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2017-03-13 00:00:00

Look: I’m not saying that the Vinci headphones, which puts a full touchscreen interface on wireless headphones, are a good idea. But they are definitely an idea that managed to raise over a million dollars on Indiegogo. The idea is simple: you just want your music on your headphones instead of on your phone, but really you also want Spotify and the only good way to do that is to use a touchscreen. Bam: customize Android a bit and put it on the side of some cans — well they’re more like Altoids tins because they’re rectangular — and away you go. What can I tell you about the Vinci headphones? I can tell you that they definitely sound like nothing special for on-ear headphones, especially ones that cost $129. I can tell you that once you get over the ridiculousness of having a screen on the side of your face, there is something slightly clever about making a fully self-contained music gadget that nevertheless works with Spotify. I can tell you that you can turn the screen off automatically when they’re on so you don’t look completely insane. I can tell you that you can slap a SIM card in there and use it to stream music without Wi-Fi. Hell, I can even tell you that although touch controls on headphones are universally bad, the touch controls on the Vinci work halfway decently, because the touch surface on the side is so large that you can just make huge, broad gestures that are easier to pull off. I can tell you that the custom build of Android here is actually well designed, fast and simple. My 2016 Honda Civic has a custom version of Android, too, and it’s garbage compared to how well this works. Go figure! I can tell you that there’s a custom smart assistant in them so you can use voice control to manage Spotify and SoundCloud — one that didn’t really work all that well for me. I can tell you they threw Alexa in there, too, because why not? What I can’t tell you is to buy them, because even though these are much better executed than I would have expected, they’re still executing on a weird idea. And they don’t sound good enough to justify everything that’s going on here. But I like that they exist and I even like that’s there’s a “Pro” version with better sound and more storage coming out later this year. Some people see a screen on a pair of headphones and ask “Why?” But a better question is “Why not?” They aren’t hurting anybody and some people might actually like this idea and why should we begrudge them their gadget? We should not begrudge them their gadget.

2016-05-29 00:15:07

Brittany Anne Campbell, a daughter of Paula A. Campbell and John Campbell of River Vale, N.J., is to be married May 29 to James Michael Rawdon, a son of Lynn Murray of Congers, N.Y., and James Phillip Rawdon of Northvale, N.J. The Rev. Ron Sheppard, an interfaith minister ordained by the All Faiths Seminary International in New York, is to officiate at Battello's restaurant in Jersey City. The bride, 26, is a sales account manager at Google in New York. She graduated and received a master’s in new media management from Syracuse. Her father is a harness racer who competes at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, N.J. He is a member of the Harness Racing Hall of Fame in Goshen, N.Y. Her mother is the president and a founder of the Standardbred Retirement Foundation, a nonprofit foundation based in Millstone, N.J., that rescues retired harness horses. The groom, 27, works in New York as the supervisor of media and strategy for PetSmart, which is based in Phoenix. He graduated from Montclair State University. His father is a manager in Fort Lee, N.J., for the Bergen County Utility Company. The groom is the stepson of Diane Rawdon, an accounts payable specialist at Suez North America, a water services company based in Paramus, N.J. The couple met at Pascack Valley High School in Hillsdale, N.J., but did not start dating until April 2010, when they were in college.

2017-08-16 21:45:00

If there's one thing that screams #RelationshipGoals, it's having a significant other who inspires you everyday. Clearly, Jack Antonoff and Lena Dunham are already there, as evidenced by the Fun guitarist's sweet Instagram post about his girlfriend. The Girls creator has been open about her battle with endometriosis which often led to her suffering through immense pain while trying to run her HBO show. In April of 2017, Dunham revealed she is endometriosis-free, following multiple surgeries and hormonal intervention. However, according to a new Instagram from Antonoff, which he posted on Wednesday, it seems that Dunham is once again suffering from issues related to endometriosis. Though the pair is currently on opposite coasts — he's in Los Angeles and she's in New York — Antonoff took the time to share his love for the woman he calls his "inspiration." "today i'm in LA and lena is in NY dealing with a bunch of endo / chronic pain issues and i want to give a massive shout out to everyone in the world who lives with chronic pain," wrote Antonoff in his caption. He added: "my gf has been in and out of the hospital for a long time now and has creating so much amazing work through that period. LD/everyone who lives with chronic pain and or illness are a huge inspiration. when you see all of lenas gorgeous work remember that a lot of it was created from a hospital bed. that is fucking incredible to me." Fans on Instagram appreciated the support: "Thank you, srsly. I live w IBD and it gets pretty tough sometimes. All the best to your gf," wrote one commenter. "Couple goals for real @jackantonoff @lenadunham I'm so sorry you have to go through this- it's clear it has only made your art and you stronger," added another. "Love her. Love you for loving her," a third commented. While we don't have the details for what Dunham is battling, it's clear she has one supportive guy in her corner. Read These Stories Next:Every Time A TV Character's Death Just About Killed YouThe True Story Behind This Scary Meme Celebs You Should Be Following On Instagram

2016-03-09 00:00:00

Negative advertising has been raining down on Donald J. Trump from his opponents, from super PACs, from issue groups. Now, through a digital ad campaign, the Democratic National Committee is joining the fray. “We’re going to be shifting our focus more toward Donald Trump,” said Eric Walker, the deputy communications director for the D.N.C. “We’re not going to be caught flat-footed like the Republican campaigns who made the mistake of not taking Donald Trump seriously.” The group is easing into it, beginning with an online-only ad that it will be targeting on Facebook to voters in Florida, Ohio and North Carolina, which all have primaries next Tuesday, with a sarcastic, trolling video playing off the lawsuits and reports surrounding Trump University. “Trump University, yes, we have run into some hiccups,” a smug, faux official from Trump University says, before cutting to a negative ad from Our Principles PAC, an anti-Trump Republican super PAC. He then continues: “But we are offering a new program: how to run for president like Donald Trump.” The ad also takes shots at Senators Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas, although it is mostly Mr. Trump who gets the brunt of the belittling. It is the first of a three-part digital series with a Trump University theme, the D.N.C. said. The next video, to be released later this month, will feature a fake Trump University fraternity pledge, and the final installment will be the “graduation.” With Mr. Trump continuing to win states, the D.N.C. thought it was time to strategize against him, although it said it would continue to pay attention to the other candidates still in the race. The Republican National Committee, for its part, has been hammering Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, with negative online videos for months. A spokeswoman from the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

2019-09-17 05:00:12

Nonfiction ON FIRE The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal By Naomi Klein THE GREEN NEW DEAL Why the Fossil Fuel Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth By Jeremy Rifkin If I were a rich man, I’d buy 245 million copies of Naomi Klein’s “On Fire” and hand-deliver them to every eligible voter in America. I say this not because Klein’s book is flawless — far from it — but because it makes a strong case for tackling the climate crisis as not just an urgent undertaking, but an inspiring one. Klein is a Canadian journalist and activist whose previous books include sharp, well-reported critiques of corporations and capitalism. In “On Fire,” she finds a lot to love in the Green New Deal, the purposefully vague, aspirational plan progressive Democrats have advanced to cut carbon pollution and transform society through environmental reform. It’s a thin skeleton for a book: Right now, the Green New Deal is no more than a 14-page-long congressional resolution put forth last February by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts. It calls on Congress to pursue a “10-year national mobilization” that would zero out carbon emissions, reinforce our nation’s infrastructure to better withstand natural disasters, develop an energy-efficient smart grid, upgrade all buildings to achieve maximum energy and water efficiency, and the list goes on, including guaranteeing everyone a “family-sustaining wage” and access to quality health care. The resolution may be a green fever dream of progressives like Ocasio-Cortez, but it’s the boldest attempt yet at a policy agenda that matches the scale and scope of what’s needed to sustain civilized life on our superheated planet. Its influence has already been felt in the 2020 presidential race, in which many of the Democratic candidates have announced aggressive climate plans rooted in the Green New Deal. Republicans, on the other hand, are already targeting the resolution as a socialist plot to ban hamburgers and destroy capitalism. It’s not hard to understand why. Implicit in the plan is a fundamental reimagining of the role of government, one that harks back to F.D.R.’s New Deal in the 1930s. It is also a rethinking of how to break the logjam on climate policy in Washington. Instead of fighting incremental battles on cap-and-trade and carbon tax, the Green New Deal seeks to ignite a popular movement that breaks through today’s toxic partisanship with sheer human will. Thankfully, Klein is not interested in fleshing out policy details — or, for that matter, in working out the numbers on how to pay for it. She’s interested in making a moral argument for why it is necessary. To Klein, climate change isn’t simply another important issue; it’s “a message, one that is telling us that many of Western culture’s most cherished ideas are no longer viable.” She views this crisis as one “born of the central fiction on which our economic model is based: that nature is limitless, that we will always be able to find more of what we need.” The days of these Enlightenment ideals are over, Klein says: Our current world is “built on false promises, discounted futures and sacrificial people; it was rigged to blow from the start.” Among the burgeoning global movement of young environmental activists the book chronicles is the Swedish 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who has galvanized audiences from Davos to the United Nations with her blunt shaming of inaction by politicians and corporate executives in the face of looming catastrophe. Thunberg is the book’s hero, the brave warrior who speaks truth to power: “The clarity of Greta’s voice gave validation to the raw terror so many of us have been suppressing and compartmentalizing about what it means to be alive amid the sixth great extinction.” Klein knows the Fox News crowd will be quick to label her and other Green New Deal advocates as commies. In fact, she goes out of her way to argue that we shouldn’t toss out capitalism, but that it needs to “shift to a dramatically more humane economic model.” She is especially sharp about the failures of trickle-down economics, which was supposed to help everyone on the planet: “What has happened instead is that the indifference to life that was expressed in the exploitation of individual workers on factory floors and in the decimation of individual mountains and rivers has instead trickled up to swallow our entire planet.” But the author is also attuned to the risks of revolution, to the links between recent mass shootings and a doomsday brand of eco-fascism that sees migrants (many of whom are driven out of their homeland by climate change) as dangerous invaders. “Let there be no mistake: This is the dawn of climate barbarism,” she writes. “And unless there is radical change not only in politics but in the underlying values that govern our politics, this is how the wealthy world is going to ‘adapt’ to more climate disruption: by fully unleashing toxic ideologies that rank the relative value of human lives in order to justify the monstrous discarding of huge swaths of humanity.” Klein is a skilled writer, even if at times she tries a little too hard to be a voice of reason. Unfortunately, the structure she employs is hodgepodge and repetitive, built on speeches and previously published essays written over the last decade. Although she updates each chapter with new footnotes, some still feel dated or perfunctory. A section on geoengineering — large-scale manipulation of the earth’s climate — is downright dogmatic in its dismissal of the idea. Yes, techno-fixes like fertilizing the ocean with iron or injecting sulfate aerosols into the upper atmosphere are risky. But there is a big difference between reckless strategies and intelligently designed ones. Klein can also sound like a detached elitist when she suggests consumers stop buying junk and spend more time in nature, or looking at art. In “The Green New Deal,” Jeremy Rifkin is too busy geeking out on technology and economic theory to mess around with social justice or moral outrage. The futurist and prolific author is the kind of thinker popular among chief executives and the TED Talk crowd. So it’s not surprising that “The Green New Deal” takes a stance quite different from that of typical Green New Deal supporters. Rifkin’s not much interested in building a popular movement; he’s interested in building factories, farms and vehicles in a fossil-fuel-free world, asserting that “the Green New Deal is all about infrastructure.” Rifkin predicts the fossil fuel bubble will burst in nine short years (why he chooses 2028 rather than, say, 2025 or 2035 is unclear), ushering in a “zero-carbon Third Industrial Revolution.” But his writing is so clotted with numbers and stats and technological jargon that it’s not easy to figure out exactly what he thinks this revolution would look like, beyond the usual futuristic shout-outs to renewable power, smart buildings and Big Data. “The digitalized Communication Internet is converging with a digitized Renewable Energy Internet,” he explains, while at the same time “a digitized Mobility and Logistics Internet” sits “atop an Internet of Things (IoT) platform,” etc. That’s a lot of internets. Rifkin argues that all this convergence will lead to a new era of “social capitalism” in which “the market is a guardian angel looking over humanity.” But he says little about the dark sides of technological progress — alienation, siloed information, privacy abuses, destruction of the natural world. Rifkin’s insights about potential revenue sources for new green infrastructure aren’t new — he offers a familiar mix of military cuts, higher taxes for the superrich, ending federal subsidies for fossil fuel industries, green bonds and public-private partnerships. He’s best at articulating the huge financial risks the oil, coal and natural gas industries face from stranded assets — all the pipelines, ocean drilling platforms, ports, mining equipment and power plants that will soon be obsolete. He cites a 2015 Citigroup report that $100 trillion worth of fossil fuel assets could soon be “carbon stranded.” Even in Rifkin’s muddled techno-utopianism, there is an unmistakable sense that with catastrophe comes opportunity. The big question is: Will we seize this moment to create a more just, more equitable, more resilient world — or just sleepwalk into chaos and oblivion? Klein quotes Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at Columbia University and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies: “We’re not doomed (unless we choose to be).” Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this review misstated Greta Thunberg’s age. She is 16, not 15.

2019-03-04

March 4 (Reuters) - For other diaries, please see: Top Economic Events Emerging Markets Economic Events Government Debt Auctions Political and General News U.S. Federal Reserve Today in Washington ----------------------------------------------------------- This Diary is filed daily. ** Indicates new events ----------------------------------------------------------- SATURDAY, MARCH 2 DELPHI, Greece - Greek Central Bank Governor Yannis Stournaras speaks at conference in Delphi, Greece. His address is entitled "Repurposing Growth". MONDAY, MARCH 4 VIENNA - United Nations IAEA, board of governors meeting (to March 8). TUESDAY, MARCH 5 ** RICHMOND, United States - Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin speaks on "Moving the Needle in Rural Communities" before the Virginia Governor's Conference on Agricultural Trade, in Richmond, Virginia. - 1630 GMT. ** ZURICH, Switzerland - Swiss National Bank's (SNB) Vice President Fritz Zurbruegg presents new 1,000 franc banknote - 0900 GMT ** LONDON The Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney participates in House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee hearing 1535 GMT. SWEDEN - Swedish central bank Deputy Governor Cecilia Skingsley participate in a panel discussion about the possible introduction of a digital currency - 0730 GMT. BOSTON - Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren to speak on the current economic landscape in the United States and abroad before the National Association of Corporate Directors' New England Chapter - 1230 GMT. LONDON - The Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee statement from its meeting - Feb. 26 2019 0930 GMT. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6 LONDON Michael Saunders, Bank of England member of the monetary policy committee, speaks at Imperial College Business School, London 1730 GMT. LONDON - Bank of England Deputy Governor Jon Cunliffe to deliver a speech at LSESU Economic Symposium 1215 GMT. COLUMBUS, Ohio - Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester to participate in moderated question-and-answer session hosted by the Columbus Partnership- 1700 GMT. HULL, - Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane to host first 'Citizens Panel' in Hull, northeast England - 1800 GMT. YAMANASHI, Japan - Bank of Japan Board Member Yutaka Harada to deliver a speech at a meeting with business leaders in Yamanashi - 0130 GMT. NEW YORK CITY, United States - Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams speaking at the Economic Club of New York - 1700 GMT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Federal Reserve issues the Beige Book of economic condition 1900 GMT. STOCKHOLM - Riksbank executive board meeting - 0800 GMT. OTTAWA - Bank of Canada key policy interest rate announcement 1500 GMT. THURSDAY, MARCH 7 GOTEBORG, Sweden Deputy Governor Martin Flodén will talk about the economic situation and current monetary policy at the Western Sweden Chamber of Commerce (to Mar 08). ** GERMANY - German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz talks about preparations for Brexit at a DHL hub in Leipzig. - 1400 GMT ** STOCKHOLM The Committee on Finance is holding an open hearing on current monetary policy; Governor Stefan Ingves and Deputy Governor Cecilia Skingsley, will be answering questions from committee members - 0800 GMT. ** FRANKFURT Andrea Enria of the European Banking Authority speaks at 4th SSM & EBF Boardroom dialogue 0820 GMT. ** PARIS Participation by European Central Bank Peter Praet executive board member in a roundtable discussion at conference "L'impact économique des inégalités femmes-homes" organised by Banque de France 1730 GMT. ** PRINCETON, N.J. - Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard participates in a lecture series hosted by Princeton University's Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance and the Bendheim Center for Finance 1715 GMT. EDINBURGH - Silvana Tenreyro, member of the monetary policy committee, speaks during regional visit to Glasgow, Scotland 0930 GMT. FRANKFURT - The European Central Bank's top banking supervisor, Andrea Enria, to speak at the 4th SSM & EBF Boardroom dialogue - 0820 GMT. HAMILTON, Canada - Bank of Canada's deputy governor Lynn Patterson to speak at Hamilton Chamber of Commerce 1745 GMT. FRANKFURT - Governing Council of the ECB holds monetary policy meeting in Frankfurt. FRANKFURT - ECB President Mario Draghi holds a press conference, after the interest rate meeting - 1330 GMT. FRIDAY, MARCH 8 DUBLIN - Deputy Governor of Irish Central Bank Donnery speaks in Dublin - 1300 GMT. PRAGUE - ECB policymaker Ewald Nowotny speaks at a conference in Prague - 0800 GMT. STANFORD, Calif. - Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks before the 2019 SIEPR Economic Summit dinner - 0200 GMT. LUXEMBOURG CITY - European Central Bank board member Yves Mersch speaks at Let's Talk Europe, a conference organised by the European Commission representation in Luxembourg - 1630 GMT. MONDAY, MARCH 11 HALMSTAD UNIVERSITY, Sweden Deputy Governor Henry Ohlsson will talk about the economic situation and current monetary policy at Halmstad University - 1200 GMT. TUESDAY, MARCH 12 BASEL, Switzerland - Central bankers from around the globe speak at a financial conference in Basel. Top speakers include central bank chiefs from Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, Mexico and Chile. Euro zone and UK bank supervisors are also scheduled to speak (to March 13). BRUSSELS - EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting. LONDON - Bank of England publishes Record of the Financial Policy Committee meeting held on Feb. 26, 2019 - 0930 GMT. THURSDAY, MARCH 14 STOCKHOLM Deputy Governor Henry Ohlsson will talk about the economic situation and current monetary policy at UC's network meeting 1600 GMT. VANCOUVER, Canada - Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Wilkins will give a speech in Vancouver on the "risks to global growth in a time when leverage and protectionist sentiment are running high" - 2305 GMT. TOKYO - Bank of Japan holds Monetary Policy Meeting (to Mar. 15). FRIDAY, MARCH 15 HELSINKI - Finnish central bank chief Olli Rehn will brief the press on monetary policy and the global economy in Helsinki - 0900 GMT TOKYO - Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda speaks to reporters at the end of the central bank policy meeting - 0230 GMT. TUESDAY, MARCH 19 STOCKHOLM Deputy Governor Cecilia Skingsley will talk about the economic situation and current monetary policy at Nordic Cash & Treasury Management. 1300 GMT. WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) starts its two-day meeting on interest rates (to Mar. 20). TOKYO - Bank of Japan releases minutes of Monetary Policy Meeting held on Jan. 22 and 23 2350. THURSDAY, MARCH 21 BERN - Swiss National Bank (SNB) Monetary policy assessment 0830 GMT. FRANKFURT - General Council meeting of the ECB in Frankfurt. OSLO - Norway Central Bank holds announcement of the Executive Board's interest rate decision and publication of Monetary Policy followed by a press conference 0900 GMT. LONDON - Bank of England announces rate decision and publishes the minutes of the meeting, after the rate decision 1200 GMT. FRIDAY, MARCH 22 HARSTAD, Norway Deputy Governors Jon Nicolaisen and Egil Matsen to give speeches to Regional network, region North 0740 GMT. MONDAY, MARCH 25 LONDON - A city lecture and lunch discussion with Patrick Harker, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, in London. TOKYO - Bank of Japan to release summary of opinions from board members at its March 14-15 policy meeting - 2350. TUESDAY, MARCH 26 STOCKHOLM Deputy Governor Cecilia Skingsley is giving a speech on the effects of digitalisation on the economy. The speech will be followed by a panel discussion 1100 GMT. BRATISLAVA - ECB Governing Council member Jozef Makuch holds news conference - 1200 GMT. PHILADELPHIA, United States - Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia to issue nonmanufacturing business outlook survey for March - 1230 GMT. STOCKHOLM - Riksbank executive board meeting - 0800 GMT. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27 WELLINGTON - Reserve Bank of New Zealand announces official cash rate (OCR). THURSDAY, MARCH 28 ** SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams participates in moderated discussion on the economy and answers questions from local business, nonprofit, and higher education communities - 1715 GMT. ZURICH - Swiss National Bank Governing board member Andrea Maechler will deliver a speech at Money Market Event, Zurich 1700 GMT. FRIDAY, MARCH 29 ** ST. THOMAS, Virgin Islands - Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams speaks on workforce development at an event hosted by My Brother's Workshop - 1325 GMT. STOCKHOLM - Riksbank general council meeting - 1200 GMT. FRIDAY, APRIL 5 BUCHAREST - European Union finance ministers and central bank governors hold an informal two-day meeting (to Apr.6) MONDAY, APRIL 8 OSLO Oystein Olsen Governor of Norges Bank to address the foreign embassy representatives 1300 GMT. TUESDAY, APRIL 9 OSLO Jon Nicolaisen Deputy Governor Norges Bank to deliver a speech at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10 FRANKFURT - The European Central Bank announces its policy decision, followed by President Mario Draghi's news conference - 1145 GMT. WASHINGTON, D.C. Federal Open Market Committee will release the minutes from its March 19-20, 2019 policy meeting. TUESDAY, APRIL 16 STOCKHOLM - Riksbank executive board meeting - 0800 GMT. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24 OTTAWA Bank of Canada to announce its key policy interest rate and Monetary Policy Report - 1400 GMT. OTTAWA Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz and Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins will hold a press conference to discuss the content of the Monetary Policy Report - 1515 GMT. STOCKHOLM Riksbank to hold monetary policy meeting 2 0800 GMT. THURSDAY, APRIL 25 TOKYO - Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda to speak to reporters at the end of the central bank policy meeting - 0230 GMT. STOCKHOLM Swedish Central Bank to announce interest rate decision and will publish Monetary Policy Report. TUESDAY, APRIL 30 WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to commence its two-day meeting on interest rates (to May 1). ---------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: The inclusion of items in this diary does not necessarily mean that Reuters will file a story based on the event. For technical issues, please contact Thomson Reuters Customer Support (TRCS) at https://customers.reuters.com/kccontactus/telephone.aspx

2017-10-20

A federal appeals court has declined to revive a lawsuit accusing Pennsylvania structured settlement company J.G. Wentworth of monopolizing its industry, saying the competitor suing did not show it had standing to bring an antitrust claim. In a unanimous decision on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals discounted arguments by Florida-based Novation Ventures that Wentworth’s control of 75 percent of the structured settlement buying market reduced competition and hurt consumers. To read the full story on Westlaw Practitioner Insights, click here: bit.ly/2zr6H4h

2019-10-16 00:00:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - High-profile progressives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar threw their support behind Bernie Sanders’ campaign for president as the U.S. Senator held his own on Tuesday during a three-hour debate just weeks after suffering a heart attack. The two U.S. congresswomen were both endorsing the Democratic socialist candidate’s bid for the White House, Sanders’ campaign said. The endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez, known as AOC, the newest star on the leftist stage, and Omar, a Muslim congresswoman who has been the frequent target of U.S. President Donald Trump, suggested Sanders remained the left’s favored nominee. “Bernie is leading a working class movement to defeat Donald Trump that transcends generation, ethnicity and geography,” said Omar in a statement. Ocasio-Cortez would endorse Sanders at his comeback rally on Saturday in New York, campaign spokesman Mike Casca confirmed. National polls have shown fellow progressive Elizabeth Warren, a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, pulling ahead of Sanders as a frontrunner alongside former Vice President Joe Biden. Sanders’ Oct. 1 heart attack had led to questions about whether the 78-year-old was still a top contender among the 19 Democrats running to take on Trump in November 2020. Sanders has vowed to return to full bore campaigning after having two stents inserted in an artery. He enjoys a passionate support base and raised more money for his campaign in the last quarter than any other Democrat, picking up $25.3 million. On Tuesday night, Sanders appeared as energetic as ever. On the debate stage, he vigorously defended his Medicare for All plan against fellow Democrats arguing for more piecemeal health reforms. Sanders also said the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of people in the United States was “a moral and economic outrage” and showed the need for a wealth tax. “The truth is we cannot afford to continue this level of income and wealth inequality and we cannot afford a billionaire class whose greed and corruption has been at war with the working families in this country for 45 years,” he said. Additional reporting by John Whitesides; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall

2019-07-09

A number of Democratic presidential candidates are supporting student debt forgiveness and free tuition at public colleges and universities in the United States. While certainly appealing in their bidding sweepstakes for voters, this is terribly dangerous to the economy. Most fundamentally, our American schools and universities are failing students and businesses who hire their graduates. Many economists like to rely on the alibi that contemporary technological innovations do more to make life fun than enhance productivity, but breakthroughs in renewable energy, artificial intelligence, and the like can offer great potential to accelerate growth. Those require an army of technically literate workers and managers to effectively exploit, but American secondary school students simply do not do as well as peers abroad in math and science on standardized tests. Fewer than 40 percent of high school graduates are adequately prepared for education after secondary school. With some 70 percent going to a university or college of some kind, it should come as no surprise that the dropout rate is more than 40 percent. Of those students who finish four year programs, about 40 percent lack the critical thinking and problem solving skills traditionally expected by businesses of college graduates. It is no surprise that Federal Reserve economists estimate 40 percent of recent graduates are in jobs that do not require a college education. Even more damning is that many colleges seem to add little value to student skills, regardless of admissions standards. With so many dropouts and poorly prepared graduates, businesses complain of skill shortages and too many graduates cannot pay off their loans. All of this has worsened because of how the student loan program has worked over the decades. Essentially, 18 year olds have been permitted to borrow large sums to attend college and bet, often with uninformed direction from parents, what programs they can actually finish and will lead to a decent job. That leaves inexperienced young adults at the tender mercies of all the university admission officers and faculty who often give out advice that serves their institutions. Many colleges have also exploited loan programs by admitting unqualified students into nontechnical liberal arts curriculums that offer little future, jacking up their price tags, and spending the bonanza on light teaching loads and student unions that make college more a Club Med experience than a real education. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard students were told that a liberal arts education can take a young person any place they want to go. Academicians will cite very successful middle aged humanities graduates who went on to brilliant careers in business consulting and technology sectors. However, these days, American students spend about one third less time in class and studying than back in the 1960s, and the technical requirements of good entry level positions have escalated dramatically. Over the last two decades, student loan programs have permitted our universities and colleges to push up tuition, after discounts, 38 percent faster than health care and a stunning 78 percent more than inflation. Meanwhile, faculty and administrators seem more obsessed with social justice and indoctrination than providing a useful education. Wiping away student debt and sending colleges more cash to do more of the same will not give our young people rewarding lives or our economy competitive workers to sustain technological leadership and a high standard of living. Many young people were duped by student loan programs, and it seems highly unfair to burden them with a lifetime of debt. Consequently, I am in favor of aggressive debt forgiveness for those graduates struggling in low and moderate wage employment. But without compelling universities to cut costs and faculty to teach more and be more relevant about what they teach, free tuition schemes will leave higher education a terrible burden to the federal government when rising deficits are already stressing the budget. Universities have considerable assets in their buildings that could easily provide the collateral for bonds. In turn, the money raised could be used to share half the cost, along with banks, to finance student loans. The government could promote this process by making these bonds tax free and enabling a market similar to the state and municipal bond market for those securities. However, when students fail to repay, the universities and banks should be on the hook, which is why the government needs to end the federal guarantee for student loans. Then admissions officials and bank loan officers should carefully scrutinize the student prospects for academic success, the marketability of their chosen majors, and most importantly, the cost against expected incomes. That would drive down tuition and raise quality, better serving our students and our economy. Peter Morici is an economist and professor at the University of Maryland. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2017-09-19

