed to agree with Anthony Kennedy's famous assertion in Citizens United that the ability of megadonors to shovel gobs of money into the election process,"We now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." Roberts writes: Significant First Amendment interests are implicated here. Contributing money to a candidate is an exercise of an individual'sright to participate in the electoral process through both political ex-pression and political association. A restriction on how many candi-dates and committees an individual may support is hardly a "modestrestraint" on those rights. The Government may no more restrict how many candidates or causes a donor may support than it may tella newspaper how many candidates it may endorse. In its simplest terms, the aggregate limits prohibit an individual from fully contrib-uting to the primary and general election campaigns of ten or more candidates, even if all contributions fall within the base limits. And it is no response to say that the individual can simply contribute lessthan the base limits permit: To require one person to contribute atlower levels because he wants to support more candidates or causesis to penalize that individual for "robustly exercis[ing]" his FirstAmendment rights. (Davis v. Federal Election Comm'n, 554 U. S. 724, 739.) In assessing the First Amendment interests at stake, the proper fo-cus is on an individual's right to engage in political speech, not a col-lective conception of the public good. The whole point of the FirstAmendment is to protect individual speech that the majority might prefer to restrict, or that legislators or judges might not view as use-ful to the democratic process. The aggregate limits do not further the permissible governmental interest in preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. What's good for Koch Industries is good for Sheldon Adelson, I guess. Roberts goes on. This Court has identified only one legitimate governmental interest for restricting campaign finances: preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption. See Davis, supra, at 741. Moreover, the only type of corruption that Congress may target is quid pro quo corruption. Spending large sums of money in connection with elec-tions, but not in connection with an effort to control the exercise of an officeholder's official duties, does not give rise to quid pro quo corrup-tion. Nor does the possibility that an individual who spends large sums may garner "influence over or access to" elected officials or political parties. And John Roberts apparently resides on Neptune. And, in case you didn't get the point. Finally, disclosure of contributions minimizes the potential for abuse of the campaign finance system. Disclosure requirements are in part "justified based on a governmental interest in 'provid[ing] the electorate with information' about the sources of election-related spending." Citizens United, 558 U. S., at 367 (quoting Buckley, supra, at 66).They may also "deter actual corruption and avoid theappearance of corruption by exposing large contributionsand expenditures to the light of publicity." Disclosure requirements burden speech, but, unlike the aggregate limits, they do not impose a ceiling on speech. Having earlier argued that there was a First Amendment issue to be found in the aggregate limits because they hindered an individual's right to participate in the political process -- It is here helpful to note the everlasting irony of Antonin Scalia's view of Bush v. Gore. There is no individual right to vote, but an individual's right to purchase a candidate must be untrammeled -- but here, Roberts is saying it plain. To restrict money is to restrict speech. Period. And the only real legal restraint on the wholesale subletting of American democracy is John Roberts's strange devotion to "disclosure" as some sort of shaming mechanism within the electorate. Good luck with that one. Justice Stephen Breyer takes up a lot of these points in his dissent, most notably, the majority's laughably narrow definition of what political corruption actually is -- that political corruption exists only if you buy a specific result from a specific legislator. But it hardly matters. The five-vote majority in favor of virtually unlimited corporate and individual spending in our elections is a rock solid one. Four days after almost every Republican candidate danced the hootchie-koo in Vegas to try and gain the support of a single, skeevy casino gazillionnaire, the majority tells us that there is no "appearance of corruption" in this unless somebody gets caught putting a slot machine in the Lincoln Bedroom on behalf of Sheldon Adelson. Money talks. Big money repeats itself, over and over, age after age.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s campaign said on Monday a McCain opinion article about Iraq offered to The New York Times as a rebuttal to Democrat Barack Obama had been rejected. Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) speaks at a campaign picnic outside the Maine Military Museum in South Portland, Maine July 21, 2008. REUTERS/Brian Snyder The McCain camp had submitted the article to The Times as a response to a piece by Obama published by the newspaper last week. “My Plan for Iraq” had detailed Obama’s goal of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in 16 months if he is elected on November 4. The McCain article was largely a critique of Obama’s position, arguing against establishing a set timetable for pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq. McCain is attempting to make sure his voice is heard while Obama picks up headlines with a visit this week to Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East and Europe. “During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be ‘very dangerous,’” McCain wrote. An e-mail sent to the McCain staff by a Times editor said it would be terrific to have an article from McCain but that the one sent in was not acceptable as currently written and that a new draft should articulate how McCain defines victory in Iraq. The McCain campaign, which does not feel McCain gets equal treatment in the U.S. news media, expressed dismay at the Times’ decision and suspected it was because the Times did not agree with McCain’s policy. “John McCain believes that victory in Iraq must be based on conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables. Unlike Barack Obama, that position will not change based on politics or the demands of The New York Times,” said McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. The New York Times said it was standard procedure to have a “back and forth with an author about his or her submission” and looked forward to publishing McCain’s views. “We have published at least seven Op-ed pieces by Senator McCain since 1996. The New York Times endorsed Senator McCain as the Republican candidate in the presidential primaries. We take his views very seriously,” said the statement from Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis.

Optus has dusted off its M & A playbook for iiNet but is not expected to get involved in a takeover war that has already sent the Perth based telco's shares to fresh highs. It's understood Optus has looked at its rival a number of times in recent years and has re-run the numbers now that iiNet is officially on the market. However, as is often the case, it's believed Optus struggles to see value in iiNet at $1.56 billion. Optus has looked at its rival a number of times in recent years and has re-run the numbers now that iiNet is officially on the market. Mayu Kanamori The company's Singaporean parent has repeatedly shown itself to be a frugal buyer and previously missed out on smaller internet service provider acquisitions to iiNet. And, at a time when Optus has flagged extensive capital commitment to Australia already, it's hard to see them getting involved in iiNet.

This article is about an American street performer from Seattle. For other uses, see Artis (disambiguation) Artis the Spoonman (born October 3, 1948) is an American street performer and musician from Seattle, Washington, who uses spoons as a musical instrument. He frequents the Pike Place Market accompanying singer/songwriter and guitarist Jim Page with his collection of spoons of different shapes and sizes and materials spread out on a blanket.[1] In addition to spoons, he plays the flute and recorder.[2] To the larger public, he is probably best known for his collaborations with Soundgarden and Frank Zappa. Career, performances [ edit ] 1970s and 1980s [ edit ] Artis had been active since 1972 as a street artist[3] when he had his first collaboration with a major artist, appearing on stage with Frank Zappa in Eugene, Oregon, and at New York's Palladium, in 1981.[4][5] 1990s and later—collaboration with Soundgarden [ edit ] In 1992 Artis made a guest appearance, (as local talent), at Bumbershoot, Seattle, which that year featured a lineup of acts including Soundgarden, who were to become instrumental in bringing Artis to the attention of a wider audience. In 1993 he published a compilation of his poems and short stories called Artis-Aspirations to Manifestations from the Womb to the Void.[6] In 1994, an NPR's Morning Edition focused on him and his artistic rejection of material values.[7] His song "Wake Up Call" opened the 1995 compilation Northwest Post-Grunge.[8] In the same year, he recorded "Spoonman" with Soundgarden, a song written by Chris Cornell, and named for and featuring Artis. He played the spoons in the song and appeared in the music video.[9] On their 1994 tour, he opened up for the band in New York City, and Shepherd's Bush in London.[10] The single charted at number three on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and at number nine on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart.[11] The song also became a top twenty hit on the UK Singles Chart.[12] In 1995, the song won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.[13] Chris Cornell commented: It's more about the paradox of who [Artis] is and what people perceive him as. He's a street musician, but when he's playing on the street, he is given a value and judged completely wrong by someone else. They think he's a street person, or he's doing this because he can't hold down a regular job. They put him a few pegs down on the social ladder because of how they perceive someone who dresses differently. The lyrics express the sentiment that I much more easily identify with someone like Artis than I would watch him play.[14] Artis and Jim Page in 2009 On November 10, 1995, he released an album titled Entertain the Entertainers. The album was rated four and a half stars out of five by Allmusic.com who called his release "an exceptional album showing off a very good range for an artist that would otherwise be known more for the gimmick of his chosen instruments, regardless of his abilities on them."[15] Artis has performed at many festivals, mostly in Canada and the United States. Other bands he has played with include Aerosmith and Phish, and he has been a featured performer at Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival (2003 and 2004)[16] and the Oregon Country Fair. He was a featured performer at the 2013 Northwest Folklife Festival in Seattle. Artis has made television appearances on the BBC and Late Night with David Letterman, among others. He plays an old man in the 1995 film Toast with the Gods.[17] Personal life [ edit ] Artis has stated he was a sailor in the United States Navy in the late 1960s, and worked for the United States Postal Service in the early 1970s.[1] Artis suffered a heart attack in 2002,[18] and a benefit was organized for him in Seattle.[19] He was reported as receiving state General Assistance Unemployable benefits from 2002 to 2010,[20] and federal SSI benefits with alcoholism-related mental disability as of 2011.[21] Since 2009 he has lived in Port Townsend, Washington.[22] Discography [ edit ] ...Entertain the Entertainers (Sapphire Records, 1995) "World Beat Ragtime" by Shoehorn (Kutsubera Music, 1994) "A Livin' Spoonful" by Artis (2003) "The Blue Monk" by Shoehorn (Kutsubera Music, 2008) He also recorded a session for Frank Zappa. See also [ edit ]

Lately it seems like anybody and everybody has been creating nail polish collections inspired by today's hit TV shows, and now another one is about to join the mix. Lena Dunham, the creator, director and star of HBO's series "Girls" has teamed up with Deborah Lippmann to make this collection possible. Next week, 4 unique shades will become available, each color representing one of the hit characters of the show: Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, and Jessa. Deborah Lippmann was kind enough to give us a sneak peek of these shades on her website. Hannah is a described as a "hopeless hunter green" and appears to be pale green shade with little to no shimmer. Marnie, described as a "prim and proper pink" appears to be just that. Light pastel pink perfect for those upcoming Spring days. Shoshanna, described as a"virtuous vivid violet" is another soft pastel in a purple shade and Jessa appears to be the perfect "Bohemian burgundy" to round the collection out. The collection will become available next week and will retail for $45.00. Photo Credit:Deborah Lippmann

Landmark civil ruling finds in favour of six trafficked Lithuanian men who were exploited by Kent chicken-catching firm A British company has been found liable for the first time for victims of modern slavery in a landmark high court judgment. The judge, Justice Supperstone, found in favour of six Lithuanian men who were trafficked to the UK and brought a civil case claiming compensation for being severely exploited by the Kent-based gangmaster firm that employed them, DJ Houghton Chicken Catching Services. The men were sent by the company, run by the British couple Darrell Houghton and Jacqueline Judge, to catch chickens on farms around the country. They worked frequently on farms producing eggs for the leading supplier to major supermarkets. The judge ruled that the men were owed compensation for the firm’s failure to pay the agricultural minimum wage, for the charging of prohibited work-finding fees, for unlawfully withholding wages, and for depriving the workers of facilities to wash, rest, eat and drink. The workers have described living and working in inhuman and degrading conditions. They say they were forced to work back-to-back eight-hour shifts for days at a time, and were denied sleep and toilet breaks, forcing them to urinate in bottles and defecate in carrier bags in their minibuses as they travelled between jobs. They also alleged that their pay was repeatedly withheld, while Lithuanian supervisors working with the couple abused and assaulted them, intimidated them with fighting dogs and threatened them with instant eviction if they complained. The accommodation provided was dirty, overcrowded and unsafe and infested with bed bugs and fleas, they claimed. Laurynas Kelpsa, one of the victims, said he was pleased with the judgment but still shocked by what had happened to him. “It means at last that some justice has happened. We’ve waited four years and it’s been really hard being forced to remember [the experience] all the time to prove they did wrong.” The amount of compensation will be assessed at a future date but is expected to run to hundreds of thousands of pounds for unpaid wages alone. A claim for personal injury is still to be heard. Ten other Lithuanian men who were employed by the couple over the same period in similar conditions have now also brought a claim. A Guardian investigation in 2012 revealed that the trafficked Lithuanians were working in supply chains producing premium free range eggs for McDonald’s, Tesco, Asda, M&S and the Sainsbury’s Woodland brand. The farm sheds they cleared of chickens also produced eggs under the Freedom Food brand, and included some sites producing for Noble Foods, the company that owns the Happy Egg brand. Noble Foods is the UK’s largest egg company and both the firm and its chairman, Peter Dean, have been major donors to the Conservative party. The company helicopter has occasionally been loaned to David Cameron for election campaigning. Police raided houses controlled by Houghton and Judge in 2012 and freed several suspected victims of human trafficking. The Gangmaster Licensing Authority described the company at the time as “the worst gangmaster ever” and revoked its licence. The Lithuanian men were taken into the care of the national referral mechanism for victims of human trafficking, but no criminal charges have been brought. The couple blamed a Lithuanian supervisor, Edikas Mankevicius, who has since returned to Lithuania, for the situation, but in the high court on Friday, Supperstone ruled that he was integral to the business’s operation and the company could not therefore simply escape its responsibilities in this way. The Lithuanians’ claims were brought in a civil case by the law firm Leigh Day and mark a significant breakthrough in attempts for victims of modern slavery to get justice. Their lawyer at the firm, Shanta Martin, said: “This is the first time a British company has been found liable for victims of trafficking and it is going to make a world of difference to our clients. It should be seen as a warning shot to businesses that they need to make sure modern slavery is eradicated from their supply chains.” The anti-slavery commissioner, Kevin Hyland, said: “It is a disgrace that any British employer in the 21st century would exploit their workers in such conditions. There is a dark irony that a business producing free range eggs did so using slave labour. “This case shows that employers who exploit their workers can and should be pursued through the courts for lost earnings. And while it will not make up for the suffering, the decision of the court to award compensation will act as some form of justice.”

Horace Augustus Curtis VC (7 March 1891 – 1 July 1968) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Enlistment and training [ edit ] Curtis was born on 7 March 1891 in St Anthony-in-Roseland, Cornwall. He enlisted after war broke out in August 1914, and passed fit for duty on 12 September. He was attested into The Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) at Bodmin on 14 September as No.15833 Private Curtis. However, four days later he was transferred to the 7th Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.[1] Recruiting in Ireland in August 1914 was not as satisfactory as in Britain, and in consequence Lord Kitchener decided early in September to transfer a number of recruits for whom no room could be found in English regiments to fill up the ranks of the 10th Division. Despite these transferees, the division and its battalions consisted of Irishmen (apart from the 10th Battalion Hampshire Regiment) The 7th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers had just started forming up in August at Naas in Ireland, and presumably Horace proceeded there to commence his training at the Curragh in County Kildare. The 30th Brigade moved to Dublin in February 1915 and then embarked for England in May 1915 and onto the Basingstoke area, where intensive training of the 10th Division took place for the next 3 months. During that time, the division was inspected by King George V on 28 May at Hackwood Park and by Field Marshal, Lord Kitchener on 1 June. As a result of these inspections the following divisional orders were issued: "Lieutenant-General Sir B Mahon received His Majesty's command to publish a divisional order to say how pleased His Majesty was to have had an opportunity of seeing the 10th Irish Division and how impressed he was with the appearance and physical fitness of the troops. His Majesty, the King recognises that it is due to the keenness and co-operation of all ranks that the 10th Division has reached such a high standard of efficiency. The General Officer Commanding 10th Irish Division has much pleasure in informing the troops that Field-Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, the Secretary of State for War, expressed himself as highly satisfied with all he saw of the 10th Division at the inspection today." Order no. 34 1st June 1915. Gallipoli [ edit ] The division embarked from Devonport on 11 July 1915, the 7th battalion R. D Fus aboard H. M. T Alaunia and via Malta and Alexandria, the 7th landed at the island of Mytilene off the Turkish coast on 25 July 1915. Horace's service with the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (M. E. F) dated from 10 July 1915. The battalion left Mytilene and landed at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli peninsula, Turkey on 7 August 1915. Other parts of the division had been engaged with the enemy prior to the 7th Battalion arriving and had suffered severe losses, which was also to befall the 7th Battalion. In his book "The Tenth Division in Gallipoli" Major Bryan Cooper, who served with the division, estimates that by the end of the Gallipoli campaign, the Tenth Division had lost 75% of its original strength killed or wounded. In his book "Ireland's Forgotten 10th" Capt. Jeremy Stanley states 3,000 men were killed or died from wounds, 25% of the division's strength. Greece [ edit ] After Gallipoli, the 10th Division sailed for the base island of Lemnos (Mudros Harbour) on 30 September and in early October left for the port of Salonica in Greece. During a long stay in the Macedonian theatre of war and bitter fighting, Horace earned promotion during 1916 from unpaid lance corporal on 7 February to full sergeant on 17 November 1916. He was also mentioned in Dispatches in the London Gazette on 21 July 1917. Palestine [ edit ] After almost 2 years here, the division sailed for Alexandria in September 1917 for Egypt and the allied offensive against the Turks in Palestine. A further 8 months later in April 1918, the 6th Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers and the 7th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers had left the 30th Brigade, 10th Division and returned to Egypt in order to join units in France fighting the German advance. France [ edit ] On 23 May 1918, the 7th Battalion left Alexandria and landed at Marsailles, France on 31 May. On 6 June the battalion was reduced to a cadre. Surplus personnel, of whom Horace was one, were absorbed by the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. This was to be the fourth theatre of war that Curtis fought in: he had served with the M. E. F and the Eygyptian Expeditionary Force. He was now a member of the British Expeditionary Force (B. E. F) France and Belgium. On 20 June 1918, Curtis returned to England where he went to Bermondsley Military Hospital in London for treatment for malaria, broken by a furlough, home leave to Fiddlers Green between 24 July until 3 August, the first time in four years. He was finally cleared to return to his unit in France on 19 August and was back in France by 1 September and to the Front by 21 September. VC action [ edit ] On 18 October 1918, No. 14107 Sergeant Horace A Curtis, 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers fought in action near Le Cateau that earned him the Victoria Cross. The following is the official citation, which appeared in the London Gazette on 6 January 1919. No.14107 Sjt. Horace Augustus Curtis.2nd Battalion, R. Dub. Fus (Newlyn East, Cornwall) For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty East of Le Cateau on the morning of 18th October 1918, when in attack his platoon came unexpectedly under intense machine-gun fire. Realising that the attack would fail unless the enemy guns were silenced, Sjt Curtis, without hesitation, rushed forward through our own barrage and the enemy fire and killed and wounded the teams of two of the guns, whereupon the remaining four guns surrendered. Then turning his attention to a train-load of reinforcements, he succeeded in capturing over 100 enemy before his comrades joined him. His valour and disregard of danger inspired all.[2] His VC was presented to him by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 8 March 1919. Post war [ edit ] On 31 January 1919 he was back home and starting 28 days demobilisation leave and transferred to Class "Z" Army reserve on 23 March 1919. Curtis was finally discharged on 31 March 1920. He joined the 5th (Territorial) Battalion DCLI on a 3-year engagement at St Columb on 5 May 1920. Private 5431368, he was rapidly promoted to Sergeant and by 27 August 1920 was WO2 (CSM). On 20 December 1921, Horace transferred to the 4/5th DCLI and on 19 May 1923 his service was terminated at the end of his engagement. Curtis died on 1 July 1968. The Medal [ edit ] His VC is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Collection[3] at the Imperial War Museum, London.

Officials with the district attorney’s office acknowledged that older cases going to Justice DiMango’s court, called the “blockbuster part,” required a less rigid approach. But they said that defendants, too, were taking pleas they might have refused in the past, knowing the court would brook no more delays — which typically favor the defense — and they would face immediate trial. Justice DiMango’s straightforward discussions with defendants, detailing their options and what a jury might do, have brought many to face reality, said Robert Dreher, executive assistant district attorney for the Bronx. “Everyone is saying the D.A. is giving these cases away,” he said. “But what makes this work is her conversations with the defendants.” Justice DiMango’s success has caused some Bronx judges to privately complain that she was presiding over a “fire sale,” to borrow the words of one judge, that had benefited potentially dangerous defendants. But an analysis by The Times of the first three months of dispositions in her courtroom found that in the most common charges to come before her, robbery in the first degree and attempted murder, defendants pleaded to the top charge more frequently than they had in the five years before she arrived. Several defense lawyers praised Justice DiMango for pressing both sides to reach deals. “She pushes them,” said Harvey Slovis, who has represented several clients in the blockbuster court. “She wears them down. She’ll say: ‘I don’t think this is worth five years, I think it’s worth two and a half. Now go back to your bosses and tell them what I want, and they come back with these plea offers.’ ” The cases show the hard compromises involved in rapidly clearing the backlog. Troy Archibald and four of his friends were charged with multiple felonies for attacking two men walking along the Grand Concourse in the Bronx in 2010 in what prosecutors described as a vicious gang attack. After the case languished for three years, prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. Justice DiMango sentenced him to one year in jail. Two of the others also pleaded to misdemeanors, another received the equivalent of a ticket, and the last was told his case would be dismissed if he was not rearrested. “When you go into Justice DiMango’s courtroom, you get pleas that other judges might not consent to,” Mr. Archibald’s defense lawyer, Anthony N. Iannarelli Jr., said.

Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Tributes have poured in following the sudden death of a 16-year-old soccer player. Izzy Dezu collapsed while playing for the Shelbourne FC youth academy during a game against St Kevin's Boys at the AUL Complex on Clonshaugh Road, north Dublin. The talented footballer's club led the way with tributes on Wednesday. In a statement, Shelbourne FC said: "We are heartbroken to have to confirm the news that our Academy U16 player, Izzy Dezu, collapsed and died during a match at the AUL Complex last night. "The thoughts of everyone at Shelbourne FC are with his family, friends, teammates and coaches who have been devastated by his tragic loss. "May he rest in peace." Izzy's friends took to social media on Wednesday to share heartfelt messages. One pal said: "It's killing me having to write this, but today I lost someone very special, but not only special to me but special to a lot of people that knew him. "Izzy Dezu was one of the best and he left a huge gap in my life today. "We used to absolutely kill eachother everyday of the week but still no matter what, [we] always had eachother's backs and had the best laughs when we where together. "No matter what I'll never ever forget you and neither will any of the boys. "You of all people this happens to "the big friendly giant" not once have I ever seen you harm someone or be nasty. "You had a heart of gold man and everyone loved you for that." St Kevin's Boys also issued a statement passing on their condolences to the club and said that it's "very sad for the whole game of football" when something this tragic happens. They said: "We at St Kevin’s Boys FC would like to pass on our condolences to the family, friends and everybody at Shelbourne FC after their young academy player Izzy Dezu collapsed and died in a game last night. "It's very sad for the whole game of football when something as tragic as this happens in a football match. We would like to thank all the people who rushed over and gave the best medical attention until the medics arrived. "People from Shelbourne, SKB, Shamrock Rovers and Bohemian Football Club were there to help, football clubs coming together to help a young man. R.I.P." Collinstown FC also passed on their condolences. They said in a statement: "Collinstown FC would like to pass on our condolences to the family, friends and everybody at Shelbourne FC after their young U16 academy player Izzy Dezu collapsed and died in a game DDSL game last night."

DW: Mr. Fiedler, is it possible that someone could use a weapon against others because they are "depressed"? Georg Fiedler: First I would like to clarify that the term "signs of depression" describes how someone appears to others. I would say that the police were very cautious in describing the perpetrator. "Signs of depression" in no way suggests that someone suffers a psychiatric illness. And even if they do, someone who suffers from depression is generally not someone who goes on a shooting rampage. People who are depressed direct their aggression against themselves, if anyone. Therefore one cannot assume that depression was the reason or cause of the attack. How prevalent is depression in Germany? Psychologist Georg Fiedler cautions against coming to hasty conclusions About a third of the people living here show "signs of depression." But depression is a very broad term. It can suggest that someone lives reclusively, broods a lot, blames oneself or thinks their problems are somehow their own fault. There are a lot of things that play into the equation. Yet these character traits in no way mean that the person is sick. "Depression" is a term that is used in a rather inflationary sense here. Real depression is a very serious illness. Depression consists of symptoms such as constant serious brooding, waking up early and sleeplessness over a period of weeks or months. The perpetrator was an 18-year-old German-Iranian. What could push a young person like him to commit such a horrible act? One has to be careful in judging such a case. One thing is clear: There were a number of reasons for the crime. Apparently the perpetrator was undergoing psychiatric treatment. Therefore psychiatric illness could have played a role, but it was certainly not the only factor. Computer games that glorify violence, and are so popular with today's youth, are always pointed to after such atrocities. But the fact that the perpetrator liked to play so-called "ego-shooter" games cannot be the sole reason for this outburst of violence. People that draw that conclusion are oversimplifying. The reasons for such acts are much more complex than that. The term "extended suicide" was used in reference to the perpetrator. What does that term mean? The term refers to the fact that a perpetrator takes the lives of people close to them when they commit suicide. That can refer to a mother that kills herself and her child, or a father that kills himself and his entire family. In both cases the perpetrator exhibits a delusional notion that his or her victims could not possibly survive without them. Thus, one could even speak of altruistic motives in such cases. But that was absolutely not the case in Munich. Does the Munich attack remind you of other cases? Here too: The intentional crash of the Germanwings plane last March was certainly not exclusively related to the pilot's depression. I would think that he also had problematic personality traits. One of those traits would be a "delusional" perception of the world around him. If we think back a few years, the Winnenden shooter was also being treated for depression. But again: There were a whole series of factors that led to the attack, none of which had anything to do with depression. A psychiatric diagnosis of depression would actually speak against such an act. Do you see correlations between the two attacks? I found it rather telling that the Munich shooter seemed to pick out and shoot young people. In that sense the victims that were targeted were very similar to those targeted in Winnenden. It also brings to mind the Norway massacre that took place five years ago, in which a gunman killed 77 people, the great majority of whom were very young. This interview was conducted by Daniel Heinrich. Georg Friedrich is a psychologist and suicide researcher who lives and works in Hamburg, Germany.

Staff at the RBC Convention Centre are using food to provide comfort for evacuees in crisis. Close to 500 people are currently at the RBC Convention Centre after being driven from their homes by a wildfire in northern Manitoba, but that number fluctuates as some people have gone home to their community, and others have found a place to stay in Winnipeg or elsewhere, says to the centre's president and CEO, Klaus Lahr. Lahr says meals are served buffet style in a dining area in a massive room typically used for graduation ceremonies. "A thousand people, three thousand meals a day but during grad season we serve way more meals than that," said Lahr. "I wouldn't say we're out of our element, in fact I think this is just right up our alley, we are in the business of looking after people, we're in the business of making people happy, the situation is a little different but we adjust to it and it has worked very well. "They've been very great people to have under our roof." The entire third floor of the convention centre—which is designed for 9,000 people—is the temporary home for the evacuees. Food is very important in a crisis. - Quentin Harty, executive chef for the RBC Convention Centre In two massive rooms, Hall 'A' and Hall 'B', cots with blankets are set up grid-style. The far banquet room, otherwise known as "Hall C," has the dining area, activities for children, two movie theatres, and stations for health and social services. Pizza, perogies and now hamburger soup are on the weekly menu. "Food is very important in a crisis," said Quentin Harty, executive chef for the RBC Convention Centre. "If you can imagine being flown out somewhere, and being in a surrounding with people you're not familiar with... I think that's why food is everybody's go-to." Don Taylor from St. Theresa Point, left, and Rex McDougall from Wasagamack First Nation are among the 500 wildfire evacuees from northern Manitoba staying at the RBC Convention Centre. (Erin Brohman/CBC) Harty said hearing from the evacuees has been crucial in meal-planning. "We're getting good feedback. They have the odd suggestion that they're offering up to us and we're responding to that," he said. "We're trying to take really good care of them." He says many people have asked for hamburger soup, and now, ragout, pizza and jackfish have been added to this week's menus. "No doubt it's a crisis they're experiencing, it's a life altering experience so we're trying to be as accommodating as possible," he said. "I'm happy that we were here to help and fulfil the need and serve, that's what it's all about." Don Taylor from St. Theresa Point appreciates the effort. "The food is good and everything's great," said the 25-year-old, who is looking forward to getting to his community and checking on his house soon. Taylor says Tuesday's lunch—sausage and perogies—helped to relieve his stress, something echoed by his friend, Rex McDougall from Wasagamack First Nation. "Food's pretty good. They got good chefs. Give 'em two thumbs up," said McDougall. Lahr says the convention centre can keep the status quo until September 12; beyond that, it will take some room re-arranging, but he adds the evacuees can stay until the end of September. He said there have been some challenges with children pulling the fire drill, but after the elders spoke to them, that stopped. "If this was me I don't know whether I would be able to handle it as calmly and as civilized as they do," said Lahr. "So my feeling goes out to them and my hat goes out to them." The Canadian Red Cross is providing round-the-clock support to evacuees and buses leave the convention centre every half hour. The buses go to Walmart so people can buy their necessities, the Pan-Am Pool so people can shower, and to the other relief centre on Leila Avenue so evacuees can visit friends.

When SpaceCorp was announced on the P500 for GMT Games in November, I immediately added it to my growing list. A Sci-Fi themed game from GMT designed by the great John Butterfield? An easy decision for me as I have played and love some of his other designs, including D-Day at Tarawa from Decision Games. I reached out to John for an interview earlier this year, but due to schedules and other considerations, we just couldn’t get together. But now, we have finally finished up the interview and are ready to share more about the game. All graphics used in the interview are playtest versions. Nothing has been finalized yet. Grant: You usually design great wargames. What sparked your interest in designing a Sci-Fi themed game like SpaceCorp? John: I love the subject matter of human expansion out to the stars and have wanted to design a light multi-player space exploration and development game for quite some time. Besides, my game design credits include such science fiction titles as Stargate, Freedom in the Galaxy, Voyage of the Pandora, Universe and Delta Vee. Grant: What was your inspiration for SpaceCorp? J ohn: I made a few unsuccessful attempts over the years to design a game on civilization building in the stars, inspired by the Avalon Hill game Civilization. Two years ago, it occurred to me to focus on just the first steps of that story – exploration of the Solar System and the nearby stars. As I developed the idea, I read the book SpaceCorp, the first volume in the Galactican series by Ejner Fulsang, leading me to focus on corporate competition, exotic elements and the search for exo-DNA as driving motivations. Grant: The game appears to be played over three eras. Why did you design the game with a separate board for each era? What does this element add to the gameplay? What are the changes in game play from Era 1 to 2 and then Era 2 to 3? John: Three reasons for this approach: • First is the vast difference in scale between exploring the solar system and the nearby stars, too much difference to depict on one board. The three boards telescope in scale: From Earth to Mars, then the entire solar system, then the stars within 15 light years of Sol. • Second is inspiration from the game 7 Wonders. That game occurs over three rounds of play each in a different era with its own deck of cards – a simple way to immerse players in cultural and technological advancements. SpaceCorp similarly occurs in three “Acts”. • Three Eras allow the introduction of more advanced play in stages. The first Era introduces the basic concepts of the game. The second Era adds travel between remote planets, radiation penalties, genetic advancements and tech breakthroughs. The third Era introduces interstellar travel, generational time and colonies. Grant: What do the regions represent on the game boards? John: A region represents a large area of space, growing in scale from board to board. A region may have one or more sites. For example, on the Planeteers Board (Era 2) the Jupiter Region has four sites, one for each of Jupiter’s four largest moons; while the Neptune Region has just one site, the moon Triton. Grant: One thing I’m curious about is why a distance chart showing distance between sites is necessary? Also, how does movement work? John: Players play movement cards of varying values to move their pieces, called teams, from site to site on the board. The total value of the cards played must equal or exceed the distance of the move, calculated by adding up the values shown on regional borders, plus one for leaving and arriving at a site in a region. The chart on the board shows distances to all sites from the starting site (Earth in Era 1), to save players calculation time. When moving between sites other than Earth, players make the calculations. Grant: What are the various actions that are available to players? How are Action Cards used? John: In each of their turns, the player plays cards from their hands to perform one of the following actions: Move a team, explore a site, build a base at an explored site, research (draw new cards), upgrade (place a card on your HQ as infrastructure), produce (gain profit from sites with production capability), genetics (advance your genetics marker toward the goal of gaining adaptations), revelations (toward the goal of gaining tech breakthroughs) and establish a colony (in the Starfarers Era). Grant: How are discovery tiles used on the game board? What type of discoveries can be found on Discovery Tiles? What type of immediate awards are there? John: When a player performs the Explore action, they draw a discovery tile and places it on a site occupied by one of their teams. The discovery tiles reveal such finds as exotic elements, water, abundant ores, microbial life and natural wonders. Tiles include benefits such as immediate profit awards, or a modifier to the cost to build a base on the site, advances to genetics or technology, or a production value which the player can convert to profit after building a base on the site. Grant: Please describe the HQ board and what is tracked on it? What type of technologies are available for players? John: The primary purpose of these player mats, called HQs, is to hold cards played as infrastructure, infra for short. Certain cards offer an option to be played as an upgrade infra action. When a player does so, they place the card on their HQ instead of playing it as a one-time action. Infra can be used by the player on an ongoing basis whenever performing an action of the type shown on the infra card. Players can play cards as infra to upgrade their move, build and explore actions. For example, a Move 2 card played as infra then gives the player a +2 to every subsequent move action. Grant: What are Edges and how are they used? John: Edges are special cards playable at specified times outside the normal action sequence. An Edge may allow you to steal a card, take an extra turn, block another player’s action, or gain extra profit for a contract. Grant: What is the purpose of bases and how do they boost values of specific actions? John: Building a base is the third action in the sequence of developing a site in SpaceCorp. First you move a team to a site, such as Phobos, then the team explores the site, revealing discoveries. Finally, you conduct an action to build a base on the explored site. Bases represent your permanent presence on the site and allow you to conduct actions originating at the site such as production (if you discovered resources on the site) or moving your team from there to an unexplored site. The only action a team can perform when on a site without a base is to move back to a site with a base. There are nine different base types players can build, each with prerequisites and additional benefits. For example, you can build a Spaceport base at a site with no gravity. A spaceport adds to the allowed distance of a move action from a site. A refinery base can be built on a site with resources and increases the profit from production performed there. Grant: I understand that if you use another player’s base they receive rewards. Why was this included in the design? John: Although the players are in competition with each other, they are also doing business with each other. Players can use other player’s bases and infra. You might need to use another players spaceport to gain the extra move value you need to move your team to a remote site. Or you might use another player’s build infra to amass the build value needed to construct a base. When a player uses your base or infra you are rewarded with a free card draw. Nothing is free. Grant: How does an Era end and what happens if the game is to continue? John: Each Era ends when the players have fulfilled six of the seven contracts available in that Era OR when the Era’s card deck runs out, whichever occurs first. When an Era ends, players retain their infrastructure played, their profit, and the production capability of one base per player. Also, players who explored the furthest in the completed Era will begin the next Era with a head start via advantageous placement of their teams. The completed board is then cleared of pieces and the board for the next Era is set up. Grant: How do players win the game? Are victory points scored throughout or only at the end? What type of goals do they have such as contracts, etc.? John: The player with the most profit wins the game. There are several ways to gain profit – discoveries, producing resources, being the first to achieve genetic or technological breakthroughs and fulfilling contracts. Each Era has seven contracts offering profit for the first base built on Mars, or bases built in three regions beyond Jupiter, for certain combination of infra upgrades, and various other objectives. In the third Era, interstellar colonies can generate profit, depending on the type of colony established. At the end of the game, players earn additional profit based on the number of colonies established. Grant: What game variants are included? How does the solo variant work? John: Players can choose to start and end the game with any of the three Eras. This allows play of short games consisting of a single Era lasting about an hour, or games of two Eras, or the full three Era game, lasting about four hours. Solo SpaceCorp is played as one continuous game through all three Eras. You play your side exactly as you would in the multi-player game, while the actions of competing organizations are represented by the solo system controlling your aggregated competition. Between your actions you draw cards, referring to the special solo section of the card to reveal where competition teams appear, what they discover, when they build bases, and how much profit they gain. At the end of the Starfarers Era, you win the game if you have more profit than your competition. Grant: What has been Players response to the game? How has the game changed through playtesting? Please give a few specific examples. John: At this point (July 2017) we are in late playtesting stages for the multi-player game. Players like the narrative qualities of the game and the wide range of strategy options available over the course of the three Eras. I am very fortunate to be working with Chad and Kai Jensen on the development and refinement of the game. Chad is the designer of Combat Commander, Dominant Species, Urban Sprawl and the upcoming Welcome to Centreville. SpaceCorp has benefited from his considerable experience with multiplayer games. Some discoveries, edges and action effects have been tuned during testing to increase their positive impact while reducing the tendency to pick on a single player. Thanks for your time in answering our questions John. We appreciate your work and I personally am really looking forward to playing SpaceCorp. If you are interested in ordering the game, it is still on P500 on the GMT Games’ site at the following link: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-613-spacecorp.aspx -Grant

Jennifer Johnson defeated her husband, David, in a Ward 1 warden position race in Maine on Election Day 2013. The final tally was 127-76 for the wife, who is the Democrat of the union. Here’s the ballot. The reason for the two running was to ratchet up interest in public affairs — and to showcase that GOP and Dems can get along.For example, despite being registered on different sides of the aisle, both are pro-choice and both believe in marriage equality. He does classify himself as a fiscal conservative, whereas she takes more of an interest in education. She has admitted both that “the empty lines on ballots make me sad” and “if we can get more young people involved in politics, that would be tremendous.” The couple is now using the attention their race provided to kick off a food pantry in Waterville, ME, an area with a higher-than-average poverty rate. We’ve seen the spouses-from-opposite-sides-of-the-aisle thing before, most notably here: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEQK4i_AyNE&w=600&h=315] It’s more common than you might think for spouses to have differing viewpoints; The Today Show did a feature about one such couple around Election 2012. This couple “finds common ground in local races.” These dynamics also extend to the bedroom. As you might imagine, Reddit has tackled this topic multiple times: here, here, here, and here. As with most things in relationships, the underlying premise/idea of most of these posts is that two people can make it work, no matter how contentious on some issues, if they have core, fundamental elements in common. And ultimately, don’t both parties sound pretty similar, especially every fourth year? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P34SUDahiA0&w=600&h=315] The Johnsons didn’t campaign against each other, which is likely a good thing given the real reasons they were doing this (and considering that the warden role is often left unfilled). It should also be noted that Jennifer (the victor) is an active volunteer at the elementary school of her children. These are legit people, doing awesome things, in a small community in America. I love it. Ultimately, they both have the same goal: kids should be fed.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/LetsPlay/HATFilms From left to right: Trott, Ross and Smith Advertisement: Hat Films are a trio of British gamers who became part of the Yogscast family in 2013. The trio, also sometimes called the "Sirs" are: djh3max (Ross Hornby), Trottimus (Chris Trott) and alsmiffy (Alex Smith or "Smiffy"). They have had several series on Minecraft and have also played, among other games, Trials, Worms and Grand Theft Auto V. They frequently partner and compete against Sips, Turpster and Lewis Brindley, and have played GTA 5 and Skyblock along with Garry's Mod Murder and Trouble in Terrorist Town among other members of the Yogscast on Sips' channel and the main Yogscast channel. On top of their Let's Play gaming content, they have worked on official Minecraft trailers for Mojang, and produce an irregularly-updated animated machinima series: Filfy Animals. They ALSO also do a podcast called HatChat, which can be found on their website, here . They can be found here . Aside from that, Trott is a cast member for High Rollers (2016). Advertisement: Tropes that pertain to the Sirs:

Dear Rush, From one talk radio host to another, thank you so much for your recent attack on Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown Law Student who testified before Congress in favor of a policy that would include birth control as part of health care coverage. You called her a slut. You meant to insult Sandra. But because you called her a slut for exercising her right to speak up and demand birth control, you have stripped the word of its traditional, cruel meaning. I am now a slut too. All women who have ever attempted to decide when and how many children they would have, and with whom, are now sluts. I'm guessing your sister, if you have one, is a slut. Your three ex-wives are probably sluts as well. Might the newest Mrs. Limbaugh be one too? Slut is a loaded word, a word used for many years to impugn women for exercising sexual freedom. Men are not sluts. We don't even have a word in English for men who like a lot of sex with different partners. What does that tell you about the corrosive effect of discriminatory language? We don't have a word for men who sleep around, therefore we don't even have a way to express the idea that such behavior might be as morally bad for men as it is judged to be for women. Of course, that is not surprising. The thought that a woman might actually enjoy sex for its own sake is so scary to some men that they will do anything to shut us up, including wrapping a burka around us, body and soul. You even invent words to tell us how sinful our behavior is. Thank you so much today for removing one of the uglier of those words from our vocabulary. After today's tirade, the word slut has become a badge of honor, a rallying cry for all women who demand freedom. I envision a march on Washington, joined by my fellow women, and the many men who love and like us, in which we link arms and wear sandwich boards declaring, "I am a slut too". Now that you have rendered the word "slut" impotent, perhaps you can refill your Viagra prescription. But since you don't approve of sex for fun, I know you won't mind our insistence that Viagra be banned from health insurance. After all, if we can't enjoy sex, neither can you. Yours very truly, Lisa Wexler

This feature first appeared in this month's edition of ProCycling magazine. Related Articles Report Card: Movistar Team Valverde and Quintana recon critical Tour de France stages Quintana wins overall at Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco Parra calls for Colombian alliance to defeat Nibali Quintana will not race again before Tour de France Contador well supported on Saxo-Tinkoff Tour de France squad During the final segment of Bradley Wiggins faultless build-up for the 2012 Tour de France - at the Criterium du Dauphiné - Team Sky only once came up against a rider who not only refused to turn over and be beaten, but who also succeeded. On the race’s most mountainous stage Nairo Quintana (Movistar) charged away on the Col de Joux Plane, the single hardest climb of that year’s Dauphiné. Yet for all Team Sky laid down a relentless pace behind designed to wipe out any rival attacks - which, barring a late downhill move by Cadel Evans, largely managed to do - Quintana reached the finish ahead of both the Australian and the Sky-led main pack. Up until that point, Sky had won almost everything they wanted to in the Dauphiné, which they completed with the overall victory and three riders in the top four. But if Quintana constituted a minor fly in the ointment for Sky last June given he was so far behind overall, in the Vuelta al País Vasco this April, his stage victory ahead of Sergio Henao and Richie Porte had a far more devastating effect on the British. Against almost all expectations, he won outright. Quintana’s team-mates in Movistar feel that the 23-year-old Colombian has a huge margin of progression. Juan Jose Cobo, the only rider to beat Sky’s combined ‘A’ team of Wiggins+Froome in a three-week stage race, back in the 2011 Vuelta points out that “Last year Nairo was with Alejandro [Valverde] right up until the last climbs in his debut Grand Tour “- with one particular high point being when Quintana took sixth on the race’s toughest ascent, the Cuitu Negru, after working for his team leader. “That means he’s got it in him to win in major Tours.” This year, Quintana is being groomed for the Tour de France, a race where one top name in Sky’s management admitted to ProCycling that he considered the Colombian so dangerous “we won’t be giving him any room for manouvre at all.” They could be right to do that, given Quintana is not just a gifted climber. As Cobo points out, “in his first month with us [2012] he was already capable of winning a stage race, the Vuelta a Murcia. What surprised us wasn’t so much that he could take the mountainous stage” - as he did, taking the lead with it - “but that he was so unstressed about the time trial that followed. We knew that he was a climber all right, but not that he could do so well in the time trialling.” Sky, too, were to find this out at the Vuelta al País Vasco, where Porte and Henao looked set to win outright until Quintana claimed the final victory thanks to winning the last, technically very difficult, race against the clock. Growing up in Colombia If Quintana’s all round abilities are what make him so dangerous as a three week stage race contender, his first eye-catching result in Europe came in the Subida a Urkiola in 2009, a sadly defunct summit finish race that acted as a revenge match for the Clasica San Sebastian, held 24 hours earlier. On Urkiola, probably the steepest climb of the Basque Country, and riding for a tiny South American squad, Boyaca es Para Vivirla (Boyaca is a place to go and see), aged 19, Quintana placed seventh. “It was the biggest race the team got to do that year,” Quintana recalls, “I was pretty young and I’d only just turned pro. that summer. To be honest, I never imagined it, but that was where I started taking my first steps. That result opened me a lot of doors.” It is one of the best-known cycling cliches that riders who have come from a very poor background tend to be hungrier for success in cycling. In Quintana’s case, given that he began working almost as soon as he could walk, helping his father - who is disabled - work as a wholesale fruit merchant in rural Colombia shifting cartloads of vegetables, the cliche happens to be true. But he doesn’t see his upbringing as having been excessively hard. “Yes, we did work from a very young age. One of my earliest memories is sitting in a bus surrounded by other farm workers and sacks of fruit and vegetables. But it wasn’t all bad, it’s like anything, once you start doing it, you get used to it. We had some good times” On two wheels as well as four, there were other experiences there in his hometown of Combita, northeast of Bogota, that helped forge his endurance level as a pro. For example there was how he had to ride down one mountain and up another mountain pass, a mere 16 kilometres long, every time he went to school - an education which, like so many young Colombians, he combined with his ‘day-job’ of working to help the family, making for very long hours for a teenager. “Combita itself is at around 1,700 metres above sea level, but my parents house was a lot further up the mountain, at 3,000 metres. So to go to school, in another town called Arcabuco, I had to go up that climb, which was around eight percent average gradient and 16 kilometres long, every day. And then it was 16 kilometres downhill again. I did that every day for three years, from 15 to 18. And when I was 17, too, that was what got me interested in riding a bike anyway.” There was no tradition, he says, in his family, of racing or riding. “It had never occured to me.” But given the climb he had to tackle on his ‘school run’ was so hard, groups of normal amateur riders would use it, and one day he decided to tag along with some riders on a training run to see how well he could match against them. “They started accelerating and accelerating and they couldn’t drop me,” he recalls with just a hint of pride in his quietly spoken voice. “So I got home, I told my dad, and he was very pleased. He bought me a racing bike and then we went on to village races.” He went straight from junior to a Continental level with the Boyaca squad, who snapped him up after he took third in the Colombian version of the Tour de L’Avenir, in 2008. That meant Quintana has been used to punching above his weight from a very young age, given he never raced as an amateur, but was already familiar with U-23 events. “As a junior there weren’t many races at my level. I would get fourth or fifth in uphill time trials, once second but I was racing against guys three or four years older than me.” His next move, into Colombia es Pasión in 2010, came when Boyaca lost sponsorship deal and stopped racing in Europe. “Colomba es Pasión already wanted to sign me in 2009, but Boyaca was my local team. When Boyaca dropped down a category to amateur, though, I could sign with Colombia es Pasión.” The Tour de L'Avenir In 2011, having won the Tour de L’Avenir of the European variety the previous year - another important landmark - Quintana then won the mountains prize in the Volta a Catalunya. “That showed me I was doing ok, without making huge progress. “It also saved his career. Quintana crashed out badly of the Vuelta a Colombia, badly injuring his wrists during a pile-up in the race - “and it still hurts” - and was two months off without racing. But Movistar had had their eye on Quintana since the Tour de L’Avenir - and even more so after Catalunya, and “doing a really good time trial in Castille y Leon on a bike that wasn’t my measure and didn’t even belong to me.” So in 2012, despite having had half the 2011 season off, he signed with the Spanish. The Colombian who started out by riding up 16 kilometre climbs just so he could get an education was finally en route. “I was in good shape from the first month with Movistar, winning from the Vuelta a Murcia onwards, where I beat some big names like Samuel Sanchez and Roberto Gesink,” he recalls. Quintana has, since then, been the first top Colombian to excel in time trials since Victor Hugo Peña and Santiago Botero, who won the World Championships Time Trial and a Tour de France time trial back in the early noughties. “I did well in Murcia, but I’d already represented Colombia at the World’s in timetrials at U-23 level,” he said, “maybe I’m not a top name, but if you look at the climbers, I’m always up there in the time trials as well.” Murcia was one breakthrough, but the biggest was without doubt managing to beat Team Sky in the Joux Plane in the Criterium du Dauphine. They were, as Quintana recollects, “way superior to everybody else at the time and they were scarily fast in every stage before that. All we could do was sit on their wheels.” “But I felt good on the Joux Plane day, I attacked to see what I could get, but the most I could do was 20 or 30 seconds. They were always close behind, Sky were so strong. But nobody else dared attack.” Confidence for the Tour de France “Winning there gave me a big dose of confidence, I felt much more sure of myself on the French mountains now,” he says, “straight away after the Dauphine I went onto the Route du Sud and won the most important mountain stage there, too, with big differences between the main favourites.” - of over a minute, in fact, between himself and his vastly more experienced closest pursuer, Herbert Dupont (Ag2R), and with nearly four minutes between himself and the equally veteran third placed Anthony Charteau (Europcar). Ironically enough, one reason why he managed to stay away on the descent off the Joux Plane into Morzine - one of the most difficult in the Alps - was because he had been given the wrong bike. (This error also blows a hole in Sky’s theories of marginal gains being paramount to success, quite apart from losing the British team the stage, but that’s another story.) “The team’s biomechanic messed up and he gave me a bike that was too large, he insisted that was the right one,” Quintana recalls. “But because the frame was a little bit longer, that bike gave me a little bit more confidence on the descents, as happened that day.” “It was only this year, after a lot of nagging, that I got the team to give me a bike that was one smaller, the right, size.” He now descends “normally, it’s ok,”, without the same degree of confidence, he says “but I’ve got a lot better on the climbs with a new bike. I can ride it harder, and you can feel the bike responds quicker when I move ” He laughs at the idea that Movistar should give him a different bike for the descents, but perhaps it is worth considering. Even with the wrong bike, he was a huge factor in Movistar team-mate Alejandro Valverde’s success in the Vuelta, where Valverde took second overall and could have won the race outright had he not miscalculated when Contador attacked at Fuente Dé. “I came to the Vuelta directly from Colombia, where the temperature was nearly twenty degrees cooler - 10 degrees in the middle of the day or so. So when I got to Pamplona on the first day with 37 degrees, my body couldn’t really handle it.” “But thank goodness, when the second week of mountain climbing started, my body had got used to the hotter weather and I was ready to go. It was a very tough Vuelta indeed.” Goals at the Tour de France Looking ahead to the Tour, his initial objective will be to “help Alejandro again, he’s at a very good level” - and with the mountainous route that the Vuelta has this year and given Valverde is now 33, it is almost now or never for the Spaniard. “But if there are any opportunities for me, I’ll take them.” Quintana, together with Sergio Henao and Rigoberto Uran (Sky) as well as Carlos Alberto Betancur (AG2R) is supposed to be at the head of a new generation of Colombian riders. But although too young to recall the Colombian greats in the Tour in the 1980s - although his gravelly voice, weatherbeaten skin and almost un-nervingly serious way of talking make him seem much older than in his twenties - Quintana nonetheless has clear memories of some of the more recent generation of Colombian riders and say that “in fact, we’ve always been around. This isn’t a ‘return’ to thirty years ago for us. We’ve always been there.” He names Maurizio Ardila - “one of [Denis] Menchov’s greatest domestiques” - Santiago Botero and Maurizio Soler - “who did great things in the Tour de France mountain stages and was always really consistent” - as the top names from his country in recent years. “And then there was time triallist Victor Hugo Peña, aka El Tiburon [The Shark], who was Colombia’s first Tour de France leader in 2003, and who was the senior figure in Quintana’s two years in the Colombia es Pasión [Colombia is Passion] team, in 2010 and 2011. He agrees with Betancur, though, that the arrival of the biological passport has enabled “not just one or two, but a large number” of Colombian riders to break through to the surface, and the benefits of living at altitude to become more noticeable again. “I think that in my case, for example, I live at 1,800 metres above sea level, we were born and we grew up there, and I believe that makes a difference. But to be honest I haven’t thought about how different we are or not: here in Europe there are lots of good riders.” Quintana has already proved he is more than a match for riders of the level of Richie Porte (Sky), even when he was in top form after winning Paris-Nice. How much higher can he go? Valverde, for one, says that Quintana has “an enormous future, even if he’s very young” and insists “that he can have a role as a team leader when I’m not there, as he showed in the Volta a Catalunya.” For the Tour, Valverde’s idea is that Quintana will be making his debut “and learning about it little by little.” Could he outshine the Movistar leader? This July we will find out. But Quintana has already proved he has stepped up a huge level this spring. And with no pressure on him as a team leader, he could go even further than anyone has expected - particularly with the right bike.