Photo: GettyIn a highly unusual hacking case, an entire school district in Montana shut down for three days following a data breach of student and faculty records. Investigators say that parents received “extremely graphic threats via text messages” and that hackers sent the school board a ransom note demanding bitcoin payments in exchange for the destruction of hacked data. Hackers Leak New Episodes of Orange Is the New Black and Claim More Leaks to ComeNetflix bingers received a weekend surprise when they woke up this morning to find the first ten…Read more ReadThe Flathead County Sheriff’s department released a statement on Facebook Monday night that included six pages of the ransom note from hackers going by the name TheDarkOverlord Solutions. From Thursday through Monday, classes and extracurricular activities for the 15,700 students of Columbia Falls School District were canceled. Authorities recommended that the schools return to business as usual on Tuesday, saying that they believed citizens were safe and those believed to be responsible for the threats “have frequently failed to live up to their promises to not release the stolen data in the past, even when their ransom demands have been met.”TheDarkOverlord Solutions is a name that has been used by hackers in connection with recent high profile ransom-based attacks on Netflix and ABC. No evidence has been released that confirms the same group is actually behind all of these incidents. Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry told reporters on Monday that authorities believe whoever is responsible for the threats is based overseas. It appears that part of the reason for the suspension of school activities was threats of violence, something that is fairly abnormal in hacking cases. Police brought in the FBI over the weekend for help after failing to identify a local suspect.According to the Flathead Beacon:The letters are targeting Columbia Falls after the hackers successfully infiltrated the school district’s server. The suspects, described as skilled computer hackers who have concealed their location through highly sophisticated means, infiltrated the school district server last week and obtained information about past and present students, parents and staff members, including names, medical records and addresses.Over the weekend, the individual began sending extremely graphic threats via text messages to specific individuals. The entire server and communication system was shut down temporarily.No details of what was included in the threatening text messages have been released to the public. The ransom note released by police included the usual troll-ish taunting that hackers commonly use in these situations. The message also contained several references to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and redacted passages that were allegedly personal information about students obtained from the server breach. The hackers threatened to reveal embarrassing details about authorities’ incompetence if their demands aren’t met.“We are savage creatures who do not discriminate,” the hackers wrote. “We prefer to prey upon the likes of institutions such as your own, but not because we have anything against children, but rather for much more interesting reasons which you will soon come to understand.”Three options for payment were outlined: $75,000 in bitcoin paid promptly, $100,000 in bitcoin if an unnamed person writes an embarrassing five-page essay, or $150,000 in bitcoin to be paid in monthly installments over a year.Speaking with NBC News, Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial said that the hackers were also able to access the Columbia Falls School District’s security cameras. According to Dial, the suspect is believed to be of British origin and located somewhere in Europe. This person is on an international watchlist and is not allowed to enter the United States.The suspects’ travel issues make any threats of violence a moot point. Reporters for the Flathead Beacon spoke to a person that claims to be behind the attacks over the weekend. According to the report, “the individual said on multiple occasions in various ways that he or she intended to kill people in large numbers,” and they bombastically added, “If you know anything about military weapons … it should scare your region.” What violent attacks, military weapons, and hacked data have to do with each other is anyone’s guess.“I am 100 percent confident there is no threat. It was all a ruse,” Police Chief Dial told reporters on Monday. “I don’t want to belabor this point. I want to make sure you people know everything that I know except for a couple of things.”While the threats may end up amounting to nothing, parents and faculty are still left trying to explain to thousands of young kids what is going on. The situation amounts to a new kind of terrorism that goes beyond poking at wealthy corporations and powerful politicians. And with poor electronic security, local governments may have to get used to it.[Flathead Beacon, NBC News, Missoulian]

2016-06-23

CARACAS (Reuters) - Oil prices will likely rise by $10 per barrel this summer, Venezuela’s oil minister said on Thursday, adding that the South American OPEC nation’s output could increase as much as 200,000 barrels per day in the next six months. Eulogio Del Pino told a local radio station in an interview that increased demand and lower supply would help boost oil prices in the coming months, which began falling dramatically two years ago as a result of a global supply glut. “Two million barrels more in demand and a million barrels less supply will translate to a recovery of prices that we estimate to be some ten dollars,” he said. Del Pino said state oil company PDVSA has launched a broad effort that includes co-operation with joint ventures and new contracting arrangements with service companies that will help it boost output, which has been weakened by low prices. “We have no doubt that within three to six months, we are going to be raising production between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels per day,” Del Pino said. “We will get up to levels very close to our potential, in the order of 2.9 million barrels per day.” Venezuela is struggling under a severe economic contraction resulting from a decaying socialist economic system, low oil revenue and power rationing due to a prolonged drought. Data from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries published last week shows Venezuela’s output dropped to 2.37 million barrels per day (bpd) in May. Del Pino, in an interview with Reuters this month, said output was currently at 2.7 million bpd and would rise to 2.8 million bpd by the end of the year. That is more optimistic than most analyst projections. “The downside risks for Venezuela’s oil production seem to be increasing,” Barclays said in a report this week. The country’s output could decline to end the year at around 2.1 million bpd, the bank added. Amid a cash crunch, Venezuela’s oil industry is suffering from shortages of spare parts, the retreat of oil services companies due to unpaid bills, maintenance issues, and crime. Reporting by Diego Ore; Editing by Sandra Maler and Bill Rigby

2019-12-23 00:00:00

AYUTTHAYA, Thailand (Reuters) - Elephants dressed as Santa Claus gave out presents and candy to students in Thailand in an annual Christmas tradition in the mostly Buddhist country. The Christmas celebration at the Jirasartwitthaya school in Ayutthaya, north of Bangkok, has run for 15 years. This year four elephants and their mahouts, also wearing Santa hats, visited the school and gave away presents to the students, said Lardthongtare Meepan, owner of the Ayuttahaya Elephant Palace, an elephant camp. “The highlight is not only handing out presents, but also students and elephants are forming a Christmas tree together,” he said. The elephants danced and showed off tricks to students. “I’m very happy to see them and they are very cute. I love elephants because it dances very cute,” says Patcharamon Sukpiromsunti, a primary school student. The elephant is Thailand’s national animal and appears throughout history and literature. “It makes me feel like I have a lot of friends. The elephants handing out candies, toys, dolls and so many other things,” student Pasitha Sithapak said. Thailand is 98% Buddhist, but celebrates Christmas as part of the year-end holiday season. Reporting by Artorn Pookasook and Jiraporn Kuhakan, Writing by Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Michael Perry

2020-03-14 00:00:00

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico warned on Saturday that the coronavirus outbreak could last all year as it began rolling out tougher measures to contain the spread, calling for an end to large gatherings and extending Easter school holidays. The education ministry said some 33 million students will head into the Easter break at the end of next week, doubling the length of their vacation. Meanwhile, the health ministry recommended canceling gatherings with 5,000 people or more. “We’re preparing for an epidemic that could last all year,” Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell told a news conference. Mexico’s confirmed coronavirus infections had risen to 41 on Saturday, from 26 a day earlier, the government said. It has not reported any fatalities from the virus. Lopez-Gatell’s strong message belied what has so far been a relatively hands-off approach to the virus. Unlike the United States and much of Central America, Mexico has not imposed significant travel curbs, but says it is worried about the virus spreading from across the U.S. border. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador shrugged off the risk of infection at the weekend, continuing to hold rallies with hundreds of supporters. “I greeted the people and dealt with their requests,” Lopez Obrador said in a post on Twitter. Footage from the southwestern state of Guerrero posted on his Twitter feed showed the president being mobbed by a crowd of people trying to hug and kiss him or snap selfies. Some social media users expressed alarm to see the 66-year-old Lopez Obrador kissing small children proffered up by supporters in the town of Ometepec, Guerrero. “The rest of the world is in quarantine, and our president goes around kissing people,” wrote one critic on Twitter. Meanwhile, Mexico’s top-tier football league, Liga BBVA MX, said some matches scheduled for Saturday and Sunday as well as other tournaments will be played behind closed doors. Mexico’s top baseball league delayed the start of the season to May 11. Under the education ministry’s direction, Mexico’s Easter school vacations will start on Friday, March 20, and last for 30 days instead of 15. The ministry also set out other measures including extra education on hygiene and sanitation. “We don’t want that students leave for vacation and all stick together,” Education Minister Esteban Moctezuma told a news conference. “We want this to be preventative isolation.” Reporting by Stefanie Eschenbacher and Noe Torres; Additional reporting by Adriana Barrera and Carlos Pacheco; Editing by Dave Graham and Himani Sarkar

2019-06-11

extradition bill@ * Hong Kong protesters want extradition bill scrapped * Protest numbers grow again before bill's second debate * Protesters it undermines freedoms guaranteed to ex-UK colony * Bill also opposed by some Hong Kong business groups * HK chief executive vows to press ahead with legislation (Updates with crowds swelling in early morning, adds quotes, paragraphs 3-4, 10-12, 26; changes date) HONG KONG, June 12 (Reuters) - Hong Kong braced for mass strikes on Wednesday after thousands braved thunderstorms overnight to stage a wave of fresh protests against a proposed extradition bill that would allow people to be sent to mainland China for trial. Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she would press ahead with the legislation despite deep concerns across the Asian financial hub that triggered on Sunday its biggest political demonstration since its handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Demonstrators from across a wide spectrum of Hong Kong society began joining the overnight protesters early on Wednesday as businesses across the city prepared to go on strike. Many youths could be seen dozing after a long night camped out as commuters made their way to work. The bill, which has generated unusually broad opposition at home and abroad, is due for a second round of debate on Wednesday in Hong Kong's 70-seat Legislative Council. The legislature is controlled by a pro-Beijing majority. Lam has sought to soothe public concerns and said her administration was creating additional amendments to the bill, including safeguarding human rights. In a rare move, prominent business leaders warned that pushing through the extradition law could undermine investor confidence in Hong Kong and erode its competitive advantages. Sunday's protest, which organisers said saw more than a million people take to the streets, in addition to a snowballing backlash against the extradition bill could raise questions about Lam's ability to govern effectively. "When the fugitive extradition bill is passed, Hong Kong will become a 'useless Hong Kong'," said Jimmy Sham, convenor of Civil Human Rights Front, the main organiser of Sunday's demonstration. "We will be deep in a place where foreign investors are afraid to invest and tourists are afraid to go. Once the 'Pearl of the Orient', (it) will become nothing," he said. Protesters remained defiant early on Wednesday, rallying peacefully just a stone's throw from the heart of the financial centre where glittering skyscrapers house the offices of some of the world's biggest companies, including HSBC. One protester sat on a small plastic stool outside the gates of government offices waving Hong Kong's colonial-era flag, featuring a Union Jack, in front of a dozen police officers. HSBC and Standard Chartered, in addition to the Big Four accounting firms, had all agreed to flexible work arrangements for staff on Wednesday, Hong Kong media reported. SECURITY BLANKET Security was tight in and around the legislature building, with riot police deployed in some areas. Protesters stood under umbrellas in heavy rain, some singing "Hallelujah", as police conducted random ID checks. Plainclothes officers, in jeans and sneakers and carrying batons and shields, were also deployed, with other reinforcements gathering behind barricades. Police searched the bags of scores of young passersby and detained some briefly in a nearby metro station. A police officer on the scene who declined to be identified said they were searching for weapons to try to stave off any violence. The Civil Human Rights Front condemned the searches, saying authorities had made people afraid to participate in peaceful gatherings. Strikes and transport go-slows were also announced for Wednesday as businesses, students, bus drivers, social workers, teachers and other groups all vowed to protest in a last-ditch effort to block the bill. The Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong called on the government not to pass the bill "hurriedly" and urged all Christians to pray for the former British colony. Embattled leader Lam, who warned against "radical action" at the latest protest, is a Catholic. Britain handed Hong Kong back to China 22 years ago under a "one-country, two-systems" formula, with guarantees that its autonomy and freedoms, including an independent justice system, would be protected. However, many accuse China of extensive meddling since then, including obstruction of democratic reforms, interference with local elections and of being behind the disappearance of five Hong Kong-based booksellers, starting in 2015, who specialised in works critical of Chinese leaders. Beijing rejects those accusations and official Chinese media said this week "foreign forces" were trying to damage China by creating chaos over the extradition bill. Sunday's protest rally plunged Hong Kong into political crisis, just as months of pro-democracy "Occupy" demonstrations did in 2014, heaping pressure on Lam's administration and her official backers in Beijing. The failure of the 2014 protests to wrestle concessions on democracy from Beijing, coupled with prosecutions of at least 100 protesters, mostly youths, discouraged many young people from going back out on the streets - until Sunday. Nearly 2,000 mostly small retail shops, including restaurants, grocery, book and coffee shops, have announced plans to strike on Wednesday, according to an online survey, a rare move in the staunchly capitalist economy. Pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo encouraged businesses to go on strike "for a day ... or probably for one whole week". Many Hong Kong residents, both expatriate and local, are increasingly unnerved by Beijing's tightening grip over the city. Human rights groups have repeatedly cited the alleged use of torture, arbitrary detentions, forced confessions and problems accessing lawyers in China, where courts are controlled by the Communist Party, as reasons why the Hong Kong bill should not proceed. China denies accusations that it tramples on human rights. On Tuesday, New Zealand's Court of Appeal, citing human rights risks, ordered the government to reassess its decision to extradite a man to China to face murder charges. (Reporting By James Pomfret, Greg Torode, Jessie Pang, Twinnie Siu, Felix Tam, Vimvam Tong, Thomas Peter, and Joyce Zhou Writing by Anne Marie Roantree Editing by Mark Heinrich and Paul Tait)

2019-09-10 00:00:00

TL;DR: The high-performance PlayStation 4 Pro console will keep your games looking their very best — grab one at Walmart for just $349.  The PlayStation 4 is nearing the end of its life cycle, which can only mean one thing: They’re all going to start going on sale; even the Pro versions. And if you’re still stuck with a base PS4 — one that’s probably starting to sound like a jet engine right about now — it may be time to upgrade so you can experience the console’s last few big titles before the next generation.  Right now, you can grab a PlayStation 4 Pro console at Walmart for $50 off the usual retail price, and you’ll also get a full terabyte of storage. The PlayStation 4 Pro is the best-performing Sony gaming console on the market right now — it’s designed and built to take advantage of 4K and HDR display technology to keep your games looking their best. In addition to the more vibrant and lifelike visuals, you’ll also be getting an all-encompassing entertainment device that can play music, stream video from your favorite TV services (plus play Blu-ray discs), and even browse the web. With the added bonus of 1TB of storage space, you shouldn’t have any trouble keeping all your fun in one place. Grab a PlayStation 4 Pro — with DualShock 4 controller included — at Walmart and save $50 at checkout. PlayStation 4 Pro 1TB Console — $349 See Details

2017-08-24

Aug 24 (Reuters) - ION BEAM APPLICATIONS SA: * SAYS IT HAS BEEN APPROACHED BY MAJOR PLAYERS IN BUILDING INDUSTRY - CONF CALL‍​ * SAYS IT IS WORKING ON HOW TO STANDARDISE AND HAVE MORE PREDICTABLE TIMELINE FOR PROTEUS ONE- CONF CALL‍​ * SAYS WORKING CAPITAL COULD DETERIORATE SLIGHTLY - CONF CALL‍​ Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom:)

2019-04-30 23:22:00

Download the Astro Guide app by VICE on an iOS device to read daily horoscopes personalized for your sun, moon, and rising signs, and learn how to apply cosmic events to self care, your friendships, and relationships. Mercury continues to be busy on May 2, when it clashes with power planet Pluto to illuminate some very critical information, and connects with Jupiter to open you up on very deep, emotional levels. Watch out for conversations concerning intimacy and sex during this time. This is also a powerful occasion to sit with grief or other difficult emotions, and to find space to move through these trying feelings. A fresh start is soon on the way, in the form of the new moon in your sign, Taurus, on May 4. This is a lovely time to connect with your senses by cooking a delicious meal, listening to your favorite music, or getting a spa treatment (you’ve always had a talent for whipping up DIY face-masks!). This is also a cute time for a makeover. Your belongings don’t define you, but shopping is a fantastic activity for the new moon in Taurus. Right now, it’s all about taking things slow. There’s no sense in rushing. The new moon in Taurus provides space for you to dream and unwind, and reconnect with yourself. Enjoy, because the drama kicks up on May 5 when Mars opposes Jupiter! A competitive energy is in the air, but in truth, this could also manifest as plenty of fun—so long as you don’t get into a conflict with someone about who owns what. This could also manifest as a powerful time to explore intimacy, security, and depth in your relationships—and to enjoy the thrill of the chase! Communication planet Mercury enters your sign, Taurus, on May 6, helping you find the words you've been looking for. You’re also going to dig your heels in a little harder than usual, but that’s only because you’re trying to get your point across! The sooner people listen, the sooner you can stop being so inflexible, right? Maybe. Your ruling planet Venus clashes with Saturn on May 7, creating a grouchy atmosphere that's not conducive to heart-to-heart conversations, cute dates, or meetings at work. You might even feel invisible at this time! You’re not the only person feeling sensitive—keep that in mind as your interact with others. The energy shifts on May 8 as Mercury meets Uranus, finding you saying some surprising, shocking things. The sun connects with Neptune also on May 8, offering a creative and healing energy, especially in your social life. Your planetary ruler Venus mingles with Jupiter and clashes with Pluto on May 9, making this an absolutely sparkling and magical time to go real deep in matters concerning intimacy. Powerful intellectual connections are formed, and hot sex is on the horizon, too. This is a profound time to get to know someone on a deep level. Not in the mood for love? No worries, this is an equally amazing time for you to bond with yourself, to dive deep into emotionally charged issues that need attention and healing. Your intuitive ability will be especially heightened at this time. Only a few days ago, you felt so lonely, but now, hearts are merging. The rollercoaster of life is indeed reflected in the stars. The sun connects with Saturn on May 11 and then with Pluto on May 13, and you’re feeling a boost in confidence. The restructuring that’s been taking place in your life? You’re feeling more on top of it now. This is an exciting time to travel or push forward with your schooling or publishing! Even more productive energy flows as Venus connects with Mars on May 14, helping you tap into your intuition to get exactly what you want. You’re feeling especially sexy as Venus enters your sign, sweet Taurus, on May 15—you'll be charming everyone! If you didn’t already do some shopping during the new moon in your sign, now’s the time to treat yourself to some indulgences. Venus is all about luxury and beauty—enjoy! But Venus is also about what we value, and while it’s in your sign, you can expect to rediscover what’s important to you, and likely realize a few new things, like how important loyalty and stability are to you. Communication planet Mercury connects with dreamy Neptune, and action planet Mars enters cautious water sign Cancer on May 15, bringing thoughtful conversations between you and your communities. A boost to your psychic abilities arrives—you know just what to say to get someone to understand and sympathize with you (and you, yourself, are feeling pretty sympathetic!). Mercury connects with Saturn on May 16, creating a highly focused energy that's fantastic for discussing commitments or impressing your mentors. Mercury connects with Pluto, Venus meets Uranus, and the full moon in Scorpio lands on May 18—you’re craving a taste of the unexpected and unusual, and you’re having intense conversations with powerful people. Not to mention all the emotion that’s in the air—full moons always stir up deep feelings, and a full moon in brooding water sign Scorpio is no exception. This full moon is major for your relationships—you’re likely to let someone go, or release an expectation you had about someone. You’re seeing things clearly now; what was hidden is coming to the surface. Not only is the light of the full moon in Scorpio illuminating so much about your partnerships, but juicy information arrives thanks to the connection between Mercury and Pluto, the lord of the underworld—especially about your social life and the communities your belong to. As for Venus’s meeting with Uranus, Uranus is the rebel of the solar system, so sweet, seductive Venus (your ruling planet) wants space to do things its own way…and so do you. You have the information you need now to leave the past behind and do your own thing. Gemini season begins on May 21, finding the sun illuminating the sector of your chart that rules your stuff and finances, as well as self-esteem and security. Expect to start talking a lot about these themes as Mercury enters Gemini. Also on May 21, the sun meets Mercury, a powerful time for you to gather information about all of these themes—just watch out for know-it-alls (and don’t be one yourself!). Mars connects with Uranus on May 22, bringing unusual news your way, but a eureka moment arrives, too—you’re figuring out how to make important changes, and exciting conversations are taking place. Mercury clashes with Neptune on May 29 to create confusion, so keep things as simple as possible, especially in your social life. An unfortunate game of telephone may accidentally be played, with people’s paranoias and wild imaginations getting in the mix. Venus connects with Neptune on May 30, bringing a dreamy and romantic energy, which could be healing for your social life, but it may also simply mean you don't care so much about what people are saying. Either way, this isn’t a good time for decision making—just observe yourself, your feelings, and those around you, and make decisions at another time. Mercury opposes Jupiter on May 30, bringing a lot of information for you to sort through—if you feel pressured to make choices, remember, you that you can always say, "I have to think about it." The details aren’t clear enough at this time to make a solid choice, but Venus connects with Saturn on May 31, which will help you on the way to figure out what you want. This also bodes well for your relationships in terms of making plans for the future. Saturn isn’t the coziest planet for Venus to snuggle up to by a long shot, but there’s an atmosphere of respect and stability in the air. Good luck this month, Taurus, and see you in June!

2019-03-27

(Corrects proportion of outage to ‘much’ of the city instead of ‘most,’ headline and paragraphs 1 and 4) March 26 (Reuters) - A fire at an electrical substation plunged much of the city of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, into darkness on Tuesday night, officials for power company Florida Power & Light said. The power outage struck as Fort Lauderdale played host to throngs of visiting college students converging on the city and neigboring South Florida communities this month for spring break festivities, an annual beer-soaked rite of youthful revelry. Nearly 32,000 Broward County homes and businesses were without electricity shortly after the fire erupted, according to a “Powertracker” map posted on the website of the utility, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, Inc.. Company spokesman Chris McGrath said the outage left 22,000 Fort Lauderdale-area customers, out of approximately 115,000 in the city, without electricity. Another official, Sebastian Manrique, said lights were knocked out across much of Fort Lauderdale, north of Miami. “We are aware of a service interruption and a fire at a substation in Fort Lauderdale,” McGrath said. “Crews are on site working to restore power safely and as quickly as possible.” There were no immediate reports of injuries. The number of Broward County customers without electricity was down to about 21,300 within an hour of the first reports of the blackout. (Reporting by Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Sandra Maler)

2018-10-28 13:19:11

LONDON — It’s all too easy for the characters of George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” to come across as caricatures, though Gershwin worked hard to avoid that trap. In a 1935 article for The New York Times shortly after “Porgy and Bess” opened on Broadway, he wrote that in depicting the story of poor black people living in waterfront tenements in Charleston, S.C., he adapted his method as a composer to “utilize” the drama, humor, superstition, religious fervor, dancing and “irrepressible high spirits of the race.” In order for a production not to seem steeped in stereotypes, the performances must reflect the profound respect that Gershwin and his libretto collaborators, Ira Gershwin, his brother, and DuBose Heyward, brought to this great but difficult-to-realize folk opera, as they called it. Emotional depth and belief in the characters run through the English National Opera’s first-ever production of “Porgy and Bess,” which opened here earlier this month, directed by James Robinson. Hewing to the request of the Gershwin estate to cast the opera with black singers, this production features the stalwart baritone Eric Greene as the disabled, utterly decent beggar Porgy, and the richly expressive soprano Nicole Cabell as Bess, a glamorous but troubled woman who struggles to break free of an abusive relationship with Crown, a cocky stevedore, fiercely performed by the youthful baritone Nmon Ford. Perhaps best of all is the impassioned, radiant soprano Latonia Moore as Serena. Even when wailing with grief over the pointless killing of her husband (“My Man’s Gone Now”), she shows the tragic grandeur of this powerful character. (Ms. Moore sang “Aida” to acclaim with the company last year.) The English National recruited an impressive ensemble of 40 singers especially for this production from Britain, America, South Africa, New Zealand and elsewhere, performers who not only sing splendidly but also act and dance dynamically. During Gershwin’s ensemble scenes, the various choristers project their own individualized characters. Next month, they will join the company’s full-time chorus for a special staged performance of Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem.” This “Porgy and Bess,” a joint production with the Metropolitan Opera and the Dutch National Opera, is coming to the Met next season. But, of necessity, I can only give an incomplete report on the staging. Before the curtain went up on Friday’s performance at the London Coliseum, it was announced that a glitch had developed during the afternoon in the stage’s revolving mechanism. The company decided to forge on with a “reduced” version of the production. Certain ensemble scenes, notably a church picnic on Kittiwah Island, had to be played in the forestage area without the intended scenic backing. Perhaps this limitation actually inspired everyone. During that scene, cast members and choristers cut loose as they executed some gyrating dance movements and sang Gershwin’s music with full-bodied sound and crispness. I can report on the general look and atmosphere of the production. The tenements where the residents of Catfish Row live are starkly suggested (by the set designer Michael Yeargan) with isolated wood beams that frame two tiers of interconnected rooms and spaces. With endearing costumes by Catherine Zuber that are true to the opera’s 1920s setting, the tenement dwellers mostly wear worn house dresses or work clothes, all in shades of russet and brown. Heyward originally wrote this story as a novel, which he and Dorothy Heyward, his wife, adapted into a successful play, which became the basis for the libretto. DuBose Heyward wrote all lines for recitative setting (which Gershwin does skillfully) and many song lyrics (including “Summertime”), while Ira Gershwin wrote lyrics for the songs in a Broadway vein, like the wonderful “It Ain’t Necessarily So.” Some people find it awkward today to hear recitative and ensembles with lines like “Roll dem bones/Oh, my brudder,” which the men sing as they play a game of craps. But in the way this committed cast conveys the text, the words seem less like stilted slang than a regional dialect with an everyday elegance. In scene after scene, Mr. Robinson gets the balance right in showing both the effects of oppression on this community and the defiant heartiness of its members. These are mostly God-fearing people who sincerely believe that Maria (the formidable Tichina Vaughn), the keeper of a cookshop and the town matriarch, can ward off illness through her prayer. Yet there are few fundamentalists among them. When the aptly named Sporting Life, a dope peddler (the vibrant Frederick Ballentine), debunks a literal reading of the Bible in “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” even the churchgoers who find him objectionable laugh, carry on and sing along. After all, this staging suggests, who could actually believe that Methuselah lived more than 900 years? The tragic elements of the work are played straight and grimly. Ms. Cabell’s Bess has some raw attraction to Crown, but also an addiction to the “happy dust” only he can supply. Her problem could not have seemed more current, given the opioid crisis affecting the United States. The opera is a portrait of a deeply patriarchal culture: Even the basically good men boss their wives around. In this #MeToo moment, Crown’s physical bullying of Bess is chilling. Porgy’s gentleness and sympathy, beautifully rendered by Mr. Greene, draw Bess to him for Gershwin’s soaring love duets. At least for a while, he saves her. Gershwin spent a summer with Heyward, a Charleston native, living in that area, exploring the music and culture of its black residents. But he made a point, as he wrote in his Times article, of composing his own folk music and spirituals for his score. He didn’t want to borrow material. And he wanted the music “to be all of one piece.” The job of making it sound that way finally fell to the conductor here, the excellent John Wilson, who led a performance that had sweep, shape and vitality, as well as rarer qualities: precision and restraint. The technical glitches that night were all in the staging, not in the pit.

2019-11-19 17:24:10

An Australian woman was mauled by a kangaroo while walking her dog on a trail in the city of Wodonga, in the state of Victoria. She said her dog was off-leash, and started chasing the kangaroo. When she tried to intervene, the kangaroo attacked her. She played dead until the kangaroo left. Upon being rescued, she needed 25 stitches to her face and surgery on her leg following the attack. Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.A woman in Australia nearly lost an eye and needed 25 stitches to her face when a kangaroo attacked her while she was walking her dog.Dina, who declined to give her last name, told 9News that she was walking her dog on a trail in the city of Wodonga, in the state of Victoria, when she was mauled.She said she had let her dog off its leash, and it began chasing a large male kangaroo."I ran up the embankment to try and get my dog away but not realizing that I was only three or four meters behind the roo," Dina told 9News. "And that's when I sensed the roo was panicking, and thinking, 'I'm being attacked on all sides.'" She said the kangaroo knocked her to the ground, gouging the back of her leg. It then started jumping on her. During the attack, she played dead and told herself to "wait until it's over."Eventually, the kangaroo left the scene, and another trail walker found her with blood gushing from her head, according to 7News.Dina needed 25 stitches to her face and had to undergo surgery for her leg wounds.But she doesn't blame the kangaroo for the attack, saying her dog had chased it."If anything, we're encroaching on their ecology. I could sense his panic," she told 9News. "I really felt for them, the poor thing."New Wodonga Councilor Danny Lowe said people should be extra careful of kangaroos in the summer, when dry conditions may bring them closer to residential areas."Lack of feed and lack of water is bringing them in closer to residential areas. They are wild animals, they will defend themselves and they are territorial," Lowe told 9News.Read more:San Francisco airport's first therapy pig takes selfies with passengers and entertains them by playing a toy piano The Tasmanian tiger is thought to have gone extinct in 1936, but mysterious sightings suggest the creature might still be out there Pittsburgh Steeler JuJu Smith-Schuster used to be afraid of dogs. Then he met Boujee.A photographer captured the exact moment a squirrel stopped to smell a daisy Read the original article on INSIDER. Copyright 2019. Follow INSIDER on Facebook. Follow INSIDER on Twitter.

2016-07-05

July 5 (Reuters) - Ibio Inc * Ibio Inc receives FDA orphan drug designation for fibrosis product candidate * FDA has granted orphan drug designation to Ibio’s investigational biotherapeutic product, ibio-cfb03, for treatment of systemic sclerosis Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: )

2019-09-19 00:00:00

BRASILIA, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Brazil's government will free up 12.5 billion reais ($3 billion) of discretionary spending in its latest bi-monthly spending and revenue report, an Economy Ministry source told Reuters on Thursday. The move, to ease the pressure on departmental budgets following spending freezes totaling 34 billion reais this year, will be made possible by an anticipated increase in tax and dividend revenues, and will be announced on Friday. ($1 = 4.14 reais) (Reporting by Marcela Ayres Writing by Jamie McGeever Editing by Chris Reese)

2019-07-31

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday that next year’s budget, which is scheduled to be presented by Sept. 8, will not include new taxes or fuel price increases. “No new taxes will be created ... There won’t be increases in prices in real terms for gasoline, diesel, gas, electricity,” Lopez Obrador said in his daily news conference. Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Nick Zieminski

2019-11-08 15:42:37

A French woman was denied a certificate she needed before she can settle permanently in Quebec on the grounds that she had not demonstrated sufficient proficiency in French. MONTREAL — Is a French woman who grew up speaking the language of Molière not French enough for Quebec? That question was being debated in Canada this week after Émilie Dubois, a 31-year-old French citizen fluent in French, was unable to get a certificate she needs to settle permanently in Quebec. Her transgression? Writing one chapter of her doctoral thesis in English rather than in French. Ms. Dubois would seem like an ideal immigrant for Quebec, a French-speaking province determined to preserve its French language and identity. She completed a biology doctorate at Laval University in Quebec City, a French-language university. She also started a scientific graphic design company. But despite being a Francophone from Burgundy in eastern France, she said the immigration minister had written to her that she had not demonstrated sufficient proficiency in French to receive a certificate that is a prerequisite to gaining permanent residency. “It is beyond absurd, it is not logical, it is a joke,” she said in French by phone from Quebec City. “I am a French woman.” Marc-André Gosselin, a spokesman for the Quebec immigration ministry, said the minister was aware of the case, had deemed that it “made no sense” and had asked that the ministry review the file. He said officials had also reached out to her on Friday. But Ms. Dubois was still baffled. “I started my own company,” she said. “I hired people, I am expanding Quebec scientific knowledge internationally. Quebec is shooting itself in the foot. Is a French woman not French enough for Quebec?” The letter from the immigration ministry read: “You haven’t completed your program of study in Quebec entirely in French, including the dissertation or thesis.” Ms. Dubois, who likes painting and hiking, said she was flabbergasted since her doctoral thesis on cellular and molecular biology was written in French, except for one of five chapters written in English because it was a scholarly article published in a scientific journal. Even after she spent $200 to pass a French test recognized by the ministry, she said she was still turned down, leaving her feeling dejected in the province where she had first arrived seven years ago and had hoped to settle. Issues of language run deep in Quebec, a majority French province surrounded by English-speaking North America, where French is the official language of government, commerce and the courts. On commercial advertising and public signs, the French must be at least twice as large as any other language. Such are the concerns about French being threatened by the proliferation of English that the Quebec government two years ago unanimously passed a resolution calling for shopkeepers to stop saying “bonjour hi” — a popular greeting in bilingual Montreal — and to just say “bonjour” instead. More recently, the government attracted criticism after it said Quebecers who wanted access to provincial government services like utility bills in English would need to prove they were part of the “historic English community.” That, in turn, prompted some to ask whether English Quebecers seeking utility bills in the language of Shakespeare would need to prove that their ancestors fought against the French before Quebec was ceded to Britain in 1763 after France’s defeat in the Seven Years’ War.

2016-03-03

(Reuters) - Tech industry leaders including Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook Inc, Microsoft Corp, AT&T and more than two dozen other Internet and technology companies filed legal briefs on Thursday asking a judge to support Apple Inc in its encryption battle with the U.S. government. The rare display of unity and support from Apple’s sometime-rivals showed the breadth of Silicon Valley’s opposition to the government’s anti-encryption effort, a position endorsed by the United Nations human rights chief. Apple’s battle became public last month when the Federal Bureau of Investigation obtained a court order requiring the company to write new software to disable passcode protection and allow access to an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the December killings in San Bernardino, California. Apple pushed back, arguing that such a move would set a dangerous precedent and threaten customer security, and asked that the order be vacated. The clash has intensified a long-running debate over how much law enforcement and intelligence officials should be able to monitor digital communications. Apple’s industry allies, along with several privacy advocates, filed amicus briefs - a form of comment from outside groups common in complex cases - to U.S. District Judge Sheri Pym, in Riverside, California, who had set a Thursday deadline. Six relatives of San Bernardino attack victims on Thursday weighed in with their own amicus brief opposing Apple. Three California law enforcement groups, three federal law enforcement groups and the San Bernardino district attorney also filed in favor of the government. The companies backing Apple largely echo the iPhone maker’s main argument, that the 1789 All Writs Act at the heart of the government’s case cannot be used to force companies to create new technology. One amicus filing, from a group of 17 Internet companies including Twitter Inc and LinkedIn Corp, asserted that Congress has already passed laws that establish what companies could be obliged to do for the government, and that the court case amounted to an “end run” around those laws. Apple, and some of the other briefs, did not go quite that far, but also asserted that Congress, not the courts, needed to address the issue. Congress has struggled without success for years to address law-enforcement concerns about encryption. The victims’ families argued that Apple’s arguments were misplaced because the government had a valid warrant, and “one does not enjoy the privacy to commit a crime.” The families also asserted that Apple “routinely modifies its systems” to comply with Chinese government directives. Apple has also advanced a free speech argument, on the grounds that computer code is a form of expression and cannot be coerced. The families pushed back against that defense: “This is the electronic equivalent of unlocking a door - no expression is involved at all,” they said. The San Bernardino District Attorney’s summary argument, contained in its application to file an amicus brief, alleges the iPhone might have been “used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino County’s infrastructure.” The court document contained no evidence to support the claim. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged U.S. authorities to proceed with “great caution”, warning: “A successful case against Apple in the U.S. will set a precedent that may make it impossible for Apple or any other major international IT company to safeguard their clients’ privacy anywhere in the world.” “It is potentially a gift to authoritarian regimes, as well as to criminal hackers,” he said in a statement. The tech and Internet industries largely coalesced around two filings. One includes market leaders Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon.com and Cisco Systems, along with smaller, younger companies such as Mozilla, Snapchat, Slack and Dropbox. That group noted that Congress passed the All Writs Act more than 200 years ago, and said the Justice Department’s effort to use the law to force engineers to disable security protections relies on a “boundless” interpretation of the law that is not supported by any precedent. The brief also advanced constitutional arguments, saying the order violated free speech, the separation of power and due process. The second industry coalition, which includes Twitter, eBay Inc and LinkedIn, contended in its filing that the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) of 1994, along with other statutes, has already made it clear what the companies could or could not be forced to do. CALEA requires telephone companies to allow interception of communications, but notably excludes “information service” companies from such mandates. Apple said it was rightly considered an information company in this context. AT&T’s filing, by contrast, called for a “new legislation solution” that “applies equally to all holders of personal information,” an apparent reference to the exemption for information providers in CALEA. Semiconductor maker Intel Corp filed a brief of its own in support of Apple. “We believe that tech companies need to have the ability to build and design their products as needed, and that means that we can’t have the government mandating how we build and design our products,” Chris Young, senior vice president and general manager for the company’s Intel Security Group, said in an interview. The Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society filed a separate brief on Thursday on behalf of a group of well-known experts on iPhone security and encryption, including Charlie Miller, Dino Dai Zovi, Bruce Schneier and Jonathan Zdziarski. Privacy advocacy groups the American Civil Liberties Union, Access Now and the Wickr Foundation filed briefs on Wednesday in support of Apple. Salihin Kondoker, whose wife, Anies Kondoker, was injured in the San Bernardino attack, also wrote on Apple’s behalf, saying he shared the company’s fear that the software the government wants Apple to create to unlock the phone could be used to break into millions of other phones. Law enforcement officials have said that Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were inspired by Islamist militants when they shot and killed 14 people and wounded 22 others on Dec. 2 at a holiday party in San Bernardino. Farook and Malik were later killed in a shootout with police, and the FBI said it wants to read the data on Farook’s work phone to investigate any links with militant groups. Earlier this week, a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled that the government had overstepped its authority by seeking similar assistance from Apple in a drug case. (Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Dustin Volz in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Dan Levine, Heather Somerville, Sarah McBride, Julia Love in San Francisco and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva)

2018-11-14

(CNN)The best way to maintain weight loss may be to change your diet to one low in carbohydrates, according to new research. The study, published Wednesday in the journal BMJ, involved 164 overweight or obese people. Their weight was brought down by 12%, and they were stabilized at that weight and put on a high-, medium- or low-carbohydrate diet for 20 weeks. The diets were made up of 20% carbs and protein and 60% fat, 40% carbs and fat and 20% protein, or 60% carbs and 20% protein and fat. "We found that the type of diet people ate had a major impact on their metabolism. Those on the low-carbohydrate diet burned about 250 calories a day more than those on the high-carbohydrate diet, even though all the groups were the same weight," said Dr. David Ludwig, principal investigator of the study and co-director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital. While participants were on these diets, their calorie intake was controlled so that they maintained the baseline weight. If a participant started to lose or gain weight, their calorie intake was increased or decreased. "If somebody's metabolism speeded up, they would have started losing weight, and that would have triggered us to increase calories just to restore weight to that baseline target," said Ludwig, who is also a professor of pediatrics and nutrition at Harvard University. The research looked at diet's effect directly on the metabolism, he said, which is one of the things that works against you when you are trying to maintain weight. "These findings show that all calories are not alike to the body from a metabolic perspective and that restricting carbohydrates may be a better strategy than restricting calories for long-term success," Ludwig said. He also believes that, without the calorie control intervention, having a low-carb diet could create spontaneous weight loss of about 20 pounds over a few years. "This seems like an important finding BUT I would be highly cautious as the interpretation of the results seems quite incorrect," said Naveed Sattar, professor of metabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow, in a written statement. Sattar, who was not involved with the study, said that the low-carbohydrate group seems to have been eating more calories than the other groups to have kept similar weights. "This brings the other point that what really matters is weight change and we already know from much larger and longer trials that weight loss is broadly similar whatever diet one takes (low carb or low fat or others) as long as one sticks to the diet," he said. "So, in short, I don't believe this work changes anything and nor does it convince me that low carb diets are meaningfully better to relevant health outcomes. The overwhelming evidence does not support this." Experts also pointed out that all the participants had the same basic metabolic rate, so other unmeasured activities could explain differences, as well as high levels of saturated fat in the low-carbohydrate diet, which could lead to increased cholesterol and heart disease risk. Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at the Open University, noted that "because the different diets had to be made up from foods that may have differed in other ways than just their carbohydrate and fat content, it remains possible that these other differences were responsible for some part of the observed differences in energy expenditures."

2016-08-10 00:00:00

It's probably in Vin Diesel's best interest to squash the beef with The Rock asap -- 'cause Dwayne Johnson would whoop that ass if things came to blows ... so says UFC champ Tyron Woodley. Woodley (who's also an actor) says he recently went to the "Fast 8" set -- and says he thought things seemed peaceful ... though Rock wasn't there at the time. But that was then ... before Rock called out Diesel as an unprofessional "candy ass" on social media. There's more ... Woodley also talks about his rumored cameo in the 'Spider-Man' movie -- and also picks a winner in the Diaz vs. McGregor rematch. Check out the clip.

2020-01-02 00:00:00

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Defense ministry confirms Taiwan’s top military officer, 7 other people were killed in crash of air force helicopter. Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

2018-06-22

ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - Costa Rica were eliminated from the World Cup after just two games with a 2-0 loss to Brazil on Friday and coach Oscar Ramirez said there was little more his team could have done. The Central Americans kept the score goalless until stoppage time when Philippe Coutinho broke the deadlock and then Neymar made sure of the outcome six minutes later. “I don’t know what more we could have done. Considering what I had at my disposal and what they had, it was a good effort. They are one of the best teams in the world,” said Ramirez. “We had a plan, a strategy, and an idea for how to control the opponents with and without the ball and in the first half we had enough possession and opportunities. “We knew Brazil’s strengths and we wanted to minimize them and we managed to do so for nearly 91 minutes,” he added. Brazil coach Tite brought on Douglas Costa for Willian on the right at halftime and then threw on an extra striker in Roberto Firmino. Ramirez, whose side lost 1-0 to Serbia in their opening game, said those switches had made the difference. “They made changes that made our life difficult. My players made a huge effort, they defended well and whenever we had the chance to attack their goal they did. But unfortunately, in the end, we weren’t able to finish. The Costa Rica coach rejected the criticism that he had been too cautious with his tactics. “I think we have seen several games in this World Cup that the results are very tight and things are decided by fine margins. The second goal was a consequence of players being a little tired. You have to know when to risk and when not if you are up against a very, very good team. “We had to keep the balance but we created opportunities in the second half – we had Joel and Bolanos warming up in the first half. “International games are played very differently. I thought we managed the game well against a very strong national side,” he added. Ramirez denied that his team were unable to compete physically with top-level opponents but said they lacked the finishing touch they showed four years ago in their surprise run to the quarter-finals. “We run, look at FIFA stats and they show we run a lot — I don’t think less strong in that area. It was other things which failed — remember we were playing against a team with brilliant players. “Unfortunately it was not like in 2014, we were not able to finish when we had opportunities — unlike against Italy in Brazil where we had two chances and won 1-0.” Reporting by Simon Evans, editing by Neil Robinson

2017-07-20 00:00:00

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - The pediatrician and professor who first drew national attention to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, that exposed residents to dangerously high levels of lead are set to receive the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab’s first “Disobedience Award” on Friday. The lab is honoring Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of Michigan’s Hurley Medical Center and Virginia Tech engineering Professor Marc Edwards for nonviolent “responsible disobedience,” which breaks rules or norms to benefit society. The pair in 2015 began looking into the high levels of lead poisoning seen in Flint, with Hanna-Attisha using data from electronic medical records to link the rise to the city’s 2014 decision to switch its water supply to the Flint River from Lake Huron in an attempt to cut costs. The more corrosive river water caused lead to leach from the pipes that carry drinking water to the majority black city of 100,000 people. Hanna-Attisha released her research, which was inspired by earlier work by Edwards and found high levels of lead in children’s blood, before it was peer-reviewed, to speed the response to the problem. “They saw, not a looming harm, but an actual harm that was occurring and they did what they needed to do to intervene,” said Joi Ito, director of the Media Lab, which intends to present the awards annually. Four former government officials were eventually criminally charged. Hanna-Attisha said she acted because leaders had not been listening to Flint residents’ complaints. “It started with heroic mothers and pastors,” Hanna-Attisha said. “The kids had been speaking out but no one was listening.” Other finalists, selected from 7,826 submissions, were climate change scientist James Hansen, activists who joined the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in protesting the planned Dakota Access oil pipeline and the professors who founded “Freedom University,” offering free weekend classes for immigrants living in the United States illegally. The awards were conceived before President Donald Trump’s stunning election victory, following a campaign that surprised many American political analysts with its raw, populist approach. Ito said the selection committee did not intend to focus on projects aligned with liberal political priorities, though he acknowledged the picks tended that way. “We took the liberty to say health and climate weren’t partisan. That’s a value judgment,” Ito said. Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Phil Berlowitz

2017-12-20

CNBC recently spoke with college students at City Tap House, referred to simply as "Tap" by University of Pennsylvania students, to find out how they feel about 2017's most controversial currency. Many students admitted they saw the appeal in bitcoin. "My cousin invested in bitcoin and he's made a lot of money," said one student. "It's something that a lot of people could have bought into early on, like maybe five to 10 years ago, and now the value is skyrocketing," said another. Even though the students seemed to appreciate the potential gain from investing in bitcoin, most said they were either unable or unwilling to make the jump. "A decentralized currency is a pretty incredible thing," said one student. "I don't have the money to buy bitcoin right now, absolutely not. But if I could, I would." Another student, dressed in a full suit, explained why he thought bitcoin was a bubble bound to burst: "I'm a bitcoin skeptic. I think it's sort of a fraud," he said. "I mean, there's a history of bubbles in all sorts of different assets it's not exclusive to bitcoin. It's not the first bubble and I don't think it's going to be the last." "Its an overvalued asset that's bound to burst sooner or later," said similarly professional student. History seemed to be informing many of the skeptical student's views about the cryptocurrency. "I mean just the history of the stock market, the longevity of it," said one young man. "It's definitely more favorable than just buying an actual bitcoin or anything like that. Grant Sabatier, founder of Millenial Money, became a millionaire by investing in bitcoin five years ago, but he agrees that buying the cryptocurrency is not a sound financial decision — especially for young people. "Even though I'm a bitcoin millionaire, I don't recommend that you invest in it today," he writes for CNBC Make It. One reason Sabatier is hesitant to suggest others invest is because it is currently impossible to accurately estimate bitcoin's value. "Because so many new people are buying it (and so quickly!), it's impossible to accurately value," he says. "When the price of anything fluctuates 20 to 30 percent in one day, it's obviously unstable, so you could lose all of your money very quickly." "Most people aren't buying into the value of the technology, they're buying into the hype," he argues. "This is gambling, not investing."

2017-09-11 15:56:42

Letters To the Editor: Re “Entire State Shudders as Hurricane Irma Roars Into Florida” (front page, Sept. 11): As destructive as Harvey and Irma have been, they have revealed an element of the American character that today’s dominant narrative about individualism has suppressed. I am speaking of generosity, altruism and support for one’s neighbors, with no distinction made between “makers” and “takers” as everyone faces torrents of water and wind. We also see that the demonization of government is undermined by the necessity of its assistance beyond what charity and voluntarism can do. This recognition that government can be a source of good needs to be reawakened, along with appreciation for the virtue of altruism and a commitment to the common good. MARTHA HOLSTEIN, CHICAGO To the Editor: Irma and the rest of this year’s unusually strong hurricanes are terrifying. What makes them even more terrifying is that they are not isolated incidents, but a preview of what’s to come. The fact is that we have caused the conditions that are producing these stronger storms. It is critical that we all start working a lot harder to address climate change. SARAH WILLEY, FLORISSANT, MO. The writer is director of development and community outreach at Great Rivers Environmental Law Center. To the Editor: Re “As Winds Rise, So Does Debate Over Derring-Do of TV Storm Reporters” (news article, Sept. 11): As I watched network coverage of Hurricane Irma, I saw one reporter standing on the end of a pier just inches from violently churning waters; another walked down Collins Avenue in Miami Beach amid heavy winds and rain, warning about “projectiles” such as tree limbs and coconuts; and yet another was standing nearly horizontal as he talked about wind velocity. Each scenario represented a needless tragedy waiting to happen. Despite the networks’ reassurances, I couldn’t help but feel that these individuals were being put in jeopardy in hopes of higher ratings and more dramatic storm coverage. Hurricanes, as we are repeatedly told, are unpredictable weather events, not spectator sports. The public can be advised of dangers and those conditions can be shown without putting reporters at risk. MARK E. HOROWITZ, BROOKLYN To the Editor: Virtually all media outlets and their viewers accepted meteorologists’ predictions about Hurricane Irma’s landfall in Florida. These impressive predictions are rooted in models that rely on atmospheric science and deep expertise. But in some quarters, when discussion turns to whether carbon dioxide released by human activity has a role in global warming, suddenly science-based models are dismissed or ridiculed, despite overwhelming consensus among experts. This illogical denial does not eliminate the “inconvenient truth.” JOHN L. MICHELAWATERLOO, ONTARIO To the Editor: Re “Mexico Grieves for Its Dead as the Toll Climbs and Aftershocks Continue” (news article, Sept. 11): The Mexican government reacted immediately and decisively in sending aid to the Texas victims of Harvey. The aid was welcomed as a normal humanitarian gesture, one government to another. I’m waiting for news that President Trump has ordered aid for the victims of the recent Mexican earthquake. Maybe I shouldn’t hold my breath? KIRK NEVIN, CORVALLIS, ORE.

2019-11-28 00:00:00

BRUSSELS, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The European Parliament approved an increase of U.S. beef imports to the bloc on Thursday. Lawmakers voted by 457-140, with 71 abstentions, in favour of a plan to allow U.S. farmers a larger share of an existing 45,000 tonne quota from 2020. (Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop)

2017-10-15 00:00:00

The key to Miyamoto’s work is repetition that never becomes routine, no matter how mechanical the process might seem. Advertise on Hyperallergic with Nectar Ads Initially, I got dizzy looking at the two string constructions by Kazuko Miyamoto, an artist whose work I did not know of until I walked into her exhibition, Kazuko Miyamoto: Works 1964 – 1980 at Zürcher Gallery (September 7 – October 25, 2017). It was a strange dizziness, both pleasant and odd, which passed in a blink, as I was just as quickly mesmerized by what I was looking at. For all their calm, there is something agitated about these works — I could not stand still in front of them — and that paradox held my attention. Miyamoto’s constructions are made from two things: string and nails with large heads. In “Male 1” (1974 – 2017), the strings are white, while in “Female 1” (1977-2017) they are black. The nails are driven into the floor (or, in these two works, a white board) and the wall according to a set pattern — an arc, for example — and the string is tautly stretched between the two sets of nails according to a second pattern. The result is a structure made of a string: stretching between two sides of a right angle, the layered, architectural structure is simultaneously airy and dense. The ambient light and soft shadows cast by the tightly pulled strings are all part of the experience; the open construction feels solid and ephemeral, strong and vulnerable, tough and delicate — I was captivated by the simple beauty of it all. Along with these two string constructions, there were drawings and three paintings, collectively titled Progression of Rectangles (1969), and “Constructed Bridge” (1980–2017), which hangs between two ceiling beams, as well as a construction made of long cords of twisted brown wrapping paper and sections of tree branches, which is suspended from the ceiling. The key to Miyamoto’s work is repetition that never becomes routine, no matter how mechanical the process might seem. The string constructions, which are something all her own, remind us that our recognition of what happened in art since the late 1960s, and the rise of Minimalism and Pop Art, is woefully incomplete. Miyamoto was born in Tokyo in 1942, in the middle of World War II. She studied art in that city after the war and immigrated to America in 1964, attending the Art Students League from 1964 to ’68. In 1968, she moved into her first studio on the Lower East Side and — as luck or fate would have it — met two of the other residents when the building’s fire alarm went off: Sol LeWitt and Adrian Piper. Soon after, she began working for LeWitt and was involved in the making of the open cube sculptures and first wall drawings. She also became friends with Ruth Vollmer, who introduced her to a number of artists, including Thomas Nozkowski and Joyce Robins. In 1972, Miyamoto and others artists formed A.I.R. (Artist in Residence), the first all-women artist collective in New York, which happily is still going strong. In 1986, she established Gallery onetwentyeight, a community art space that is the longest continuing space of its kind in the Lower East Side. Clearly, Miyamoto has been a longtime active member of the downtown art scene, whom the art world’s commercial side and tastemakers have largely ignored. While it is clear that Miyamoto absorbed a lot from LeWitt, it is equally apparent that she made it into something all her own. That she has been slow to gain the respect that she has long deserved probably has to do with her sex and race. America seems to only like Japanese woman artists who make endless polka dots and are theatrical (Yayoi Kusama), but not ones who loop wire (Ruth Asawa) or make temporal constructions out of string (Miyamoto). Repetition is fine in an Asian woman as long as you are imbalanced and can be given a special pass. The astute Lawrence Alloway recognized Miyamoto’s unique contribution in 1977 when he wrote: She worked on [LeWitt’s] drawings at the Guggenheim Museum in 1971, for example, and LeWitt’s definition of the wall certainly influenced her. Hers was not a simple action of imitation, however: on the contrary she pursued, with relentless subtlety, a three-dimensional potential implicit in the drawings but not realized by LeWitt. Kazuko was originally a painter and she preserves a painter’s sense of spatial illusion within her sculptural constructions. Literal and illusive elements, sculptural means and pictorial effects, are brilliantly fused. The exhibition includes three related paintings dating from 1969, before she met LeWitt and Piper. All the paintings are the same width but different heights, and each is filed with a tightly packed grid of earth-colored rectangles (or what might be read as bricks) edged with black peeking through spaces between them. In each painting, the dimension of the brick form echoes the dimension of the format, but not in an overly fussy way. Although the paintings do not seem to have any metaphorical intention, it is hard not to read them that way, even as they snap back into being abstract paintings of a grid filled with brick-colored rectangles. The drawings in the exhibition are done in graphite and in ink. They are about intervals, spacing, and repetition. She will repeat the same line (notched or verticals paired closely together to become a repeatable unit, for example) or she will pack the surface of a graphite rectangle (like a controlled smudge) or she will make a drawing for a string construction. The lines can be faint and pale or solid and black. It is the string constructions that I kept going back. They are straightforward sets of lines that form an aerodynamic shape, particularly in “Female 1.” There is no vantage point from which to see the sculpture: I just kept trying to see it from different angles. It seemed inexhaustible. That is not an easy thing to accomplish, especially through such bare means. Her persistence in the making of these pieces never becomes dull. Kazuko Miyamoto: Works 1964 – 1980 continues at Zürcher Gallery through October 25.