A new paper on the Vox Web site by the European economists Rafael Lalive, Simon Luechinger and Armin Schmutzler on the effects of increased rail service makes clever use of natural experiments created by changes in German ownership and regulation. The results aren’t that surprising — more frequent rail service sharply reduces pollution and other costs associated with driving — but it’s good to have this kind of solid work to back our intuitions. And can I say that this is a subject that really deserves a lot more attention? Mea culpa: I haven’t written much for a while on these issues, focusing mainly on the economic crisis, which is on the front burner for the moment. But we know, as surely as we know anything in economics, that there are huge market failures here — that every time an individual chooses to drive during rush hour, he or she is imposing huge costs on other drivers, on people who breathe, and more. Ideally, the answer is to get the incentives right and to charge large fees for driving in congested areas. Short of that, there are huge second-best payoffs to mass transit; if we did the accounting properly, taking all the benefits into account, Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor service (which makes money even without taking this into account) would be seen as a huge social boon, and projects like a proposed rail tunnel under the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey would be total no-brainers. And the thing is that these are externalities that everyone can see. You can deny global warming (and may you be punished in the afterlife for doing so — this kind of denial for petty personal or political reasons is an almost inconceivable sin), but can anyone deny that more drivers means more traffic congestion? Well, maybe I’m understating the power of denial. But still, this is a totally obvious case for government intervention that’s staring us all in the face every time we hit the road. Running the Government Like a Business or a Family I’ve spent a lot of time trying to knock down the bad analogy between governments and individuals, and the line that the government should act like an individual family or business, and cut back on spending when times are tough. The key point is interdependence: your spending is my income, my spending is your income, and if we all try to slash spending at the same time, the result is a depression. Somebody needs to step up and spend when others won’t — and the government can and should be that somebody. That said, the funny thing is that real individuals and businesses don’t behave the way the balanced-budget scolds claim. Businesses often borrow and spend when borrowing is cheap or they see high payoffs to investing; so do families. So the reporter Josh Israel at the commentary website Think Progress, in a recent post titled “14 GOP Congressmen Who Think Government Shouldn’t Borrow Have Big Debts Of Their Own,” is doing good by pointing out how many of those deficit-fearing Congresscritters turn out to have quite large personal debts.

The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered a depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 until 1879, and even longer in some countries (France and Britain). In Britain, for example, it started two decades of stagnation known as the "Long Depression" that weakened the country's economic leadership.[1] In the United States the Panic was known as the "Great Depression" until the events of the early 1930s set a new standard.[2] The Panic of 1873 and the subsequent depression had several underlying causes, of which economic historians debate the relative importance. American post-Civil War inflation, rampant speculative investments (overwhelmingly in railroads), the demonetization of silver in Germany and the United States, ripples from economic dislocation in Europe resulting from the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), property losses in the Chicago (1871) and Boston (1872) fires, and other factors put a massive strain on bank reserves, which plummeted in New York City in September and October 1873 from $50 million to $17 million. The first symptoms of the crisis were financial failures in the Austro-Hungarian capital, Vienna, which spread to most of Europe and North America by 1873. United States [ edit ] Factors [ edit ] The American Civil War was followed by a boom in railroad construction. 33,000 miles (53,000 km) of new track were laid across the country between 1868 and 1873.[3] Much of the craze in railroad investment was driven by government land grants and subsidies to the railroads.[4] At that time, the railroad industry was the nation's largest employer outside of agriculture, and it involved large amounts of money and risk. A large infusion of cash from speculators caused abnormal growth in the industry as well as overbuilding of docks, factories and ancillary facilities. At the same time, too much capital was involved in projects offering no immediate or early returns.[5] Coinage Act of 1873 [ edit ] The decision of the German Empire to cease minting silver thaler coins in 1871 caused a drop in demand and downward pressure on the value of silver; this, in turn, affected the United States, where much of the supply of silver was mined. As a result, the United States Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1873, which changed the country's silver policy. Before the Act, the United States had backed its currency with both gold and silver, and it minted both types of coins. The Act moved the United States to a 'de facto' gold standard, which meant it would no longer buy silver at a statutory price or convert silver from the public into silver coins (though it would still mint silver dollars for export in the form of trade dollars).[6] The Act had the immediate effect of depressing silver prices. This hurt Western mining interests, who labeled the Act "The Crime of '73". Its effect was offset somewhat by the introduction of a silver trade dollar for use in Asia, and by the discovery of new silver deposits at Virginia City, Nevada, resulting in new investment in mining activity.[7] But the coinage law also reduced the domestic money supply, thereby raising interest rates and hurting farmers and anyone else who normally carried heavy debt loads. The resulting outcry raised serious questions about how long the new policy would last.[8] This perception of instability in United States monetary policy caused investors to shy away from long-term obligations, particularly long-term bonds. The problem was compounded by the railroad boom, which was in its later stages at the time. In September 1873, the U.S. economy entered a crisis. This followed a period of post-Civil War economic over-expansion that arose from the Northern railroad boom. It came at the end of a series of economic setbacks: the Black Friday panic of 1869, the Chicago fire of 1871, the outbreak of equine influenza in 1872, and demonetization of silver in 1873. Jay Cooke & Company fails [ edit ] In September 1873, Jay Cooke & Company, a major component of the United States banking establishment, found itself unable to market several million dollars in Northern Pacific Railway bonds. Cooke's firm, like many others, had invested heavily in the railroads. At a time when investment banks were anxious for more capital for their enterprises, President Ulysses S. Grant's monetary policy of contracting the money supply (again, also thereby raising interest rates) made matters worse for those in debt. While businesses were expanding, the money they needed to finance that growth was becoming scarcer. Cooke and other entrepreneurs had planned to build the second transcontinental railroad, called the Northern Pacific Railway. Cooke's firm provided the financing, and ground for the line was broken near Duluth, Minnesota, on 15 February 1870. But just as Cooke was about to swing a US$300 million government loan in September 1873, reports circulated that his firm's credit had become nearly worthless. On 18 September, the firm declared bankruptcy.[9] Effects [ edit ] The failure of the Jay Cooke bank, followed quickly by that of Henry Clews, set off a chain reaction of bank failures and temporarily closed the New York stock market. Factories began to lay off workers as the United States slipped into depression. The effects of the panic were quickly felt in New York, and more slowly in Chicago, Virginia City, Nevada (where silver mining was active), and San Francisco.[10][11] The New York Stock Exchange closed for ten days starting 20 September.[12] By November 1873 some 55 of the nation's railroads had failed, and another 60 went bankrupt by the first anniversary of the crisis.[13] Construction of new rail lines, formerly one of the backbones of the economy, plummeted from 7,500 miles (12,070 km) of track in 1872 to just 1,600 miles (2,575 km) in 1875.[13] 18,000 businesses failed between 1873 and 1875. Unemployment peaked in 1878 at 8.25%.[14] Building construction was halted, wages were cut, real estate values fell and corporate profits vanished.[15] Railroad strike [ edit ] In 1877, steep wage cuts led American railroad workers to launch the Great Railroad Strike. This stopped trains all across the country. President Rutherford B. Hayes sent in federal troops to try to stop this. In July 1877, the market for lumber crashed, leading to several Michigan lumber companies going bankrupt.[16] Within a year, the effects of this second business slump reached all the way to California.[17] The depression lifted in the spring of 1879, but tension between workers and the leaders of banking and manufacturing interests lingered on. Poor economic conditions caused voters to turn against the Republican Party. In the 1874 congressional elections, the Democrats assumed control of the House. Public opinion made it difficult for the Grant administration to develop a coherent policy regarding the Southern states. The North began to steer away from Reconstruction. With the depression, ambitious railroad building programs crashed across the South, leaving most states deep in debt and burdened with heavy taxes. Retrenchment was a common response of southern states to state debts during the depression. One by one, each Southern state fell to the Democrats, and the Republicans lost power. The end of the crisis coincided with the beginning of the great wave of immigration into the United States, which lasted until the early 1920s. Europe [ edit ] The panic and depression hit all industrial nations. Germany and Austria-Hungary [ edit ] A similar process of over-expansion took place in Germany and Austria, where the period from German unification in 1870–71 to the crash in 1873 came to be called the Gründerjahre ("founders' years"). A liberalized incorporation law in Germany gave impetus to the foundation of new enterprises, such as the Deutsche Bank, and the incorporation of already established ones. Euphoria over the military victory against France in 1871 and the influx of capital from the payment by France of war reparations fueled stock market speculation in railways, factories, docks, steamships – the same industrial branches that expanded unsustainably in the United States.[18] It was in the immediate aftermath of Otto von Bismarck's victory against France that he began the process of silver demonetization. The process began on 23 November 1871 and culminated in the introduction of the gold mark on 9 July 1873 as the currency for the new united Reich, replacing the silver coins of all constituent lands. Germany was now on the gold standard.[19] Demonetization of silver was thus a common element in the crises on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. On 9 May 1873, the Vienna Stock Exchange crashed, unable to sustain the bubble of false expansion, insolvencies, and dishonest manipulations. A series of Viennese bank failures ensued, causing a contraction of the money available for business lending. One of the more famous private individuals who went bankrupt in 1873 was Stephan Keglevich of Vienna. He was a relative of Gábor Keglevich, who had been the master of the royal treasury (1842–1848), and who in 1845 had founded, with some others, a financing association to fund the expansion of Hungarian industry and to protect the loan repayments, similar to the Kreditschutzverband of 1870 (Austria's association for the protection of creditors and for the protection of the interests of its members in cases of bankruptcy). That made it possible for a number of new Austrian banks to be established in 1873 after the Vienna Stock Exchange crash.[20] In Berlin, the railway empire of Bethel Henry Strousberg crashed after a ruinous settlement with the Romanian government, bursting the speculation bubble in Germany. The contraction of the German economy was exacerbated by the conclusion of war reparations payments to Germany by France in September 1873. Coming two years after the foundation of the German Empire, the panic became known as the Gründerkrach or "founders' crash".[21][22][23] Keglevich and Strousberg had come in the year 1865 in direct competition in a project in today's Slovakia, whereupon, in 1870, the Government of Hungary and finally in 1872 the Emperor-King Franz Joseph I of Austria resolved the question of these competing projects.[24][25] Although the collapse of the foreign loan financing had been foreshadowed, the anticipatory events of that year were in themselves comparatively unimportant. Buda, the old capital of Hungary, and Óbuda were officially united with Pest,[26] thus creating the new metropolis of Budapest in 1873. The difference in stability between Vienna and Berlin had the effect that the French indemnity to Germany overflowed thence to Austria and Russia, but these indemnity payments aggravated the crisis in Austria, which had been benefited by the accumulation of capital not only in Germany, but also in England, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Russia.[27] Recovery from the crash occurred much more quickly in Europe than in the United States.[28][29] Moreover, German businesses managed to avoid the sort of deep wage cuts that embittered American labor relations at the time.[29] There was an anti-Semitic component to the economic recovery in Germany and Austria as small investors blamed the Jews for their losses in the crash.[30][31] Soon more luxury hotels and villas were built in Opatija and a new railway line was extended in 1873 from the Vienna–Trieste line to Rijeka, from where it was possible to go by tram to Opatija. The strong increase of port traffic generated a permanent request for expansion.[32] The Suez Canal was opened in 1869.[33] 1875–90 became "the golden years" of Giovanni de Ciotta in Fiume (Rijeka). Britain [ edit ] The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 was one of the causes of the Panic of 1873, because goods from the Far East had been carried in sailing vessels around the Cape of Good Hope and were stored in British warehouses. As sailing vessels were not adaptable for use through the Suez Canal because the prevailing winds of the Mediterranean Sea blow from west to east, British entrepôt trade suffered.[34] In Britain the Long Depression resulted in bankruptcies, escalating unemployment, a halt in public works, and a major trade slump that lasted until 1897.[35] Comparison with Germany [ edit ] During the years from 1873 to 1896, a period sometimes referred to as "Long Depression", most European countries experienced a drastic fall in prices. Still, many corporations were able to reduce production costs and achieve better productivity rates, and, as a result, industrial production increased by 40% in Britain and by over 100% in Germany.[citation needed] A comparison of capital formation rates in the two countries helps to account for the different industrial growth rates. During the depression the British ratio of net national capital formation to net national product fell from 11.5% to 6.0% while Germany's rose from 10.6% to 15.9%.[citation needed] In essence, during the course of the depression, Britain took the course of static supply adjustment while Germany stimulated effective demand and expanded industrial supply capacity by increasing and adjusting capital formation. For example, Germany dramatically increased investment with regard to social overhead capital, such as in the management of electric power transmission lines, roads, and railroads, while this input stagnated or decreased in Britain and the investment helped to stimulate industrial demand in Germany. The resulting difference in capital formation accounts for the divergent levels of industrial production in the two countries and the different growth rates during and after the depression.[36] Ottoman Empire [ edit ] In the periphery, the Ottoman Empire's economy also suffered. Rates of growth of foreign trade dropped, external terms of trade deteriorated, declining wheat prices affected peasant producers, and the establishment of European control over Ottoman finances led to large debt payments abroad. The growth rates of agricultural and aggregate production were also lower during the Long Depression as compared to the later period.[37] Latin Monetary Union [ edit ] The general demonetisation and cheapening of silver caused the Latin Monetary Union in 1873 to suspend the conversion of silver to coins. Global protectionism [ edit ] After the 1873 depression, agricultural and industrial groups lobbied for protective tariffs. The 1879 tariffs protected these interests, stimulated economic revival through state intervention and refurbished political support for the conservative politicians Bismarck and John A. Macdonald (the Canadian prime minister). Chancellor Bismarck gradually veered away from classical liberal economic policies in the 1870s, embracing many economic interventionist policies, including high tariffs, nationalization of railroads, and compulsory social insurance.[38][39][40] This political and economic nationalism also reduced the fortunes of the German and Canadian classical liberal parties. France, like Britain, also entered into a prolonged stagnation that extended to 1897. The French also attempted to deal with their economic problems through the implementation of tariffs. New French laws in 1880 and in 1892 imposed stiff tariffs on many agricultural and industrial imports, an attempt at protectionism.[41] The U.S., still in the period after the Civil War, continued to be very protectionist.[42][43] See also [ edit ] References [ edit ] Sources [ edit ] Wicker, Elmus. Banking panics of the gilded age (Cambridge University Press, 2006) contents

Submitted by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com, There is disturbing opinion circulating about Jo Cox may have been assassinated to prevent a BREXIT vote. Many are starting to believe there is a conspiracy plot connecting the dots to ensure a sympathy vote to remain within the EU. People are pointing to the familiar tool of assassination often used to achieve political agendas. Of course there is the Kennedy assassination that many believe was orchestrated to create the sympathy vote to start the Vietnam War when in fact Kennedy vetoed such a measure. But the more recent assassination was on September 10th, 2003. Anna Lindh (1957 – 2003), was a Swedish Social Democratic politician who was a member of parliament from 1982 to 1985 and 1998 to 2003. Anna was elevated to minister for foreign affairs by prime minister Göran Persson in 1998. She was widely considered to be his successor as party chairman and there was much hope that she would become prime minister. Lindh was a supported of adopting the euro. She became the face of joining the new EU and was to be on a TV debate when in Stockholm on the afternoon of September 10th around 4 pm, she was attacked with a knife while shopping in the ladies’ section of the Nordiska Kompaniet department. Lindh was to appear on a televised debate later that night on the referendum about Sweden’s adoption of the euro. At the time of the attack, Lindh was not protected by bodyguards from the Swedish Security Service. Then there is the unsolved assassination of prime minister Olof Palme in 1986. Palme was accused of being anti-EU and more pro Soviet. His assassination did clear the way for Sweden to join the EU, which was finally presented in the Swedish European Union membership referendum of 1994 approved, which gain only a 52% majority. While Silvio Berlusconi was not assassinated, the EU did stage a coup against him because he wanted to take Italy out of the euro. Then there was the Greek Prime Minister Georgios Andreas Papandreou who wanted the Greek people to vote on any bailout to stay in the euro. He was told by Brussels there would be no referendum. The recent Austrian election was rigged with the closest race in history decided by the mailed-in ballots. As the days have passed, the results of the Austrian presidential election have become far more suspicious. The official results claimed the far-left candidate Alexander Van der Bellen defeated Norbert Hofer from the Freedom Party of Austria by just 31,000 votes, 50.35% to 49.65%. Again, the fate of the EU hung in the balance. The provisional result in voting reflected major polls released in the last days before the election, which all showed Hofer with the clear majority of public support over his rival coming in at 53% to 47%. The Scottish youth called their referendum to leave the UK a “REVOLUTION” and felt very betrayed by what they called the over “65” crowd who just wanted their pension checks from London. It is clear that when people are voting with paper ballots, they vote can easily be rigged. There were countless photos of how they committed outright fraud to ensure there would be no “yes” vote. David Cameron basically said reading between the lines – the younger generation lost and their fate is now settled “for a generation.” This degree of arrogance is not going to be helpful. Governments will not reform and that brings us only to the point of our rising civil unrest that will rip the systems apart. No one in charge will address the long-term. They are only concerned about one vote at a time. So is there a conspiracy? Perhaps. They would never investigate themselves, so all this is has been suspicion. What is clear, has been that the EU will collapse if BREXIT is allowed. There is far too much at stake to allow this vote. The burning question will be, just how they cover it up and at what cost?

The WBA is featuring three cruiserweight title fights this weekend. In its desire to have one champion in each division, the WBA cruiserweight tournament has officially begun. Friday night in Paris, France, Yunier Dorticos (21-0, 20 KOs) TKO’d Kayembre Kalenga (23-2, 15 KOs) to win the WBA World interim cruiserweight title. Tomorrow in Russia, WBA Super World cruiserweight champion Denis Lebedev faces IBF champion Victor Emilio Ramirez in a unification bout. The co-main in Moscow features a third cruiserweight championship bout between Beibut Shumenov and Junior Wright for the WBA World cruiserweight title. The winner of Lebedev-Ramirez must face the Shumenov-Wright winner within 120 days. The winner of that bout gets to tangle with Dorticos for undisputed recognition as WBA cruiserweight champion. Background On February 5 Denis Lebedev asked the World Boxing Association for special permission to participate in a unification bout with his IBF counterpart Victor Ramirez. The WBA gave a green light to the fight, on condition that the winner of Lebedev-Ramirez faces the winner of Dorticos-Kalenga. The winner of that bout will in turn face the winner of Shumenov-Wright. However, in March Team Shumenov appealed to the WBA to have his interim status elevated to that of regular champion. The World Boxing Association granted the request, with the understanding that his mandatory is the winner of Saturday’s fight between Lebedev and Ramirez. The WBA reaffirms its decision to have one champion in each division. This article was penned by the author who is not related to the WBA and the statements, expressions or opinions referenced herein are that of the author alone and not the WBA.

It's been 6 months since Brenda Durkeee spent time in her own home in Dandridge. She's been in the hospital bed recovering from an accident she never saw coming. "And blast; it just went off," said Brenda Durkeee Brenda said her husband's shot gun went off without warning, shooting her in the stomach. "I can still see it in my mind," said Brenda. "I can see the fire shoot out of the end of the gun, about that far,' she continued. It was all an accident. "I can't put into words," said Bob Durkee, Brenda's husband. Bob was headed to put his gun away inside after shooting a squirrel that was eating the last of their petunias. That's when Bob said his world turned upside down. "I didn't know what I was going to do if she passed away," said Bob. "I don't know how I was going to live without her," he added. When all seemed lost at their home that day, the couple said God led them to a place where they found joy in spite of their situation and love in the nurses and even strangers watching over them. "I had prayers going out all over the world," said Brenda. "I got over 200 cards, and all these nurses telling me I'm praying for you," she continued. The couple said they thankfully passed this test of faith and nothing, not even a shooting, will ever put a dent in their marriage. "God is good," said Bob. "I have to say God is good," he continued.

If your New Year's Resolutions include going to the gym and losing weight, you are a selfish, entitled, hateful piece of garbage. Why bother trying to "get healthy" and "improve yourself" when you can just be angry and bitter about your body on the Internet?? This is Thin Privilege is a Tumblr blog that asks people to submit examples of the preferential treatment thin people take for granted, and the tyranny they wield over fat people ("fat" is their word of choice, as "overweight" and "obese" are deemed problematic slurs). Any talk of weight loss is affixed with a trigger warning, because it could be considered offensive or traumatic. And don't even think about mentioning R*ch*rd S*mm*ns. The site's aggressive moderators, one of whom is named "Fatanarchy," actively encourage people not to trust their doctors, because who are those eggheads to tell us what is and isn't "healthy"??? In my opinion the modern conception of 'health' is bullshit. It's an ever-changing, largely arbitrary definition that seems to serve a single purpose: to blame modern ills on so-called 'unhealthy' people then define so-called 'unhealthy' people as unpopular social 'deviants' like fat people, poor people, and the disabled. The philosophy of vaunting the modern notion of 'health' to some kind of societal/moral imperative is called healthism. Alas, the scourge of "healthism" is but a small part of the discrimination fat people must grapple with every day. This is Thin Privilege will open your eyes to the prejudice of physics, the bigotry of dogs, and the shame of being personally insulted by the online equivalent of a fortune cookie. These negative nelllies blame fatness for every evil that has ever besieged them, no matter how petty. Conversely, being thin is assumed to be a magical state of being that gets you into all the cool clubs, makes boys like you and gets you straight A's on all your homework. Wow, sounds like a good deal! So, what is thin privilege? Thin privilege is not, when finding out that one of your friends recently had her drink spiked at a nightclub, being told that it's something you'll never have to worry about, because "who'd want to spike a fat, ugly bitch's drink?" After all, fat girls aren't at risk of sexual assault. Yup, somehow the fat person is the victim here, not the friend who's been roofied. Fat people just want to feel included, is all. – Adam "rubber cat" Jameson (@robbercat)

During the CES trek I take every year the Modders-Inc team in 2014 landed at the Zotac Booth. While at the booth we got the normal tour of all the items they had and are coming out with. During this we came across a computer that was shaped like an orb called the Zotac ZBOX Sphere OI520. My first thought was “Wow this would be a cool case to mod into the Death Star from Star Wars”. So during the conversation I brought up the idea and we all had a good laugh about and went on talking about others things. Well a month later I got contacted by Zotac about bringing the Death Star Case Mod to life and of course my reactions was “Yes, lets do it”. And so the journey began… I would like to say thanks to Zotac for the product to mod. Straight from Zotac was a delivery of the OI520 in a plain box with plenty of protection. I am guessing that I got the case that was on display at CES 2014 or another demo model, but either way I got it and it is time to go to work. You might think that the computer is large, but it is not. At only 6 inches across I knew it would be a challenge to work with and get the detail I wanted. The rear of the OI520 has all the connections that a typical PC would have. One thing that really helped the idea of the Death Star was that Zotac put a lighted ring around it, just where the trench would be. This also created one issue for me and that was do I put the planet destroying laser?

China has agreed to buy seal meat and seal oil from Canada, according to the federal fisheries minister. "[We are] natural partners in the seafood industry," Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said Wednesday during a trade mission to China with Newfoundland and Labrador Fisheries Minister Clyde Jackman. Shea said the deal between Canada and China will be signed Thursday. P.O.V.: Do you support Canada’s new deal to sell seal meat to China? Take our survey. "For the most part, our sealing industry derives its income from the sale of pelts," said Shea, in Beijing during a conference call with reporters. "They don't get a lot of return from the sale of meat and oil, but what we are hoping to do because China is such a large market is work with our industry to support them in developing new products … so there is a lot of optimism in the industry today." The price for seal pelts, which was at a high of more than $100 each a few years ago, sank to as low as $15 last year. Gail said it is not possible to say what the value of the deal is now. She said the market will determine that. Relief after a European ban Seal hunters in Eastern Quebec are welcoming the deal after the European Union imposed a ban on imports of Canadian seal products in 2009. Magdalen Islands Sealers' Association head Denis Longuépée says the deal will ease the financial losses for sealers brought on by the European ban. "With this signing this morning, we're happy that countries like China decided not to follow those other countries, and sign with Canada. The population is so high in China that if everybody buys some pelt or product from seal, we won't have to trade anymore with Europe. So it's good news for us," said Longuépée. The new deal covers edible seal products, but Longuépée believes it will stimulate sales of seal pelts as well. The International Fund for Animal Welfare denounced the agreement, calling the seal hunt cruel, and saying it plans to launch a campaign against it in China. Seal products from traditional Inuit hunts for subsistence are exempt from the ban, but Inuit groups challenged the general ban, arguing it would make it more difficult for them to sell their products. That argument was rejected in October by European Court of Justice Judge Marc Jaeger, who said the Inuit didn't provide evidence to justify their fears. Animal protection groups applauded the decision. Earlier this year, the Canadian government said the ban is unacceptable. It’s pursuing a complaint at the World Trade Organization. Research by the federal Fisheries Department has found that the harp seal population of Atlantic Canada is now at between eight and nine million animals. A 2004 assessment of seal stocks estimated the harp seal population in the area at between 4.6 and 7.2 million.

Introduction Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., left, speaks at an awards banquet in Pearl, Miss., ahead of his election showdown against tea party-backed challenger Chris McDaniel. Rogelio V. Solis/AP A U.S. Senate primary dominated by super PACs and nonprofit groups is headed into overtime. Neither incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., nor Chris McDaniel, his tea party challenger, on Tuesday mustered the requisite 50 percent of votes needed to propel them from one of the nation’s most contentious intramural battles toward an likely trip to Capitol Hill. Unless a final batch of uncounted votes dramatically swing they way of one candidate over the other today, Cochran and McDaniel now square off again in a June 24 runoff emblematic of a broader GOP civil war pitting party standard bearers against tea party insurgents. That likely means three more weeks of freewheeling spending by a gaggle of outside organizations — some with few ties to Mississippi, a state of fewer than 3 million people — that have dominated the race. Super PACs, nonprofit groups and other political committees spent more than $8 million to beat down or boost up their candidate of choice, generally through television, radio, mail and phone ads, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of federal disclosures. Cochran and McDaniel together controlled less than two-fifths of the $13.4 million that poured into their primary fracas. Nevertheless, when the money the candidates themselves raised for their primary campaigns is added to the money spent by supportive outside groups, the results are nearly even: Team Cochran controlled about $6.9 million, Team McDaniel about $6.5 million. Most of the outside spending in Mississippi’s Senate primary — $5.26 million — benefited McDaniel, with tea party super PACs Club for Growth Action, Senate Conservatives Action and FreedomWorks for America investing the most. But their often negative ad barrages forced Cochran, seeking a seventh term, to kick his own campaign operation into fundraising hyperdrive to keep pace. Cochran had little choice, as outside organizations supporting his re-election spent barely half of what pro-McDaniel groups did. Of particular note: In the three weeks leading up to today’s vote, Cochran amassed more than $335,100 in four-figure campaign contributions — he won’t report his smaller donations until later this month — and personally secured a $150,000 loan to his campaign from a Mississippi bank. McDaniel’s campaign, meanwhile, generated less than $60,000 in such contributions, federal records indicate. The incumbent’s most generous air cover came from the Mississippi Conservatives Fund super PAC, the mainstream Republican-backing U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Realtors Congressional Fund and the American Hospital Association PAC, federal records show. During the entirety of the race, Cochran’s campaign committee outraised McDaniel’s campaign committee by a more than 3-to-1 margin: $4.1 million versus $1.22 million. Mississippi’s imbalance between candidate and special interest spending is remarkable for its rarity. During the 2012 election cycle, outside political groups didn’t once outspend candidates in their own U.S. Senate primary races, according to data provided to the Center for Public Integrity by the Center for Responsive Politics. It happened just one time — in Arkansas — in 2010. It’s easier than ever for non-candidate committees to act as prominent forces in political races thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed corporations, nonprofits, unions and special interests to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against politicians. Mississippi’s primary slugfest also marks a far cry from 2008, when Cochran raised just $2.7 million during his entire re-election campaign.

In The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett draw upon decades of research to show that, among rich countries, high levels of inequality correlate with lower levels of social cohesion and social mobility, worse mental and physical health, and higher levels of crime, violence, drug use, and imprisonment. These problems do not merely afflict the poor. Rather, they touch people across the social spectrum. The implication is that large income gaps, by themselves, are significant contributors to these particular sources of human misery. For example, residents of countries and American states with higher levels of income inequality are less likely to believe that most people can be trusted. There are a few reasons that might be the case. Yawning income gaps could cause communities to segregate along class lines, preventing the rich and poor from mingling. The wealthy might come to believe the poor just want to take their money. The poor might believe they're being exploited. And indeed, social trust in America has declined over the past few decades in lockstep with our rising income inequality. We might personally experience this in simple, day-to-day ways. Think of walking down the street and worrying you might be mugged, or walking into work and assuming your boss will try to bilk you out of overtime pay. But it's also not hard to think of examples of how this has shaped our politics. Just recall conservatives railing against "takers" during the election, or Occupy protesters fuming against the rich. Americans up and down the social ladder believe others are out to get them. Meanwhile, the data show that trust in others makes us feel more secure and cooperative, and are more likely to donate time and money to helping our communities. In short, widespread trust makes our lives more pleasant, and income inequality undermines it. Inequality may also be driving our sky-high rates of depression and other mental illnesses. Wilkinson and Pickett draw on World Health Organization data to show that higer-inequality countries like the U.S., the UK, and Australia have double the rates of mental illness of lower-inequality societies like Japan, Belgium, and Germany. Additionally, anxiety-related disorders are a much larger percentage of mental illnesses in higher-inequality societies than lower-inequality societies. This too has a very straightforward causal story: Members of high-inequality societies have to contend with status anxiety, among other issues. In such societies, the poor will suffer anxiety and depression over their especially low status and inability to acquire the material things associated with high-status individuals and success. The rich will suffer anxiety related to the possibility of losing their top spots: when the rungs of the ladder are far apart, you have a long way to fall. More than worries about themselves, the rich probably worry about their kids being able to out-compete others to capture a similarly remunerative spot in their future life, anxieties that have gotten so bad in some cases that rich parents even hold their kids back a year from kindergarten on the hopes that they will be more physically and mentally developed than their future classmates.

Earlier this year, Open Whisper Systems was served with a federal subpoena for records on its users, according to documents published today. Prosecutors were seeking data on two suspects who used Signal, an encrypted chat app produced by Open Whisper. Unfortunately for the government, Signal keeps only minimal logs on users, so the vast majority of the requested information was unavailable. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Open Whisper Systems in the fight, has published a number of court filings related to the the request. Portions of the filings are redacted and much about the subpoena is still secret — including the case number, the date it was served, and the details of the underlying case — but it’s clear that the government sought detailed information on the users including subscriber name, payment information, and associated IP addresses. Filed under gag order It’s also clear that almost none of that information was ultimately produced. One of the phone numbers named by the government did not correspond to a Signal account, and logs on the other number showed only when the user first signed up for the service and when they most recently logged in. Crucially, the request was filed under gag order, and Open Whisper was only able to publish the documents after a significant legal fight. That has become standard practice for such requests, although many legal scholars believe widespread use of the tactic presents a threat to free speech. Open Whisper Systems wrote the encryption software that powers WhatsApp and Allo’s Incognito mode, but all of the associated hardware is run by Facebook and Google, respectively. As a result, many of those apps have different logging practices, and could be vulnerable to such an order. WhatsApp was rumored to have resisted a similar wiretap order earlier this year, although the details of the case are still unknown.

Oh how quickly things can change in MLB. Not too long ago, fans in San Francisco were crossing their fingers in hopes of landing either Shohei Ohtani or Giancarlo Stanton. Some even had the audacity to dream about landing both! That would have been a feat of epic proportions, and would have automatically made the Giants favourites in the National League. But that was not to be. Instead, the Giants missed on both occasions, and it seems that every effort to bring in the required oomph that team needs to compete has failed — so far. Now the Giants have set their sights on Evan Longoria. The #SFGiants have keen interest in acquiring #Rays 3B Evan Longoria, but the Rays would have to take one of Giants' high-salaried players such as Hunter Pence or Denard Span to make it work. — Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 18, 2017 In taking a five year, $86 million commitment off the Rays’ books, it seems like the Giants need some form of salary relief in 2018, and only one of the two players listed by Nightengale is even remotely likely, as noted by MLB Trade Rumors: Taking on either of those contracts would be a fairly tall order for the cost-conscious Rays. Pence is entering the final season of a five-year, $90MM contract and is owed $18.5MM in 2018 — more than the $13.5MM that Longoria is set to take home this coming season. Obviously, taking on Pence’s deal would still provide the Rays with long-term cost savings — Longoria is owed $86MM over the next five years — but the short-term complications in that scenario are readily apparent. Taking on Span’s deal would be closer to a cash-neutral proposition. He’s owed a $9MM salary plus a $4MM buyout in the coming year, though he will also reportedly be paid a deferred $3MM from his signing bonus come Jan. 20, 2018 as well, so even that scenario could require the Rays to take on some additional 2018 dollars. Armed with one of the weakest systems in MLB, and with very few prominent prospects at the top levels of their system, the Giants don’t have much to offer the Rays in terms of prospects. Furthermore, the Rays have no incentive to settle for either of the players mentioned as they play out the final year of their rather expensive contracts. If the Giants require salary relief, only one player makes sense for the Rays to target as they look to stay competitive in 2018: LHP Madison Bumgarner There’s no need to introduce MadBum to any of you, but just to recap a few of his many achievements, here they are, 1508 IP, 1313 hits, 342 BB, 1482 SO, 1.097 Whip, 3.01 ERA, 29.4 WAR 102 IP in playoffs over 16 games, with a 2.11 ERA and 0.899 Whip 2014 NL Babe Ruth Award All-Star games in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 (injured for much of 2017) 3 x World Series Winner and 2014 NL NLCS MVP, 2014 WS MVP Needless to say, he’s earned his reputation as one of the most effective playoff performers in MLB history and would be a huge addition to the Rays rotation. Madison Bumgarner’s Contract In terms of finances, MadBum is owed the following: 18 : $12M club option ($1.5M buyout) : $12M club option ($1.5M buyout) 19: $12M club option In picking up the veteran southpaw, the Rays would be acquiring two years of control with the option to not carry on with him should he get injured in 2018, something that minimizes risk and also leaves open the option for a Qualifying Offer post-2019 that could net the Rays a first round draft pick. Bumgarner was only able to put up 1.7 fWAR in 2017, but projects to 3.4 WAR on depth charts, providing the Rays with approximate surplus value to what Longoria offers the team at that cost while also giving the Rays salary relief in 2020-2022. It would likely take one of the Rays several MLB capable starters to seal the deal, but the Rays would be trading from a position of strength to acquire an elite arm on a short term contract. What Bumgarner would add to the Rays rotation There are a lot of positives that would come from adding Bumgarner to the Rays rotation. Here they are in no certain order: Bumgarner has averaged 6.7 innings per start over the last 3 years, which is 0.7 more than Chris Archer’s 6.0 IP per start. Less work for the pen would be welcomed, particularly in the later parts of the season when bullpens are often taxed. Through 622 PA vs AL teams, Bumgarner has managed a .247/.290/.386 line against, with a 3.66 ERA and 1.155 whip, both of which are very close to Archer’s career 3.63 ERA and 1.214 whip Over the past 7 seasons, Bumgarner has managed 3.1 WAR or better (2017 pro-rated) and he’s managed a high of 5.2 WAR in 2015. Adding a 3 WAR pitcher (or better) to the Rays rotation places him 1st or 2nd, along with Archer, and if Blake Snell and Jacob Faria take the step forward most expect they will, it could lead to 5 starters with 2 WAR or better in the rotation. Adding a 2nd LHP to the rotation in Bumgarner also allows the Rays to use Ryan Yarbrough in the pen, which provides a second southpaw - and one that can pitch multiple innings when required. The Giants are welcomed to come calling on Evan Longoria, but they don’t have the prospects to get it done, and the Rays don’t have the incentive to take anything less than what keeps them competitive in 2018. So even if an Evan Longoria trade seems unlikely, if the Rays were to be tempted, Madison Bumgarner would need to be the forbidden fruit. See what McCovey Chronicles, our sister site for the Giants, has to say about the potential of a Longoria trade.

Dr. Amaryllis Sanchez’s last patient on Friday was an elderly man who had lost everything back home in Puerto Rico, now living alone here in a hotel room and in need of medical care. “I know I’m going to cry in the car all the way home,” said the teary-eyed Sanchez, who grew up on the island and has been a longtime volunteer primary care physician at Grace Medical Home, a free and charitable clinic in Orlando. The clinic’s patients are typically low-income and uninsured Orange County residents, but for the past two weeks, the staff has been dedicating Friday mornings to the care of displaced Puerto Rican patients who suddenly find themselves without jobs and health insurance here. That has local leaders worried that in the long run, this wave of uninsured individuals will overextend Central Florida’s already-stretched safety net system. Displaced Puerto Ricans face health insurance confusion » “I’m concerned about an epidemic from the standpoint of residents who are really sick and are now being forced to evacuate,” said Marni Stahlman, CEO of Shepherd’s Hope, another free clinic in Central Florida. “We’re not prepared. Our system is fragile in Florida and here in Central Florida, and I’m concerned about caring for people who have catastrophic diagnoses.” Across Central Florida, health providers — from small practices and urgent care centers like Night Lite Pediatrics to Planned Parenthood, safety net clinics and hospitals — are pitching in to care for evacuees from Puerto Rico. Insurance counselors, marketplace navigators and Medicare volunteers at various locations in Central Florida have been busy helping the new arrivals find some form of insurance coverage. All of them have left someone behind. Health care is last thing on their mind. — Vilma Quintana, a community educator and liaison for Florida Blue insurance provider And under emergency orders, Florida officials and the federal government have provided some relief and exemptions to help people switch plans and gain Medicare and Medicaid coverage quickly. But for people who are planning to stay, that’s a short-term fix. More than 250 displaced Puerto Rican have visited Orlando Health emergency rooms in the past month, said Bridget Walters, who oversees enrollment and financial counselors at the health system. And if the patient trends at Shepherd’s Hope are any indication, this could be just tip of the iceberg. The free clinic began its outreach at the airport in early October and has cared for at least 200 displaced individuals and families in the past month at its five locations in Central Florida. But the cases are getting more complex as people leave the island because their serious medical condition can’t be treated on the island because of lack of resources. Kids from Puerto Rico head to Central Florida » “At first people needed prescription medication or had needed some mild management of chronic diseases,” Stahlman said. “But we’ve started seeing more patients with drastic acute conditions related to cancer,” she said. That includes patients who were diagnosed with cancer before they had to evacuate or patients who got the surgery part of their cancer treatment and not the chemotherapy. And for those who have made it here and don’t have immediate medical needs, health insurance is not a top priority — until an emergency arises. “They have to adapt to a new way of life. They’ve gone through so much, and even with all the resources at the airport, they’re in shock. All of them have left someone behind. Health care is last thing on their mind,” said Vilma Quintana, a community educator and liaison for Florida Blue insurance provider. It’s been nearly two months since Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico and many areas are still without food and water. Last week, a major blackout once again darkened the island. “My mom still has no electricity,” said Quintana. “Many people who were not thinking about coming are starting to think about it now, because they don’t know how quickly it’s going to get better there.” Between Oct. 3 and Nov. 9, more than 143,000 people had arrived in Florida, according to the latest state figures. It’s not the first time that a state has become a destination for other Americans who have been displaced by a natural disaster, but the case for Puerto Rico is different. “It’s a very unique situation,” said Stephanie Garris, CEO of Grace. Even though Puerto Ricans are Americans, their health insurance coverage is starkly different from the mainland. Most have to sign up for new plans when they arrive here. “We haven’t seen any insurances from Puerto Rico that we’re able to take because we don’t have contracts with the [insurance companies],” said Donna Parker, the managed care administrator of Osceola Community Health Services, a federally-qualified health center in Osceola County. Of the island’s 3.5 million residents, about 36 percent have commercial insurance, according to a Jan. 2017 report by the nonprofit think tank Urban Institute. Less than a quarter is covered by Medicare, majority of whom have Medicare Advantage, and about 40 percent are covered by Puerto Rico’s Medicaid. “My big concern is that so many people are coming with Medicaid who don’t qualify here,” said Sanchez. “A lot of them end up in the ER with simple problems.” Medicaid eligibility requirements in Puerto Rico are more liberal than the states, including Florida. That means some displaced individuals won’t qualify for Medicaid in Florida, while they can’t afford to pay for private health insurance. Some earn too little to qualify for the subsidized health plans on the exchange. Sanchez’s patient on Friday morning fell in Medicaid gap on the island and most likely here, too. After she finished the exam, she stepped out and asked Marcelo Baradona, a local pastor who was volunteering at Grace that morning, to go in and pray with the patient. “It’s truly a disaster,” she said. “Some people have lost everything and for many, families are being fractured.” nmiller@orlandosentinel.com, 407-420-5158, @naseemmiller More headlines... »

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The U.S. Naval Academy held its graduation ceremony Friday morning, commissioning the newest class of weirdos into the ranks of the Navy and Marine Corps. “I am pleased to send so many fine young officers to the fleet,” said Capt. Jim Cunha during the commencement ceremony, noting that the academy had spent the past four years transforming students from raw 18-year-olds to creepy 22-year-olds. “Now the Navy and Marine Corps will reap the fruits of our labor. They are excited to be getting officers who will stand motionless on the field during a softball game, get in the way of people trying to pass them during runs, and refuse to clean their own racks.” “2nd Lieutenant John ‘Muddy’ Waters is our valedictorian,” Capt. Cunha said. “Funny story about him, once a girl smiled at him. Lt. Waters stood outside the female barracks for eight hours hoping to get a glimpse of her through the windows. That’s the kind of discipline it takes to be a leader of Marines.” Soon after the ceremony, the Navy and Marine Corps will gain its next generation of awkward ensigns and second lieutenants who also happen to not have any idea what they’re doing. One new graduate, Ensign Doug Hernandez, enjoys pulling the legs off of spiders and pouring salt on slugs. While he says he can’t wait to lead men in battle, he’s certain his men will be inspired by his unwavering patriotism and devotion to duty. “I went without an iPod or sex for a year,” Hernandez told reporters. “Some people thought it was stupid but I knew it was to protect my family and defend our freedoms.” “I hope you all go on to become high-ranking officers,” Capt. Cunha said in his address. “And I know that won’t be hard. Throughout your career you’ll be promoted over more capable officers because you went to the Academy. But never forget about your enlisted sailors and Marines, and how they should be viewed as subhuman beings.” Students at the Naval Academy spend four years in college and spend three weeks every summer on Navy ships or with Marine units for training. According to sources, female midshipmen learn everyone in the fleet wants to have sex with them during these events.

TYPES OF ABUSE Domestic Violence comprises a wide range of types of abuse. Incidents are not generally a one-off event, but can be seen as forming part of a coercive pattern of controlling behaviour. This list includes some of the ways in which a person experiencing domestic violence might be abused: not all of these behaviours would necessarily fall within the criminal law. Slapping Insisting on having sex whenever he wants it Restricting her movements Making her put things back in an exact order Threats of physical violence Smacking Having sex with her when she doesn't want it Preventing her from keeping appointments Finding endless trivial tasks for her to do Threats of future physical violence Smacking in the face Refusing to have sex with her Timing her movements Making her continually redo tasks after finding fault with what she has done Threats of sexual violence Pushing Having affairs to humiliate her Accompanying her everywhere Making her polish the soles of his shoes Threats of future sexual violence Shoving Having sex with others in front of her Following her everywhere Enforcing a routine Threats with weapons or objects Pushing downstairs Denying her sexuality Making decisions for her Only letting her use the bathroom or toilet at certain times of day Threats to kill her Punching Expecting to have sex with her after having physically assaulted her Making her work long hours Preventing her from sleeping Threats to harm or kill her children Kicking Using objects during intercourse against her will Preventing her from working Making her sleep on the floor Threats to take her children away Hitting Forcing her to watch or engage in pornography Isolating her from her friends and family Preventing her from eating Threats to harm or kill another loved one Hitting her with objects Enforcing sado-masochistic activity Making her family and friends too scared to contact her Making her eat inedible food or disgusting things Threats to harm or kill pets Holding her against the wall Forcing her to perform sexual acts in front of her children Turning her family and friends against her Preventing her from getting or keeping her job Threats to self harm or commit suicide Holding her down Forcing her to perform sexual acts in front of other people Getting his family or friends to intimidate her Preventing her from studying Threats to have her deported Banging her head against the floor Forcing her to perform sexual acts with other people Isolating her from her community Destroying her work Threats to report her to the authorities Banging her head against the wall Forcing her to perform sexual acts with animals Telling her no-one else cares about her Taking her money Threats to destroy possessions Bruising Refusing access to contraception Taking away her documents and papers Refusing her money Threats to burn down her home Blacking eyes Refusing to let her have an abortion Removing her passport Refusing her economic independence Threats to exclude her from her family or community Biting Making her have an abortion Preventing her from learning the local language Demanding receipts for all spending Threats to make her lose her job Breaking bones Assaulting her when she is pregnant Having others believe him over her despite evidence to the contrary Making her ask or beg for money Threats to expose things she is ashamed of to others Burning Prostituting her against her will Telling her children lies about her Keeping her misinformed about her entitlements Exposing things she is ashamed of to others Burning her with cigarettes Refusing to practice safe sex Telling others lies about her Incurring debts and expecting her to pay them Saying things he knows are deeply hurtful Burning her with acid Sexually abusing her children Making her tell lies for him Incurring debts in her name Using racism against her Setting fire to her Sexual name calling Manipulating her children Forcing her to commit acts of fraud Using her sexuality against her Scalding Forcing her to engage in sexual practices she does not like Telling her children things she doesn't want them to know Shouting at her Using her disability against her Shaking Making her afraid by looks, actions, gestures Turning her children against her Screaming at her Telling her her reactions are irrational Strangling Breaking objects Harassing her after separation Swearing at her Telling her there is no escape Suffocating Breaking valued possessions Using child contact to harass her Insulting her Telling her he will find her is she does escape Choking Driving dangerously whilst she is in the car Having her children taken away from her Undermining her Physically preventing her escape Throwing her Driving the car at her Getting information about her from her children Telling her what to wear Withdrawing affection Throwing objects at her Driving the car at her children Sending her unwanted gifts Criticising her appearance Ignoring her Attacking her with a weapon Being violent to others as a lesson to her Being obsessionally possessive Criticising her abilities Refusing to talk to her Stabbing Hurting her in front of her children Being obsessionally jealous Criticising her sexual performance Repeatedly interrogating her Stripping her of clothing and making her stand there Hurting her children Watching her at home or work Criticising her work or housekeeping Behaving unpredictably Forcing her to hurt herself Hurting her children in front of her Destroying her letters Making her do housework in the middle of the night Keeping her constantly on edge Forcing her to drink alcohol Telling stories about how he has hurt others Sending threatening letters Making her lick the dinner plates clean Making her afraid to go to sleep Forcing her to take drugs Telling her how he would like to hurt her Phoning her and making her feel afraid Criticising her in front of others Making her afraid to wake up Withholding medication Locking her out Not letting her use the phone Telling her she is mad Continually breaking promises Withholding care if she is ill, disabled or elderly Keeping her locked in Cutting off the phone Telling her she is ugly Making her do things she doesn't want to do to prove her love Holding her head underwater Keeping her locked in a room Mocking or humiliating her Telling her she is stupid Telling her nobody else would want her Drowning Keeping her locked in a cupboard or under the stairs Mocking or humiliating her in front of others Telling her she is a disgrace Telling her no-one would believe her Attempted murder Taking away her possessions Abusing her in front of others Telling her she is a slut Telling her that his behaviour is normal Murder Destroying her possessions Intimidating others so that they do not intervene to help her Telling her she is useless Making her accept that his behaviour is normal Rape Taking away her clothes Allowing her no privacy Telling her she is worthless Telling her he only abuses her because he loves her Forced oral sex Destroying her clothes Spitting on her Telling her she is a failure Minimising the harm that he has caused Forced anal sex Saying 'next time it will be you' Urinating on her Telling her she is a bad mother Denying that any abuse has taken place Sexual assault Vandalising her home Degrading her Doing so in front of her children or others Telling her that it is her fault Having sex with her when she is asleep Setting fire to her home Brainwashing her Making her think she is mad, ugly, stupid, a disgrace, a slut, useless, worthless, a failure, a bad mother Making her believe that it is her fault REFERENCES, LINKS & FURTHER READING This list was developed from: A risk assessment and safety planning tool prepared for the Council of Europe Police and Human Rights Programme, by Prof Liz Kelly (Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit, University of North London) St Helen's & Knowsley Working together for Safer, Healthier Families 'Domestic Violence Prevention Training Toolkit Harwin, N (1997) Understanding Women's Experience of Abuse in Bewley, S., Friend, J. & Mezey, G Violence Against Women London: RCOG

This paper presents a model to evaluate the nutritional status of trained athletes based on work in our laboratory as well as others. The model proposes that substrate use is set by the muscle fibers recruited, based on the exercise intensity. Second, the substrate available is primarily determined by the intramuscular stores. In trained athletes, intramuscular fat plays an important role in metabolism at exercise intensities as high as 80% of maximal aerobic power. Based on these factors, increasing the fat in the diet (while maintaining adequate intramuscular glycogen) increases VO2max and intramuscular stores of fat (presumably due to increased mitochondrial volume). These two factors result in a significant increase in the time to exhaustion at set levels of exercise (endurance). It also appears that fatigue is associated with depletion of either glycogen or fat. These conclusions hold true for athletes on diets where sufficient calories are taken in to meet demands and for exercise levels below 80% of VO2max, where primarily slow-twitch oxidative fibers are used. These data may not apply in exercise where predominantly fast-twitch fibers are used. Also, these data do not apply to runners eating a hypocaloric diet, where reducing the percentage of carbohydrates may compromise their glycogen stores. It would appear that the fat in the diet can be increased to a very high level without compromising the cardiovascular or immune systems of athletes. Moreover, it can be proposed that these data could be applied to sedentary persons, as long as they are isocaloric. This would imply that the fat consumed in the diet would be used in the muscle, as in the runners, although at a lower level. Thus, the dietary intake should be matched in both total calories and percentage of fats and carbohydrates to calories consumed by daily activity. It should be cautioned that if glycogen and fat stores are compromised, protein resynthesis is inhibited and loss of muscle mass may result. This has a negative effect on the athlete's ability to perform at high levels.