2019-06-29 00:00:00

CAIRO (Reuters) - Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group attacked Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport, the group’s Al Masirah TV said on Saturday, citing a military spokesman. There was no immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities. The attack has caused a suspension of the air traffic at the airport, according to a Houthi military spokesman. Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; editing by Jonathan Oatis

2016-05-01 16:00:00

Welcome to Stranger Than Flicktion, our Flickr-inspired column. We provide writers with five random food-related Flickr images and ask them to construct a fictional short story in under five days. In this edition, we hit the audition circuit under the influence of shaved ice. I'm about as jaded as anybody when it comes to show business, but every once in a while—just every once in a blue moon—I'll really put on the dog for one of my auditions. Usually it's a matter of adding a small something to your outfit to dial in the character's identity perfectly. If they're looking for a nerdy office type, I'll stop by the drug store for a pair of $7.99 reading glasses. Or maybe it's an industrial for Turtle Wax, so I'll do a Pendleton with some American-made 501s, maybe a Leatherman clipped to my belt. Mr. Kool Aid? Well, I've never auditioned for Mr. Kool Aid. Though I'm sure I'd relish the chance. My glove box is filled with lapel flowers, pendants, pocket squares, bolo ties, various socks and stockings, and a full-on suit of neon cycling spandex. You may think I'm bragging, but I'm not. It's called being professional. But for a working actor—even one such as myself, who knows how to accessorize—the gigs will always come and go, and I hadn't booked a job in months when I got the call for Mr. Nice's Shave Ice. It was a scorching hot afternoon last July. I was was re-watching the first season of Orange Is the New Black and eating a pint of Chunky Monkey when out of nowhere my phone chirped at me from beneath a pile of the outdated yet unread New Yorker magazines that I use as coasters. Job: Mr. Nice's Shave Ice Role Name: Guy Lounging In Speedo By Pool Usage: Local, internet Attire: Speedo or similar bathing suit. Spray tan if you can. Role Details: "Average Joe" type. DEFINITELY not someone who spends a ton of time at the gym (no six-packs). Would like to see some awkward-looking CHUBBY guys for this role. They will be in a speedo. Script: No lines Conflicts: Ice cream/frozen desserts There's always a question of, how far are you willing to go for this role? "Spray tan if you can"? Like I said, I hadn't booked a job in half a year. Spray tanning was not optional for this guy—I was going to book this thing. My audition was scheduled for that afternoon at 5:40. Just enough time to get a quick spray, pick up a Speedo, maybe a few simple aquatic accessories, and make it to the casting place. Mr. Nice's Shave Ice is a local boutique shave ice thing that deploys a small fleet of trucks around LA every summer. Its Twitter account revealed that a truck would be posted up for the afternoon at a nearby gas station where the company had (ironically, I think?) posted a sign reading, "HAWAIIAN SHAVE." I scrolled through some photos on Twitter and found that they were currently running a special—three-flavored shave ice topped with a dollop of soft serve. It was called the "I'm Mr. Nice." I had to say, it looked delicious, and refreshing. The afternoon temperature was rising into the 90s. Already my brow was starting to sweat. The tanning spa smelled like soy sauce—in a good way. Behind the front desk, I found a cheerful, slight young lady with a tight bun of dyed-blue hair. Tacked on the wall behind her, inexplicably, was an unsigned black-and-white Kevin Nealon headshot. She escorted me to a small pod the size of a phone booth. Upon entering, she opened her arms out, as if to accept a really big hug—modeling the first of a couple postures I was to assume during the two-part spray process. She furnished me with a shower cap to wear during my treatment, and an oversized Ziplock bag, the kind you'd use to brine turkeys, "for your clothes," she said. "What should I do with my hands?" I asked. She laughed. The spray tan gave me the opportunity to think about my accessorizing for the Mr. Nice audition, and plan a bit for the rest of the day. There was kind of a lot I could do and I had my work cut out for me. When the spray shut off, I heard the girl's voice calling to me through the door. "Now you just wait another 15 minutes before putting on your clothes," she said. "The spray has to set." I hadn't accounted for this in my schedule calculations. In fact, I'd already spent too much time on the spray. Even if I left that moment, I realized, I'd probably have to skip my trip to the thrift store for my wild card accessory purchase. "I'm coming out early," I told her. "How do I look?" I asked upon appearing in the lobby. "Like the sun!" she cooed. We both laughed, then hugged. I tipped 20 percent, and accepted the complimentary full-sized disposable plastic seat guard, and then we hugged again. I didn't have AC in the truck and it was starting to really heat up. It was also starting to smell like soy sauce. I rolled down the windows for some circulation. I hit some red lights on the way to the scuba shop and started to perspire a bit from my brow. I found a wad of napkins stuffed under the truck bench from an old Zankou Chicken order and dabbed at my forehead and under my eyes as the beads of sweat appeared. The spray seemed to be holding up. Still, I knew I'd have to be quick at the scuba shop. Unfamiliar with Speedo shopping, I was surprised to be invited to just try them on. No ground rules really. I guess I assumed such an intimate garment would remain vacuum-sealed until the moment of purchase. Anyhow, they were all ridiculously small. The first pair I tried on was a large, and I attempted to halt it around mid-thigh—but it was already too late. I'd gotten some spray tan on the Speedo. Frustrated, I hurriedly shucked them to the floor. I found a larger pair and pulled them on. Fewer issues this time, but some of the orange spray from my inner thighs did wipe off onto the exterior of the blue Speedo. Hoping to avoid further spray/Speedo wardrobe malfunctions, I decided to wear these out. I paid for both spray-smudged Speedos. Pulling out of the scuba shop, the afternoon sun was streaming straight through the truck's windshield. I started to sweat again. Checking my tan in the rearview, I saw that a single bead of perspiration had tracked a line down my forehead, terminating at my right eyebrow. I dabbed at it with the Zankou napkins, but the damage had been done, streaking a tiny rivulet of sweat across my orange face. My spray tan was starting to melt. At this point the traffic was holding me up. There would be no time to get Teva's. Luckily, I had a pair of flip-flops in the truck as well as an old baby-blue plush bathrobe. And I had picked up a set of mirrored goggles at the scuba shop. I figured I was still looking pretty good, accessory-wise. How many other guys could have actually gotten sprayed? And I still had time to grab a final, crucial accessory—my own cup of Mr. Nice's Shave Ice. I spotted the "HAWAIIAN SHAVE" sign from down the street and pulled into the gas station. The plastic seat cover from the spa, which had adhered to my skin with an admixture of spray/sweat, ripped as I exited the truck. Unfazed, I pulled the robe over my shoulders, grabbed my wallet, and trotted across a dead-grass lot adjacent to the Mobil station to where the shave ice truck was parked. I waited in line for eight stressful minutes. A blasé-looking man in an loose-fitting Nike shirt, bug-eyed glasses, and a ball cap took my order. "One 'I'm Mr. Nice,' please." "That'll be $4.75," he said, producing a baseball-sized sphere of yellow- and red-dyed shave ice nestled in a short styrofoam cup with a swirl of soft serve on top. I received the cup gingerly, like a sacrament, and passed up my credit card. The man made like he was going to take it, and then in one motion gestured in a "this guy!" kind of way toward a small sign posted behind him in the truck. "Sorry, bro," he said. "Cash only." It was time to cut my losses. "Sell it to somebody who has cash then," I said, pushing the shave ice back up on the counter and turning back toward my truck. "I've got an audition to get to." Looking in the truck's rearview, I saw that tan-wise, things had gone from bad to worse. I'd been getting pretty steamy in the robe, and my forehead was now streaked with multiple sweat lines. I run hot, and flush easily. Dark continents of red were blooming on my neck amid the streaky orange spray tan. I shimmied out of the robe and kept my back at a 45-degree-angle posture away from my truck's pleather seats as I drove, in a posture that reminded me of a man who used to take my carpool to middle school. It was 5:38 by the time I pulled into the casting office's surface parking lot. I only had time to make a last assessment of my appearance. I balled up the robe and used it to wipe down my face, diluting the spray tan into a mellow orange gouache. Face/body skin tones were no longer consistent. Oh well. I pulled the mirrored goggles on, taking once last look into the rearview in an attempt to steel myself. "Let's do this," I whispered, as if in prayer. I pushed the robe into the passenger's side and stepped outside wearing nothing but a Speedo, off-brand Speedo mirrored goggles, and dollar store flip-flops. I strutted deliberately toward the casting office doors and, with a deep breath, pushed my way into the waiting room inside. Cool air syphoned wafted over me as the doors swung closed. It felt really nice. Wearing the mirrored goggles—and still reeling as I was from the bright sun outside—my eyes were taking a while to adjust, so I wasn't able to see the looks that I must have been fetching from other actors and casting company employees in the waiting room. People were probably staring. I was hoping they were. I felt a single bead of sweat slowly drip from my brow down my forehead, over the goggles, and then down to the tip of my nose, where it hung precariously, trembling with every inhale and exhale I counted off. I did not flinch. "Mr. Nice's Shave Ice?" I heard a voice ask, from across the room. "That's me," I said.

2017-03-07 00:00:00

March 7 (Reuters) - Swiber Holdings Ltd * Pdf 1: Swiber Holdings Limited (Judicial Management Announcement) * Judicial managers of companies have filed applications for an extension of time until 21 July 2017 * Extension to send to creditors a statement of proposals and summon a creditors’ meeting Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2017-04-01 16:23:20

April Fools’ Day is the most wonderful time of the year — if you’re so bored by your job in marketing that pre-briefing journalists on fictional new products is “fun.” For the rest of us, April 1 is “useless internet day,” and most April Fools’ pranks are just dumb PR stunts. So congratulations are in order to Snap, which came up with the only thing from among this year’s pranks that legitimately made me laugh. Take a picture with Snapchat and swipe right to get the first filter: A fake Instagram overlay for your photos. In case you don’t get it, allow me to dissect the frog: Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram have copied Snapchat over and over and over and over again. Stories, the chronological picture series that Snap pioneered, has been copy-pasted into the Facebook app, the Instagram app, the Messenger app and WhatsApp, because everyone loves stories. Recode’s Kirt Wagster alerted me to the new filter with this exquisite picture: Note the like from “my_mom” and the vapid emoji caption. Subtle! Clever! Literally all the things that tech April Fools’ is not. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

2017-10-30 00:00:00

(Reuters) - Michelin has stripped New York restaurant Jean-Georges of its three-star rating in its 2018 guide, leaving the city with five top-rated eateries, two fewer than San Francisco which now has the most three-star establishments in the United States. Celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s restaurant, in the Trump International Hotel and Tower in midtown Manhattan, was decorated with three stars when Michelin started rating the city’s restaurants more than a decade ago. It now has two stars in the latest dining guide, which will launch on Wednesday. “For a three-star, there’s got to be a ‘wow’ factor,” Michael Ellis, international director of the Michelin Guide, said on Monday. “We were not finding that level of flavor and execution. We would be remiss to not take a note of that,” he said of Jean-Georges’ downgrade. Michelin’s three-star rating, coveted by chefs and restaurateurs, is rare with just over 100 establishments around the world holding that distinction. Vongerichten is “a very talented chef,” Ellis said. “We are confident he could come back and get his three star back.” Jean-Georges’ downgrade marked the second time in four years that New York lost a three-star eatery. In 2014, Daniel Boulud’s Daniel dropped to a two-star. Michelin’s grading system uses anonymous reviewers in 28 countries. Some argue it is rigid and overlooks some restaurants that critics and diners praise. In the latest guide, New York has 72 restaurants with Michelin stars, which is the most in U.S. cities it reviews. A total of 55 restaurants have stars in the San Francisco region, including wine-producing Napa and Sonoma counties, as have 25 restaurants in Chicago and 14 in Washington. “New York remains an important center for gastronomy in the United States and around the world,” Ellis said. New York restaurants Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, Eleven Madison Park, Le Bernardin, Masa and Per Se kept their three-star status for their “exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey.” The city’s Aquavit, Aska, Atera, Blanca, Jungsik, Ko, Marea and The Modern all kept their two-star status for “excellent cuisine, worth a detour.” They were joined by Sushi Ginza Onodera, which moved up from one-star last year. Japanese restaurants Satusik, Sushi Amane and Bar Uchū were awarded one star for the first time for their “high quality cooking, worth a stop.” They were also joined by Cote, The Clocktower and Rouge Tomate. Reporting by Richard Leong; editing by Susan Thomas

2017-04-19 18:00:00

Sofia Coppola is particularly good at telling unusual women's stories in her signature directorial style, creating films that are as beautiful as they are riveting. (Think 2003's Lost in Translation, 1999's The Virgin Suicides, 2006's Marie Antoinette, and 2013's The Bling Ring.) Her newest offering will be he strangest story she's told yet — and, based on the trailer released Wednesday morning, maybe the darkest. The Beguiled is a sexy Southern Gothic thriller set at a puritanical, cloistered Southern boarding school for girls in Virginia at the height of the Civil War. The women — played by a stacked female cast including Elle Fanning as a student named Alicia, Kirsten Dunst as a teacher named Edwina, and Nicole Kidman as the headmistress Miss Martha Farnsworth — take in a badly wounded Union soldier (Colin Farrell) found in the nearby woods. While nursing him back to health and getting to know the gentleman, things in the house start to get... weird. In the Southern heat, twisty seductions, jealous rivalries, and sexual tensions are pulled taut among the cooped-up women. The ominous, atmospheric movie is based on a 1966 novel by Thomas Cullinan — except the book is told from the soldier's point of view. "The main crux of the story is about the dynamics between a group of women all stuck together, and then also the power shifts between men and women," Coppola told Entertainment Weekly in February. "So for me, it’s very universal, but it’s in this exotic setting of the Southern gentility." Well, count us beguiled. Watch the haunting trailer below, and see The Beguiled when it hits theaters June 23.

2019-03-20 04:15:46

The European Commission has just announced another antitrust fine for Google. The latest fine — €1.49BN (~$1.7BN) — relates to its search ad brokering business, which involves Google selling advertising space related to searches carried out on third party websites. Speaking at a press conference today, EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said the search giant — “by far the biggest” search ad broker in the region, with its AdSense platform taking a share in Europe of “well above 70% since 2006” — had engaged in illegal practices in order to “cement its dominant market position”. “Today’s decision is about how Google abused its dominance to stop websites using brokers other than the AdSense platform,” said Vestager, noting that the Commission looked at more than 200 tailored agreements with major sites which use AdSense (aka “Google direct partners”) — finding at least one clause that harmed competition. “There was no reason for Google to include these restrictive clauses in its contracts except to keep rivals out of the market,” she added, saying the Commission’s conclusion is that between 2006 and 2016 Google’s behavior was illegal under EU antitrust rules. “It prevented its rivals from having a chance to innovate and to compete in the market on their merits.” Vestager said the Commission found three types of anti-competitive restriction in Google’s contracts — including exclusivity provisions, which were included in contracts from 2006 and prevented “the most important partners from sourcing search ads from Google’s rivals on any of their websites”; and premium ad placement provisions which Google added to contracts from 2009 “to replace over time the existing explicit exclusivity provisions”, thereby not directly preventing partners from sourcing ads from Google but requiring they take a minimum of search ads from Google — “and put them in the most visible and most profitable parts of the page”. The commissioner described the upshot as: “The best website space was still reserved for Google.” The third Google contract clause restriction the Commission found put controls on how partner websites could display rival search ads. “Under this clause website owners would have to get the written approval from Google before changing the way they displayed search ads of Google’s rivals — right down to the size, the color and even the font of those ads,” she explained, going on to emphasize the “strong network effects” that work in search advertising, as in many digital markets — requiring that “to compete effectively you need to build scale”. Google’s “restrictive clauses” then worked directly against rivals scaling by creating “a vicious circle” of limited options for websites to sell ad space — forcing them “solely to rely on Google”. “As a result from that, Google benefitted from network effects and became even stronger,” Vestager concluded. While advertisers and website owners have “less choice and likely face higher prices that would be passed on to consumers”. The size of the AdSense fine — which Vestager said reflects the “serious and the sustained nature” of the infringement — was calculated based on the revenue Google generated from its AdSense business vs its overall revenue as a company but also factoring in exacerbating factors, such as the length of violations (i.e. around a decade). She pointed out that any entities who believe they have suffered damage from Google’s behavior can claim compensation through national courts. So a spate of lawsuits could follow the ruling. She also noted that Google removed the illegal restrictions from its contract around the time a formal Statement of Objections was issued by the Commission, back in 2016. The Commission’s decision now requires Google to put a stop to illegal restrictions in contracts — or “any other restriction with an equivalent effect and not to reinstate them”. Responding to the Commission’s decision in a statement, Kent Walker, Google’s SVP of global Affairs, said: We’ve always agreed that healthy, thriving markets are in everyone’s interest. We’ve already made a wide range of changes to our products to address the Commission’s concerns. Over the next few months, we’ll be making further updates to give more visibility to rivals in Europe. It’s the third Commission antitrust penalty for Google, following the $5BN fine for anti-competitive behaviors attached to Android last summer and a $2.7BN penalty for Google Shopping antitrust violations in mid 2017. In recent years Vestager has also flagged concerns about several other Google products, including travel search, image search and maps. Though no more formal probes have been announced. The latest EU antitrust decision against Google relates specifically to Google AdSense ads that appear on third party sites as a result of a search made on those sites. As noted above, the Commission made a formal Statement of Objections against AdSense in 2016, when it identified several practices it believed violated antitrust rules after investigating complaints. Its objections included that Google required exclusivity in AdSense site search deals, mandating that third parties do not source search ads from its competitors; that Google required third parties to take a minimum number of search ads from it, with premium placement for them; and that Google required sites to seek approval from it before making any changes that might involve competing ads. The Commission noted at the time that exclusivity practices had been in place since 2006, before being gradually replaced by Google from 2009 in most contracts — with the requirement of premium placement/minimum ads and the right for Google to authorise competing ads. “The Commission is concerned that the practices have artificially reduced choice and stifled innovation in the market throughout the period,” it wrote then. “They have artificially reduced the opportunities for Google’s competitors on this commercially important market, and therefore the ability of third party websites to invest in providing consumers with choice and innovative services.” You can read more on the background to the AdSense complaint (and Google Shopping) in our report from 2016 here. Since being hit with a wave of antitrust scrutiny and action in Europe Google has been forced to tweak a range of product and make changes to its business practices. Though it’s far from clear it’s done enough to stave off further regulatory intervention in all instances if the end-goal is to promote effective competition. On that front Vestager gave an update on how changes Google has made to its business practices have impacted market conditions since the Google Shopping and Android antitrust decisions. On Google Shopping she said Google’s September 2017 decision to open its shopping unit by letting rivals bid for space has improved the visibility of shopping rivals — albeit slowly, with Vestager admitting: “It has taken time for this mechanism to show results.” Back in June 2017, rivals were never appearing top of the Google shopping unit on the first page of search results because the company was systematically promoting its own service there — and burying rivals on average on page 4 of results. In June last year the Commission found around 30% of shopping units included at least one Google rival. That’s now gone up to 75%, Vestager said today; with 40% having more than one rival appearing. While the 6% of clicks in the Google Shopping unit going to competitors back in June 2018 is now around 40%. After tweaking how it displays search results for products in Europe Google was later accused of creating a ‘fake’ price comparison site scheme — to create the allusion of a thriving market in Europe. But Vestager said the Commission’s figures reflect the situation after Google made further changes to address criticism that “previous numbers where inflated by competitors that actually did not really compete in shopping comparison”. “These changes now require all participants services to have a sufficient range of offers and a set of core comparison functions,” she said. She also flagged an additional feature that Google has just announced, saying it will let users choose whether the shopping unit should show links to comparison shopping sites or directly link to products on merchants’ sites “This means that users will be able to choose what kind of results they want to see,” noted Vestager, couching all the changes as “positive developments” — but adding: “Obviously we will keep monitoring the market.” Asked whether she believes Google has done enough to stave off complaints in this area, she said the Commission should not be the final judge — and there’s no “magic number” which signifies job done and case closed. “When I give you a number it is to say that this market has improved,” she said, adding that her hope is the market will develop. “It has developed a lot since we took the decision where these was no rival in the shopping unit. The point is that if a market is to develop consumers will have to use their opportunities to make choices.” Margrethe Vestager announcing the Commission’s antitrust decision against Google AdSense Margrethe Vestager announcing the Commission’s antitrust decision against Google AdSense Referring back to last year’s Android antitrust decision, she said all Google’s restrictions in that case similarly aimed to ensure that search on mobile devices was directed to Google search — once again “cementing” its position in the market. And that obligation on device makers to pre-load Google services in order to get access to its popular Play Store has been removed. Vestager suggested rival search and browser provides can now strike exclusive deals with device manufacturers to preinstall their products instead of Google products. Although, as we’ve reported before, rivals still suggest the bar to entry is prohibitively high, given Google’s fee structures in the new licensing term it introduced last fall. And the commissioner too made reference to concerns that tweaks aren’t “sufficient to restore competition”. Though she also welcomed moves by Google that — on the surface — could increase consumer choice. Google’s latest Android tweaks — announced just yesterday — attempt to address complaints that its default browser and search settings on the smartphone platform box out competition by preferring its own browser over rival browsers. In a blog post dated March 19 Google said it will start asking Android users to choose which browser and search apps they wish to use, with the change slated as coming in the next months. That move looks interesting in light of rivals potentially striking exclusive device deals to pre-load their own apps by default — as a hedging strategy for Google to create wiggle room so it could worm its way back onto any future Android-powered devices where rivals’ services have been preloaded as defaults. How? By being ‘freely’ selected by the consumer as their preferred choice — relying on its brand power to drive their decisions. Hence the devil being in the detail of the incoming choice screens, as we reported earlier on those Android tweaks. Choice is also a word competition regulators love to hear, of course. And in later comments during the press conference Vestager said “the most important thing is to enable user choice”, adding that “the ability to choose also makes you feel that you’re in control”. So opening up ‘choice’ does look to be the smart choice if, as Google now is, you’re a business desperately trying to stave off further regulatory interventions. “We’ve seen in the past that a choice screen can be an effective way to promote user choice,” said Vestager today. “In the Google Android case it has the potential to give users a real choice about what search and browser they want on their Android device. This should also allow Google’s rivals to be chosen up front by users in cases where Google has been pre-installed on the phone.” “It is welcome that Google is stepping up its effort in connection with the Google Android decision — and of course we will watch closely to see how the choice screen mechanism evolves,” she added. In all these EU antitrust cases, complaints against Google have certainly not gone away (yet) though. And some complainants continue to couch the company’s self-styled compliance ‘remedies’ as a joke. French private search engine Qwant, a long time complainant against Google, told TechCrunch today that it’s sceptical about Google offering a search choice prompt — wondering aloud whether the company would be asking search rivals to pay it to be included in this list (as shopping rivals have to pay, via auction, to be included in its shopping unit; and as Android OEMs face fees for not preferring Google services as device pre-loads). “Please do it really, don’t play around,” said founder Eric Leandri, discussing Google’s search choice announcement. “I think it’s good, and I think it’s good from Google to start thinking about solutions. And I think that without the pressure put by the European Commission they don’t even try today, so I’m happy about the pressure, I’m happy about new ideas but please let’s do it really and not just for people who just see the surface of the problem and not the whole of the problem,” he added. In a formal statement Qwant also said: After years of abusing its dominant position, Google now has no choice but to make changes thanks to the action of the European commission. We take note of Google’s announcement, which is a recognition that its previous decision regarding the licensing scheme of Android and Google apps is not sufficient to restore fair competition on the mobile market. The priority should not only be to offer alternative choices where Google is still installed by default, but most of all to allow phone manufacturers to set up their Android phones with any search engine and browser that they feel best suited for their customers, with no overcost. Because the ongoing Google Shopping and Android cases show how so-called remedies and announced changes can be designed to benefit Google with no positive effect for consumers, Qwant will very carefully analyze the details of the newly announced changes when they are available. Those details will be of the utmost importance when assessing wether it is a good-faith move by Google or mostly a PR stunt and an attempt to lower the Commission’s vigilance. Leandri also told us that Qwant has itself attempted to install another search engine in Android, following the Commission antitrust ruling and licensing changes to Android in Europe which are supposed to unbundle Google’s own apps from the platform. Only to be told by Google that the process to validate Android with another search engine “is not open yet”. (We’ve reached out to Google for comment on what’s holding up that process.) The wider problem Qwant has run into trying to cut deals with OEMs to preload its search engine is that it claims Google’s licensing terms require the OEM to pay it $40 per device to do so — vs getting paid by Google if they pre-load Google. Aka the “overcost” referred to in its statement. Nonetheless, Leandri told us Qwant will have an announcement on a device preload front with a Chinese company this week — and slated another announcement as coming “very soon”. And he’s certainly happy regulators have applied pressure to shift Google’s policies. With antitrust and political scrutiny of Google and other tech giants stepping up internationally and domestically, any self-serving competition ‘fixes’ do look to be operating on borrowed time. Moreover ‘figleaf’ solutions that blow away at the first breath of scrutiny will likely increase pressure for more radical regulatory intervention — such as a break up of Google. (Which is not, incidentally, Vestager’s preferred fix for big tech.) Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Google, Amazon and Facebook It’s therefore likely no coincidence that — in another recent browser-related update — Google quietly expanded search engine choices in Chrome, adding privacy-focused rival DuckDuckGo’s search engine to the lists of options it promotes to users in more than 60 markets with the latest Chromium stable release, as well as French pro-privacy Qwant as an option in its home market. This change was welcomed by both DuckDuckGo and Qwant. (Though the latter told us it still recommends its users use Firefox or Brave, rather than Google’s Chrome browser.) Asked about other areas of antitrust concern vis-a-vis Google’s business today, the EU’s competition commissioner said it has “strong complaints” in local search and job search, and is still looking into those markets. But she suggested travel search is less of a concern, describing it as a developing market and noting that Google is also changing its behavior there. On jobs and local search Vestager said that while the Commission’s 2017 Google shopping decision gives it a framework to work with there are still important differences to consider — “so we need to look individually at those services”. “We have noted that Google is rolling out certain changes to its product in these areas and this is of course something that we will look at closely,” she added. Discussing the key role platforms play in digital markets, Vestager made a concluding point of emphasizing how consumers and businesses alike depend on them — “to get the best out of digitization” — stressing therefore that it makes illegal behavior by dominant platforms “a very serious affair”. Last year the commissioner also tasked three special advisers with looking at the challenges competition law faces as digital technology worms its way into all industries and areas, disrupting everything. She said she’s looking forward to receiving their report “very soon”, adding: “We’re thinking very carefully about the future of competition. Because everything becomes digitzed.” But, at bottom, she said the fundamentals will not change. “In our reflection for the future, as well as our enforcement work, our aim will of course remain the same: To make sure that the market works well, so that European consumers have choice, innovative products and fair prices.” This report was updated with a correction after we incorrectly stated Google had been fined 1.49BN dollars. The Commission fine is in euros — making the dollar fine around 1.7BN