“Household debt to GDP was recently about 43% for China, compared with 79% in the U.S. and 88% in the United Kingdom.“ —Andy Rothman “Household debt to GDP was recently about 43% for China, compared with 79% in the U.S. and 88% in the United Kingdom.“ —Andy Rothman Winni Wintermeyer for Barron’s Text size As Earth’s second-largest economy, China accounts for more global growth than the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined. Yet it’s also a source of endless investor apprehension, as economic growth has slowed from double digits to about 6.5% and its communist government works hard to steer China toward capitalistic consumption. With more than half of its 1.4 billion citizens already living in urban areas, the biggest boost from urbanization is largely behind it. Yet Andy Rothman, Matthews Asia’s strategist, continues to expect big things from China’s consumers. Rothman, 58, has watched China transform its economy over three decades—first in the U.S. Foreign Service, as head of macroeconomics in the U.S. embassy in Beijing, and then as CLSA’s China strategist. In 2014, he joined Matthews, which manages more than $30 billion invested in Asia. Recently, in a phone interview with Barron’sfrom his San Francisco office, he spoke about China’s economic prospects, Beijing’s coming leadership reshuffle this fall, and its trade tensions with the Trump administration. As a macro strategist, he declined to name stock picks. Barron’s: The People’s Bank of China has raised benchmark interest rates to a two-year high. What should we expect? Rothman: Beijing is engaged in what I call de-risking. Right now, the Chinese government sees a period of quite healthy economic growth, and this gives it an opportunity to tackle some of the more serious problems in its financial system. For example, there are concerns about the proliferation of wealth management products, so the government has progressively tightened the standards for these. The growth rate has come down, and today, only 16% of these are risky, hedge fund–like products, down from 21% in 2014. You see some determination not to let risks go unchecked and develop into a crisis. For instance, regulators are cracking down on insurers selling instruments that aren’t really insurance products. There are also small banks whose deposit base isn’t growing fast enough for them to keep issuing loans at the speed they wish to, and so they’re trying to manipulate the interbank market, and the government is stepping in to curtail that. What about the risk of capital flight? Early last year, the media and fund managers were all worrying that China might run out of foreign-exchange reserves by year end, which could cause the yuan to depreciate dramatically, by 20% or 30%. None of that happened. In fact, China’s forex reserves grew by $70 billion this year and remain above the $3 trillion threshold, so Beijing still has way more reserves than it needs. A majority of recent outflows aren’t capital flight; Chinese chief financial officers had issued debt in Hong Kong denominated in U.S. dollars. But since late 2015 and early 2016, when that carry trade no longer made sense, they moved money from the mainland to Hong Kong to repay those offshore loans and reissue debt onshore in yuan. Another factor is wealth diversification. Chinese people have become increasingly wealthy over the past decade, and their investments have largely been at home, and in real estate. Anyone who went to an advisor would be told they shouldn’t have all their money tied up in Beijing and Shanghai real estate. So more people are moving money offshore to diversify their investments. What’s your outlook for the yuan, now at $0.15? Matthews doesn’t issue a house view, so I’ll give you my view. The answer depends on the dollar’s outlook more than what’s happening in China. Last year, the yuan depreciated about 6% against the dollar, and this year, as the dollar weakened, the yuan has appreciated about 4%, still not by nearly as much as some other emerging market currencies. I believe Beijing accepts that the yuan’s direction will be determined by the dollar’s strength or weakness. But it will intervene to prevent the yuan from moving more than 5% or 6% in either direction against the dollar in any calendar year. So if you think the dollar will weaken further, then you might see the yuan up by 5% or 6% in 2017. What’s your outlook for China’s gross-domestic-product growth? In my view, the GDP growth rate is the least important statistic in China. While the number is not wildly inaccurate, the government does smooth it out. Instead, we should focus on cues about Chinese consumer health, because that’s the largest part of their economy, the part that drives growth and, not coincidentally, the focus of our investment strategy. So I look at income growth, consumer spending, inflation, and consumer sentiment, and where investment by privately owned companies is going. Real income growth is 7% this year, and real retail sales are up 9% in the first half. On top of that, consumer sentiment is positive, household debt is low, and household savings rates are high. That’s why for a long time I’ve been calling China the world’s best consumer story. Now, all these numbers are slower than a few years ago, and almost every statistic on China is decelerating year over year. We’re never going back to double-digit income or retail-sales growth. But the economic base for all of these has also gotten really big, and those growth rates are still phenomenal. Has China succeeded in steering its economy from exports toward more domestic consumer spending? People have been predicting China’s imminent collapse for years, and a central tenet is that an economy based too much on exports and investment isn’t sustainable. China has made tremendous progress in restructuring toward a more consumer-oriented economy. This may come as a surprise to people who go to Wal-Mart Stores , where it looks like everything in the U.S. is made in China. But net exports—the value of exports minus the value of imported pieces that go into them—accounted for just 2% of China’s GDP last year. This will be the sixth consecutive year in which tertiary industries (like real estate, finance, retail, and services that aren’t part of primary industries like agriculture, or secondary industries like mining and manufacturing) make up the biggest part of China’s economy. In other words, services and consumption will exceed manufacturing and construction for a sixth straight year. Services and tertiary industries rose from 43% of GDP in 2007 to 54% last year, which shows that China’s rebalancing is well under way, but not yet done. China remains the best consumer story in the world, and the only other thing that comes close is India. Does rising debt and overexposure to property change that story? Household debt to GDP was recently about 43% for China, compared with 79% in the U.S. and 88% in the United Kingdom. Yes, new home prices in the Tier 1 cities of Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou are up 85% since 2011. But those four cities are about 4% of new-home sales in China, and they’re no more representative of the entire Chinese housing market than New York and San Francisco home prices are of the entire U.S. In Tier 3 cities—most of them have a million or more people—prices are up 10% over the same period. And Tier 3 cities account for 62% of the urban population and 65% of new-home sales by volume. In some ways, the Chinese housing market is like ours: In a few cities, prices have grown a lot, and there’s a serious social problem if a majority can’t afford to buy or even rent a home. China is dealing with this in Tier 1 cities and spending money on low-income housing. But bubbles are all about leverage. In 2006, the median cash down payment for a new U.S. home was 2% of the purchase price. But China is more like U.S. home financing in the 1950s and 1960s—the minimum cash down payment is 20%, and most banks require 30%. During the Asian financial crisis, Hong Kong house prices fell by 70%, but the mortgage default rate peaked at only 2%, because Hong Kong buyers, like the Chinese, had to put down more cash. With most Chinese mortgages, the banks that originate the loans hold them to maturity, so they have incentive to do due diligence and there’s little mortgage securitization. What should we expect from the Communist Party’s twice-a-decade leadership transition this fall? We know the majority of Chinese leadership below Xi Jinping—China’s president and head of the Communist Party—will be stepping down and be replaced by a new crowd. But it’s not all that material to our investment strategy because there’s no evidence the current leadership has been an obstacle to Xi’s economic policy. We’ll see more of what we’ve seen this year: gradual deceleration in credit growth, more de-risking, gradual focus on shifting away from heavy industry toward the consumer, away from state-owned toward private enterprises. How is Donald Trump affecting China and its standing? President Trump could be really important for investors, and also impossible to predict. He spent much of his campaign arguing that China was the cause of our economic woes. Then in the first six months of his administration, he hasn’t bashed China, although he seems to be losing patience again—he tweeted that China wasn’t helping more on North Korea, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has argued that China and the European Union are closet protectionists. That makes me wonder if he’s laying the groundwork for trade sanctions on China and the EU. I think his administration probably will use the Trade Expansion Act to put limits on U.S. imports of steel from China. A formal study has been under way for months at the Commerce Department, looking at whether Chinese steel imports represent a national security threat. Could this go beyond steel? It could be broadened to anything, but what Trump and Ross have been talking about is steel. It’s one of those industries, like coal, whose reinvigoration Trump seems to feel will set the U.S. economy back on the right footing. For investors, this could be a huge issue in the coming months. If Trump goes after Chinese imports, the initial reaction from the media and analysts probably will focus on the negative impact on the Chinese economy. Investor sentiment toward Chinese equities could take a significant hit, bringing valuations down, and that will be a fantastic buying opportunity. Let me explain why: A hit to Chinese exports won’t have as big an impact on the overall Chinese economy as most people think. Only 18% of China’s total exports come to the U.S., so there are other big markets. Also, the consumer story will be largely unaffected. As the largest active Asia-only U.S. investment manager, we own shares in just over 100 Chinese companies, and 87% of our holdings are in consumer and service companies. We’re focused primarily on Chinese companies selling goods and services to Chinese consumers. It’s not rocket science to say the consumer is the best part of China’s economy, and because the market understands it, these stocks are too expensive. Here’s where it’s important whether you take an active approach versus a passive index approach: Indexes on China are mostly backward looking, focused on big state-owned companies and heavy industries rather than entrepreneurial, privately owned companies. Consumer stocks in these indexes also tend to be really big and popular and maybe expensive, whereas the median forward price-to-earnings valuation for all of our China holdings is only about 15 times. Name one risk that worries you. It’s too hard to pick just one, so I’ll tell you three. In the next six to 12 months, what worries me are the risks emanating from Washington—will the Trump administration engage in a trade war with China? The second risk is how Trump will handle North Korea, because both of these things can have a big impact on how investors view China. The third risk is from Beijing. While the biggest growth is coming from private entrepreneurial firms, the government still plays an outsize economic role, particularly in the financial sector, and it makes mistakes all the time. Beijing usually fixes mistakes pretty quickly, but there’s a risk it makes a policy mistake and doesn’t correct it in a timely fashion. But overall, Beijing is opening up its capital markets, both equity and fixed income, to foreigners, and over time this will help make them more transparent and better regulated. More foreigners are going to feel comfortable investing in the Chinese economy. Last year, China accounted for 28% of global economic growth, more than the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined, and yet very few investors have direct exposure to that growth. Thanks, Andy. Email: editors@barrons.com Follow @kopintan Like Barron’s on Facebook Follow Barron’s on Twitter

[1] Sobers held the record for the second highest number of centuries in Test cricket at the time of his retirement. Sir Garfield Sobers (also known as Gary Sobers) is a former international cricketer who represented the West Indies cricket team between 1954 and 1974. He scored centuries (100 or more runs in an innings) on 26 occasions. Widely acknowledged as the "greatest all-rounder",[1][2][3] he was described by Australian cricketer Don Bradman as a "five-in-one cricketer".[N 1] Sobers played 93 Tests, aggregating 8,032 runs at a batting average of 57.78, and claimed 235 wickets as a bowler.[3] He held the record for most runs in a career in Test cricket until 1981.[N 2] Sobers was named one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1964, and one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century in 2000.[6] He entered into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame when the International Cricket Council (ICC) formally inducted him alongside 55 initial inductees in 2009.[7] Sobers made his Test debut against Pakistan in 1954, and scored his first century against the same team four years later. He became the youngest player to complete a triple century when he made 365 not out in that match.[8] It remained the highest individual score in Test cricket for 36 years until transcended by Brian Lara in 1994.[9] The innings is also the highest maiden century by a batsman in Tests.[10] In the fourth Test of the same series Sobers went on to score centuries in both the innings, ending the series with 824 runs at an average of 137.33.[11] He was most successful against England, scoring 10 centuries.[12] Sobers made scores of 150 or more in a Test match innings on thirteen occasions, and was dismissed five times between scores of 90 and 99.[13] As of January 2013, he is fourteenth in the all-time century-makers in Test cricket, and third in the equivalent list for the West Indies.[14] Sobers made his solitary One Day International (ODI) appearance in a match against England in September 1973;[15] he was dismissed for a duck.[15] Key [ edit ] Key Symbol Meaning * Remained not out Captained the West Indies cricket team Pos. Position in the batting order Inn. The innings of the match Test The number of the Test match played in that series H/A/N Venue was at home (West Indies), away or neutral Date Date the match was held, or the starting date of match for Test matches Lost The match was lost by West Indies. Won The match was won by West Indies. Drawn The match was drawn. Tied The match was tied. Test cricket centuries [ edit ] Notes [ edit ]

Saab pulled off a bit of technological surprise in rainy Gothenburg on Monday. I had shown up expecting something new, but not the first-off-the-line Giraffe 4A radar, complete with gallium-nitride (GaN) active electronically scanned array technology. Everyone's been talking about GaN and its merits for a few years, but as far as we knew the closest thing to a production application was Northrop Grumman's G/ATOR, which is supposed to get upgrated to GaN (from the currently standard gallium arsenide, or GaAs) in time to be operational in 2018-19. Saab's first Giraffe 4A radar Meanwhile, Saab's electro-tomtens in Gothenburg were quietly working in the moonlit farmyard, as tomtens do, and now have a customer (not named) for the GaN-based. 2,000-module Giraffe 4A, with delivery due in 2016. That was the industry-news bit. However, the way they showed it off was quietly spectacular. We media reptiles first saw it outside the assembly hangar, antenna up and open to the sky. While we had lunch (fish was present, need you ask?) they folded the antenna down into its container, loaded the radar on to a truck and drove it up a short, steep dirt track into the woods. They hooked it up to a generator, in the rain, popped the antenna up again and proceeded to run a series of live demos for the media, powering down between each group to avoid microwaving our brains. They did this with a near-brand-new development article. Moreover, none of the Swedish engineers saw anything unusual about this, at all.

Missed the deal? Click this banner for tips on how to never miss a Secret Flying deal again. It’s finally here!!! American Airlines flights from many US cities to Cuba from only $262 roundtrip!! Depart from: New York: $262 Boston: $262 Miami: $268 Philadelphia: $300 Washington DC: $300 Chicago: $400 Atlanta: $400 Los Angeles: $500 and more… Please note, the Trump administration announced tight new restrictions on American travel and trade with Cuba. Check the U.S. Department of State website for the latest information – see here. DEPART: New York/Boston/Miami/Philadelphia/Washington DC/Chicago/Atlanta/Los Angeles, USA ARRIVE: Cienfuegos/Holguín/Camagüey/Santa Clara/Varadero, Cuba RETURN: New York/Boston/Miami/Philadelphia/Washington DC/Chicago/Atlanta/Los Angeles, USA DATES: Availability from September to October 2016 The American Airlines website conveniently allows you to view prices for the whole week so there is no need for a list of example dates from us. STOPS: Miami AIRLINE: American Airlines Complete the search box with the example dates listed above:

HUMAN FAMILY TREE used to be a scraggly thing. With relatively few fossils to work from, scientists' best guess was that they could all be assigned to just two lineages, one of which went extinct and the other of which ultimately gave rise to us. Discoveries made over the past few decades have revealed a far more luxuriant tree, however—one abounding with branches and twigs that eventually petered out. This newfound diversity paints a much more interesting picture of our origins but makes sorting our ancestors from the evolutionary dead ends all the more challenging, as paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood explains in the pages that follow. More on this topic: The Latest Fossil Finds Make the Puzzle of Human Evolution Harder Than Ever to Solve New Evidence Shows How Human Evolution Was Shaped by Climate New Twist Added to the Role of Culture in Human Evolution

DC Comics has a new variant theme coming to stores in January that will have readers keeping inside the lines: Coloring Books. DC gave us the exclusive reveal at 5 of the planned variants for next year: ACTION COMICS #48, RED HOOD/ARSENAL #8, TITANS HUNT #4, FLASH #48, and SINESTRO #19. ACTION COMICS #48 by Scott Kollins RED HOOD/ARSENAL #8 by Scott McDaniel TITANS HUNT #4 by Scott McDaniel FLASH #48 by Derec Donovan SINESTRO #19 by Derec Donovan Crave had the reveal on Batman #48 by Dave Johnson, Green Arrow #48 by Cully Hamner, JLA #8 by Cully Hamner, Lois and Clark #4 by Aaron Lopresti, and Teen Titans #16 by Timothy Green. CBR revealed Deathstroke #14 by Emanuella Luppicino, Green Lantern#48 by Michael Allred, Justice League #48 by Scott Kollins, Superman #48 by Andy Smith, and We Are Robin #8 by Freddie Williams. ComicBook.com revealed Cyborg #7 by Derec Donovan, Martian Manhunter #8 by Andy Kuhn, Robin Son of Batman #8 by Sanford Greene, Starfire #8 by Dave Taylor, and Superman/ Wonder Woman #25 by Aaron Lopresti. Newsarama revealed Aquaman #48 by Andy Kuhn, Batman/Superman #28 by Freddie Williams, Detective Comics #48 by Timothy Green, Grayson #16 by Aaron Lopresti, and Wonder Woman #48 by Emanuella Luppicino. Look for all of these variants in January.

KYODO NEWS - Dec 1, 2017 - 16:06 | All, Lifestyle, Japan With just about a month left in 2017, Japan is gearing up for the winter season as snow begins to cover its northern regions and seasonal illumination lights up scenic spots across the country. Mt. Fuji got its first full snowcap of the season in late October. Meanwhile, in western Japan's Himeji, an illumination show was held in early November at Himeji Castle, a national treasure and World Heritage site, during which LED balloons were released from a square outside it. By mid November, the city of Sapporo in northern Japan's Hokkaido was already glistening under a blanket of snow. The snow-clearing tram known as Sasara Densha makes its rounds in Sapporo, home of the famous Sapporo Snow Festival. The 2018 festival is scheduled to take place from Feb. 1 to Feb. 12. In Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan, Mt. Izumigatake recorded its first snowfall on Nov. 20, creating a splendid contrast with fallen red autumn leaves along the mountain path. Amid the arrival of the first snow, workers at a ski resort on Mt. Izumigatake busied themselves with preparations ahead of the season's opening. Besides the beautiful snow scenery, elaborate illumination is brewing a festive mood in many parts of Japan. In Sapporo, the annual Sapporo White Illumination event, using some 780,000 light bulbs, will run through Dec. 25, 2017. Meanwhile in downtown Tokyo, colorful Christmas trees by French architect and designer Emmanuel Muho adorn the fancy Omotesando Hills shopping mall. In neighboring Chiba Prefecture, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea also get into the Christmas spirit with festive illumination and special events. In central Japan, Nagoya's Legoland Japan unveiled a gigantic 10-meter Christmas tree, built with more than 610,000 Lego pieces. In Osaka, Universal Studios Japan readied for the festivities with a new Guinness World Record Christmas tree featuring 570,000 lights. For railway enthusiasts, the annual "Inaka Illumination" event in the rural town of Onan in Shimane Prefecture offered a spectacular display of lights in the vicinity of Uzui Station, which stands 20 meters above ground. The JR Sankosen Line, the only train service in Onan, will be discontinued in March 2018. According to the Japanese weather agency's three-month forecast, almost all regions across the country are expected to experience a colder winter in December 2017, and average or slightly warmer temperatures in January and February 2018. Snowfall in regions facing the Sea of Japan is likely to be around average in most areas, although western Japan may see slightly more snow than in normal years. More photo galleries: GALLERY: Autumn foliage in Japan's Kyoto GALLERY: Mt. Fuji gets season's first snow crown GALLERY: Chinese tourists flock to North Korean border

GitHub user Zeffy has created a patch that removes a limitation that Microsoft imposed on users of 7th generation processors, a limit that prevents users from receiving Windows updates if they still use Windows 7 and 8.1. This limitation was delivered through Windows Update KB4012218 (March 2017 Patch Tuesday) and has made many owners of Intel Kaby Lake and AMD Bristol Ridge CPUs very angry last week, as they weren't able to install any Windows updates. Microsoft's move was controversial, but the company did its due diligence, and warned customers of its intention since January 2016, giving users enough time to update to Windows 10, move to a new OS, or downgrade their CPU, if they needed to remain on Windows 7 or 8.1 for various reasons. When the April 2017 Patch Tuesday came around last week, GitHub user Zeffy finally had the chance to test four batch scripts he created in March, after the release of KB4012218. His scripts worked as intended by patching Windows DLL files, skipping the CPU version check, and delivering updates to Windows 7 and 8.1 computers running 7th generation CPUs. Patches have been open-sourced on GitHub The four batch scripts are now available on GitHub, open-sourced and ready to be inspected, just in case anyone fears Zeffy might have disguised any malware. According to Zeffy's README file, he created the four batch scripts by reverse engineering the KB4012218 Windows Update, and comparing versions of the new files with the ones already on his PC. By running a simple diff operation on these files, he was able to discover two new functions "IsCPUSupported(void)" and "IsDeviceServiceable(void)" inside the March 2017 version of wuaueng.dll, delivered through KB4012218. Zeffy's scripts patch this DLL file and make the two functions output "1", which translates to "supported CPU." This, in turn, starts the update procedure, delivering new security updates to users Microsoft wanted to block. "The only downside of these solutions is you have to apply a new patch whenever wuaueng.dll gets updated," says Zeffy in his GitHub repo README. Fortunately, the entire task doesn't take long to complete. Bleeping Computer hasn't tested Zeffy's patch because we don't have a 7th-gen CPU on hand. It's recommended that you create a system restore point and save a copy of the original wuaueng.dll file just in case things go horribly wrong.