2018-03-08

The European Union is hoping that the Trump administration will grant it an exemption from stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE is expected to impose this week, a top EU official said Thursday. European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen also said that the EU would consider an exemption for one country to apply to the entire bloc, according to Reuters. "If they try to make an exemption for one of our member states, it means the EU as a whole," he said.  Trump announced last week that he would soon impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum as a way to bolster U.S. manufacturing and national security. The announcement has drawn widespread condemnation from foreign governments, including in the EU and Canada, which warned of retaliatory measures if the tariffs were put in place. The EU has warned that it could impose tariffs on motorcycles, Levi's jeans and bourbon exported from the U.S. in response to the expected steel and aluminum duties. The White House has indicated that Canada and Mexico could be temporarily exempt from the tariffs while negotiators hammer out a trade deal with the two countries.  "There are potential carve-outs for Mexico and Canada based on national security, and possibly other countries as well, based on that process,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Wednesday, adding other nations could receive exemptions as well. "That would be a case-by-case and country-by-country basis but it would be determined [by] whether or not there is a national security exemption," she said. Canada and Mexico are among the largest steel exporters to the U.S.  View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2016-05-11 03:21:21

Thomas B. Edsall No one is more perplexed by Donald Trump than the leaders of the Republican Party. On May 5, after Trump effectively clinched the Republican nomination, Paul Ryan famously asked: Does he share our values and our principles on limited government, the proper role of the executive, adherence to the Constitution? As the speaker of the Republican-dominated House, Ryan could have posed a harder question: Do Republican voters “share our values and our principles”? The answer to this question, based at least on the 10.7 million votes cast for Trump in Republican primaries and caucuses so far, is “no.” But that’s not all. There is also strong evidence that most traditional public opinion surveys inadvertently hide a segment of Trump’s supporters. Many voters are reluctant to admit to a live interviewer that they back a candidate who has adopted such divisive positions. In matchups between Trump and Hillary Clinton, Trump does much better in polls conducted online, in which respondents click their answers on a computer screen, rather than in person-to-person landline and cellphone surveys. An aggregation by RealClearPolitics of 10 recent telephone polls gives Clinton a nine-point lead over Trump. In contrast, the combined results for the YouGov and Morning Consult polls, which rely on online surveys, place Clinton’s lead at four points. Why is this important? Because an online survey, whatever other flaws it might have, resembles an anonymous voting booth far more than what you tell a pollster does. In a May 2015 report, Pew Research analyzed the differences between results derived from telephone polling and those from online Internet polling. Pew determined that the biggest differences in answers elicited via these two survey modes were on questions in which social desirability bias — that is, “the desire of respondents to avoid embarrassment and project a favorable image to others” — played a role. In a detailed analysis of phone versus online polling in Republican primaries, Kyle A. Dropp, the executive director of polling and data science at Morning Consult, writes: Trump’s advantage in online polls compared with live telephone polling is eight or nine percentage points among likely voters. This difference, Dropp notes, is driven largely by more educated voters — those who would be most concerned with “social desirability.” These findings suggest that Trump will head into the general election with support from voters who are reluctant to admit their preferences to a live person in a phone survey, but who may well be inclined to cast a ballot for Trump on Election Day. Conflicting online and phone poll findings in response to Trump’s call on Dec. 7, 2015 — five days after two terrorists killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. — for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” demonstrate the difficulty gauging Trump’s strength. Phone-based surveys in December by the Washington Post/ABC News, CBS News and NBC/Wall Street Journal found strong majorities — 57 to 60 percent — of Americans opposed to the proposal. At the same time, YouGov, operating online, found substantial and growing support for Trump’s proposal, with a plurality, 45-41, in support. When YouGov repeated the question on March 24-25 — just after the terrorist attacks in Brussels — support had grown to 51-40. This December-to-March shift was strongest among independent voters, who increased their support from 42-37 in favor of the ban to 62-37 in favor. Similarly, a March 29 Morning Consult online poll found majority support for the ban, 50-38, with voters who identified themselves as independents favoring Trump’s plan 49-36. I asked a number of experts about the disparity between online and phone polls. All of them — Alan Abramowitz, John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, political scientists who specialize in the analysis of poll data — agreed that in the case of highly contentious issues, respondents can be more willing to express their real views anonymously, to a computer rather than to a human. Kathy Frankovic, the former CBS polling director who now works for YouGov, told me that “it’s easier to express potentially ‘unacceptable’ responses on a screen than it is to give them to a person.” Douglas Rivers, a political scientist at Stanford and the chief scientist for YouGov, agreed, noting in an email that stronger support in online polls for a ban on Muslims may be due to social desirability bias — people are more willing to express support for this privately than when asked by someone else. Needless to say, Trump has expressed confrontational views on a number of fronts. He claims that as president he will impose harsh tariffs on imports from China, suspend Muslim immigration, deport 11 million immigrants and build an $8 billion wall that Mexico will pay for. Taken together, these positions have provided a foundation for the strong correlation between support for Trump and white ethnocentrism and white racial resentment. One method of ranking whites on ethnocentrism is to measure the degree to which they believe Caucasians are more trustworthy, intelligent, industrious and less violent than African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities. These are the kinds of questions that prompt certain respondents in phone surveys to mask their views and provide socially acceptable answers instead. The accompanying chart, which uses data provided to The Times by Marc Hetherington and Drew Engelhardt, political scientists at Vanderbilt, shows that white Republicans are the most ethnocentric of all voters, but also that there are substantial numbers of ethnocentric white Democrats and white independents. This suggests that Trump could potentially find significant levels of support not only among Republican voters, but also among white Democrats and independents. Now that Trump appears to have the Republican nomination in hand, the question becomes: Can he capitalize on racial resentment among Democrats and independents in the general election? Perhaps not surprisingly, Hetherington and Engelhardt found that racial resentment follows a similar pattern to the expression of white ethnocentrism. It is highest among Republicans, but it is also present among Democrats and independents. The second chart derived from their data shows that in rankings of racial resentment, more than half of white Republicans, 58 percent, fall into the top four most resentful categories. What should prove worrisome for Democrats is that 42 percent of white independents also fall into the four most resentful categories, as do 22 percent of white Democrats. Even polls using traditional phone survey methods find notable support for issues high on Trump’s agenda. You can see this, for example, in attitudes toward the Chinese, Muslims and Mexicans — all of whom Trump has demonized. Anger toward China appears to offer fertile ground for Trump in the general election. In its 2015 American Values Survey, the Public Religion Research Institute asked how responsible China is for American “economic problems.” Solid majorities of Democrats (70 percent), independents (72 percent) and Republicans (80 percent) said China is “very” or “somewhat” responsible. Or take another Trump theme: Islam. The P.R.R.I. values survey asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement “the values of Islam are at odds with American values and way of life.” Among all voters, 56 percent said that they agreed. Republican were strongest at 76 percent, but independents came in at 57 percent, with Democrats trailing at a still robust 43 percent. The Polling Report, an aggregation of public opinion surveys, presents data on immigration from multiple sources. On a basic question — what should happen to the 11 million undocumented men, women and children now living within the borders of the United States — most traditional surveys show strong support for finding ways to legalize the status of those who have not committed crimes and have paid taxes. A March 2016 Pew study found, for example, that voters preferred allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the United States over attempting to deport them by 74-25. It also found that a majority said immigrants strengthen the country (as opposed to adding a burden), 57-35. These are not good numbers for Trump. But poll results (irrespective of whether questions are posed online or by phone) can change quite a bit depending on their exact wording, the specific issues addressed and even the placement of a query in a series of questions. For example, a September 2015 Pew survey asked a related but different set of questions about immigrants that produced results more favorable to Trump’s prospects. Voters reported (50-28) that they believe that immigrants damage the economy (as opposed to making it better), with a fifth saying that immigrants don’t have much effect. Voters also reported that they think that immigrants make crime worse rather than better (50-7), with 41 percent saying that they don’t have much effect. There are a few conclusions to be drawn. First, the way Trump has positioned himself outside of the traditional boundaries of politics will make it unusually difficult to gauge public support for him and for many of his positions. Second, the allegiance of many white Democrats and independents is difficult to predict — cross-pressured as they are by the conflict between unsavory Trump positions they are drawn to and conscience or compunction. The ambivalence of many Republicans toward Trump as their party’s brazenly defiant nominee will further compound the volatility of the electorate. Finally, the simple fact that Trump has beaten the odds so far means that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he could beat them again. If he does take the White House, much, if not all, of his margin of victory will come from voters too ashamed to acknowledge publicly how they intend to cast their vote.

2017-11-08 17:00:00

This is a column called Pity Party and it is brought to you by Lauren O'Neill from Noisey UK. It's about music (obviously) and feelings and #feelings. Please cry along, thanks. "Say how it is with everybody I know I got no temper for that" Every year, I get restless in the autumn. Despite not having been in school or university for a while now, I have learned the approach of treating the third season like a new start. Though I no longer rely on a new academic year to dictate how I spend my time after the meandering summer, I can still rely on the changes in the light to shift my perspective a little bit. For 2017, I was practical: I gave away some summer clothes and dug out sweaters I had stowed under my bed ready for their glorious October resurrection. I bought a new pair of boots, and a fleecy jacket, and a sensible backpack, and I felt prepared. In the same way as I put on different clothes, I reverted to the music I associate with colder weather, too. One of the bands I fall back on when the air catches a chill is Pinegrove, because they sound warm and abundant. In February of last year, the New Jersey group released Cardinal, their second album, and their first on the cult label Run For Cover Records. Last week, they also released a new single, "Intrepid" (it's great), but what I want to talk about is Cardinal. It's an intelligent, tender record that transcends quintessential emo; the sound is more mature somehow. In the same vein as, say Cassadaga by Bright Eyes, the songs on Cardinal are made brighter by the rich textures of country music, and the whole endeavour has the quality of floating—between genres, between experiences. The lesson I've learned from returning to this album this year is that Cardinal can mean whatever you make of it. This year, instead of visualizing what's acted out on the record, I see colors—rich red, deep mahogany; fall colors. It makes sense: Evan Stephens Hall, Pinegrove's vocalist and primary lyricist, has spoken about his admiration for modernist writers like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. Both are authors who use language on the page like paint on a canvas—words make broad, impressionistic brushstrokes rather than the painstaking pencil lines of faithful description. The technique makes for work that places emphasis on the connections the reader is able to make between it and their own life, and the lyrics on Cardinal feel like they were crafted in this mould. They manage succinctness, vagueness, and emotional candor simultaneously. "The truth is I lost all track of time / And I wound up wandering / Unravelling fragments all inside / But I rise up aligning," Stephens Hall sings on "Visiting." In four lines there, he tells a non-specific story of recovery that any listener can find something in. Cardinal frequently features such moments of universal realization, punctuated by patches of detail—the Port Authority setting of "Old Friends," or the admission "I was totally nervous to go to Japan" on "Then Again"—which act like a loose but guiding narrative. The words in these songs rarely tell you what to think; instead they're largely abstract enough to signify what you need them to. And it's this abstraction, and the last few weeks, that've made these songs take on a stark gravity for me. October was horrifyingly literal. Every woman I know suddenly walked with a curve in her shoulders. We were all weighted by the heft of everything we already knew being made public on an enormous scale—the mass of abuse allegations against the film producer Harvey Weinstein encouraged others to share the often awful stories of their own experiences. The internet became an even trickier labyrinth of words than usual, spilling with accusations, opinions, disagreements every second. Though it was dreadful, it was important. The extent of the problem is evidenced by its sheer scale. Weeks after the Weinstein claims broke, I'm still writing news stories about men in music who are accused of abuse, assault, and cruelty, and the outpouring that has occurred since he was named is, certainly, what was needed to catalyse change in a culture that has never been properly confronted with its own pathology. But as necessary as abuse survivors coming forward has been, when you're seeing your worst moments reflected back at you every time you refresh the page, it gets wearying. I found myself worrying about whether I too should say #MeToo, and the dull reality existent in the plain wording of new allegation after new allegation—as well as in my own ability to relate to them—made me sore. I needed to get away from the tangibility of all the terribleness. So I took time away from social media, and I did not stop listening to Pinegrove—I shoved them in my ears at work, on the bus, anywhere where I was alone—because they give meaning breathing space. Compared with the clarity of crisp fact present in all the descriptions of mistreatment, the band's tendency to leave some things up to interpretation provided softness and respite. On the song "Cadmium," Stephens Hall sings "Ignore my tone and everything / I sing, I sing for me / Ignore the phone on the bed / It rings, it rings, it rings." Listening to them this October, those words spoke to my need to give myself room to be a person, instead of one avatar in an endless scroll. A couple of weekends ago, I saw Pinegrove play in a church in east London, and it felt like peace and convergence and an outlet. That would have been a good way to tie this up, but it's not the whole story. Three days after that—on the last day of October—I got hit in the face with a firework on my way home from work. It hurt. It still hurts. And it was fitting—the perfect end to a horrible month, and a reminder that literality wins in the end. The real world will always be real: there's nothing we can do about that, no matter what we listen to. But despite everything October wrought—the long sigh of collective suffering, a couple of black eyes, and a big lump on my forehead—the month also helped me to remember one of the things I love most about music. As demonstrated by Pinegrove and Cardinal, music can provide sanctuary and lucidity at once. It can give you somewhere to go when your circumstances are tough, but it can offer a new prism through which to view those circumstances—and maybe even find beauty in them—too. Sitting here, finishing this column after days of wondering how I would, in pain but lucky, I'm pretty happy to have found the beauty. I think I have Pinegrove to thank. You can find Lauren on Twitter.

2017-04-24

Former Obama UN Ambassador Samantha PowerSamantha Jane Power#FreeAustinTice trending on anniversary of kidnapping in Syria 'Unmasker in Chief' Samantha Power spewed anti-Trump bias in government emails 10 factors making Russia election interference the most enduring scandal of the Obama era MORE on Monday apologized for not using the term "genocide" to describe the Ottoman Turks' massacre of Armenians. "I am very sorry that, during our time in office, we in the Obama administration did not recognize the #Armenian Genocide," Power said in a series of tweets. I am very sorry that, during our time in office, we in the Obama administration did not recognize the #Armenian Genocide Power, who served as Obama's UN ambassador from 2013 to 2017, blamed "ongoing Turkish denial" for leaving an "open wound." "Almost every Armenian-American family was touched in some way by the genocide," Power said. Former President Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 Obama's high school basketball jersey sells for 0,000 at auction Dirty little wars and the law: Did Osama bin Laden win? MORE had promised during his campaign to use the label to describe the mass killings by Ottoman forces of the Armenian in the 1910s, but reversed course in office. The Turkish government has long fought efforts to label the killings a genocide. Turkey is seen as a key NATO ally, in particular in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Armenian-American groups, though, have long urged the U.S. to use the term.  Power's remarks came the same day that President Trump released a statement marking the atrocity, but also kept course with past administrations by declining to call it a genocide. Trump called the killings "one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century." “I join the Armenian community in America and around the world in mourning the loss of innocent lives and the suffering endured by so many," Trump said in a statement. To date, Power is the only Obama official to express regret over the decision not to use the term genocide. Earlier Monday, Obama also made his first public remarks since leaving the presidency, attending an event in Chicago. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2017-01-29

BOSTON (Reuters) - The woman who helped blow the whistle on Russian doping doubts her country’s attitude toward performance-enhancing drugs has changed fundamentally in the three years since she and her husband exposed the massive problem. “It will be hard to change because you need to change the mentality,” Yulia Stepanova said through a translator on Saturday minutes after finishing last in an 800 meters at the Boston Indoor Grand Prix in her first international indoor competition in two years. “A lot of coaches in Russia were athletes themselves, and they were coached in the USSR system,” the convicted drugs cheat said. “It’s hard for them to believe that there’s another way to do it.” Revelations by Stepanova and husband Vitaly to anti-doping officials and German media in 2014 helped expose major doping problems in Russia that led to the country’s athletics team being banned from international competition, including last year’s Rio Olympics. Although Russia has made changes in their athletics and anti-doping program and officials continue to deny state-sponsored doping, the athletics ban remains in effect. So does Russian hatred toward the couple, who now live in an undisclosed location in the United State after having their lives threatened and called traitors. “Here in the States I feel safe because I know I am physically very far from Russia,” Stepanova said. “I thought the attitude in Russia (toward the couple) would change,” she said. “That I was trying to help the sport, that I was trying to help the athletes, but unfortunately that is still not the case.” Even international athletes are not always friendly. “They always say hello but I know a lot of athletes at the top level are against me and sometimes I can see it in their eyes,” Stepanova said. She was never a factor in Saturday’s race, finishing in two minutes, 5.14 seconds, more than three seconds behind American winner Charlene Lipsey. But the 800 meters specialist said she was not disappointed with the showing. Her main goal was “not to fall too far behind,” she said. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) cleared her return to competition as a neutral athlete last year after serving a doping suspension but her European Championships appearance in Amsterdam ended with a torn tendon. She hopes this outdoor season will be more fruitful, climaxing with racing in August’s IAAF world championships in London as a neutral athlete. She also believes she can again run 800 meters in less than two minutes. “When I was running in Russia, everyone was saying it was impossible to do without doping,” Stepanova said. “I want to prove that wrong.” Writing by Gene Cherry; Editing by Andrew Both

2020-02-24 11:02:30

A mysterious model of Apple AirPods described as "Apple AirPods X Generation" is said to have appeared in Target's inventory system.On Saturday, the YouTuber Jon Prosser shared an image on Twitter purporting to show the AirPods X Generation with a $399.99 price tag.Prosser said there were three stock-keeping units listed for the X Generation AirPods in Target's system, suggesting a new generation of Apple's earbuds could be available in three different colors or editions.As Prosser speculated, the "X Generation" name could be a placeholder for Apple's as-yet-unannounced "StudioPods" over-ear high-end headphones.Prosser told Business Insider he had also found an "iPod touch" (which he speculated was a new iPhone) and an "iPad 10.5" (which he speculated was a new 11-inch iPad Pro) in Target's inventory. Apple and Target did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. A mysterious model of Apple AirPods called "Apple AirPods X Generation" is said to have appeared in Target's inventory system.On Saturday, the YouTuber and tech analyst Jon Prosser shared an image on Twitter purporting to show a listing for the AirPods, which were priced at $399.99.In a follow-up tweet, Prosser said Target's system contained three stock-keeping units for the X Generation AirPods, suggesting the AirPods could end up being released in three different colors or editions.As Prosser speculated, the "X Generation" name could be a placeholder for Apple's widely expected over-ear headphones, which may be branded "StudioPods."On Saturday, several Target staffers told the Apple-focused news publication AppleInsider that "placeholders for new products are common," lending weight to Prosser's theory. —Jon Prosser (@jon_prosser) February 22, 2020Rumors that Apple may launch its own over-ear wireless headphones have swirled for months, but this is the first time a third-party seller like Target has featured in the speculation.The prominent Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo earlier this year predicted a first-half 2020 release for high-end wireless headphones, while Bloomberg suggested back in June 2018 that Apple was developing "studio-quality over-ear headphones" for as early as 2019 — a point the publication reiterated in a January 2019 article on Sonos.Prosser told Business Insider he had also found an "iPod touch," which he speculated was a new iPhone, in Target's inventory, along with an "iPad 10.5," which he speculated was a new 11-inch iPad Pro. He added that "multiple Target employees in different states" he spoke with had found the same products on their handheld systems.Apple and Target did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. window._taboola = window._taboola || []; window._taboola = window._taboola || [];

2018-11-14 00:00:00

In case you somehow don't already know: It's never okay to reach out your hand and touch a Black woman's hair without permission — I mean, how was that ever even a thing? Touching is clearly not okay, but there are a number of other things that we, as non-Black people, should also consider when talking about Black women's hair. Things like gawking at, commenting on, or cracking jokes about their latest style switch-up are equally inappropriate, and can make Black women feel singled out. These kinds of dynamics can take place anywhere, between friends, with strangers in public spaces, or on public transportation. But things can get particularly complicated in the workplace. Today, Black women continue to face discrimination in the workplace. Whether it's racial bias and stereotyping, micro-aggressions from coworkers and superiors, or disproportionate instances of sexual harassment, Black women often experience a very different version of the workplace compared to their white — or even non-Black people of color — counterparts. These dynamics are particularly pronounced when it comes to hair. Today, the natural hair movement means that more Black women than ever are embracing their natural hair textures, which often means routinely switching up their aesthetics and using protective styles, like wigs, twists, and braids. Unfortunately, this also means dealing with an influx of unwanted commentary from other people in the office. To shed some light on some of the many challenges, Refinery29 asked ten Black women to share what it's been like for them to have natural hair in the workplace. These women remind us that non-Black people have a responsibility to reflect on the ways we behave and interact with our Black colleagues, and how we might often unconsciously contribute to their discomfort in our workspaces. Welcome to MyIdentity. The road to owning your identity is rarely easy. In this yearlong program, we will celebrate that journey and explore how the choices we make on the outside reflect what we're feeling on the inside — and the important role fashion and beauty play in helping people find and express who they are.

2019-06-25

(CNN)Exposure to a chemical commonly used to reduce bacterial contamination in cosmetics, toothpaste and products like toys and clothing may come with an unintended risk -- osteoporosis. That's according to a study in Tuesday's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The study looked at data from 1,848 women between 2005 and 2010 and found that women who had higher levels of triclosan in their urine were more likely to develop osteoporosis later on in life. Osteoporosis is a metabolic bone disease in which a person loses bone mineral density. With the bones weakened, it puts a person at an increased risk for fractures, back pain and loss of height. This the first such study to find this connection, researchers said. Researchers think there is a negative connection between bone health and triclosan in part because it interferes with the function of the thyroid. Earlier studies have shown that an imbalance with the thyroid can cause bone loss and increase a person's risk for fracture. Triclosan is an ingredient that had been used in some hand sanitizers, toothpastes and cosmetics as well as kitchenware, toys, furniture and clothing. It's added to products to prevent bacterial contamination according to the US Food and Drug Administration. In 2016, the FDA started to restrict the use of triclosan and other chemicals in some consumer products because they were not proven to be safe and effective for long-term daily use. In April, the FDA issued a final rule banning it for use in over-the-counter hand sanitizers in the United States. It is, however, still in some products. Some past studies looking at its use in toothpaste seemed to suggest it was safe, but said more research was needed. Some studies in animals showed that long-term exposure to the chemical increased the animal's risk for skin cancer. Another study suggested that exposure to triclosan may disrupt some reproductive and developmental processes in infants. Another study suggested it may be linked to the spread of antibiotic resistance.

2019-12-10 13:30:00

Checking your email can be a counterproductive habit. It can also be costly for your employer — you can save 15 minutes a day by checking nine times instead of 15. Turning off email notifications and removing the icon from your task bar are just two strategies for reducing the amount of time spent on email. Visit Business Insider&aposs homepage for more.Imagine for a minute that you just finished a 45-minute task at work or got out of a 30-minute meeting. What do you do next? If you&aposre like most professionals, you check your email. In fact, you probably check your email every time you transition between tasks and aren&apost sure what to do next.Checking email when transitioning makes sense if that&aposs the only time you have to check your email, but in most cases, it is a counterproductive habit. Professionals check their email an average of 15 times per day, though many check much more often. When I asked one leader I was coaching how often he checked email, he said, "I don&apost know. I just have it open all the time and I&aposm pretty much always looking at it."Over checking email is costly, too. You can save 13 minutes per day in just switching costs by checking nine times (the amount needed to meet most recipients&apos expectations) rather than 15. Why do most people default to email checking when they have higher-priority items to do? The dopamine rush created by a quick email check certainly plays a role, but another psychological phenomenon called cognitive tunneling is also at play. Cognitive tunneling — also known as tunnel vision — occurs when your focus narrows during periods of elevated stress, making you, in effect, blind to things in your environment that you would normally perceive.Charles Duhigg popularized the concept in his book "Smarter Faster Better," describing how the pilot of an Air France flight crashed a plane full of people into the Atlantic ocean because he couldn&apost see the simple error he was making that, in normal circumstances, any pilot would have caught.When cognitive tunneling happens, you focus on the most salient or obvious things in your environment and default to what you have done repeatedly. Unfortunately, email is often one of the most salient applications in your environment. As my client said, he always had his email open. Email notifications, which interrupt most people every few minutes, keep email in your awareness constantly.Workplace stress increases the likelihood of cognitive tunneling. On particularly busy days when you need to manage your time most precisely, you&aposre most likely to become blind to your true priorities during task transitions.The key to overcoming cognitive tunneling and eliminating email over-checking is found in these four strategies.  1. Make email more obscure You can make email easier to miss. Start by turning off notifications. Remove the mail icon from your start menu or task bar. If you're using Gmail, open your email in a different window than the one you use for other browsing. You can close your email entirely, but you may find that more time-consuming than over-checking. You can also download apps that temporarily block access to your email. 2. Make your priorities more salient The best way to make your priorities more salient is to schedule time to complete them. In addition, do a daily calendar-priority sync: List your top three priorities and review your calendar to ensure you have time to complete them. By explicitly listing your top priorities, you'll be more likely to resort to them when transitioning. It helps to put emails you need to respond to on your to-do list so that you can compare the priority level of all your tasks in one place.  3. Develop a task transition routine In "Smarter Faster Better," Duhigg describes another airline example that illustrates how to overcome the power of cognitive tunneling. In this example, the pilot rehearses several scenarios with his team before boarding the flight. When the flight suffers dramatic mechanical failures, the team defaults to the effective approaches they rehearsed and averts the disaster. Before starting your day, determine what you're going to do when you finish a task. If you aren't scheduling your tasks, a good routine begins with visiting your to-do list and reviewing your high priority items. 4. Reduce workplace stress Stress leads to cognitive tunneling because it causes your brain to concentrate its resources. By reducing stress, you decrease the likelihood that you'll end up with tunnel vision. Workload is one of the most common workplace stressors, causing you to ruminate on questions you aren't sure how to answer. To reduce stress, proactively answer these questions.The most productive people do what they feel is most important more of the time than anyone else. They avoid being dragged along by subconscious forces that constantly redirect their attention. Check email when you intend to — when it is the highest priority — and stay out of your inbox the rest of the time.

2018-09-19 00:00:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. crude stocks fell 2.1 million barrels last week to 394.1 million barrels, the lowest since February 2015, data from the Energy Information Administration showed on Wednesday. Meanwhile, U.S. Midwest distillate stockpiles climbed by about 1.4 million to 37.6 million barrels, the highest on record, based on data going back to 1990. Reporting by Devika Krishna Kumar in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy

2017-06-07 00:00:00

June 7 (Reuters) - Shanon Inc * Says it signed a business alliance agreement with Canon Marketing Japan Inc * Says two entities will cooperate on sale of SHANON MARKETING PLATFORM Source text in Japanese:goo.gl/hTJ85s Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)

2017-09-25

Sept 25 (Reuters) - SUOMINEN OYJ: * SUOMINEN CORPORATION ANNOUNCES INDICATIVE RESULTS OF TENDER OFFER FOR ITS NOTES DUE 2019. SUOMINEN ALSO ANNOUNCES A SUCCESSFUL OUTCOME OF ITS NOTEHOLDERS’ MEETING FOR ITS NOTES DUE 2019 * ‍AT TENDER DEADLINE, VALID TENDER AND VOTING INSTRUCTIONS OF EUR 59.3 MILLION IN AGGREGATE NOMINAL AMOUNT OF NOTES RECEIVED Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

2019-11-24 00:00:00

Defense Secretary Mark Esper asked for Navy secretary Richard Spencer's resignation on Sunday after learning about a private proposal Spencer made to the White House involving disgraced Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, a Pentagon spokesperson told the Washington Post. The big picture: President Trump set off a storm last week when he reversed Gallagher's demotion, which came after he was convicted for posing with the corpse of a dead Islamic State militant in 2017. Trump then tweeted on Thursday that Gallagher should not be removed from the SEALs. According to the Post, Spencer circumvented Esper and privately told the White House that he would ensure Gallagher would be able to retire as a SEAL as long as White House officials did not intervene in the case. The New York Times reported on Saturday that Spencer and a top admiral had threatened to resign if Trump blocked the Navy's plans to expel Gallagher from the SEALs. Spencer denied the report. AP reported Sunday that the White House had informed the Navy it did not intend to intervene in the proceedings against Gallagher. What they're saying: Trump tweeted on Sunday night after the news broke, "I was not pleased with the way that Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s trial was handled by the Navy. He was treated very badly but, despite this, was completely exonerated on all major charges. I then restored Eddie’s rank." "Likewise, large cost overruns from past administration’s contracting procedures were not addressed to my satisfaction. Therefore, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer’s services have been terminated by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper." Spencer wrote in a letter first reported by CNN that with respect to maintaining order and discipline, it has become clear that he no longer shares the same understanding as the president who appointed him. "I cannot in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States," he added. What to watch: Undersecretary of the Navy Tom Modly will serve as acting Navy secretary. Trump tweeted on Sunday that current U.S. Ambassador to Norway Kenneth Braithwaite will be nominated for the permanent position. Read Spencer's departure letter

2017-09-29 00:00:00

The fake picture was circulated after controversy ignited last week when President Donald Trump said at an Alabama rally that NFL owners should fire any "son of a bitch" who refuses to stand for the national anthem. Trump appeared to be referencing former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who last year knelt during the national anthem as a protest against police violence toward minorities, which inspired others to protest. Since Trump made his comments, players, coaches, and team owners have fired back, saying the president is being divisive, and linking arms or kneeling during the anthem.Over the weekend, Trump retweeted a tweet that implied protesters who knelt or sat during the national anthem were dishonoring veterans. Afterwards, some veterans used the hashtag #VetsForKaepernick to show their support for the right to protest. "He reached in and hugged me and the conversation continued for nearly 20 minutes," Dayna Mink Coats wrote. "He explained how he too had family members in the military." Coats said he spoke from the heart and "the word unity was used several times." She said "he admitted he didn’t know where to go from here.""I am thankful for those veterans and thankful Michael stopped to talk with them…and inadvertently me," she added. Bennett has also said he was the target of racial profiling and excessive force by police when they detained him last month in Las Vegas.

2020-03-19 00:00:00

LONDON/HONG KONG/NEW YORK (Reuters Breakingviews) - Breakingviews has launched a daily column covering pandemic-related insights that you might have missed. Throughout the day, we’ll bring you shorter-than-usual views from columnists around the world with the same financial savvy on companies, economies and capital markets during this important unfolding story. - NYSE e-trading - Blue Apron bubbles - Free stuff - Telecoms surge - Sasol’s $2 billion sale BIG BOARD LEAVES TRADERS FLOORED. The New York Stock Exchange is finally going all-electronic on Monday – for now at least. The bourse is putting on hiatus its so-called open-outcry trading system after two people at its iconic Wall Street building tested positive for Covid-19. That’ll put its own electronic-trading platform on the spot. The floor is still the single-largest venue for trading NYSE-listed stocks, but these days three-quarters of the flow happens on electronic networks. NYSE Arca handles just 7%, Nasdaq and its affiliates 13%, and CBOE Global Markets’ four different engines between them have a more than 18% share. If NYSE Arca can pick up the slack, it would be a bonus for the exchange’s tech ambitions. A prospering Arca, though, would leave Jeff Sprecher, who runs NYSE’s parent Intercontinental Exchange, with a dilemma. After 228 years of face-to-face trading, is it worth reopening the floor at all? (By Antony Currie) EVERYONE’S DONNING A BLUE APRON. That, at least, is what investors in the $216 million meal-kit delivery service seem think. The company’s stock has jumped almost 500% this week. Sure, Blue Apron may benefit from social distancing. But it’s hardly the only option in a lockdown. There are direct rivals like HelloFresh. Grubhub and DoorDash still bring orders from local restaurants. And grocery stores are ramping up both sales and deliveries; Amazon.com-owned Whole Foods Market, for example, can offer both variety and quick door-to-door service. Blue Apron was unprofitable since it went public in 2017. Since then, its financials have been going ever more stale. Annual sales have dropped by 48% and its shares have plummeted some 90% since its stock-market debut almost three years ago. Coronavirus fears can’t reverse all of that. (By Amanda Gomez) FREE STUFF! AT A PRICE. Consumers facing self-quarantine are being consoled with special offers from big media companies. Confined viewers get entertainment; the companies get captive, grateful audiences. The New York Times, with $1 billion in subscription revenue, is making coronavirus coverage free. The BBC is offering online lessons for kids who can’t go to school. Even Rupert Murdoch wants in, offering Fox News free. There are more colorful examples, too. Walt Disney released “Frozen 2” to its new streaming product three months ahead of schedule. Pornhub is giving Italian shut-ins free premium access. Patriotic duty? There’s a self-serving motive too. Housebound consumers are in the ideal position to get hooked on new services. It wouldn’t be surprising if Disney+ and others cut their prices to exploit a Covid-19 land grab. The risk? Users later associate their brands with stir-crazy memories. (By Jennifer Saba) TELECOM UTILITIES MERIT A VIRUS BUMP. To food, water, clothing and shelter, humanity must now add Wi-Fi. Vodafone says network traffic has jumped 50% in locked-down countries like Italy, as quarantined customers take refuge in Netflix and other streaming services. But at their worst this week, Vodafone shares were down a third year to date, against a 20% decline in the STOXX Europe Utilities index. More data doesn’t necessarily mean more revenue, and travel bans hurt roaming charges – 1% of Vodafone’s top line. If millions lose their jobs, bills may go unpaid. But punters generally cut other services before broadband, meaning subscriptions shouldn’t shrink. And operators have proved their social worth by enabling remote working and letting governments use mobile data to see where people are during lockdowns. That might mean brownie points when governments next auction off pricey spectrum. In troubled times, catering to basic needs has greater value. (By Ed Cropley) JONESING FOR CASH IN JOBURG. Sasol, a $1.3 billion South African manufacturer of motor fuel, rather optimistically hopes to raise $2 billion in a rights issue to pay down debt. With the market’s free-fall complicating things, underwriters Citigroup, JPMorgan and Bank of America are taking the necessary precautions.  There’s no price fixed on the deal. And the bankers can walk away if their internal committees disapprove, or if Sasol fails to generate $2.5 billion in asset sales to fix its balance sheet. Given those conditions, investors will want to see disposals before they believe the underwriting and equity hike are realistic. Barring that, Sasol may need to be rescued – perhaps by its top shareholder, South Africa’s sovereign wealth fund. Add one more name to the global bailout list. (By Dasha Afanasieva) COGNITIVE DISSONANCE. Global pestilence? Pah! Say Credit Suisse, Santander, Credit Agricole and Swiss Re. Financial bosses, who are supposed to help solve the current crisis by doling out loans and insurance claims to virus-hit firms, reckon they can simultaneously keep investors sweet. Credit Suisse’s new Chief Executive Thomas Gottstein on Thursday touted rising private banking and markets revenues so far this year. Santander and Credit Agricole talked up V-shaped recoveries, while reinsurer Swiss Re is keeping open the option of a $1 billion share buyback.  Investors appear unconvinced. Shares in all four groups have roughly halved in the past month, trailing their own sector indexes and the broader STOXX 600 Index. Bullish noises won’t distract from the prospect of rising bad debt and lower interest rates, which squeeze the bottom line. There’s no credit for hope in today’s markets. (By Liam Proud) CHINA’S CLEAN CARS BELCH SMOKE. Nio warned Wednesday it may struggle to stay in business. Tesla’s Chinese challenger had already been hammered by the withdrawal of subsidies and by the brutal slowdown in Chinese automobile sales. Nio had only $152 million in cash at the end of December, while it lost $406 million from operations – and that’s before the epidemic hit. Coronavirus may tip it over. Given its profile outside of China, a Nio collapse would be mildly embarrassing for Beijing. But its state backing at present is limited to a verbal commitment of $1.4 billion from its municipal government, which now has bigger headaches. Anhui is one of the country’s poorest provinces. Central policymakers must worry about their inefficient state automotive champions, which are massive employers. National sales dropped 42% in January and February; new energy models retreated 60%. Investors are not betting on an imminent Nio bailout. That seems wise. (By Pete Sweeney) LUFTHANSA CHARTS BAILOUT COURSE. With 95% of flights grounded by the virus, the question is how long the German carrier can endure its financial freefall. Keeping planes on the tarmac immediately eliminates variable costs like fuel and airport fees, which made up 63% of its 2019 expenses. Lufthansa reckons suspending marketing and investment and putting crew on unpaid leave will shrink the rest by a third.  That leaves 500 million euros of costs a month, against 5.1 billion euros of cash reserves and credit lines – enough to keep it airborne until Christmas. The taxman could help by deferring payments. But peers might not last as long: they generally have a higher fixed cost base as a proportion of the total, and Germany’s system makes unpaid leave easier than in most countries. Little wonder European governments are getting ready to hit the “bailout” button. (By Ed Cropley) Reuters Breakingviews is the world's leading source of agenda-setting financial insight. As the Reuters brand for financial commentary, we dissect the big business and economic stories as they break around the world every day. A global team of about 30 correspondents in New York, London, Hong Kong and other major cities provides expert analysis in real time. Sign up for a free trial of our full service at https://www.breakingviews.com/trial and follow us on Twitter @Breakingviews and at www.breakingviews.com. All opinions expressed are those of the authors.

2016-09-29

The following Spanish stocks may be affected by newspaper reports and other factors on Thursday. Reuters has not verified the newspaper reports, and cannot vouch for their accuracy: Spain’s bank rescue fund said late on Wednesday it would look into a merger between Bankia and Banco Mare Nostrum (BMN) Almirall announced on Wednesday positive results from the phase III trial showing efficacy of dimethyl fumarate, a new systemic oral drug for patients with chronic plaque psoriasis. OHL said on Wednesday it has bought back 23.3 million euros in bonds with maturity in 2020 and a coupon of 7.625 percent. For today’s European market outlook double click on. For real-time moves on the Spanish blue-chip index IBEX please double click on For IBEX constituent stocks highlight .IBEX in the command box and press the F3 button on your keyboard For latest news on Spanish stock moves double click For Spanish language market report double click on For latest Eurostocks report please double click on

2017-07-04 00:00:00

(Corrects day, paragraph 1) * Many traders close positions ahead of July 4 holiday * Easing U.S. output, drilling activity has supported market * Rising OPEC production still weighs on prices By Ahmad Ghaddar LONDON, July 4 (Reuters) - Oil prices fell on Tuesday, halting a run of eight straight days of gains on signs that a persistent rise in U.S. crude production is running out of steam. Brent crude futures fell by 22 cents to $49.46 per barrel by 0927 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were trading down 20 cents at $46.87 a barrel. The falls came after both benchmarks recovered around 12 percent from their recent lows on June 21. Many traders closed positions ahead of the U.S. Independence Day holiday on July 4, while Brent also faced technical resistance as it approached $50 per barrel, traders said. Despite this, the market’s outlook has shifted somewhat. Late May and most of June were overwhelmingly bearish as U.S. output rose and doubts grew over the ability of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to hold back enough production to tighten the market. But sentiment began to shift towards the end of June, when U.S. data showed a dip in American oil output and a slight fall in drilling for new production. RIG-OL-USA-BHI C-OUT-T-EIA “The fact that prices have not come under any noticeable pressure of late points to a shift in sentiment,” Commerzbank said on Tuesday. “This may be related to the fact that most of the ‘shaky hands’ have withdrawn from the market by now,” the bank added. Prices rose in recent days despite OPEC production hitting a 2017 high of 32.72 million barrels a day in June, according to a Reuters survey. The group’s efforts to rebalance the market have been undermined by rising production from Libya and Nigeria, who are exempt from the cuts. Libya is currently pumping around 1 million bpd of crude, a four-year high. “We see a recovery for oil prices in H2 2017 from current levels, with OPEC production cuts, a slowdown in global supply growth and seasonally firming demand driving up prices,” BMI Research said, although it added that “large-volume supply additions will keep price growth flat year on year in 2018”. BMI said it expected Brent to average $54 per barrel in the second half of this year, and to average $55 a barrel in 2018. It expects WTI to average $51 in the second half of 2017 and $52 next year. (Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore; editing by Jason Neely)

2019-11-15 00:00:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Lazard (LAZ.N) has poached two executives from British stockbroker Numis Corporation Plc (NUM.L) to lead a new team that will focus on European private firms seeking growth equity and venture capital. The U.S.-based investment bank said on Friday that Garri Jones and Nick James would join as managing directors in its London hub in January to lead the 10-strong team known as Lazard Venture and Growth Banking. Jones and James, who ran Numis’s venture practice, will be in charge of the new unit comprising entrepreneurs, bankers, data scientists and engineers. They will initially focus on connecting about 100 fast growing companies with 400 global investors, working with Lazard’s capital markets and sector merger and acquisition teams. Lazard UK Chairman William Rucker said the new team would “provide companies with greater access to capital markets and financial advice throughout their life cycle.” Reporting By Pamela Barbaglia; Editing by Edmund Blair

2017-05-07 23:10:00

You might have been thinking that this would be the year that the Cleveland Cavaliers get knocked off early in the playoffs. After an abysmal end to their season and a relatively low playoff berth at No. 2 (we're talking about the Cavs here), you could have thought that there was a strong chance that they'd get pitted up against the perennially strong and under-rated Toronto Raptors and that maybe—just maybe—they'd see their early demise. But no such nonsense was in the stars for LeBron and crew. In fact—after Cleveland eviscerated Toronto in Game 1—you'd almost be nuts to have bet against anything but a sweep. It's hard to say exactly why this is such a brutal matchup—DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry are nothing to shake a stick at—but the Raptors were out there looking like the Washington Generals to the Harlem Globe Trotters. Need any other examples besides this madness from Game 2? The Indiana Pacers, seated at No. 7 compared to Toronto's with a sharpshooting Paul George and a decent perimeter, made for a much stronger matchup. Yes, the Cavs swept them too, but only by an average margin of victory at four points per game. The average margin of victory against the Raptors: 15.25 points. It's just nightmare fuel for the front office of Toronto right now. Just look at what the Cavs were doing to these poor human beings in their own home: LeBron walked away from the series as the first person to drop at least 30 points per game in six straight playoffs games since Kobe in 2010. At some point, these games started to become stat stuffers more than a playoff series. It's hard to tell if the East's No. 1 Celtics have any chance of striking down the absurdly well-rounded and gelling Cavs in the next round—or if the Wizards have any chance of out-shooting Cleveland with their well-spread John Wall-led perimeter play. But at this point, with the Cavs getting yet another absurdly long stretch of rest time while their future opponents battle it out, it seems safest to put your money on yet another Cavs sweep.

2018-12-04 00:00:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Glasgow-based artist Charlotte Prodger won the 2018 Turner Prize on Tuesday, Britain’s prestigious contemporary art award, with an autobiographical film shot on a mobile phone. For the first time, all four works shortlisted for the annual prize were films, organizers said, tackling “some of today’s most important issues, from queer identity, human-rights abuses and police brutality to post-colonial migration and the legacy of liberation movements”. Prodger, who works with sculpture, writing and film, was awarded the 25,000-pound ($31,785) prize for the autobiographical “BRIDGIT” as well as another video. Named after the Neolithic deity, “BRIDGIT” features snippets of Prodger at home or in the Scottish countryside, looking at her experience of coming out as gay. Filmed over one year, it uses narration from Prodger’s diary as well as book extracts, looking at history and identity. “I guess my work is quite personal and it’s becoming increasingly personal as time goes by,” Prodger told Britain’s BBC after winning the prize. “It is an honor but I would like my life to carry on as normal.” The 44-year-old, who will represent Scotland at the Venice Biennale next year, join the ranks of past Turner Prize winners which include Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley. The prize was established in 1984. ($1 = 0.7865 pound ) Reporting by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; Editing by Lisa Shumaker

2019-10-01 05:00:27

A modernist thermal bath complex on an ancient site near Fez may return to its original concrete splendor. The original concrete buildings combine Brutalist materials with regional elements. The wooden flooring and the buildings in the background are more recent additions.CreditCreditAndreea Muscurel When Aziza Chaouni was a girl, she spent holidays with her grandmothers at Sidi Harazem, a thermal bath complex built next to an ancient magnesium-rich spring about seven miles east of Fez, Morocco. One grandmother loved the new complex, designed by Jean-François Zevaco and completed in 1960, soon after Moroccan independence. “She was born and raised in Fez, in the old city, and she was very keen on alternative medicine,” said Ms. Chaouni, a professor at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto and principal of Aziza Chaouni Projects. “She was amazed by the new facilities. We would stay in the bungalows that were modeled after the medina — as a child it was like a maze.” The other grandmother was nostalgic for the pre-modern Sidi Harazem. The springs, set in an arid mountain range, had drawn visitors since the time of the Romans, and Sultan Abu el-Hassan built a 14th-century shrine to Sidi Harazem, a Sufi theologian, on a nearby plateau. “They used to wake up at 5 a.m. and walk from Fez, then simply camp. Locals would offer space in their own homes,” Ms. Chaouni recalled. “For people who lived in Fez, it was their green lung.” Built in concrete with faceted columns, deep overhangs, and a circular outdoor pool shaded by a disk of concrete that seems to float, Mr. Zevaco’s buildings, which include baths, dozens of bungalows, covered markets and a hotel, combine Brutalist materials with regional elements, including bands of blue mosaic tile and copper work. The newly established Moroccan government wanted to attract Western tourists to the country, while preserving popular national sites. Mr. Zevaco’s design was intended to appeal to both types of visitors, with the bungalows and public spaces reminiscent of traditional buildings, and the elevated hotel and cantilevered shade structure representing the most advanced international architecture. “Morocco wanted to appear as a progressive young country,” Ms. Chaouni said. Mr. Zevaco reinterpreted European modernism in a local way, by organizing the project around an interior courtyard, with green plantings and reflecting pools that cooled the air. Narrow channels of water wove throughout the complex, leading visitors along the circulation paths. But by the time Ms. Chaouni was an adult herself, Sidi Harazem had fallen on hard times. Fewer people were visiting the baths, and major sections of the complex, including the market and bungalows, were closed. A renovation in 2000 had tried to make the still-open parts of the site more traditionally Moroccan, veneering the concrete with green tile and carved wooden panels. Modernism, once promoted as a break from the country’s colonial past, came to be seen as equally alien — and alienating to international tourists. In Fez, as in Boston, London, Sydney and Belgrade, Brutalism was architecture non grata — despite Mr. Zevaco’s immense talents and sensitivity to regional traditions. He was born in Casablanca and studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before being mobilized for World War II. After the war, he returned to Morocco, setting up his own office and making his name designing white modernist villas. He died in 2003. His first major public commissions came after the 1960 earthquake in Agadir, where he and other members of GAMMA, the Group of Moroccan Modern Architects, built new housing, schools and public buildings. His 1965 Courtyard Houses in Agadir eventually won an Aga Kahn Award for Architecture. At the same time, Mr. Zevaco began his work for the Fondation Caisse de Dépôt et de Gestion, or CDG, the Moroccan pension fund responsible for the thermal baths at Sidi Harazem. But the optimism that had originally greeted his design dissipated over time; by the end of the 20th century, its owners saw it as an “ugly duckling” and discussed its sale with private investors. In 2001, on a visit home, Ms. Chaouni went to Sidi Harazem for a swim and was horrified by the renovation. As an Aga Khan Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, she studied the architecture of tourism in post-independence Morocco, including work by Mr. Zevaco and fellow members of GAMMA like Elie Azagury and Mourad Ben Embarek. Armed with that knowledge, she approached the CDG, convincing Rachid Karkari, the official in charge of Sidi Harazem, that their duckling could — with proper intervention — turn back into a swan. “We were amazed by the splendor of the plans drawn by Zevaco,” said Mr. Karkari, pointing to the architect’s rendering of the thermal station entrance. In that drawing, called “The Signal,” plants and people climb up a hillside defined by ridges of concrete architecture, a building that rises up and spreads out at the same time. “We hope, through this project, to restore the image of Zevaco’s work so that it regains its former glory.” With Ms. Chaouni as lead, a team including architects, engineers, researchers and photographers from North America and Africa won a $150,000 Keeping It Modern grant in 2017 from the Getty Foundation. Their goal is to restore Sidi Harazem as an architectural masterpiece, building as before on the natural oasis that has drawn pilgrims since the 14th century, but also adding year-round facilities, creating local jobs and expanding the urban transportation network. The grant, which concludes at the end of 2019, has allowed Ms. Chaouni and her team, with the CDG as partner, to create a road map for restoration and development, which will require future rounds of fund-raising and investment. “Usually when you look at modern architecture, you look at photos first and say, ‘Wow, this is beautiful,’ and then when you get in front of it you are disappointed. Zevaco, when you get in front of the building, you are completely possessed by him,” said Lucy Hofbauer, an art and architecture historian and Zevaco specialist who is a member of the Getty-funded team. Elements of the complex at times recall the work of better-known masters of concrete like Marcel Breuer (the shapely columns) or Oscar Niemeyer (the layered circles of sunshade and pool), but the landscapes surrounding and woven into his complex are distinctly Moroccan, from the plants to the use of water. The idea of an oasis is threaded throughout, with colored tile used sparingly to highlight moments where Mr. Zevaco wants you to pay attention. The Getty grant is not solely about the architecture, however. As Ms. Chaouni and her team set to work in 2017, she realized that they had to grapple with the legacy of those who have lived in Sidi Harazem, both in the 1960s and now. “Something I discovered as I started working on the project, was that there was a village at the oasis,” she said. “All the people in that village were taken and moved on top of a hill, with a mud house for each family, and given one bag of flour each month. Like everything, to do something visionary for the time, it had some casualties.” Although its architecture was always supposed to attract international interest, Sidi Harazem was never purely a luxury resort. The hotel, with a restaurant, was designed for Europeans who might be visiting for only a few days, but the bungalows, like the ones where Ms. Chaouni stayed with her grandmother, were designed for locals: close to the ground, with private courtyards and kitchens attractive to Moroccan families vacationing together. Future plans for the complex include expanding economic opportunities for local inhabitants, from design tours and a museum to a new Zevaco-inspired covered market for local farmers to sell foods including snails, mushrooms, grilled corn and tagines. Fez is known as the culinary capital of Morocco, and Ms. Chaouni and HRM, the tourism branch of the CDG, are talking to the chef Najat Kaanache, of the award-winning Fez restaurant Nur, about setting up a cooking school devoted to Moroccan cuisine. They also realized that young people who had grown up in Sidi Harazem had no idea about its architectural significance; additional grant-funded programs have trained local teenagers as architectural guides. “The challenge compared to other places is the informality,” Ms. Chaouni said. Whereas concrete cracks in colder locales, here the threats come from plants, animals and unplanned use. “In the developing world we very often have to deal with issues that are very different, lack of funds, lack of expertise, how do you raise awareness for heritage that is a double evil?” Her report will address both the contemporary human needs and the complex design history at Sidi Harazem, hoping to ensure that its springs are accessible for future generations.