Team Japan’s Kazuhisa Makita pitches against Team Europe in the fourth inning of their friendly baseball game at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Tuesday, March 10, 2015. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi) (Photo: The Associated Press) TOKYO (AP) — Japan rallied with three runs in the eighth inning to beat Team Europe 4-3 Tuesday in the first of a two-game series. The European team took a 3-1 lead in the fourth inning on a double by Oscar Angulo that scored two runs at Tokyo Dome. Nobuhiro Matsuda drove in the game-tying run and Yuhei Takai singled in the winning run in the bottom of the eighth. The series is part of the World Baseball Softball Confederation's efforts to have baseball make a return at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Baseball and softball were dropped after the 2008 Beijing Games but could make a return in 2020 under reforms made by the International Olympic Committee. The European team, making its international debut, was made up of players from six countries, mostly the Netherlands and Italy. Japan reliever Katsuki Matayoshi picked up the win after recording thee outs in the eighth. The series wraps up on Wednesday at the same venue. Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photo-illustration: Colin Anderson/Getty Images We’re not going to be able to prevent autonomous armed robots from existing. The real question that we should be asking is this: Could autonomous armed robots perform better than armed humans in combat, resulting in fewer casualties on both sides? Advertisement Yesterday, an open letter was presented at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires, Argentina, calling for a “ban on offensive autonomous weapons.” A bunch of people signed it, including “more than 1,000 experts and leading robotics researchers.” And I mean, of course they’d sign it, because who would seriously be for “killer robots?” I am. Here’s the letter in full: Autonomous Weapons: an Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers Autonomous weapons select and engage targets without human intervention. They might include, for example, armed quadcopters that can search for and eliminate people meeting certain pre-defined criteria, but do not include cruise missiles or remotely piloted drones for which humans make all targeting decisions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has reached a point where the deployment of such systems is — practically if not legally — feasible within years, not decades, and the stakes are high: autonomous weapons have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms. Many arguments have been made for and against autonomous weapons, for example that replacing human soldiers by machines is good by reducing casualties for the owner but bad by thereby lowering the threshold for going to battle. The key question for humanity today is whether to start a global AI arms race or to prevent it from starting. If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. Unlike nuclear weapons, they require no costly or hard-to-obtain raw materials, so they will become ubiquitous and cheap for all significant military powers to mass-produce. It will only be a matter of time until they appear on the black market and in the hands of terrorists, dictators wishing to better control their populace, warlords wishing to perpetrate ethnic cleansing, etc. Autonomous weapons are ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilizing nations, subduing populations and selectively killing a particular ethnic group. We therefore believe that a military AI arms race would not be beneficial for humanity. There are many ways in which AI can make battlefields safer for humans, especially civilians, without creating new tools for killing people. Just as most chemists and biologists have no interest in building chemical or biological weapons, most AI researchers have no interest in building AI weapons — and do not want others to tarnish their field by doing so, potentially creating a major public backlash against AI that curtails its future societal benefits. Indeed, chemists and biologists have broadly supported international agreements that have successfully prohibited chemical and biological weapons, just as most physicists supported the treaties banning space-based nuclear weapons and blinding laser weapons. In summary, we believe that AI has great potential to benefit humanity in many ways, and that the goal of the field should be to do so. Starting a military AI arms race is a bad idea, and should be prevented by a ban on offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control. The main point in the body of this letter seems to be that unless we outlaw autonomous weapons right now, there will be some sort of arms race that will lead to the rapid advancement and propagation of things like autonomous “armed quadcopters,” eventually resulting in technology that’s accessible to anyone if they want to build a weaponized drone. The problem with this argument is that no letter, UN declaration, or even a formal ban ratified by multiple nations is going to prevent people from being able to build autonomous, weaponized robots. The barriers keeping people from developing this kind of system are just too low. Consider the “armed quadcopters.” Today you can buy a smartphone-controlled quadrotor for US $300 at Toys R Us. Just imagine what you’ll be able to buy tomorrow. This technology exists. It’s improving all the time. There’s simply too much commercial value in creating quadcopters (and other robots) that have longer endurance, more autonomy, bigger payloads, and everything else that you’d also want in a military system. And at this point, it’s entirely possible that small commercial quadcopters are just as advanced as (and way cheaper than) small military quadcopters, anyway. We’re not going to stop that research, though, because everybody wants delivery drones (among other things). Generally speaking, technology itself is not inherently good or bad: it’s what we choose to do with it that’s good or bad, and you can’t just cover your eyes and start screaming “STOP!!!” if you see something sinister on the horizon when there’s so much simultaneous potential for positive progress. “What we really need is a way of making autonomous armed robots ethical, because we’re not going to be able to prevent them from existing” What we really need, then, is a way of making autonomous armed robots ethical, because we’re not going to be able to prevent them from existing. In fact, the most significant assumption that this letter makes is that armed autonomous robots are inherently more likely to cause unintended destruction and death than armed autonomous humans are. This may or may not be the case right now, and either way, I genuinely believe that it won’t be the case in the future, perhaps the very near future. I think that it will be possible for robots to be as good (or better) at identifying hostile enemy combatants as humans, since there are rules that can be followed (called Rules of Engagement, for an example see page 27 of this) to determine whether or not using force is justified. For example, does your target have a weapon? Is that weapon pointed at you? Has the weapon been fired? Have you been hit? These are all things that a robot can determine using any number of sensors that currently exist. It’s worth noting that Rules of Engagement generally allow for engagement in the event of an imminent attack. In other words, if a hostile target has a weapon and that weapon is pointed at you, you can engage before the weapon is fired rather than after in the interests of self-protection. Robots could be even more cautious than this: you could program them to not engage a hostile target with deadly force unless they confirm with whatever level of certainty that you want that the target is actively engaging them already. Since robots aren’t alive and don’t have emotions and don’t get tired or stressed or distracted, it’s possible for them to just sit there, under fire, until all necessary criteria for engagement are met. Humans can’t do this. The argument against this is that a robot autonomously making a decision to engage a target with deadly force, no matter how certain the robot may be, is dangerous and unethical. It is dangerous, and it may be unethical, as well. However, is it any more dangerous or unethical than asking a human to do the same thing? The real question that we should be asking is this: Could autonomous armed robots perform better than armed humans in combat, resulting in fewer casualties (combatant or non-combatant) on both sides? I believe so, which doesn’t really matter, but so do people who are actually working on this stuff, which does. In 2009, Ronald C. Arkin, Patrick Ulam, and Brittany Duncan published a paper entitled “An Ethical Governor for Constraining Lethal Action in an Autonomous System,” which was about how to program an armed, autonomous robot to act within the Laws of War and Rules of Engagement. h+ Magazine interviewed Arkin on the subject (read the whole thing here), and here’s what he said: h+: Some researchers assert that no robots or AI systems will be able to discriminate between a combatant and an innocent, that this sensing ability currently just does not exist. Do you think this is just a short-term technology limitation? What such technological assumptions do you make in the design of your ethical governor? RA: I agree this discrimination technology does not effectively exist today, nor is it intended that these systems should be fielded in current conflicts. These are for the so-called war after next, and the DoD would need to conduct extensive additional research in order to develop the accompanying technology to support the proof-of-concept work I have developed. But I don’t believe there is any fundamental scientific limitation to achieving the goal of these machines being able to discriminate better than humans can in the fog of war, again in tightly specified situations. This is the benchmark that I use, rather than perfection. But if that standard is achieved, it can succeed in reducing noncombatant casualties and thus is a goal worth pursuing in my estimation. One way to think about this is like autonomous cars. Expecting an autonomous car to keep you safe 100 percent of the time is unrealistic. But, if an autonomous car is (say) 5 percent more likely to keep you safe than if you were driving yourself, you’d still be much better off letting it take over. Autonomous cars, by the way, will likely be much safer than that, and it’s entirely possible that autonomous armed robots will be, too. And if autonomous armed robots really do have at least the potential reduce casualties, aren’t we then ethically obligated to develop them? If there are any doubts about how effective or ethical these systems might be, just test them exhaustively. Deploy them, load them up with blanks, and watch how they do. Will they screw up sometimes? Of course they will, both during testing and after. But setting aside the point above about relative effectiveness, the big advantage of robots is that their behavior is traceable and they learn programmatically: if one robot does something wrong, it’s possible to trace the chain of decisions that it made (decisions programmed into it by a human, by the way) to find out what happened. Once the error is located, it can be resolved, and you can be confident that the robot will not make that same mistake again. Furthermore, you can update every other robot at the same time. This is not something we can do with humans. “I’m not in favor of robots killing people. If this letter was about that, I’d totally sign it. But that’s not what it’s about; it’s about the potential value of armed autonomous robots, and I believe that this is something that we need to have a reasoned discussion about rather than banning.” I do agree that there is a potential risk with autonomous weapons of making it easier to decide to use force. But, that’s been true ever since someone realized that they could throw a rock at someone else instead of walking up and punching them. There’s been continual development of technologies that allow us to engage our enemies while minimizing our own risk, and what with the ballistic and cruise missiles that we’ve had for the last half century, we’ve got that pretty well figured out. If you want to argue that autonomous drones or armed ground robots will lower the bar even farther, then okay, but it’s a pretty low bar as is. And fundamentally, you’re then placing the blame on technology, not the people deciding how to use the technology. And that’s the point that I keep coming back to on this: blaming technology for the decisions that we make involving it is at best counterproductive and at worst nonsensical. Any technology can be used for evil, and many technologies that were developed to kill people are now responsible for some of our greatest achievements, from harnessing nuclear power to riding a ballistic missile into space. If you want to make the argument that this is really about the decision to use the technology, not the technology itself, then that’s awesome. I’m totally with you. But banning the technology is not going to solve the problem if the problem is the willingness of humans to use technology for evil: we’d need a much bigger petition for that. I want to be very clear about this: I’m not in favor of robots killing people. If this letter was about that, I’d totally sign it. But that’s not what it’s about; it’s about the potential value of armed autonomous robots, and I believe that this is something that we need to have a reasoned discussion about rather than banning. I’m open to the fact that I might be quite wrong about every point that I’ve made here, but the important thing is to be able to reach an informed decision rather than just demanding to outlaw “killer robots.”*

Several states voted to legalize marijuana this past Election Day but the pot business still has a gripe—regulations. Though decriminalized on some level in 19 states and the District of Columbia (it remains illegal under federal law), marijuana is still subject to regulations that strike some in the industry as micromanagement. One company that tracks regulations is Cannabiz Media, which publishes the “Marijuana Licensing Reference Guide.” It recently posted a list of what it describes as the “10 weirdest marijuana laws.” For example, in Nevada and Oregon, signage for businesses that sell pot is regulated down to the font size and even font style. Connecticut bans the uses of illuminated signs while Washington, DC, makes it a point to outlaw the sale of pot at gasoline stations or auto repair shops. Ed Keating, the person who compiled the list, sees such regulations as more than just a nuisance, particularly for medical marijuana dispensaries. “It’s really hard to comply with these regulations because they are so particular and, in some cases, they just don’t seem to make a lot of sense,” he said. “If you’re a business trying to get medicine to your patients… some of these regulations are very expensive to comply with.” However, Keating isn’t entirely against regulations and argues that some control would be in the industry’s best interests. “In a lot of states now, they’re starting to put what an appropriate dosage or amount is to consume,” he said, noting that Maureen Dowd’s 2014 New York Times piece on her overdose of marijuana-infused chocolates showed the dangers of no labeling. “That makes a lot of sense for safety.” “The other area that has seen a lot of regulatory scrutiny is testing because they want to make sure that if people are consuming this as medicine—or even recreationally—they’re given a safe product,” he continued. “Where it gets dangerous is when people concentrate that product into a liquid, an oil. You’re raising the concentration of everything. So if there are bad chemicals in there, they get much more concentrated and it could be a danger to people. So I think we’ll be seeing even more regulations there.”

ISLAMABAD: On fourth day of the military operation in the lawless tribal region of South Waziristan, two bomb blasts went off at a university in Islamabad on Tuesday that left seven people dead and nearly 30 injured, officials said.Eyewitnesses and police officials said that one attacker struck at a women���s cafeteria of the International Islamic university campus while another bomber blew himself up at the law department of the university.The blast at the cafeteria left bits of flesh splattered on the floor with shattered window panes. The second attack took place in the Islamic law department. At least 29 injured have been shifted to the nearby PIMS hospital in the federal capital where several of them are said to be in critical condition. The injured included 14 girls and four of them are said to be in serious condition. The International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) has more than 12,000 students, nearly half of them women. Students from around the world attend the university, with most taking Islamic studies.Interior minister Rehman Malik said that six people were killed ��� two suicide bombers, two men and two women while a senior police official Rana Akmar Hayat told the media that seven people were killed and 29 injured.���Seven people, including two suicide bombers were killed in the twin-attacks while 29 got injured. Among the dead is one female���, Rana said at the scene of the attack.���Within seconds, the attacks occurred one after another. There were 3,000 and 4,000 students on the campus at the time of the attacks���, said Shandana Butt, a third year law student who saw the attack at cafetaria.TV footage showed women stained in blood being carried out by security officials and fellow students from the cafeteria building.Security at educational establishments had been tightened in response to the recent campaign of violence by militants. In the run-up to the offensive, militants attacked a police station in Peshawar, a United Nations office and the army headquarters in Rawalpindi and three different police facilities in Lahore on the same day.Before the launch of army operation in Waziristan, it was feared that militants would retaliate by attacking civilians to create panic.The government knee-jerk reaction was to shut down educational institutions in Islamabad, Lahore, Peshawar and several other cities for one week. Pakistani forces launched a ground offensive on Saturday to drive out the Taliban and al-Qaida militants from their bases in a tribal region of South Waziristan.To win support of the tribal people, the Army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, on Monday, wrote an open letter to the Mehsud tribes of Waziristan, saying: ���The operation in South Waziristan was not meant to target the brave and patriotic Mehsud tribes, but aimed at ridding them of the elements who had destroyed peace in the region.������The target of the operation were Uzbek terrorists, foreign elements and local militants���, Kiyani said.The US and other western allies would be uncomfortable over the tactical compromises that Pakistan made with two other Taliban groups in the region controlled by Wana-based Maulvi Nazir, in South Waziristan, and Miramshah-based Hafiz Gul Bahadur, in North Waziristan.Both Taliban groups were blamed for carrying out significant numbers attacks on Nato and US forces across the border in Afghanistan.

Getty Images Taco and bean burrito The fast food chain, Taco Bell, has been accused of false advertising when it refers to “seasoned beef” in its meaty Mexican fare. The Alabaman law firm Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles filed a lawsuit on Friday on behalf of Amanda Obney, a Californian customer of Taco Bell. Ms Obney doesn’t want cash damages but demands that Taco Bell be more honest in its advertising practices. (More on TIME.com: See the top 10 Worst Fast-Food Meals) In a study conducted by the law firm, it was found that Taco Bell’s “meat mixture”, which it dubs “seasoned beef” contained less than 35 % beef. If these figures are correct, the product would fail to meet minimum requirements, set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to be labeled as “beef”. The other 65% of the “meat” is made up of water, soy lecithin, maltodextrin, silicon dioxide, anti-dusting agent and modified corn starch (amongst other ingredients more suited to a test tube than a taco). Although Taco Bell displays these added ingredients on its website, there is no mention of just how much actual meat is contained in the product. (More on TIME.com: Fiddy and the Tacos – Top 10 Ridiculous Celebrity Lawsuits) Rob Poetsch, a spokesman for Taco Bell, said the company denies that its advertising is misleading: “Taco Bell prides itself on serving high quality Mexican inspired food with great value. We’re happy that the millions of customers we serve every week agree.” The verdict of the case — or the ruling from the court of public opinion — has yet to be announced. (More on TIME.com: Watch the video of Calorie Displays Might Not Change Your Order)

A new paper in the journal npj Microgravity explores the options for astronauts who want to prevent menstrual bleeding during their space missions. The paper, written by authors at King's College London and Baylor College of Medicine, reviews contraceptive devices available including those already used by military and aviation personnel, and calls for more research into the effect of hormone treatments on bone mineral loss in space. Although full amenities are available should astronauts choose to menstruate in space, the practicalities of menstruating during pre-flight training or spaceflight can be challenging. For short duration missions, menstrual cycles can to be timed according to mission dates but for longer hauls, menstrual suppression is often preferred. During long duration missions, astronauts have traditionally continuously taken the combined oral contraceptive (COC) pill to prevent menstrual flow. A three-year exploration class mission is predicted to require approximately 1,100 pills, whose packaging would add mass and disposal requirements for the flight. Long acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) such as IUDs and subdermal (beneath-the-skin) implants are also safe and reliable methods for this purpose but as of yet, have not been extensively used by astronauts. Opting for a LARC would however remove the upmass, packaging, waste and stability issues as a device could be inserted prior to a mission and replacement would not be required in-flight. It is up to individuals to choose which method to use but LARCS appear to have a number of advantages for spaceflight, according to the paper's authors. From an operational perspective, LARCs would not be expected to interfere with the ability of the astronaut to perform her tasks. There are no reports in the scientific literature suggesting high G loading experienced during launch or landing would damage a subdermal implant or shift the position of an IUD. However, consideration may need to be given as to whether the implant could rub or catch on specialist equipment or attire such as a diving suit or extra-vehicular activity suit. The effect of hormone treatments on bone mineral density (BMD) is another issue for spaceflight, where astronauts lose bone at a much higher rate than on Earth. Previous studies have found a reduction in BMD with some contraception choices, namely the progestin only injection (DMPA), and whilst on earth these reductions are temporary, due to irreversible spaceflight related bone changes a treatment option which may impact BMD may not be advised. It is unknown whether taking the pill continuously would help protect against bone mineral loss. The authors call for further research to understand the impact of the COC in combination with microgravity, on bone mass density in women. The paper concludes that astronauts should be provided with up-to-date, evidence-based information to make informed decisions about menstrual suppression if it is desired. The uniqueness of spaceflight provides many challenges in conducting research, as the number of subjects required for clinical studies cannot be matched by the number of current active female astronauts. The authors suggest that combining pharmacological data from spaceflights with equivalent ground-based studies investigating menstrual suppression might provide the evidence required to trial LARCs during spaceflight. Dr Varsha Jain, Visiting Researcher at the Centre of Human and Aerospace Physiological Sciences (CHAPS) at King's College London and NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: "Studies of women in the military have shown that many would like to suppress their menstrual flow during deployment, but only a proportion of them use the pill to do so; the majority of women surveyed also wanted more advice from the military to help them make the right choice. "With more women going into space, we need to ensure they also have the most up-to-date information on reliable contraception and means of menstrual suppression. It is ultimately the woman's choice to suppress, but options should be available to her should she decide to do so."? Dr Virginia Wotring, Assistant Professor at the Center for Space Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, said: "For any woman, choice of a contraceptive requires careful consideration of benefits and risks with respect to her lifestyle and needs. The spaceflight environment adds some extra complexity to the overall equation, and we want female crewmembers to be able to make well-informed choices for their missions. Because loss of bone mineral density is known to occur on spaceflight missions, we need more data regarding health effects, including bone health, with long-term use of hormone treatments not just for contraception (as most women use them), but also for the less-common use to suppress menses."

IN the battle of the codes, score this one as a significant victory to rugby league. Sure, the Penrith players might have used - demeaned is probably a better word - women wearing nothing but their underwear to serve their drinks on Mad Monday. But, as far as we know, they didn’t set fire to them. You can hear the predictable yelps and screams. The bleating of those who believe we gave too much ground to the women’s rights movement when we allowed them to leave the cave unaccompanied. “Just a bit of harmless fun.’’ ‘’Boys being boys.’’ “The women are happy to do it.’’ The same excuses, incidentally, made for the sadly dated and demeaning practice of having scantily clad women cheering on the sidelines at NRL matches. A ritual that emphasises and entrenches the ornamental place of women in the manly world or NRL. Fortunately, most of us have moved on. We’ve grown up. Is it time to scrap Mad Monday? Leave your comments below We conduct public gatherings where alcohol is served, a good time is had and yet no one feels the night is incomplete without a healthy serving of dwarf flambé. We don’t generally harass blokes in wheelchairs. We don’t feel the need to have our snacks served by pretty women in their undies. Indeed, as strange as it might seem to those who have put the madness into recent AFL and NRL Mondays, we invite women - and dwarfs and those with disabilities - along as participants, not amusements. Or they invite us. Maybe this would take the madness out of some post-season Mondays. Replace Mad Monday with Family Monday. Bring the wives and kids. Provide a civilising influence. Cue the cavemen again, this time with their fingers pointed at the ‘’keyboard warriors’’. ‘’But this is about the blokes who’ve gone to war together.’’ ‘’It’s about the bond you share with your teammates that no one else can understand.’’ ‘’It’s about mateship.’’ Which, the past week has revealed yet again, is self-justifying nonsense. Mad Monday is, for many, just an excuse to drink themselves into a blind stupor while finding the most bizarre way to demean and abuse others. No, not always. Perhaps hardly ever. Certainly the media highlights the few incidents where the supposedly ‘’harmless fun’’ gets out of hand. But those few publicised incidents betray a retrograde mentality that continues to infiltrate the ranks of top level football of different kinds. The question is not whether a St Kilda player set fire to a dwarf. But why, at a gathering of highly paid and supposedly elite AFL players, a one-joke routine like performing dwarfs was even contemplated. Why the lingerie waitresses? Harvey Norman, once a significant contributor to rugby league, will this season sponsor the A-League’s marquee Friday night fixture. Harvey Norman’s managing director Katie Page, a former NRL board member, continues to support the NRL’s Women in League round. But you wonder if it is coincidental that the company has shifted its focus to the increasingly family-friendly world of football. But you can’t kill Mad Monday. Ricky Stuart cancelled the day for his Eels, yet forward Mitch Allgood still managed to find a pub and, later, his car keys. Sadly, his name represents the attitude to what happens on Mad Monday. Flaming dwarfs? Semi-naked waitresses? DUI? Don’t worry about the standards the AFL and NRL and their clubs claim to represent, or the responsibilities that come with an out-sized pay cheque. For one day of the year, it’s all good.

With so many people insisting that the Las Vegas massacre confirms what they've always thought about gun control, it is refreshing to hear from someone who changed her mind on the subject after considering the evidence. "My colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States," Leah Libresco, a statistician who used to work for the data journalism site, writes in The Washington Post. "We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I'd lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence." Regarding the much-touted gun control laws of Britain and Australia, Libresco found that "neither nation experienced drops in mass shootings or other gun-related crime that could be attributed to their buybacks and bans." Looking into bans on so-called assault weapons, she concluded that the category is an arbitrary construct with little practical significance. What about the silencers that Hillary Clinton thinks could have raised the death toll in Las Vegas if they had been used there? "In real life," Libresco writes, "silencers limit hearing damage for shooters but don't make gunfire dangerously quiet. An AR-15 with a silencer is about as loud as a jackhammer." Libresco notes that "two-thirds of gun deaths in the United States every year are suicides," and "almost no proposed restriction would make it meaningfully harder for people with guns on hand to use them." But she argues that "older men, who make up the largest share of gun suicides, need better access to people who could care for them and get them help." She also recommends targeted measures aimed at protecting women from domestic violence and preventing deadly disputes among young men. "A reduction in gun deaths is most likely to come from finding smaller chances for victories and expanding those solutions as much as possible," Libresco concludes. "We save lives by focusing on a range of tactics to protect the different kinds of potential victims and reforming potential killers, not from sweeping bans focused on the guns themselves." Libresco says she still does not endorse gun ownership, "but I can't endorse policies whose only selling point is that gun owners hate them." The distinction seems to be lost on politicians like Clinton, who define good policy as whatever the NRA doesn't want.

Get the biggest celebs stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email 50 Cent spent Monday evening ‘making it rain’ in a strip club just hours after he announced he was bamkrupt. Making it rain is a term used to describe throwing a wad of cash around in a strip club. The 53-year-old - who announced he was broke after losing a £3.2 million sex tape case – can be seen holding dollar bills while at the Ace of Diamonds in West Hollywood. (Image: Film Magic) His appearance at the club – being so casual with money – may come as a surprise after the hip hop star , real name Curtis James Jackson III, issued papers in the US Bankruptcy Court in Hartford, Connecticut on Monday. It came three days after was ordered to pay Lavonia Leviston £3.2 million when a jury determined the rapper had intentionally acquired an X-rated video she made with her boyfriend, added himself as a crude commentator and posted it online without her permission to embarrass his rap rival Rick Ross. The rapper has been ordered to show proof of his income and worth so that the jury can deliberate. TMZ reports that Fiddy claims that his assets are valued between $10 million and $50 million but his debts amount are in the same range. Last weekthe rapper was seen partying with what appeared to be $100 bills hanging out of his jeans pocket during a club appearance. According to TMZ, he was carrying a total was $5,000 in $100 bills. Fiddy will be in London on Friday for a show with G Unit at the O2 IN London.

All days are not created equal. Some don't just seem longer than others -- they are. A classic movie about World War II's D-Day was called "The Longest Day." However, scientifically, that title was not correct. That was not the longest day. Nor is a summer solstice, June 21, when the period between sunrise and sunset is the longest in the northern hemisphere. The longest day in the past century occurred sometime during 1912, according to JPL geophysicist Dr. Richard Gross. The shortest day in the past 100 years was August 2, 2001, when the length of time that it took Earth to make one complete turn on its axis actually dipped below 24 hours by about one-thousandth of a second. Gross studies Earth's rotation. As it turns out, Earth doesn't rotate like clockwork. In a recent paper in the journal Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, Gross combined several series of length-of-day measurements into one that spans from 1832 to 1997 and smoothed out some of the error with a sophisticated mathematical formula. "The length of the day changes about a millisecond over the course of a year," says Gross. "It gradually increases in the winter, when Earth rotates more slowly, and decreases in the summer. There are also longer patterns of changes in the length of day that last decades, even centuries." Since there are 86,400 seconds in a 24-hour day, a few thousandths of a second might not seem to make much difference, but they do. Knowing exactly when and how much Earth's rotation varies may lead to better models of the atmosphere and oceans, improved weather prediction and a greater understanding of the planet's inner workings. In addition to his research, Gross works with a group at JPL that uses the global positioning system to measure Earth's rotation very precisely, to about one-hundredth of a millisecond. "JPL is one of the few places in the world that has an application for this kind of work," says Gross, "and that's spacecraft navigation." "If, say, you want to send a lander to Mars," says Gross, "you can track the spacecraft with respect to Earth. So you need to know exactly how Earth is oriented in order to make the right course maneuvers to target a particular landing site on Mars." "If Earth rotated uniformly, you would know how it is oriented at any particular time in relation to Mars or any other place," says Gross, "but Earth doesn't rotate uniformly." Gross tries to understand these changes and how to predict them. "Variations in the length of day were first noted by Edmond Halley in 1695," says Gross. "He was looking at the Moon's motion and thought he saw it accelerating. What he really saw was the Earth slowing down." Since Halley's time, scientists have used a variety of techniques to measure Earth's rate of rotation. First they used astronomical methods. Now they use lunar and satellite laser ranging; a technique called very long baseline interferometry; and the global positioning system. The length of the day--how fast or slow the Earth rotates--depends on how Earth's mass is distributed. Its mass includes the atmosphere, the solid Earth and its fluid core. When the distribution of Earth's mass changes, as during a major earthquake, for example, so does the speed of its rotation. "It's like an ice skater," says Gross, "who spins faster as she brings in her arms. She is changing her mass distribution." "The annual changes in the length of the day," says Gross, "are caused mostly by the atmosphere -- changes in the strength and direction of the winds, especially the jet stream. The Sun warms the equator more than the poles. That temperature difference is largely responsible for the jet stream. Seasonal changes in that temperature difference cause changes in the winds and, hence, the length of the day." The longer patterns in changes of the length of the day can last for decades. "These are caused by processes within Earth's core," says Gross. "The core is a fluid. Its motion generates Earth's magnetic field. Changes in its motion can change the rotation of solid Earth. Observing the magnetic field at the surface gives us an idea of how fluid is moving within the core. These changes in the fluid motion inferred from the magnetic field match the longer period changes we see in the length of the day." We happen to be in the midst of one of these long-term patterns now. Annually, the length of the day has been getting shorter since 1992 . If the trend continues, says Gross, the shortest day may well appear this summer.