2016-03-10 00:00:00

ZURICH, March 10 (Reuters) - Inflation in Sweden in February may have turned down from the strong figure in January, Riksbank First Deputy Governor Kerstin af Jochnick said on Thursday. She said January’s inflation - 1.6 percent on underlying basis - may have been affected by changes in the way the Statistics Office makes its calculations and by tax changes - issues that pointed to the fact inflation could be lower in February. Af Jochnick also told reporters the crown was developing roughly in line with the central bank’s forecast. The central bank cut its benchmark rate 15 basis points to -0.50 percent in February and said it remained ready to do more, including intervening in the currency market to push up persistently low inflation. (Reporting by Angelika Gruber; Editing by Simon Johnson)

2016-01-14 00:00:00

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine is ready to sign a new contract to supply Crimea with electricity provided the region is recognized as part of Ukraine, President Petro Poroshenko told reporters at a news conference on Thursday. Power supplies to the disputed Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, have been disrupted after electricity pylons were blown up by unknown saboteurs in November. Poroshenko also said he expected inflation to be significantly slower in 2016, compared to the rate of 33.3 percent seen last year. Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Alison Williams

2019-08-08

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice on Thursday over his 2018 firing, which came just over 24 hours before he planned to retire, alleging the punishment was "politically motivated and retaliatory." The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington. It names Attorney General William Barr and FBI Director Christopher Wray, as well as the DOJ and FBI, as defendants. It comes the same week that another longtime FBI official who was fired from the bureau, Peter Strzok, brought suit alleging unlawful termination. McCabe, who served in the FBI for more than two decades, alleged that President Donald Trump schemed to "discredit and remove DOJ and FBI employees who were deemed to be his partisan opponents because they were not politically loyal to him." McCabe's public firing by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions on March 16, 2018 was a "critical element" of the scheme, according to the suit. It says that the reason given for his firing — that he violated the law and FBI media rules by disclosing information related to an investigation into Hillary Clinton — was a pretext. "In truth and in fact, the sole decision-maker concerning Plaintiff's termination was Trump, whose decision was made and finalized before Defendants ever commenced their pretextual termination process," the suit says. The suit alleges that McCabe's firing violated the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause as well as the First Amendment's protection of speech and association. McCabe is seeking "any and all relief necessary for him to retire as he had originally planned: as the Deputy Director of the FBI and an agent in good standing, with sufficient time in service to enable him to receive his full earned law enforcement pension, healthcare insurance, and other retirement benefits." The White House and the Department of Justice declined to comment. The suit alleges that Trump decided to fire McCabe after deciding during the 2016 presidential election that McCabe was a "partisan enemy," at least partially because his wife, Jill McCabe, received political donations from Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe during a failed bid for a Virginia state Senate seat in 2015. "In January, February, and March 2017 conversations with then-FBI Director [James] Comey, Trump repeatedly emphasized his perception that [McCabe] was affiliated with Clinton and the Democratic Party, and he repeatedly asked Comey about [McCabe's] personal loyalty to Trump," the suit says. In February 2017, after McCabe briefed Vice President Mike Pence on counterintelligence matters, McCabe met with Pence, then-White House Counsel Donald McGahn, then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and two others in Pence's office. At the meeting, McCabe was "informed that White House officials were questioning [McCabe's] committment to the Trump administration," the suit says. During a May 2017 meeting with Trump in the Oval Office, the suit says that Trump told McCabe that "FBI personnel loved and supported him, and that at least 80 percent of FBI personnel voted for him."Trump then asked McCabe whom he voted for in the 2016 election, according to the suit. "Based on Trump's tone of voice and body language, [McCabe] understood the question as a threat to his employment, notwithstanding his civil service protections, and responded by saying that he 'always played it right down the middle.'" the suit says. "Trump was visibly displeased by [the] answer." "Because Trump perceived [McCabe] to be affiliated with Clinton and the Democratic Party, and because [McCabe] did not vote for Trump and rebuffed Trump's requests to express partisan support for Trump, Trump decided to have [McCabe] removed from government," the suit alleges. It notes that McCabe learned of his termination from media reports. "Normally, for the termination of FBI employees, a packet of information is prepared with detailed instructions about how a termination must be implemented," the suit says. "To this day, Plaintiff has not received notice of his termination consistent with these policies and procedures."

2017-04-02 18:11:31

Rod Gilbert, the Rangers’ career scoring leader, can be found at home games traversing Madison Square Garden with the same zeal with which he played years ago. Rod Gilbert played 18 seasons with the Rangers before retiring in 1978. His number was retired the next year.CreditCreditAn Rong Xu for The New York Times Rod Gilbert, wearing a blue tie decorated with tiny hockey players, sauntered through the hallways of Madison Square Garden during a recent Rangers game, and the reaction defined happiness. Whether he was joking with the Zamboni crew, visiting fans in the blue seats or kibitzing with former teammates, there were hugs, laughter and spirited hockey stories to be told. At 75, Gilbert is still Mr. Ranger. And it is not hard to understand why there is still such affection for No. 7. Gilbert, whose number was retired in 1979, remains the franchise’s career scoring leader with 406 goals and is the only player to record 1,000 points as a Ranger. Four decades since he played his final game, he revels in traversing the arena on game nights with the same enthusiasm with which he skated as part of the GAG line with Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield in the 1960s and ’70s. “Family, that’s what being at the Garden and being a Ranger means to me,” he said while watching the Rangers play his hometown Montreal Canadiens. “Plus, there are still a few Ranger fans I haven’t met, so I have to keep coming back.” The gregarious Gilbert, a Hall of Famer, also holds an official position at the Garden as the director of special projects and community relations representative. “Rod, like Jean Ratelle, is one of the classiest men ever to put on the Ranger uniform,” said Brad Park, another longtime Ranger, who was traded to Boston with Ratelle in the shocking November 1975 deal that brought Phil Esposito to New York. “We were a team that had no egos because he had no ego. The team was always more important than individuals.” Many in the current Garden crowds may never have seen Gilbert play, but they are still rapt when he regales them with amusing anecdotes in his French Canadian accent. “Just class,” said Joe James, 46, an actor visiting the Garden of Dreams suite with his wife, Julia, whose father saw Gilbert play as a teenager with the Guelph Biltmores in the late 1950s. “He’s such a presence.” “He came in like one of the guys and talked to my young friend as a peer,” James added. “Talk about generating the next generation of fans.” Gilbert (pronounced zhil-BEAR) does not seek accolades. He simply enjoys living in the moment. Being among the most recognized players to wear a Rangers uniform can be considered something of a miracle. The son of a blacksmith in Montreal who idolized the Canadiens star Bernie Geoffrion, Gilbert endured two spinal fusion operations after hurting his back in juniors when he tripped over the paper lid of an ice cream container embedded in the ice. He credits a near-death experience with forging his relentlessly positive life outlook. “I was very religious growing up in Montreal, very Catholic,” Gilbert said. “After my second back surgery during the 1965-66 season, I had an out-of-body experience when I choked on pills and was out for about four minutes. “I heard nurses screaming, ‘We lost him, we lost him,’” he continued. “But somehow they brought me back, and I played hockey for 12 more years. I feel like I have always been connected to a superior force that makes me conduct my life the way I do.” The Rangers reached the Stanley Cup finals once in Gilbert’s career, in 1972, when they lost to Bobby Orr and the Bruins in six games. Gilbert was in the crowd the night the Rangers finally ended 54 years of frustration by winning the Stanley Cup in 1994. “That was the greatest experience, a culmination for me, too,” he said. “The fans have always had so much passion and compassion for the team. When they were finally rewarded, it was really something to cheer about.” Between attending Rangers home games and watching every road contest, Gilbert makes time for charitable events in the New York area, especially through at least 30 appearances per season for the Garden of Dreams Foundation, which works with partner organizations to help children. His continued impact in New York resonates with Emile Francis, coach and general manager with the Rangers for most of his career. “Rod is a Ranger through and through,” said Francis, 90, who also coached Gilbert and Ratelle at Guelph in the early 1960s. “From the day he set foot in New York, he’s never left. Rod knows them all, and they all know him. There hasn’t been another Ranger like him.” John Davidson, who played three seasons with Gilbert and later anchored the Rangers’ unlikely Stanley Cup finals team in 1979, said Gilbert “made New York a better place.” “When you’re part of an Original Six team like the Rangers, there’s so much special history that should never be forgotten,” added Davidson, who is president of hockey operations for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Park, who made New England home in the decades since the trade to the Bruins, remains close friends with Gilbert and looks forward to their being together for the retirement of Ratelle’s No. 19 next season. “When I broke in at 20, Rod was about 27, and he took me under his wing,” said Park, who debuted with the Rangers in 1968-69. “He really taught me how to be a professional. The priority is what you do, not what you want.” Gilbert, who, along with his wife, Judy, has seven grandchildren, said he also enjoyed interacting with current Rangers like the star goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who is always eager for pearls of wisdom from yesteryear. “Henrik cares and is interested in Rangers history; he will ask me about my time as a Ranger, about what Eddie Giacomin would have done in certain situations,” Gilbert said of his Hall of Fame goalie. “Plus, one of my granddaughters is a huge Henrik fan, so we always have to sit at his table at the Christmas party.” Lundqvist, 35, soaks up every chance to spend time with Gilbert. “Part of me wishes I were part of it back then, the way they played, the way the team was,” said Lundqvist, who like Gilbert has embraced charitable efforts and enjoyed a Manhattan lifestyle during his career. No matter the venue, Gilbert instantly garners attention. Whether it comes with the territory of his acclaimed status or is a natural byproduct of his outgoing personality, he demurs when asked if he feels like the legend he has obviously become. “I am very privileged to play my entire career in New York,” Gilbert said. “I am one of the few. But I don’t feel like a legend. I think the word is overused. I went from being a Ranger player to being the biggest Ranger fan. When I’m at the Garden, I’m home.”

2017-03-10

WASHINGTON — Marchers from Arizona to Minnesota to Wisconsin streamed through the streets of Washington DC for the Native Nations Rise march this Friday. They braved chilly rain and wintery winds to assemble in support of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's legal battle with the builders of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Some carried fistfuls of burning sage that perfumed the air for blocks, others carried flags and signs. Despite the cold, many marchers arrived decked out in vivid regalia, marching side-by-side with activists who'd showed up with umbrellas and sweatshirts.The Native Nations Rise march capped off a week of indigenous awareness activities in the nation's capital organized by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Indigenous Environmental Network, and the Native Organizers Alliance. This same week, the legal fight to block the Dakota Access pipeline was dealt a blow when a judge denied the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe's request for an injunction. Those gathered at the march insist that the fight is not over."The world is watching, you guys" one woman yelled, as activists who had lined up outside the Government Accountability Office waited for the march to begin. Starting in front of the offices of the US Army Corps of Engineers, which recently gave a green light to the pipeline, the march paused at the Trump International Hotel, and ended just north of the White House, where chairmen from Yakama Nation and Standing Rock Sioux asked those gathered for unity in raising the voices of indigenous people everywhere. "Donald Trump tried to say that people didn’t care about the Dakota Access Pipeline," Tracy Molina, 44, who lives on the Yakama reservation in Washington State, told BuzzFeed News. "This march is to show that indigenous people still exist we’re still here, and tribal sovereignty needs to be honored and respected." Molina said she visited the Standing Rock camp in December, and also in February, ahead of the eviction of protestors there. The rain got heavier, and the waiting crowd killed time with drumming and prayer songs. Someone passed out granola bars and fruit. Jody Gaskin, an Ojibwe member, arrived in Washington DC from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, on Thursday, and slept in the tipis set up on the national monument. "We’re here to raise awareness that the Earth is our source of life, not a resource, not to be used and thrown in the garbage," he told BuzzFeed News. His message for Trump was simple, he told BuzzFeed News: "Fuck off, you asshole." Gaskin said he had been at Standing Rock camp in November and December. "I got gassed, and hit with water and with those bean bag things they shot at us. They were shooting at our crotches," he said. Nicholas Budimir and his step-daughter, Gabriel, turned up at the march after noticing the tipis set up at the National Monument grounds. The two were visiting from Grand Rapids, Michigan, to see the National Museum of African American History and Culture."We said there's no way we're missing this. It's the most important movement going on today," Budimir told BuzzFeed News. J.E. Herald-Zamora said she was marching to honor her grandmother, who fought a pipeline in Wisconsin and went to Standing Rock, but could not make it to Washington DC.She said she also wanted to honor the "two spirit" community, "which is the LGBT community in the native scope of things," she told BuzzFeed News. "Minorities in the LGBT community are at higher risk to be victim of a hate crime." When the group arrived at the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, a tipi was quickly erected in front of the barricades that were posted in front of the building. The marchers chanted, "Mni Wiconi. Water is life." Women danced in a circle around the construction, then someone brought out a cardboard cutout that looked like the president. The effigy was hit with sticks. The tipi got dismantled, and the march continued down Pennsylvania Avenue. A giant black puppet snake which had "No consent" painted across its side consistently attracted a crowd. About half a dozen people helped carry it."It's a prophecy and it represents the pipeline," Betsy Richards, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation who lives in Brooklyn, told BuzzFeed News. Richards said she was there at the march representing The Opportunity Agenda, a social justice communications firm. When the group reached Lafayette Square, in front of the White House, Standing Rock chairman Dave Archambault II was among the first to address the gathering."We are in the 21st century. This is no longer a matter of explorers and imperialists, savages and infidels," he said. "We are all Americans and above all we are all human beings." He noted that several minority groups in the US were beginning to feel marginalized the way Native people have felt for years. Archambault called on the crowd to band together in speaking up for indigenous rights."You stood with us at Standing Rock, and now I ask you to stand with our indigenous community around the world. And together we can rise," he said.

2016-08-24

LONDON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - Emerging markets retreated on Wednesday, led by political risk-driven losses in South Africa and Turkey while broader sentiment was dented by a revival of U.S. rate rise expectations. Fears are growing for South Africa’s economy and its credit rating after Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, popular with investors and business, was ordered to report to police in relation to an investigation into a surveillance unit in the tax service. The rand, which tumbled 3 percent on Tuesday after the news broke, fell another 0.7 percent to three-week lows, and benchmark bond yields rose above 9 percent for the first time since end-June. Dollar bonds fell across the curve, losing as much as 2 cents, while debt insurance costs surged. Analysts read the developments as part of a tussle between Gordhan and President Jacob Zuma’s supporters. Zuma was forced to appoint Gordhan last December after the president’s sudden removal of then finance minister Nhlanhla Nene caused a huge rand sell-off. Citi analysts advised trimming rand and local bond exposure, noting the increase in foreign positioning in recent months. “It is now clear that the political risks that came to light with the removal of FinMin Nene... have not gone away,” Citi told clients. “Market deterioration could be severe in the short term... South African CDS could reprice higher by more than 50-70 basis points in the short-term.” The fears rippled wider, with shares in London-listed South Africa-focused companies including Investec, Old Mutual and Mediclinic slumping 2-3 percent MMDCM.L>. Citi suggested buying the lira versus the rand but it too weakened after Turkish forces launched attacks in Syria against Islamic State militants along the countries’ border. Military sources said Turkish tanks crossed into Syria backed by warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition. Turkish shares fell 2 percent and bond yields rose. Dollar bonds fell around half a cent. The wider currency backdrop was also uneasy, with strong U.S. data and expectations of a hawkish message from U.S. Federal Reserve head Janet Yellen at this week’s Jackson Hole central bankers’ gathering boosting the dollar. Investors view a U.S. rate rise as likely by December following hawkish recent comments by the Fed’s No. 2 policymaker. The dollar’s gains hit most emerging assets, with MSCI’s equity index down 1 percent to two-week lows and most currencies lower. In eastern Europe, shares in Poland’s no.1 insurer PZU - reportedly angling to buy a stake in Bank Pekao - tumbled to record lows after it posted a 56 percent drop in second quarter profits. Poland began marketing an onshore yuan bond, making it the second country after South Korea to tap the “panda” bond market . For GRAPHIC on emerging market FX performance 2016, see link.reuters.com/jus35t For GRAPHIC on MSCI emerging index performance 2016, see link.reuters.com/weh36s For GRAPHIC on MSCI emerging Europe performance 2016, see link.reuters.com/jun28s For GRAPHIC on MSCI frontier index performance 2016, see link.reuters.com/zyh97s For CENTRAL EUROPE market report, see For TURKISH market report, see For RUSSIAN market report, see ) Emerging Markets Prices from Reuters Equities Latest Net Chg % Chg % Chg on year Morgan Stanley Emrg Mkt Indx 898.59 -7.91 -0.87 +13.15 Czech Rep 858.55 +7.83 +0.92 -10.22 Poland 1790.67 +0.07 +0.01 -3.68 Hungary 27822.49 +98.81 +0.36 +16.31 Romania 6906.30 +10.75 +0.16 -1.40 Greece 562.95 -4.95 -0.87 -10.83 Russia 962.72 -9.53 -0.98 +27.17 South Africa 46650.92 +511.59 +1.11 +1.86 Turkey 75951.78 -1381.83 -1.79 +5.89 China 3085.82 -3.88 -0.13 -12.81 India 27976.75 -13.46 -0.05 +7.12 Currencies Latest Prev Local Local close currency currency % change % change in 2016 Czech Rep 27.01 27.01 -0.01 -0.06 Poland 4.31 4.31 -0.04 -1.22 Hungary 309.61 309.79 +0.06 +1.62 Romania 4.46 4.46 -0.09 +1.32 Serbia 123.27 123.26 -0.01 -1.46 Russia 64.81 64.65 -0.23 +12.57 Kazakhstan 339.57 339.20 -0.11 +0.27 Ukraine 25.33 25.33 -0.00 -5.44 South Africa 14.03 14.00 -0.25 +10.20 Kenya 101.25 101.30 +0.05 +0.94 Israel 3.77 3.77 -0.03 +3.11 Turkey 2.95 2.95 -0.15 -1.23 China 6.65 6.64 -0.18 -2.37 India 67.10 67.11 +0.02 -1.34 Brazil 3.23 3.23 -0.07 +22.39 Mexico 18.49 18.57 +0.43 -7.12 Debt Index Strip Spd Chg %Rtn Index Sov’gn Debt EMBIG 360 1 .03 7 70.32 1 All data taken from Reuters at 08:55 GMT. Currency percent change calculated from the daily U.S. close at 2130 GMT. editing by John Stonestreet

2016-11-28 00:00:00

Singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran has been relatively anonymous since taking a break from social media nearly one year ago as he works on a highly-anticipated third album. But he has been out and about recently, snapping pictures with fans at gigs as a megastar like him is wont to do. Captured in the social media photos has been a new addition to his face: A scar on his right cheek.  But how did it get there? And does it involve James Blunt? A photo posted by Touré Harris aka SouthPaw (@spmusik) on Nov 19, 2016 at 8:20pm PST Ed & Liam Cunningham (Game of Thrones actor) with fans last night (📸 michellerochford) pic.twitter.com/z2Mqp65uxp — Ed Sheeran Updates (@Ed_Sheeran_EU) November 24, 2016 Take this fan photo of Sheeran at a Foy Vance gig on Nov. 18, when there wasn't much of an attempt by him to hide the scar. Tonight I met the only person in the world who loves Foy Vance more than me. @edsheeran I'll let you claim this one! pic.twitter.com/AbjKmCV5ia — Andy Patterson Music (@andypattmusic) November 20, 2016 Well, here's a theory so bizarre we want desperately for it to be true. According to an unsubstantiated report, Sheeran had to be taken to hospital after he was cut on the face with a sword by Princess Beatrice, the eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York.  The Sun reported she was performing a mock knighting for James Blunt at a party. A representative from the Royal Family declined to comment on the matter to The Independent, and Sheeran did not immediately respond to the newspaper. Here's the theory: Blunt joked about wanting to receive a knighthood, so Beatrice gleefully fetched a ceremonial sword to perform the deed. As you do. Beatrice swung the blade over her shoulder in the process, but apparently didn't realise Sheeran was behind her, and thus struck him in the face.  "The blade cut into his face and it was just a few inches from his right eye," an anonymous source told The Sun. "A couple of the guests said it could have been worse and he could have been blinded in the eye but Ed really played it down." Beatrice was reportedly "inconsolable" following the incident, as Sheeran went to receive stitches. If true, it's surely one of the most amazing celebrity party stories ever. But we're not holding our breath.

2020-02-11 00:00:00

SHANGHAI, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Chinese firm Xinchao Media has laid off 500 people, or just over 10% of its workforce, saying it needed to resort to such measures to survive the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. The move comes even as Chinese President Xi Jinping said the government would prevent large-scale layoffs due to the virus outbreak, which has already killed more than a 1,000 people in mainland China and infected over 40,000. Many companies are hurting from business disruptions after local governments ordered an extension to Lunar New Year holidays and urged would-be customers to stay home to prevent the virus from spreading. Xinchao Media, which places advertisements in elevators, announced its job cuts in a post on its official WeChat account on Monday, which carried the transcript of an internal speech given by its chief executive, Zhang Jixue. He said the company still had nearly 1 billion yuan ($143 million) in its coffers, but forecast that it would likely only be able to tide over for 6-7 months if they had no income. “I brought in a team to defeat the SARS outbreak (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in 2003, and overcome the 2008 (Sichuan) earthquake but I’m afraid of losing to 2020’s new coronavirus, because the streets are deserted and thus there are no consumers,” he said, referring to two other national crises faced by China in the past. “To overcome the epidemic, you have to step on the brakes, jam the cash flow, reduce costs, to ensure survival ... China’s bosses, they have at this time become a helpless and disadvantaged group. While usually strong, they also hope they can gain understanding and care.” He said the company would be left with around 4,000 employees, adding that about half of the workers being laid off were being asked to leave also because of poor performance. The senior management will take a 20% pay cut over the period, forgo performance bonuses, and have pledged to keep their monthly living expenses below 50,000 yuan, the CEO added. ($1 = 6.9800 Chinese yuan) (Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

2018-06-22

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s economy shrank 0.6 percent in April from the previous month as output declined across sectors, the national statistics agency said on Friday. The agricultural sector dipped 1.7 percent in April from the previous month in seasonally adjusted terms, leading losses, the agency said. Services fell 0.5 percent, and the industrial sector shrank 0.4 percent. Gross domestic product in Latin America’s second-biggest economy expanded 4.5 percent in April compared with the same month last year, the agency said. Mexico’s economy has grown at sluggish rates during the administration of President Enrique Pena Nieto, who had promised to supercharge growth through key economic reforms, including the 2013-14 opening of the state-dominated oil industry. The Bank of Mexico expects the gross domestic product to expand between 2 percent and 3 percent in 2018 and between 2.2 percent and 3.2 percent in 2019. Reporting by Sharay Angulo and Julia Love; Editing by Phil Berlowitz

2018-02-15 00:00:00

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (Reuters) - After falling in a trademark jump on Olympic ice and making several other mistakes in competition, some skaters might call it a day. But not Nathan Chen. The 18-year-old American, in his first outing on Olympic ice for the team skating event at the weekend, went straight from his disappointing performance right back to the rink for practice. “That was my own idea,” said Chen on Thursday of his move from competition to the mixed zone, where athletes meet the press, and then down to the practice rink in the basement of the Gangneung Ice Arena. “Actually I didn’t even realize I could do that,” he told a news conference. “But I looked at the schedule and thought ‘hey, I have practice right now, great, I’m just going to go down.’ I wasn’t actually sure how much time I had left but... so I just figured I’d skate until they told me to get off the ice.” Each athlete is given practice time, in groups, at both of the arena’s rinks from early morning until late at night, and Nathan realized his group was on. “I got a good 20 minutes in. It was nice to be able to just redo the things I didn’t do so well in the short program, and just to sort of settle my mind, and just try get a little extra work in,” said Chen. That time really helped him, he added, although he has also spent several days training at another rink to get in even more practice than available at the Olympic arena. “Honestly, that practice session was really, really good. It was a little disappointing to put a program like that out there during competition, and then not even 10 minutes later skate like I wanted to,” he said. “But again, it was a good learning experience for me, there’s always good things that come out of any bad situation.” The United States took bronze in the team competition despite Chen’s performance. The men’s singles event kicks off with the short program on Friday. Reporting by Elaine Lies; editing by Sudipto Ganguly

2019-10-31 17:29:55

In new research, women at medical schools reported that microaggressions were common in their workplaces. Their male colleagues did not. “Is this seat taken?” I heard a student ask another student, who was holding a seat in the front row of a class I was about to teach. “Yep — that one’s taken!” He laughingly gestured to his lap. “Want to sit here instead?” he asked softly. She paused and looked at him silently for a split second before walking away and taking a seat at the back of the class. Not wanting to start the first day of the course on a negative note, I said nothing. I should have. Many microaggressions are gaffes where the perpetrator is making a misguided attempt at humor. I vividly recall the time I was in training many years ago, and I told my supervising physician about my pregnancy. He responded good-naturedly: “Pregnant? How did you even find the time? We must not be working you hard enough!” I remember mustering a feeble smile, not quite knowing how to respond to his misplaced humor. A few years ago, I started the Stanford Project Respect initiative to study health care communication and foster mutually respectful interactions between health professionals and their patients. Through this project, my colleagues and I recently conducted research in four medical schools across the country, the results of which were just published in the journal Academic Medicine. Using professional actors, we reenacted 34 real-life microaggression scenarios paired with comparable “nontoxic” versions of these situations, to serve as controls. The 68 videos were shown in random order to medical faculty members from the four universities, who were asked to rate each scenario on the frequency of occurrence in real life. We identified six types of workplace microaggressions reported by women: encountering sexism, sexually inappropriate comments, pregnancy and child care bias, having their abilities underestimated; being relegated to mundane tasks, and feeling excluded and marginalized. Women uniformly reported that workplace microaggressions were quite common and identified 21 of the scenarios as frequent. We were surprised to find that the men working in the same venues seemed to be blind to microaggressions, calling them uncommon. As a part of Project Respect, we are collecting real stories from health care personnel across the nation. A successful surgeon recounted her experiences being interviewed by a “manel”— a panel of men — “I was asked how I will be able to effectively communicate in the operating room as a woman and how I plan to navigate that challenge.” Another woman asked her boss about being appointed to a new position and he responded “Well, I’m just deciding, you know, if I’d like to give you an engagement ring or not. You have to convince me.” A physician from a minority background seemed resigned to her fate: “We are the ‘pink-ghetto’— getting less pay, less resources.” In one appalling incident, a lecturer chose a female student to be the podium model for his ultrasound skills demonstration class and referred to a specific angle of the instrument probe as a “money-shot.” Identifying microaggressions and calling out the aggressor in the moment can be quite daunting as these moments are fleeting, the comments unwitting and outwardly innocuous. But upon closer inspection, we see that microaggressions are rooted in our unconscious biases that are fed by the gender and racial tensions that seethe under the surface and bubble up when we least expect them. It’s important to note that both and men and women can be microaggressors and that men are not exempt from being the recipients of microaggressions. I have witnessed such events in the workplace, especially in fields where men are the minority, like gynecology and obstetrics. The first step toward solving any problem is diagnosing it. If you are the perpetrator and you catch yourself in the act, apologize immediately and sincerely for your misstep. If you are the recipient, speak up respectfully and promptly in the moment: “Can you please explain what you mean by that comment?” or “That statement is bothersome — I am sure you did not intend it to be that way — I just want you to know how it looked from my point of view.” Bystanders can play a powerful role in mitigating microaggressions by becoming active “upstanders” and speaking up in the moment to support the recipients and to defuse the situation. During a large gynecology seminar, a professor known for his pointed questions asked a female student “Can you tell me how much estrogen you have inside you when you are ovulating?” While the mortified student sat in stunned silence, a male classmate stepped in deftly. “Professor, I’ve never, um, ovulated before,” he said, “but I think I can take this question,” to a round of appreciative laughter. Dr. VJ Periyakoil (@palliator) is the founder of the Stanford Letter Project and Project Respect.