Another Fork? Bitcoin Gold Project Plans to Fork Bitcoin Next Month After the hard fork on August 1 that produced Bitcoin Cash, many bitcoiners have been waiting for the possibility of a fork taking place this November with the Segwit2x plan. However, a lot of bitcoin proponents don’t know about another fork called “Bitcoin Gold” (BTG) that’s scheduled to take place on October 25th. Also read: Japan’s Financial Authority to Begin Bitcoin Exchange Surveillance Next Month Bitcoin Gold Plans to Fork Bitcoin and Change the Consensus Mechanism Yes, you read that correctly bitcoin enthusiasts might see another hard fork this October that produces another token called Bitcoin Gold. The project first announced on Bitcointalk.org in July was created by Jack Liao, the founder of Lightning ASIC a mining firm based out of Hong Kong and an anonymous developer named “h4x3.” The forked protocol aims to change bitcoin’s consensus algorithm allowing users to mine the currency with graphic processing units (GPU) among other changes. According to the development team, Bitcoin Gold will use the Equihash algorithm used by the altcoin Zcash rather than bitcoin’s original SHA256. “Bitcoin Gold implements the UAHF (User Activated Hard Fork) proposal to accept GPU mining,” explains the website archive. “Miners can choose the size of the blocks they want to mine, with a default of 1 MB. It includes replay and wipeout protection.” For too long, Bitcoin has been held back by the centralized mining industry. GPU brings Bitcoin into the modern age with an exciting technological roadmap to enable massive on-chain scaling well into the future with decentralization. Most Bitcoin Proponents Unaware of this Project Even though it was announced back in July the news of the Bitcoin Gold fork is just starting to come around people’s radar. Some believe the announcement and the project’s website is a “troll attempt” to create confusion and dilute the power of the Bitcoin Cash fork and Segwit2x. The Bitcoin Gold protocol has available code on Github for review and has multiple social media accounts for Twitter, Facebook, and a Slack channel. Currently, there are over 250 members in the Bitcoin Gold Slack channel, and many of the visitors seem excited about the new fork. Even though the user-activated hard fork will take place on October 25 the full network launch is scheduled for November 1. Evil ASIC Manufacturers There is a lot of discussion happening on the team’s Slack channel and it seems the team has a lot of work to do if BTG developers hope to fork on October 25. For instance, at the moment there is no testnet for miners to test the protocol, reveals the BTG lead developer. “We are working on core protocol and will launch the testnet ASAP,” the BTG programmer reveals in a conversation on the team’s general chat Slack channel. “[Mining] profitability is determined by the price and mining difficulty, but the price is hard to predict,” he adds. The developer also throws out a few opinions throughout the general chat channel about mining centralization. “ASIC leads to centralization — Evil ASIC manufacturers want to take up Bitcoin,” the BTG developer emphasizes. News.Bitcoin.com briefly spoke with Bitcoin Gold’s lead developer who calls himself “H4x3” over the team’s Slack channel about the project. “I can confirm the PoW will be changed to Equihash and the fork date is October 25,” explains the developer. We sent some questions to Jack Liao and H4x3 because the lead developer told us our questions were “too sensitive” to answer alone. The BTG team has not yet responded to our emailed questions. Possible Reasons for a Very Unorganized and Confusing Fork Proposal It’s likely that many bitcoin proponents are viewing the project as a joke or another method of “crypto-trolling.” There’s a lot of good reasons people believe its a prank because the project seems extremely unorganized for a hard fork slated for the end of October. Further, there is speculation from community members about the team’s intentions to change the bitcoin algorithm to conform with GPU miners. Jack Liao manufactures GPU miners that can mine the Zcash algorithm Equihash and speculators believe this is the primary reason to clone bitcoin and make it GPU compatible. News.Bitcoin.com will be following the development of this story closely and will update this article if the BTG team responds to our questions. What do you think about the proposed Bitcoin Gold hard fork allegedly scheduled for October 25? Do you think this project is trolling or a joke? Let us know what you think in the comments below. Images via Shutterstock, Twitter, and the Bitcoin Gold Slack channel. Bitcoin News is growing fast. To reach our global audience, send us a news tip or submit a press release. Let’s work together to help inform the citizens of Earth (and beyond) about this new, important and amazing information network that is Bitcoin.

When you shoot a zombie, does it count as murder, or at least attempted murder? That question actually is of some epistemological importance in the context of President Donald Trump’s decision last month to reverse most – but not quite all – of his predecessor’s actions opening up travel to and trade with the Caribbean communist island of Cuba. That policy change triggered accusations from some quarters that Trump is killing the U.S.-Cuba travel market. But can one kill that which was already dead? U.S. airlines jumped in to the U.S.-Cuba market with great fanfare in 2016. The early projections from the Obama White House and economic team were that soon there would be 1.8 million passengers a year flying between this nation of 320 million people who are, by Cuban standards, nearly all insanely wealthy, and the impoverished island 90 miles south of Florida. So, most U.S. carriers rushed to offer service to Cuba. Since no market existed previously, and since the Cuban economy is so stunted it’s likely that they did not expect the kind of immediate profitability that the Obama Administration had implied. So perhaps they rushed to launch service to Cuba in an effort to stake an early claim in a market that they might eventually actually be worthwhile to serve, to grab free service rights that they might be able to sell later at a profit to a stronger competitor, or to protect their market share positions in U.S. markets like south Florida where large numbers of Cuban-Americans live and conceivably might want to visit their familial homeland and relatives from time to time. But it never made any economic or marketing sense for U.S. carriers to pour 10,000 seats a month into the U.S.-Cuba air market, as U.S. carrier did initially. The per capita income in Cuba is around $5,500 a year, or roughly one-seventh that of the state of Mississippi, which at just under $37,000 ranked last in 2014 among the 50 states in per capita income. But while Mississippi ranks just 31st in population among the states with just under 3 million residents Cuba’s population of 11.4 million would place it 8th, if it were a state, just behind Ohio and just ahead of Georgia. That means Cuba has, in relative terms, an inordinate number of extremely poor people. Developing profitable traffic demand among such a population likely will take decades, even if they eventually are allowed to travel at will, a right they still don’t have today. Thus, nearly all of the passengers flying between the two nations were – and continue to be – Americans. Indeed, restrictions still imposed by the Castro regime block most Cubans from flying north, even if their American family members pay for the tickets. And most of those Americans flying to Cuba are, and likely will be for the foreseeable future, Cuban Americans traveling to visit family and friends who still live on the island. As leisure, rather than business travelers, they can be expected to be very price sensitive, a factor that promises to make it even more difficult for U.S. carriers to earn profits from their Cuban routes. Meanwhile Americans who did fly to Cuba after the market opened last year quickly discovered that there’s not much to do there. Cuba once was renowned as a vacation and party Mecca for wealthy Americans before the communist takeover of the government in January 1959. But since then there’s been effectively zero spending on tourism infrastructure. And what little tourism the island did receive came from budget-conscious vacationers from Central and South America, Canada and Europe. So there was little money to spend on keeping up the tourism infrastructure even if parties in power had wanted to do so. Today, most Cuban hotels are run-down and staffed by Cubans who have no concept of the kind of service levels most Americans expect. The food in Cuban restaurants reportedly is quite tasty but in short supply, thanks to chronic shortages of meat and other key menu items. And an economy that purposely has been retarded by its dictatorial regime for more than 50 years cannot be expected to create very quickly, or maintain the kind of high-dollar, high-quality infrastructure necessary to support even a modest tourist industry. And now, in the wake of President Trump’s reversal of the market-opening policies of President Obama that infrastructure development almost certainly will be further delayed. Indeed, that’s the point of Trump’s policy, which prohibits Americans from transacting business with government-owned entities in Cuba. Nearly all of Cuba’s hotels are operated by foreign companies under contract, but they’re owned almost exclusively by the Cuban military. So are most tourist-type restaurants. Even the properly licensed cabbies, driving their famous 1950s-era American classic cars, are, for the most part, off-limits to Americans in Cuba because most of the money from their fares goes to government entities. So it’s no surprise that U.S. airlines are now stumbling over one another to get out of Cuba. U.S.-Cuba air capacity this fall will be down at least 20% from what it was at the start of 2017. And nearly all service to Cuban destinations other than the capitol city, Havana, either already has been discontinued or soon will be. On paper several carriers are requesting more service rights to fly to Havana. But, again, those requests, which aren’t being pursued with any real fervency, are being made not because the carriers think they can make money flying to Havana today (or any time soon), but to lay claim to assets (route rights) that are limited and which eventually might be worth something. What may come as a surprise to Americans, however, is that the U.S. carriers began their retreat from Cuba well before President Trump announced his policy change. Heck, it began before he even took office. It was obvious very early on after U.S.-Cuba flying began that the passenger traffic numbers were horrendously low. Break-even load factor – the percentage of seats an airline needs to fil to cover direct operating costs – used to be a really important number in the airline industry, back in the days when they were losing billions annually and struggling to fill seats. These days, with load factors running at 85% or higher and carriers reporting the first string of double-digit annual profit margins in their histories, most carriers don’t even bother to include their breakeven load factor numbers in their quarterly or annual public reports. But it’s generally understood that on most routes each of their flights needs to fill around 65% of their seats to fully cover its operating costs. Given that assumption, the representative load factor data by U.S.-Cuba route (from January of this year) below explains why so many carriers are backing out of that market partially or entirely: Delta – from Atlanta – 53.2% American – from Charlotte – 49.1% United – from Newark – 64.5% JetBlue – from New York (Kennedy) – 58.3% Delta – from New York (Kennedy) – 50.8% Jet Blue – from Orlando – 56.1% Jet Blue – from Fort Lauderdale – 63.2% Spirit – from Fort Lauderdale – 43.2% Only routes from Miami and Tampa – and one of three from Fort Lauderdale - operate above the assumed 65% breakeven load factor: American – from Miami – 79.7% Delta – from Miami – 71.8% Southwest – from Fort Lauderdale – 70.5% Frontier – from Miami – 67% Admittedly, these weak performance numbers came early on in the lifecycle of U.S.-Cuba air service. And new routes often take time to develop before reaching profitability. But that development has not yet begun. Nor is it likely to any time soon. That’s why carriers are dropping lots of flights and discontinuing service altogether in some cases. Tiny Silver Airways, flying turboprop planes from Fort Lauderdale to eight secondary cities in Cuba, cancelled all of those flights in April. Spirit canceled service on its Fort Lauderdale-Havana route at the end of May, only six months after launching it. Frontier a week later gave up its Miami-Havana flying. American began cutting back service to secondary Cuban cities last November. JetBlue switched from 200-seat Airbus A321s to 162-seat A320s on its Fort-Lauderdale-Havana routes and from A320s to 100-seat Embraer 190s on its Orlando-Havana flights. That move instantly improved its actual load factor performance but likely raised its breakeven load factor percentage point well into the 70s. Just last week Southwest announced that it will drop two of its three routes to Cuba on Sept. 4. The company issued a statement saying the decision came “after an in-depth analysis of our performance over several months which confirmed that there is not a clear path to sustainability serving these markets, particularly with the continuing prohibition in U.S. law on tourism to Cuba for American citizens.” None of this should have come as a surprise to folks in the airline industry, though it appears, in some cases that it did. Nearly two years ago, in August 2018, writing in this space, I quoted outspoken industry analyst (and fellow FORBES.com contributor) Michael Boyd saying that there were greater profit opportunities for U.S. airlines in serving Golden Triangle Airport than in service Cuba. “Never heard of it?,” I wrote then. “That’s understandable. It’s in eastern Mississippi, about half-way between Columbus (2012 estimated population about 23,500, down 2,500 from the 2000 census) and Starkville (2010 census population 23,888 not counting dorm-dwelling students at Mississippi State University). West Point (2010 census population 11,307) is the third “city” in the triangle referenced in the name of the airport, which boasts one 8,000-foot asphalt runway, free wi-fi, short security lines, close-in parking, 150 seats in the terminal plus modern restrooms and vending machines.” Boyd noted that a vibrant and expanding manufacturing industry with strong international ties in eastern Mississippi created “much stronger airline revenue opportunities” there than existed in all of Cuba. That’s still the case today, and likely will be the case for many, many years to come. President Trump’s new policy for trading with and traveling to and from Cuba is intended to speed up Cuba’s economic and tourism development by forcing the government to privatize its holdings in the tourism and other industries. The hope is that by removing the financial incentive for those government entities to retain their control over those key economic sectors the Cuban people, likely with financial backing from foreign investors, will take control of those sectors and begin developing a capitalistic system once again on the island. But who knows how long it will take for that happen, if it happens at all? So, it’s probably not fair to say that the President killed the development of the U.S.-Cuba travel market. It was, at best, only a zombie market. But it’s far from clear when, if ever, that zombie of a market will come to life.

DJ Premier: “That was just amazing because it happened in this room. Actually, anything from ‘92 and on, we did it here. It was just amazing watching him work because I was already a fan of him when he did ‘Back to the Grill,’ ‘Halftime,’ ‘It Ain't Hard to Tell,’ and ‘Live at the Barbeque.’ So when I heard him on those records I was like, ‘Yo, I got to do something that’s on the same level.’ So I came in here, and flipped the ill, gutter, Joe Chambers sample (‘Mind Rain’). I can tell you because it’s cleared. [Laughs.] Nas watched me build the beat from scratch. And he wrote the verse in the studio. If you listen to ‘N.Y. State of Mind’ you’ll hear him going, ‘I don’t know how to start this shit,’ because he literally just wrote it. Before he started the verse, I was signaling him going, ‘One, two, three,’ and he just goes in like, ‘Rappers I monkey flip’em, in the funky rhythm." He did that in one take. After he did that first verse, he goes, ‘How was that? Did that sound all right?’ And we were just like, ‘Oh, my God! The streets are going to go crazy when they hear this!’ “It was one take, but he would format it before. He’ll sit at the front, cover his mouth when the beat’s playing, and would mumble it. So we can’t hear what he’s saying. He was real quiet, but he would bring his whole army. Rest in peace to Drawz, by the way. He just died not too long ago. I remember [Nas] bringing Slate, Wallet Head, basically, all the people he was shouting out. They would be like, ‘Can we go in [the booth] too?’ They just wanted to feel it, you know? It was just funny to watch them all in the booth doing ‘Represent,’ and yelling in the background.”

I’ve been reading a book titled Drive. Its goal is to discuss what motivates us, yet it is one of those books that isn’t particularly well written or entertaining. But alas, it is a book that gets you thinking in a more concrete fashion about things you have always known. It reminds me of a college book—not interesting enough to make it really enjoyable, but meaningful enough that you keep going back to it until you finally finish. The book basically boils motivation down to three essential ingredients: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Or in an even simpler form, what gets you up in the morning or keeps you up at night? Related: 70 photos of hard-working beef producers I try to apply every business book I read to my business, my family and my relationships with the hope of making them better. My world view tends to be like a typical economist. Profit is the motivator, profit is the goal, profit is the purpose. Yet, I think that is one of the reasons I have always admired ranchers so much. Their primary purpose and goals are rarely about profits. Profits are a good thing; they are essential to the survival of a business, but also a very good way of measuring whether or not the business is achieving its greater purpose. Related: 12 Reasons You Should Be Proud To Be A Hard Worker The concepts in this book seem almost intuitive at a personal or business level, if not always easy to implement. But it also got me to thinking about these concepts from an industry perspective. Our industry is an endless story of passionate, hard-working people and businesses striving to build a legacy. But from an industry perspective, we morph into metrics like profitability, beef demand, or market share. There’s nothing wrong with that. After all, the industry is not sustainable without them. However, they are a lot like selection indexes—they are a great way to measure your progress, but you improve them by improving the individual components that make up the index. We achieve our goals as an industry by increasing consumers’ connection with our product, creating more memorable and enjoyable eating experiences and providing more value. It isn’t prices we receive or advertising dollars we spend. We tend to focus on the comfortable instead of the important. The artificial insemination (AI) business is a great microcosm of this. Only 3-5% of the cows in this country are AI’d. So a 2% increase in that number would increase the size of the business by 40%-60% and profitability by even greater margins. Yet, the industry as a whole spends very little time growing AI acceptance. Instead of growing the size of the pie, they fight ferociously every day to increase the size of their slice of the pie. Everyone benefits from a growing industry and everyone is harmed by a shrinking industry. Yet, we spend precious little time and capital on growing our industry. Truth be known, most of the time spent on the big aggregate things are more designed to preserve what we have or to stop the decline rather than truly grow it. I always thought that the great disadvantage our industry had to overcome was being a commodity market. That has been and continues to be an impediment, even as the industry attempts to transition toward a differentiated value-based marketing structure. As I get older, however, I’m starting to realize that the problem is dwarfed by our segmented business model. Everyone does a great job, but unlike other businesses there is no clear individual responsibility for meeting and building the demands of consumers or addressing competitive concerns. The result is a mad race for efficiency and grabbing market share, not from an overall market perspective but from a narrowly focused segment mentality. As crazy as it might sound, I think the checkoff has even contributed to the problem. Yes, it saved us from the precipice and helps to keep us from going the way of the lamb industry, but it also gave us as individuals an excuse to abdicate our responsibility to grow our industry. The other ironic factor is that we have been let off the hook for growing our industry because our product simply tastes a lot better than our competitors. They have had to innovate, improve their product offerings and invest greatly in marketing, efficiency, and product development. We haven’t. We look at the aggregate numbers our industry spends and think it is significant dollars, but that’s a warped perspective. Imagine you are selling 10 bred heifers and I gave you $10 to promote them. The average fed animal grosses several thousand dollars and yet we are invested $1 per animal to promote the consumer products it produces. For a little perspective, the average company spends 2% of its revenue on advertising. In contested markets, that number is even higher. For example, Ford sells about 2 million cars per year and they spend $4 billion advertising. And no, that doesn’t count the billions of dollars its dealers spend as well. Even Microsoft, which enjoys a dominant market share position and limited competition, spends nearly 3% of its revenues on advertising. The beef industry on a retail equivalent is a $105 billion industry. It is hard to fathom, but if we were a company, we would be investing several billion dollars a year in advertising! The marketing, research and development numbers are equally as disturbing. We should be debating if $15 or $20 per head is a more appropriate number. Instead, we are talking about whether or not we can raise it to $2. It is like our politicians who talk about reducing our nearly $20 trillion debt by eliminating a $1 million budget line item. While it is true that we must start somewhere, a solution that is wholly inadequate to address the problem is always going to be a tough sale.

“Stories,” Neil Gaiman asserted in his wonderful lecture on what makes stories last, “are genuinely symbiotic organisms that we live with, that allow human beings to advance.” But what is the natural selection of these organisms — what makes the ones that endure fit for survival? What, in other words, makes a great story? That’s what the great Harvard psychologist Jerome Bruner (October 1, 1915–June 6, 2016), who revolutionized cognitive psychology and pioneered the modern study of creativity in the 1960s, explores in his 1986 essay collection Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (public library). In an immensely insightful piece titled “Two Modes of Thought,” Bruner writes: There are two modes of cognitive functioning, two modes of thought, each providing distinctive ways of ordering experience, of constructing reality. The two (though complementary) are irreducible to one another. Efforts to reduce one mode to the other or to ignore one at the expense of the other inevitably fail to capture the rich diversity of thought. Each of the ways of knowing, moreover, has operating principles of its own and its own criteria of well-formedness. They differ radically in their procedures for verification. A good story and a well-formed argument are different natural kinds. Both can be used as means for convincing another. Yet what they convince of is fundamentally different: arguments convince one of their truth, stories of their lifelikeness. The one verifies by eventual appeal to procedures for establishing formal and empirical proof. The other establishes not truth but verisimilitude. […] A story (allegedly true or allegedly fictional) is judged for its goodness as a story by criteria that are of a different kind from those used to judge a logical argument as adequate or correct. Bruner notes that the Western scientific and philosophical worldview has been largely concerned with the question of how to know truth, whereas storytellers are concerned with the question of how to endow experience with meaning — a dichotomy Hannah Arendt addressed brilliantly more than a decade earlier in her 1973 Gifford Lecture on thinking vs. knowing and the crucial difference between truth and meaning. One could go even further and argue, after Walter Benjamin, that the product of the analytical mode is information, whereas the product of storytelling is wisdom. Bruner calls these two contrasting modes the paradigmatic or logico-scientific, characterized by a mathematical framework of analysis and explanation, and the narrative. Each, he argues, is animated by a different kind of imagination: The imaginative application of the paradigmatic mode leads to good theory, tight analysis, logical proof, sound argument, and empirical discovery guided by reasoned hypothesis. But paradigmatic “imagination” (or intuition) is not the same as the imagination of the novelist or poet. Rather, it is the ability to see possible formal connections before one is able to prove them in any formal way. The imaginative application of the narrative mode leads instead to good stories, gripping drama, believable (though not necessarily “true”) historical accounts. It deals in human or human-like intention and action and the vicissitudes and consequences that mark their course. It strives to put its timeless miracles into the particulars of experience, and to locate the experience in time and place. […] In contrast to our vast knowledge of how science and logical reasoning proceed, we know precious little in any formal sense about how to make good stories. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that story must construct two landscapes simultaneously. One is the landscape of action, where the constituents are the arguments of action: agent, intention or goal, situation, instrument, something corresponding to a “story grammar.” The other landscape is the landscape of consciousness: what those involved in the action know, think, or feel, or do not know, think, or feel. Bruner considers the singular landscape of narrative: Narrative deals with the vicissitudes of human intentions. And since there are myriad intentions and endless ways for them to run into trouble — or so it would seem — there should be endless kinds of stories. But, surprisingly, this seems not to be the case. […] We would do well with as loose fitting a constraint as we can manage concerning what a story must “be” to be a story. And the one that strikes me as most serviceable is the one with which we began: narrative deals with the vicissitudes of intention. But this matter of intention remains forever mediated by the reader’s interpretation. What young Sylvia Plath observed of poetry — “Once a poem is made available to the public,” she told her mother, “the right of interpretation belongs to the reader.” — is true of all art and storytelling, whatever the medium. Bruner considers how the psychology of this interpretation factors into the question of what makes a great story: It will always be a moot question whether and how well a reader’s interpretation “maps” on an actual story, does justice to the writer’s intention in telling the story, or conforms to the repertory of a culture. But in any case, the author’s act of creating a narrative of a particular kind and in a particular form is not to evoke a standard reaction but to recruit whatever is most appropriate and emotionally lively in the reader’s repertory. So “great” storytelling, inevitably, is about compelling human plights that are “accessible” to readers. But at the same time, the plights must be set forth with sufficient subjunctivity to allow them to be rewritten by the reader, rewritten so as to allow play for the reader’s imagination. One cannot hope to “explain” the processes involved in such rewriting in any but an interpretive way, surely no more precisely, say, than an anthropologist “explains” what the Balinese cockfight means to those who bet on it… All that one can hope for is to interpret a reader’s interpretation in as detailed and rich a way as psychologically possible. This essential “subjunctivity” is the act of designating a mood for the story. “To be in the subjunctive mode,” Bruner explains, means “to be trafficking in human possibilities rather than in settled certainties.” Out of this drive toward unsettled possibilities arises the ultimate question of “how a reader makes a strange text his own,” a question of “assimilating strange tales into the familiar dramas of our own lives, even more than transmuting our own dramas in the process” — something Bruner illustrates brilliantly with an exchange between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan from Italo Calvino’s masterwork Invisible Cities, which takes place after Marco Polo describes a bridge stone by stone: “But which is the stone that supports the bridge?” Kublai Khan asks. “The bridge is not supported by one stone or another,” Marco answers, “but by the line of the arch that they form.” Kublai Khan remains silent, reflecting. Then he adds: “Why do you speak to me of the stones? It is only the arch that matters to me.” Polo answers: “Without stones there is no arch.” Bruner extracts from this an allegory of the key to great storytelling: But still, it is not quite the arch. It is, rather, what arches are for in all the senses in which an arch is for something — for their beautiful form, for the chasms they safely bridge, for coming out on the other side of crossings, for a chance to see oneself reflected upside down yet right side up. So a reader goes from stones to arches to the significance of arches is some broader reality — goes back and forth between them in attempting finally to construct a sense of the story, its form, its meaning. As our readers read, as they begin to construct a virtual text of their own, it is as if they were embarking on a journey without maps — and yet, they possess a stock of maps that might give hints, and besides, they know a lot about journeys and about mapmaking. First impressions of the new terrain are, of course, based on older journeys already taken. In time, the new journey becomes a thing in itself, however much its initial shape was borrowed from the past. The virtual text becomes a story of its own, its very strangeness only a contrast with the reader’s sense of the ordinary. The fictional landscape, finally, must be given a “reality” of its own — the ontological step. It is then that the reader asks that crucial interpretive question, “What’s it all about?” But what “it” is, of course, is not the actual text — however great its literary power — but the text that the reader has constructed under its sway. And that is why the actual text needs the subjunctivity that makes it possible for a reader to create a world of his own. Bruner concurs with Barthes’s conviction that the writer’s greatest gift to the reader is to help her become a writer, then revises it to clarify and amplify its ambition: The great writer’s gift to a reader is to make him a better writer. Actual Minds, Possible Worlds is a remarkable read in its totality, exploring the psychological realities of language, thought and emotion, and the self. Complement this particular portion with Susan Sontag on the task of storytelling, Oliver Sacks on its curious psychology, and Martha Nussbaum on how it remaps our interior lives, then revisit Bruner on creative wholeness, art as a mode of knowing, and the six essential conditions for creativity.

A 44-year-old man is in serious condition after a hit-and-run Monday morning on St. Margarets Bay Road in Halifax Regional Municipality. RCMP Cpl. Dal Hutchinson says the man was cycling at the head of St. Margarets Bay near the Train Station Bike and Bean café when he was struck at about 6:45 a.m. by a pickup truck, which left the scene. The cyclist, Tim Lane, was on his way to work when the collision happened. His wife, Stephanie, says he rides the same route from their home in St. Margarets Bay to the Tantallon Park & Ride every day. She says she got the call from RCMP around 7:30 a.m. and quickly made arrangements for their three young children before rushing to the hospital. Out of surgery "I had been told by RCMP that my husband had been involved in ... what they thought was a hit-and-run accident. He was struck off his bicycle and they didn't really have much more information for me," she said. Lane was taken to hospital by ambulance with serious injuries. Stephanie Lane says he is out of surgery and expected to recover, but suffered fractures to his skull, face and thighbone, as well as a ruptured spleen. "It's such a cowardly thing to do, to hit somebody on a bike and just leave them there on the side of the road, you don't even know if they're alive or dead. It's sickening. It's inhumane," she said. The truck involved in the collision is described as black truck with a flat deck. RCMP are asking anyone with information is asked to call RCMP or Crime Stoppers.

Strikeforce is targeting a light heavyweight fight between former 205-pound champion Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante and Ovince St. Preux at a yet to be announced July event, MMA Fighting has learned from sources close to the fight.Feijao vs. OSP has been discussed by all parties involved, however, Strikeforce officials recently told MMA Fighting that "nothing (is) finalized" just yet.Cavalcante (10-3) lost his title to Dan Henderson in March via third-round TKO. He won the title last August when he defeated Muhammed Lawal via third-round TKO.St-Preux (10-4) went 7-0 in 2010. He most recently scored a unanimous decision win over Abongo Humphrey in January.Recent reports stated that St-Preux would be facing Lawal at Strikeforce's June 18 event, but according to sources close to both fighters, that fighter was never close to being signed. MMARising.com recently reported that Lawal would instead be facing Roger Gracie on a July 9 card, which could be the same one to feature Feijao vs. OSP.

The Hofstra University student killed during a home-invasion robbery was the victim of friendly fire from a veteran cop, Nassau County police revealed last night. The officer unleashed a barrage of bullets when intruder Dalton Smith pointed a gun at him while using Andrea Rebello as a human shield, police said. “He kept saying, ‘I’m going to kill her,’ then pointed the gun at the police officer,” Det. Lt. John Azzata said. The cop fired eight times, with one bullet accidentally hitting Rebello, 21, in the head, he said. The other seven rounds struck and killed Smith, a career criminal, ex-con and parole absconder, Azzata said. Smith — clad in dark clothes and a ski mask — was wielding a 9mm pistol with one bullet in the chamber and another in the magazine, Azzata said. But he never got off a shot during the deadly encounter early Friday inside the off-campus house in Uniondale where Rebello lived with her twin sister, Jessica, Azzata said. The cop who fired the shots was described only as a 12-plus-year veteran of the Nassau County Police Department who earlier served more than seven years with the NYPD. A source told The Post his decorations include the medal of honor. He was treated for trauma after the incident, said James Carver, head of the Nassau County Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association. Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Dale said the cop was “OK,” adding: “I believe he’s out sick.” “We’re going to make sure he receives counseling and appropriate medical attention if he needs it,” Dale said. Dale also said his department would conduct a “complete investigation.”

There will be a new voice of the Los Angeles Chargers when the team takes the field in 2017 as Matt “Money” Smith will handle play-by-play duties for KFI AM-640’s game broadcasts. A fixture in LA, Smith’s newest gig is the latest to an already impressive resume as co-host of the nationally syndicated Petros & Money Show on AM 570 and fantasy football analyst for NFL Network. Still, he considers calling play-by-play for the Bolts a once in a lifetime opportunity. “To say I’m excited is an understatement,” he said. “I’ve had the chance to call a few games a season the past few years, and they’ve always felt like our local team. The fact that I am not only going to be a play-by-play announcer for the Chargers, but also during the first year in which they are moving to Los Angeles is extremely exciting. Some of my earliest NFL memories were with the Chargers. I remember watching Dan Fouts, Charlies Joiner and Kellen Winslow. I went through some of those excruciating losses to the Steelers and Raiders, but also just beating up on the Dolphins in the playoffs. The chance to share those stories during the broadcast helps people know that this is a storied franchise. When it comes to the offensive side of football, you are talking about one of the premiere franchises in NFL history. I couldn’t be more excited.” Prior to joining the Chargers, Smith served as a play-by-play announcer for Compass Media Network’s coverage of NFL games, NCAA football and NCAA basketball. He’s also called games on television for the Pac-12 Network and the NFL on Fox. Over the years, Smith has had the honor of working alongside some of the brightest minds in the game. He considers his new partner, Nick Hardwick, to be cut from the same cloth. Thus, Smith has a particular approach when it comes to calling Chargers games that fans can expect on the airwaves. “I think football is an analyst’s sport,” he explained. “The way I approach calling a game is that I want to do right by the other person I’m calling a game with. I’ve had the great pleasure to work with some really, really good color analysts while doing this. So for me, it’s all about Nick. Nick is the guy who was out there and he can help explain things. It’s such a complicated sport, so I try to make things as simple as possible for people. I want to set up the play and give them a good visual, but then I want to get out so Nick can explain* what* happened and why it happened. I want to give him as much of an opportunity to do that.” However, Smith knows calling a game is more than what goes on between the lines. In addition to painting a picture, he aims to captivate the audience by immersing them in the moment.

Ukraine’s government has begun cutting off payments and banking services to areas of the country under the control of pro-Russian rebels, in a further sign that Kiev has given up trying to control the territory. There has been a problem with ready cash in the region for months, but Kiev’s decision to sever banking services to the region mean even credit cards will no longer work. Journalists reported seeing long queues of people outside banks in Donetsk attempting to withdraw their money. The majority of businesses said their credit-card machines were no longer working, after Ukraine’s central bank ordered all banks to cease operations in the east. Ukraine’s government has also said it will stop funding social services such as schools and hospitals in areas it does not control. Winter in the major city of Donetsk and other parts of the east under separatist control is likely to be harsh for those who have remained, as industry has ground to a halt, military confrontation continues and supplies of food and energy are unreliable. The separatist authorities have a dilemma: they have declared independence from Ukraine, but unlike with the Crimea peninsula, Russia has shown little appetite for formally taking over the east. This leaves the rebel authorities unsure where to turn for the cash to dole out benefits, pensions and other payments. “What this means in reality is the confiscation of the pensions and benefits of our veterans, pensioners, disabled people and mothers … It is an attempt to end civilised life in the Donbass region,” said the Donetsk People’s Republic in an official statement. “We think there are no legal reasons not to pay money from the budget to people based in the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics. People living on our territories have the same rights as other citizens of Ukraine.” Previously, the Donetsk authorities have proclaimed their territory an independent state and said they no longer wanted anything to do with Kiev. Ukraine has been setting up makeshift border posts along the line of control, a further sign that Kiev has realised it cannot win back the territory militarily. Representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the separatists signed a ceasefire agreement in Minsk in September, but sporadic fighting has continued and none of the sides have taken the agreements seriously. Philip Breedlove, Nato’s top military commander, said on Wednesday that Russian forces were still operating in eastern Ukraine. Breedlove, on a visit to Kiev where he met Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, said the Russian army was “training, equipping, giving backbone” to separatist forces. Russia has repeatedly denied any militarily involvement in east Ukraine, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Moscow has claimed any Russian soldiers in the east had either got lost or were on holiday.

Here’s the latest big thing everyone is talking about: Kathy Miller, who is the Donald Trump campaign’s chairwoman in the oh-so-crucial Mahoning County of Ohio, had harsh words to say about about President Barack Obama in a video that was posted to the Guardian‘s site today. That isn’t surprising, but her claim that he basically invented racism was. To review, here’s some of what she said in her interview: I don’t think there was any racism until Obama got elected. We never had problems like this … If you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault. You’ve had every opportunity, it was given to you. You’ve had the same schools everybody else went to. You had benefits to go to college that white kids didn’t have. You had all the advantages and didn’t take advantage of it. It’s not our fault, certainly. You can imagine why there was a major outcry. Miller has now resigned. Here is the statement from the Ohio Trump campaign: That @realDonaldTrump Mahoning County, OH Volunteer Chair has resigned. “My personal comments were inappropriate, and I apologize.” pic.twitter.com/T4xX8Bd3IW — Candace Smith (@CandaceSmith_) September 22, 2016 Her replacement, Tracey Winbush, is a conservative radio host of color. [image via screengrab] Lindsey: Twitter. Facebook. Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

09/09/2016 – Santiago de Compostella ES - WOS Festival (Black Cobra only) ALL DATES WITH YOB 11/09/2016 – Tilburg NL – Incubate Festival 12/09/2016 – Dortmund DE – FZW 13/09/2016 – Aarhus DK – Radar 14/09/2016 – Gothenburg SE – Sticky Fingers // Göteborg 15/09/2016 – Oslo NO – BLÅ 16/09/2016 – Copenhagen DK – Pumpehuset 17/09/2016 – Athens GR – Smoke The Fuzz gigs Fest 19/09/2016 – Wiesbaden DE – Schlachthof Wiesbaden 20/09/2016 – Munich DE – Feierwerk 21/09/2016 – Berlin DE – Musik & Frieden 22/09/2016 – Wroclaw PL – Asymmetry Festival 23/09/2016 – Leipzig DE – UT Connewitz 24/09/2016 – Nurnberg DE – Z-Bau 25/09/2016 – Vienna AT – Chelsea 26/09/2016 – Ljubljana SL – Club Gromka 28/09/2016 – Zagreb HR – VintageIndustrial Bar 29/09/2016 – Linz AT – Stadtwerkstatt 30/09/2016 – Milan IT – Lo Fi Milano 01/10/2016 – Pratteln CH – UP in SMOKE festival in Z7 02/10/2016 – Orleans FR – L’Astrolabe – Orléans 04/10/2016 – Belfort FR – La Poudrière – Belfort 05/10/2016 – Paris FR – GLAZART 06/10/2016 – Tourcoing FR – Le Grand Mix 07/10/2016 – Bristol UK – The Fleece Bristol 08/10/2016 – Glasgow UK – The Garage 09/10/2016 – Birmingham UK – The Rainbow Venues 10/10/2016 – Manchester UK – The Ruby Lounge 11/10/2016 – Dublin IRE – Whelan’s 13/10/2016 – London UK – Scala 14/10/2016 – Antwerp BE – DESERTFEST ANTWERP 15/10/2016 – Hannover DE – CAFE GLOCKSE

(CNN) — A freshly made white chocolate and raspberry mix is carefully poured into a piping bag by chef Yasumasa Takagi, one of the most renowned patissiers in Japan After snipping the end of the bag, he squeezes the delicious pink paste into a tray of oblong, white plastic molds. Surprisingly, Takagi isn't creating an elaborate confection for customers to his fashionable Tokyo cafe; this is something far more modest. It's a KitKat. Most of the world knows the KitKat as an ordinary coffee break snack made from wafers and milk chocolate. In Japan, it's in a completely different league. Here, gourmet versions, pioneered by Takagi, compete with a mind-boggling array of mass-produced flavors that to some palates might border on the bizarre. Wasabi KitKat anyone? How about lemon vinegar? Or pumpkin pudding, green tea, Shinshu apple or adzuki bean sandwich? It's a long way from the KitKat's humble origins in 1930s England. Born in the northern city of York, the chocolate treat was relatively unknown globally until local manufacturer Rowntree was bought by Swiss food giant Nestle in the 1980s. Winning formula Even as it spread across the planet, success was never guaranteed in Japan -- a market notoriously difficult to break into for non-domestic brands. So how has it become such a phenomenon? That's down to some hard work and smart ideas from KitKat's Japanese marketing gurus in the western city of Kobe. And also a lucky quirk of language. KitKat sounds very similar to "kito kato," which in Japanese means "to surely win." Chef Takagi mixes up new flavors in his kitchens. CNN It's a common phrase said to students sitting exams, particularly high-pressure university entrance tests. Soon after they arrived in Japan, KitKats were being given by parents to their children and friends were giving them to each other with hand-written messages -- and not just around exam time. "There was strong emotional bonding going on and the 'gifting emotion,'" says Ryoji Maki, marketing manager for KitKat in Japan. Flavor riot Rainbow of flavors: Japan's KitKat kaleidoscope. CNN He says Japan's gift-giving tradition and particular culinary habits -- prizing seasonal and regional products -- were tapped into. But it wasn't until the early 2000s that KitKat in Japan began to show its true colors with a riotous expansion in flavors. Consumers in Japan demand choice and novelty as much as they prize tradition. According to Maki, about 2,000 new confectionery products are released each year in Japan, so it's not enough to just offer dark or milk chocolate variations. To date there have been more than 300 different KitKat flavors. Ingredients are sourced from regions across the country, often produced and sold to coincide with food seasons in limited edition boxes of KitKat minis. Shizuoka prefecture provides the wasabi. Okinawa gives up its purple potatoes and matcha green tea. Other unlikely flavors are sakura (cherry blossom) and sake (non-alcoholic). Taking the bars out of the shops and into Japan's eateries has also been another strategy. Tie-ins have gone beyond straightforward desserts like cheesecake, resulting in curiosities like KitKat pizzas and "baking bars," designed to be cooked before eating. Since 2012, KitKat has started to eclipse homegrown confectionery brands such as Meiji. Limited edition Confectionery king: KitKat has become a best seller. CNN About four million KitKat minis (a smaller, two-finger version of the classic bar) roll out of the chocolate factory each day -- that's close to 1.5 billion each year. And it doesn't stop there, which is where patisserie supremo Takagi comes in. "After I gained training at various famous shops in France and Belgium, I thought that it was my mission to fill the gap between Western countries and Japan," says Takagi. Initially approached about a collaboration with KitKat, he rejected it. "I believed I couldn't create chocolate freely without ties," he says. A decade of discussions and negotiations later, convinced he had free rein to experiment within his own high standards, Takagi agreed to open his kitchens to KitKat. They now produce very limited edition high-quality KitKats, using couverture chocolate, that can only be found in his shops and eight of Japan's high-end department stores through KitKat "Chocolatory" concessions. "Chocolatory" concessions around Japan sell the exotic bars under KitKat chandeliers. CNN The first opened in Tokyo in January 2014 and sold out of Chef Takagi's specialty bars in hours. Since then he's been advocating for new flavors and pushing out new products, from the single-finger Sublime range to "special" flavors that include fruit or tea-infused minis. Visitors to Japan can get their hands on Chef Takagi's current range from under KitKat chandeliers (yes, really) at the Chocolatory concessions. Gift boxes in limited-edition flavors are on sale at major train stations and airports. There are no concrete plans for export, but if Takagi is able to convince a global food giant operating in one of the most competitive markets in the world to change their approach, don't rule it out. "What I would most like to achieve is to deliver Japanese KitKat Chocolatory with craftsmanship to the people around the world," he says.

Get the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email A passenger jet was involved in a near miss with a UFO in the skies above Glasgow, according to a report. Pilots saw a blue and yellow object "loom ahead" as they made their final descent into the city on December 2 last year. The UK Airprox Board, which investigates near misses, was unable to establish what the crew had seen. A report by the board said that the Airbus A320 was flying in clear skies above Baillieston just before 1pm when the incident occurred. The plane was at an altitude of 4,000ft when the pilot and co-pilot reported seeing the object about 100m away. The report said: "The object passed directly beneath before either of the crew had time to take avoiding action or had 'really registered it', although they were both agreed that it appeared blue and yellow, or silver, in colour with a small frontal area but that it was 'bigger than a balloon'." The pilot estimated that the distance between the plane and the object had been 300ft and assessed the risk of collision as high. He asked the controller at Glasgow Airport whether anything was being monitored at the time but was told that nothing had been seen on radar. Further inquiries were carried out into the incident, including a review of radar sources. The report stated: "Investigation of the available surveillance sources was unable to trace any activity matching that described by the A320 pilot. "Additionally, there was no other information to indicate the presence or otherwise of activity in the area." The report said that the object was unlikely to have been a fixed-wing aircraft, helicopter or hot air balloon, as it had not shown up on radar. It concluded: "Members were unable to reach a conclusion as to a likely candidate for the conflicting aircraft and it was therefore felt that the board had insufficient information to determine a cause or risk."

REUTERS/Stephen Hird On Monday, we wrote up Pink Floyd's in-print reunion blasting Pandora's initiative to alter the royalty rate it pays songwriters and accusing the company of sending out misleading information about the effort. Now Pandora has responded, sending out the following statement saying they're the ones lying: We have enormous respect for the members of Pink Floyd, and their amazing artistic contributions. We also respect the genuineness of their opinion. Unfortunately, they have been given badly misleading information - the result of a well-orchestrated campaign by the RIAA and their lobbying arm to mislead and agitate artists. A glaring example is the assertion that Pandora supports an "85% artist pay cut." That is simply not true. [emphasis ours] We never, nor would we ever, support such a thing. In fact, Pandora has suggested solutions that would guarantee no reduction in artist payouts while also nurturing the growth of internet radio -- a medium that is crucial to thousands of independent musicians who don't enjoy major label support or FM radio exposure. This much is true: Pandora is by far the highest paying form of radio in the world and proudly pays both songwriters and performers. For perspective, to reach the exact same audience, Pandora currently pays over 4.5 times more in total royalties than broadcast radio for the same song. In fact, at only 7% of U.S. radio listening, Pandora pays more in performance royalties than any other form of radio. It's not immediately clear where the band's 85% figure comes from - they link to this 2012 post by Register Editor Andrew Orlowsky, and he doesn't cite anyone. (He has not yet responded to our email.) The bill proposed by Pandora and contested by Floyd, the Internet Radio Fairness Act, doesn't mention specific rate levels. It's also true that as a percentage of its revenue, Pandora's royalty payments are higher than any other platform's (that's why they're trying to get the law changed). But Pandora still doesn't address the underlying issue Camper Van Beethoven frontman David Lowery brought up yesterday: a songwriter ends up with paltry returns for their work even if a Pandora user played their song a thousand times. Here's the rate breakdown according to IP lawyer Vanessa Kaster: $.0019 cents a song (approx.) per play on satellite radio (like SIRIUS XM) $.0019 cents a song (approx.) per play on Pandora $.09 cents a song (approx.) for a permanent download (like iTunes) $.09 cents a song (approx.) for a physical recording (like a CD) $.24per ringtone.

Dr. Warren Hern has been performing abortions in Colorado for 42 years and has been the target of many violent threats. The first death threats came at 3 a.m. It was November 1973 and I had just started performing abortions at a small nonprofit clinic in Colorado. Now the phone was ringing at my home in the dead of night. I had built my small house deep in the mountains, in a place of solitude and beauty, where I could see the stars at night. How did they find me here? I was terrified. I started sleeping with a rifle by my bed. I expected to be shot as I walked out the door in the morning or as I came home at night. The terror of those days came back to me last week when a gunman — disconnected from society but bathed in anti-abortion propaganda — attacked the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, killing three and wounding nine others. Early news of this attack reached me as my son and I were about to start skiing down a mountain slope with fresh snow. A beautiful day began with horror in the pit of my stomach, and it was not the first time. advertisement That fear has been with me for 42 years and is constantly renewed. When I started as the founding medical director of that nonprofit clinic in Colorado, shortly after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in Roe v. Wade, I faced hostility even from many members of the medical community. My request for hospital privileges was met with vociferous opposition, until one highly respected physician — an obstetrician who had seen too many women die of illegal abortion — backed me up. I got the right to admit patients to the hospital if needed. That wasn’t the end of it, though. A group called Fight the Abortion Clinic told the Colorado Board of Health that we were running a butcher shop. I presented statistics from our first month of operation and explained the safety measures I had built into the medical procedures. The board dropped the subject. The personal attacks continued. The next summer, the Denver chapter of the National Organization for Women decided to honor me for supporting women’s rights. As I was given my award, a group of anti-abortion demonstrators began screaming and calling me vile names, their faces contorted with hate. Their ferocity was terrifying. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. How could anybody be so opposed to what we were doing? The patients were grateful. One woman in her 30s was trembling when I walked into the operating room to examine her. “Why are you shaking?” I asked. “What’s wrong?” “It’s so different,” she said. “You’re a doctor. The lights are on. The place is clean. The windows are open. I feel safe.” She went on to explain that she had had an illegal abortion once under hideous circumstances and had almost died. The patients were usually exuberant, healthy young women who wanted to live their lives, get an education, learn a profession, know themselves, and experience independence before they started a family. Many were women who already had families but who could not bear the stress of raising more children. Others had broken or abusive relationships. Some were sick from the effects of pregnancy. Their lives were in danger. It was soon clear to me that performing abortions was the most important thing I could do in medicine. I started a private practice in Boulder specializing in outpatient abortion services. This had not been my plan. I was trained in public health and wanted to follow an academic career of teaching and research in epidemiology. But the patients and their needs were more important. I was doing my part to make the Roe v. Wade decision meaningful, but much more than that, I was saving women’s lives. I was making a difference. The days of death from illegal, unsafe abortion were over, at least as far as I could do something about it. Several times, I was invited to debate the abortion issue. At first, I enjoyed the debates and treated both my opponents and the occasions with respect. But the anti-abortion groups became more and more threatening and aggressive, calling me a “murderer” and “baby killer.” On one occasion, at the University of Colorado Denver, they started to climb over the front table at me and I had to be taken out a back exit under police escort. I decided that showing up at my office to see patients was a sufficient statement of my side of the abortion “debate.” I’d had an unlisted home phone number for years, since those first frightening calls at 3 a.m. But now I started getting innumerable death threats at my office. The man who had started the Fight the Abortion Clinic committee tried to run over me with his car in my parking lot. In 1981, I married a young woman who understood and supported my work. I was in love, I wanted a partner in life, and I wanted to have a family. The threats and the attacks terrified her and caused us both a great deal of stress. Since we didn’t have a house in town and I needed to be near the clinic in case of patient emergencies, we stayed sometimes at a small apartment at the back of my office. The anti-abortion fanatics began showing up by the back door at dawn, praying, singing, calling my name, and screaming slogans. It was hideous and frightening. The constant stress was one of the reasons the marriage ended, and I was devastated. Things got even worse after that. In 1988, five shots were fired through the front windows of my office, narrowly missing a staff member. My patients and staff are now protected with bulletproof windows. In 1991, anti-abortion leader Randall Terry gathered his disciples around him in the street in front of my office and prayed for my execution. In 1993, Dr. David Gunn was assassinated in Florida. A few months later, my friend Dr. George Tiller was shot in both arms by Shelley Shannon as he drove out of his office in Wichita, Kan. That week, Randall Terry went on national Christian radio and invited his listeners to assassinate me. In 1994, Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard were assassinated in Florida. Later in the year, Dr. Gary Romalis was shot in his kitchen in Vancouver and nearly bled to death. In December, John Salvi killed two abortion clinic workers in Brookline, Mass. Shelley Shannon sent me a letter from the Kansas state prison telling me that I would be next. I knew she meant it. An anti-abortion fanatic wrote me a letter telling me to forget wearing a bulletproof vest: They would go for a head shot. In early 1995, the American Coalition of Life Activists held a press conference to unveil a hit list of 13 abortion doctors. I was on the list. So was Dr. Tiller. Their poster declared us guilty of “crimes against humanity.” Within hours, federal marshals were protecting me. I wrote a letter to the New York Times in which I tried to describe what it felt like to be on that hit list, which included not just our names but our addresses. I wrote that it went “a long way toward destroying one’s life.” In 1998, Dr. Barnett Slepian was assassinated in his New York home. I watched the news of this, horrified, as I was getting dressed to go to a professional meeting in Denver where I could be at risk. I was not sure I should go to the meeting, but I went anyway. I was wary and apprehensive, so after a short while, I left. I was afraid. On May 31, 2009, Dr. Tiller was assassinated in his church by Scott Roeder. I was put under 24-hour armed guard at my office and at home by US federal marshals. Death threats against me continued. My wife, a physician from Cuba, was terrified. Our young son could not play outside with his friends. My family could not even ride together to a memorial service in Denver for my friend, George Tiller. The marshals took me everywhere in a bulletproof truck. Our son was in tears at the service and clung to me after I spoke. My 92-year-old mother, who had worried for my safety for decades, was there — and was even more fearful that I would be next. Why do I continue doing abortions? Because it matters. The women need my help. A large proportion of my patients now are women with desired pregnancies who have learned late in pregnancy that the fetus is afflicted with a catastrophic anomaly or genetic abnormality. It is a wrenching personal tragedy for the women and their partners. Performing safe abortions in a humane, dignified, and caring atmosphere matters for the health and safety of the women. It matters for the health of their families. It matters for the health of our society. And now, it matters for freedom. If women are not free to make decisions about their own lives and health, they are not free. And if women are not free, none of us are free.