2017-10-27 00:00:00

Oct 27 (Reuters) - S&P * S&P says Germany ‘AAA/A-1+’ ratings affirmed; outlook stable‍​ * S&P says expect the German economy to be unaffected by protracted coalition talks, while fiscal and external buffers accumulate​ * ‍S&P says are affirming ‘AAA’ long-term and ‘A-1+’ short-term sovereign credit ratings on Germany​ * ‍S&P says outlook reflects over next 2 years Germany’s public finances, strong external balance sheet will continue to withstand financial, economic shocks * ‍S&P says ratings on Germany reflect high wealth levels supported by strong current account, fiscal surpluses, credible monetary policy conducted by ECB​ Source text : [ID:bit.ly/2yRPW3a]

2016-02-21 19:43:44

White House Letter WASHINGTON — Imagine an American president in his final year in office, making a historic and carefully choreographed trip to Cuba to extend a hand of friendship to an island neighbor after decades of hostility and mistrust. Long before President Obama had the idea, Calvin Coolidge made the journey to Cuba in 1928 — his only foreign trip as president — to address a conference of Western Hemisphere nations and declare “progress” and good will toward Cuba after a long period of strain. No sitting United States president has returned since. Mr. Obama announced last week that he would end that streak with a visit next month, aiming to build momentum toward normalizing relations with Havana before he leaves the White House. Along the way, he hopes to cement his legacy as the leader who broke with more than a half-century of rancor and estrangement and tried a new path of engagement with Cuba. Mr. Obama’s planned trip bears faint echoes of Coolidge’s visit 88 years ago, with its message of change and a new chapter. In the intervening decades, the relationship between the United States and Cuba has grown only more complex and fraught with grievances, leaving Mr. Obama with a landscape that bears little resemblance to the one that greeted his predecessor in 1928. Coolidge arrived by battleship in Havana’s harbor in January 1928. The dramatic entrance came with ceremonial guns booming, a flyover by military planes and an elaborate parade during which he was pelted with roses by tens of thousands of cheering Cubans assembled on streets, balconies and roofs. Cuba declared a national holiday for the occasion. “It was the gayest and happiest welcome anyone ever received from this green island in the Caribbean,” The New York Times reported from Havana on Jan. 16, 1928. The display underscored American power at a time when the United States was a dominant force in Cuba, with the right to intervene in its internal affairs enshrined in a law known as the Platt Amendment, and was inserting itself aggressively in other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Nicaragua and Haiti. “The culture of U.S. paternalism prevailed at that time, and the Caribbean was basically a U.S. lake,” said Amity Shlaes, the author of the biography “Coolidge” and the chairwoman of his presidential foundation. The Americans, she said, expected the Cubans to welcome the president with a sense of “Dad is coming in his boat, and we love Dad.” It is hardly the symbolism that Mr. Obama wants to project in March, when he will try to sweep aside decades’ worth of accumulated bitterness over American imperialism and meddling in Cuba and look to the future. “Calvin Coolidge traveled there on a battleship,” Benjamin J. Rhodes, Mr. Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said last week, “so the optic will be quite different from the get-go here.” In 1928, Mr. Coolidge and his wife, Grace, boarded a train in Washington and rode for 40 hours to Key West, Fla., where they switched to the battleship Texas for the crossing to Havana, a trip that took two days. They were greeted at the port by Gerardo Machado, Cuba’s president, and his wife. The couple would host the Coolidges at the presidential palace in Havana and a country home nearby, feting them with two lavish banquets and accompanying them to a jai alai match and a sugar plantation. Machado gave Coolidge a Panama hat, and there was much speculation about how the American president, whose country was in the midst of Prohibition, would navigate the etiquette challenge of being offered a drink of Cuban rum. (He simply turned his back and pretended to be talking to Machado when approached with a tray of daiquiris, one journalist recounted.) News reports at the time indicated that Coolidge, known as Silent Cal for his taciturn demeanor, visibly enjoyed himself. To the Cubans, The Times reported, “he now is a smiling, and not a cold and silent, president.” Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, will make the flight from Washington on Air Force One. The visual of the presidential limousine on the mostly frozen-in-time streets of Havana, crowded with 1950s-era cars, is likely to make for a striking contrast. While the White House has not completed an itinerary, officials said Mr. Obama would meet with President Raùl Castro of Cuba — though not with his brother Fidel, the father of the 1959 Communist revolution and the embodiment of the enmity of the past — as well as political dissidents and entrepreneurs. Among the backdrops that Mr. Obama is said to be considering for a public speech to Cuban citizens is the capitol building in Havana, next door to the National Theater, where Coolidge spoke. Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida, the two Republican presidential candidates of Cuban descent, have harshly criticized Mr. Obama for making the trip, arguing that he is rewarding a repressive regime that deserves to be shunned. Coolidge’s trip was in part an attempt to defuse the anger of Latin American leaders about American policy in their region. In his address, he spoke of “an attitude of peace and good will” in the hemisphere, in which small nations are respected. “Today, Cuba is her own sovereign,” he said, calling the country “a complete demonstration of the progress we are making.” But Coolidge did not use his visit to tackle the thorniest grievances souring the American relationship with Cuba. He made no mention of the Platt Amendment, which he was unwilling to modify despite Cuba’s entreaties, nor did he change his position on keeping the heavy tariffs the United States imposed on the island’s sugar, as Machado had asked him to. “Coolidge’s speech was filled with empty rhetoric and did not forecast a real break with the past in terms of U.S. malevolent designs on Cuba and the rest of the region,” said Peter Kornbluh, an author of “Back Channel to Cuba,” which recounts the history of secret negotiations between the American and Cuban governments over 50 years. “For Obama, this trip is really taking a serious stride toward cementing this policy change toward Cuba and consolidating his legacy of using engagement over isolation,” Mr. Kornbluh added. Mr. Obama is expected to take several steps to further expand business and cultural ties with Cuba and repeat his call to lift the American trade embargo, noting that only Congress can do so. (Coolidge, too, had deferred to Congress on whether to lift the sugar duties.) Coolidge also saw his trip as a new beginning with Cuba. Thirty years before, Theodore Roosevelt had traveled there to challenge Spain’s colonization of the island, and charged up San Juan Hill. Victory in the Spanish-American War ushered in a period of United States control. “Teddy Roosevelt went to Cuba to make war; Coolidge went there on a diplomatic mission,” Ms. Shlaes said. “He felt that he was there symbolically, as a ceremonial bringer of good will.” Mr. Obama is gambling that his own journey will herald a more lasting sea change in the United States relationship with Cuba than Coolidge’s did. Five years after that visit in 1928, Machado was overthrown in a revolution — with American backing. Because of an editing error, a picture caption on Feb. 22 with a White House Letter article, about a 1928 visit to Cuba by President Calvin Coolidge, reversed the identities of his wife, Grace Coolidge, and Elvira Machado, the wife of President Gerardo Machado of Cuba. Mrs. Machado was on the arm of Mr. Coolidge, at left, and Mrs. Coolidge was with Mr. Machado, at right. A correction in this space for a picture caption with a White House Letter article, about a 1928 visit to Cuba by President Calvin Coolidge, misstated the date the caption and the article were published. It was Monday, Feb. 22 — not Sunday, Feb. 21.

2019-07-18 19:02:06

Tesla has opened a massive next-generation electric vehicle charging station in Las Vegas that combines the company’s core products into one sustainable energy ecosystem, fulfilling a vision CEO Elon Musk laid out nearly three years ago. The new V3 Supercharger, which supports a peak rate of up to 250 kilowatts, is designed to dramatically cut charging times for its electric vehicles. Tesla unveiled its first V3 Supercharger in March at its Fremont, Calif. factory. A second V3 Supercharger is located in Hawthorne, Calif., near the Tesla Design Studio. Both of these locations, which were initially used as test sites, lack two key Tesla products. This new location in Las Vegas is considered the first V3 Supercharger. It’s notable, and not just because of the size — there are 39 total chargers in all. This V3 Supercharger also uses Tesla solar panels and its Powerpack batteries to generate and store the power needed to operate the chargers. The result is a complete system that generates its own energy and passes it along to thousands of Tesla vehicles. The new Supercharger, located off the Las Vegas Strip, below the High Roller on the LINQ promenade, was built on Caesars Entertainment property. The site is part of Caesars Entertainment’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2025. There are caveats to the capabilities of this Supercharger station. Only one Tesla vehicle — the Model 3 Long Range iteration — can charge at the peak rate of 250 kW. The 250 kW results in up to 180 miles of range added to the battery in 15 minutes on a Model 3 Long Range. The company’s new Model S and Model X vehicles can charge up to a 200 kW rate. However, even older Model S and X vehicles and more basic versions of the Model 3 will experience faster charging rates at this location because there is no power sharing, a standard practice at Tesla’s other charging stations. Improvements to charging times are critical for the company as it sells more Model 3 vehicles, its highest-volume car. Wait times at some popular Supercharger stations can be lengthy. Early adopters might have been content to wait, but as new Tesla customers come online, that patience could dwindle. And as more of these V3 Superchargers come online, potential customers might be encouraged to buy the pricier long-range version Model 3. Tesla has said in the past that these improvements will allow the Supercharger network to serve more than twice as many vehicles per day at the end of 2019 compared with today. The V3 is not a retrofit of the company’s previous generations. It’s an architecture shift that includes a new 1 MW power cabinet, similar to the company’s utility-scale products, and a liquid-cooled cable design, which enables charge rates of up to 1,000 miles per hour. Tesla uses air-cooled cables on V2 Superchargers.

2019-09-03 00:00:00

(Adds details, comments, shares) MILAN, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Italian credit data and information group Cerved has hired Mediobanca as an adviser to study options for its bad loan unit, as the market gears up for consolidation. “Such an assessment is still at a preliminary stage and no decision has been taken,” Cerved said in a statement on Tuesday. Italy’s loan recovery industry is in ferment with players looking to bulk up in the face of slowing disposals by banks after years of massive bad loan sales and regulatory changes. Italian bank Banca IFIS last month entered exclusive talks with Elliott-owned Credito Fondiario until early October to sell its bad loan collection and purchase businesses. Credito Fondiario, in turn, recently hired Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank to assess strategic options. Cerved is evaluating possibilities after losing in June a 10-year bad loan management contract with Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Forced by regulators to speed up its balance sheet clean-up, the Tuscan bank chose to terminate the contract early, paying a hefty penalty fee, to have more freedom to shed bad debts. Also, Cerved’s joint attempt with U.S. funds Elliott and Bain Capital to bid for soured debts and a majority stake in a bad loan unit put up for sale by Eurobank ran aground when the Greek bank in June entered exclusive talks with Pimco. Cerved could now decide to sell its loan management division and concentrate on its credit information business, which it recently strengthened through a small acquisition. “Our concentration in terms of clients (of the bad loan management unit) is very low. As multi-client, we could be of interest for someone bigger which has, however, just one or two clients,” Cerved CEO Andrea Mignanelli told Reuters last month. At 1013 GMT, shares in Cerved were up 2.8%, bucking a 0.3% drop in the Italian market. The group reported in July a 10% yearly rise in first-half revenues to 246 million euros ($274 million), with the loan management division accounting for 87 million, up 30.5% year-on-year. Cerved, which has a market value of nearly 1.5 billion euros, earlier this year caught the eye of buyout firm Advent, which however dropped its takeover bid after news of its offer leaked. $1 = 0.8973 euros Reporting by Valentina Za; Editing by Louise Heavens and Mark Potter

2019-11-29 09:11:00

Kate Middleton spent two days quietly getting some work experience on a maternity ward of a major London hospital, it has emerged. Royal mom-of-three Kate, 37, secretly shadowed midwives and other professionals at the hospital to learn more about children’s early years of development. The work was revealed by the palace on the daily list of activities — the Court Circular — which said Thursday: “The Duchess of Cambridge, Joint Patron, the Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, today completed two days with Kingston Hospital Maternity Unit in London.” Tackling the challenges facing kids in their early years is the defining theme of Kate’s royal work. Last year, the mom of Prince George, 6, Princess Charlotte, 4, and 1-year-old Prince Louis set up a steering group to advise her on child welfare and the challenges faced by parents and carers. In May, she thanked them for their professional support and advice as the group concluded its work. “Through our work, you have reaffirmed my belief of just how timely it is to focus on what happens in the early years of life, and how pivotal a stage of life this is for a child’s future,” she told them. “I hope my long-term commitment to working in the early years will help make a difference over a generational timescale,” Kate said then. “Your thoughts and advice will continue to be hugely valuable as I shape my thinking for the years ahead.” Earlier this month, during a visit to East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices, the Duchess of Cambridge showed some of her maternal side as she toured a brand-new facility and met families. Naomi Wright, whose 4-year-old son, Rupert, has a rare genetic disease commonly known as MPS II or Hunter syndrome, shared an emotional moment with the royal mom. “I cried and I got a little hug and at the end when she walked out she gave me a little wave. Just simple things like that make you realize she’s a very special lady,” Wright told PEOPLE. “She is a mum herself, and you get that sense that she does understand. She’s not doing it because she has to but because she has to. This is something that means a lot to her.” Kate isn’t the only royal to undertake unannounced official work. Sister-in-law Meghan Markle has also quietly popped in to see the women she collaborated with over a community cookbook to aid the Grenfell Tower neighborhood after a devastating fire there. Princess Kate will be back on official royal duty on Tuesday evening when she helps Queen Elizabeth II welcome leaders of NATO, including President Donald Trump, to Buckingham Palace. Prince William is set to miss the event as he will be touring Oman and Kuwait.

2019-04-27

(CNN)Four months before Andrew "AJ" Freund's parents were charged with his murder, the 5-year-old shared information on possible abuse with a doctor in Illinois. Police responding to a hotline report found a large bruise on AJ's hip in December. At first, he told investigators the bruise came from the family dog. But an emergency room physician noted that AJ later gave a different reason. "Maybe someone hit me with a belt. Maybe Mommy didn't mean to hurt me," he said, according to a Department of Children and Family Services summary of its report. The doctor could not determine the cause of the bruise but said it could have resulted from "a dog, belt or football," according to DCFS. The case was closed a month later for lack of evidence. AJ's body was found wrapped in plastic in a shallow grave Wednesday. His parents, Andrew Freund Sr., 60, and JoAnn Cunningham, 36, have been charged with murder. A pathologist found he died from head trauma due to blunt force injuries, according to a coroner's report. Calls of neglect and abuse The DCFS released a summary of its records, reports and documents showing its interaction with AJ's family. It detailed numerous encounters with the family, including 17 unannounced visits between June 2015 and March 2016. At the time. The worker did not observe signs of abuse or neglect. Last week, DCFS received another hotline call alleging neglect and inadequate supervision at the home. The call came on the same day AJ's parents reported him missing. Information from the couple ultimately led to the recovery of his body in Woodstock, about 10 miles from their home in Crystal Lake, police said. The DCFS report Friday revealed a long history of child welfare hotline calls with reports of a troubled homelife, squalid living conditions and drug abuse by the parents. Some of those calls predate AJ's birth. In 2012, DCFS was called on Cunningham twice: once on accusations of abusing prescription drugs and neglecting her foster child and a second time for "environmental neglect and injurious environment" for her eldest son. Both reports were found to be unfounded and expunged. Two days after his birth, a hotline report was called on Cunningham. Both Cunningham and AJ tested positive for opiates and benzodiazepines. AJ was removed from her care, and DCFS took custody of the infant. AJ was returned to the couple eight months later after both parents took parenting classes and entered a drug treatment program. Authorities have described dog feces and urine throughout the family home, with broken windows and a strong smell of feces where AJ and his younger brother slept. His final days Freund Sr. told a 911 dispatcher that he put AJ to bed on April 17 and by the next morning he was gone. "I got back from the doctor's appointment and I checked in on him to say good morning and he wasn't there," Freund told 911. But police say AJ's parents forced him "to remain in a cold shower for an extended period of time and/or struck" AJ, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday. A pathologist found he died from head trauma due to blunt force injuries, according to a coroner's report. Cunningham's attorney, George Kililis, told CNN affiliate WLS last weekend that the mother didn't know what happened to AJ "and had nothing to do with his disappearance." Protecting vulnerable children AJ's younger sibling was in the home until this week, but is now living with another family, DCFS spokesman Jassen Strokosch said. DCFS said it was reviewing its handling of cases involving AJ's family. A caseworker and supervisor have been placed on administrative duty with no casework responsibilities during the review. The agency said it will also review all cases handled by the two employees. "As we move forward, we will be fully transparent with the public as we seek to address any possible shortcomings in this incident and understand how we can better serve the state's vulnerable children and families," DCFS said in the summary released Friday. "Protecting vulnerable children who come to our attention is at the core of our mission at DCFS," acting director of DCFS Marc Smith said. "All of us feel this loss. Our priority is the care and safety of Andrew's younger sibling." CNN's Ray Sanchez, Eric Levenson, Faith Karimi and Holly Yan contributed to this report.

2020-02-21 00:00:00

Feb 21 (Reuters) - Echelon Financial Holdings Inc: * ECHELON FINANCIAL HOLDINGS INC. REPORTS FOURTH QUARTER 2019 RESULTS * ECHELON FINANCIAL HOLDINGS - DIRECT WRITTEN PREMIUM OF $8.6 MILLION IN Q4 OF 2019, WHICH REPRESENTS A $1.2 MILLION INCREASE OVER SAME PERIOD IN 2018 * ECHELON FINANCIAL HOLDINGS INC QTRLY EPS FROM CONTINUING OPERATIONS $0.01 * ECHELON FINANCIAL HOLDINGS - UNDERWRITING LOSS IN FINANCIAL YEAR ENDED DEC 31, 2019 WAS LARGELY DUE TO HURRICANE DORIAN * ECHELON FINANCIAL HOLDINGS INC - Q4 CLOSING BOOK VALUE PER SHARE OF $7.45 IS COMPARABLE TO $7.46 AT END OF Q3 OF 2019 * ECHELON FINANCIAL HOLDINGS INC QTRLY LOSS PER SHARE FROM DISCONTINUED OPERATIONS $0.02 * ECHELON FINANCIAL HOLDINGS - UNDERWRITING LOSS IN FY ALSO DUE TO “UNFAVORABLE DEVELOPMENTS IN PRIOR YEARS’ UNPAID CLAIMS” Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2018-07-23

J.P. Morgan chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon gave a mixed review of President Donald Trump's economic policies in a CNN Money interview published Monday. "If you do another $200 billion of tariffs and this national security thing about cars, I think that you're getting pretty close to reversing some of the benefits you've seen in the economy," Dimon told CNN. Trump told CNBC last week he is willing to slap tariffs on all $505.5 billion of Chinese imports to the U.S., pointing to a willingness to push the envelope as far as the U.S. needs to get Chinese tariff concessions. Dimon also referenced the investigation by the Commerce Department into imports as having hurt the U.S. auto industry. Second quarter gross domestic product will be released on Friday and is expected to show a 3.8 percent pace of growth, according to FactSet. That's up from 2 percent annual growth in the first quarter. Thus far, the U.S. has put tariffs on just $34 billion of Chinese products, which China met with retaliatory duties. The White House is undergoing a two-month review process to look at a second round of tariffs, on $200 billion in Chinese goods. Dimon told CNN Money that Trump has "raised serious issues that are pretty accurate" when it comes to dealing with China but questioned the president's next steps for the U.S. "I would remind folks that the president's team has already said, 'There will be no retaliation.' They've already been wrong," Dimon said in the interview. "If I was the president, I'd be a little ticked off at some of my advisers, to tell you the truth." Dimon said that the trade war's expansion beyond China, with tariffs placed on U.S. allies in North America and Europe, has made a resolution "complex." "It raises the uncertainty a little bit," Dimon said. Read the full CNN Money interview here.

2016-03-29 00:00:00

SHANGHAI, Oct 16 (Reuters) - China stocks fell on Wednesday, as optimism over a concrete U.S.-China trade deal faded, with risk appetite also curbed by fresh domestic signs of economic weakness. ** The blue-chip CSI300 index closed 0.3% lower to 3,922.69, while the Shanghai Composite Index ended 0.4% down to 2,978.71. ** The market erased most of the over 1% gains on Monday, spurred by a truce between Beijing and Washington after both sides agreed to work toward a limited deal. ** But the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed four pieces of legislation, taking a hard line on China over Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and a legal dispute around Chinese telecom giant Huawei. ** Adding to the market worries, China’s factory gate prices declined at their fastest pace in more than three years in September as manufacturing cools on weak demand and U.S. trade pressures. ** Also, Chinese banks extended more new yuan loans than expected in September, and the country’s central bank on Wednesday injected 200 billion yuan ($28.18 billion) into the banking system via a medium-term liquidity tool. ** “Some new uncertainty in the trade front as well as earnings concerns put pressure on the market today,” said Gerry Alfonso, analyst at Shenwan Hongyuan Securities. ** Property shares are among the top performing sectors in China, as “capital injections tend to eventually flow, at least partially, to the property sector,” he added. ** But consumer stocks sank, led by top liquor maker Kweichou Moutai Co. The stock dropped 3.4% after posting worse-than-expected third-quarter results. Reporting by Shanghai Newsroom; Editing by Rashmi Aich

2019-04-16 11:08:05

Claire Denis, the world’s greatest working filmmaker, is sitting on a couch drinking herbal tea. She is in New York promoting her new film, “High Life,” an emphatic allegory about infants, incarceration and intergalactic space travel starring Robert Pattinson as one of several young convicts conscripted to a mission to a black hole. Denis, born in Paris but raised in West Africa by civil servant parents, is an auteur’s auteur, uncompromising in her vision and singular in aesthetic styling. Hers is a cinema of everyday rituals, personal histories and a knotty reckoning with the lingering effects of colonialist aggressions. A longtime fan and student of her work, I spoke by Skype with Denis, now 72, about anxiety, “High Life” and the keen ways in which she portrays the lives and souls of black folks on screen. [The Cannes lineup features female filmmakers like the Denis star Mati Diop.] BARRY JENKINS How are you, Claire? CLAIRE DENIS I’m fine. Actually, I don’t know. I am a little bit tired, a little bit full of anxiety, and yet, I am happy to speak with you. JENKINS And I am happy to speak with you. The anxiety, I understand. The movie’s opening, right? I would imagine you get used to it. DENIS Oh, no. It’s worse and worse. JENKINS Worse and worse? DENIS Yeah, because there is a sort of innocence at the very beginning. At least I did that, you know? And what if I never do another one? Then little by little, it became people are expecting something. I think it’s worse, yes. JENKINS I was [at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film debuted] and I think there were expectations. People had heard this movie is crazy. But it wasn’t this very wild, far-out thing. It was just your work. DENIS I think my movies have a certain tenderness, a certain humanity, and that’s what counts for me. JENKINS I would agree. It’s why I love your work. Whenever people say there’s tenderness in my work, I say thank you, Claire, Denis. DENIS Oh, come on. I mean thank you, thank you for people to believe in making films with that content. I loved your last film. JENKINS Thank you very much. You [said you] were uncomfortable speaking in English, but I remember the first time I heard your voice, it was in English, and it had a very profound effect on me because you were so thoughtful in your answers. DENIS I think I am also slow in my thoughts. I’m not fast, even in French. JENKINS Is it something that you’ve discovered through your work? Or is just the way you grew up? You have a very interesting background, and clearly it’s created a person who makes art in a way that’s very different than the way the rest of us make art. DENIS I think so. Growing [up] in Africa at the end of the colonial era was so much for a child to grasp. I try to understand my parents, the people, the other white people, and I try to understand what it was to be watching this moment where [freedom movements] wanted the end of colony, you know? It was very naïve probably, but I thought, well, things are getting better. And my parents, especially my father, he was very optimistic, and he was so much for the freedom of Africa, I think it gave us a freedom to think, a freedom to be independent, not to be so French. But when I get to France when I was 13, 14, I realized I was completely different. I had been educated for a different life. I could not be like my cousin, like my friend, but maybe I felt unfit for so many things in France. And therefore, cinema became a reason to live and to express my feelings. JENKINS You mentioned the optimism of your father, because I think, especially in your work that’s set in Africa, there is this tension between the hope for what things could be and the reality of how things are. I would say, as a black filmmaker, my friends and I talk about the work you’ve made that’s set on the continent and how something feels very true about it. Part of that’s because you have personal experience there, but it just seems like you care, which is a very important thing for an artist. DENIS Not only I care, but I knew, even when I was 3, 4 years old that something was unfair, that this situation was terrible. I knew there was something wrong in being masters among people. This gave me a sort of forever guilt. JENKINS: You returned to France when you were 13, but you didn’t make your first film until you were, I think … DENIS 39. JENKINS I am the same age as you were when you made your first film, “Chocolat.” What happened between those years? DENIS I had not a very easy youth. I got married. I ran away from home when I was 15. I did a lot of crazy things, but you know, ’68 Europe was a sort of vast change. Nothing would be the same ever, so we thought. I became interested in photos. I met someone who told me maybe you should try to go to a cinema school. I spent there three years, and then I divorced. I had to find work, and the headmaster helped me to find a job, and that’s how I became an assistant director. I adored that. People always ask me, were you frustrated to be an assistant? No, the opposite. It was great. I wanted so much to be useful. And once or twice, with Jacques Rivette, the French director, he urged me to do my own thing. And in the end, I was with Wim Wenders doing “Paris, Texas,” and suddenly, I knew my first film was going to be an evocation of my youth in Africa. Because I thought: If I don’t start with “Chocolat,” I will be always unbalanced. Something I have to say, it’s me, and that’s it. JENKINS “Chocolat” was the experience of having to express yourself? DENIS Yeah, but I was not expressing myself in the first person. I was trying to express a group of persons, black and white, living under the same roof. For good or bad reasons, I wanted to speak about that guilt, and that moment where this young domestic decides it was over for him to be serving white people. I remember very well some friend of Isaach de Bankolé [a star of the film] told him, oh, Isaach, you’re not going to play a domestic of white people, it’s so humiliating. And I said, no, it’s the main part. JENKINS There have been quite a few actors, black actors, in France, in Paris in particular, who have come to fame through your work, Isaach being one — Alex Descas being another. Talk about working with those black men. I assume that feels no different than working with anyone else, but it is a very particular thing because, in French cinema, those actors don’t typically get roles that are very central. DENIS No. Isaach is in New York now. In Paris, I watched [the art exhibition “Black Models: From Géricault to Matisse”], with Alex. I told him it’s strange, I think it should be called the absence of black, not the presence, because it’s so few. When I did “35 Shots of Rum,” I remember, some people were genuinely [saying] it’s strange, there are no white people in that film. And I thought, yeah, but if you just cross the street, you would see the same people. It’s not something I invented. People just are blind in a way. JENKINS I want to shift and talk about time. The way you structure your films, it’s very provocative to me. I have failed at trying to understand how you structure your films at times, and there are things I’ve written but I will never make because I was trying too hard to try to understand. “High Life” is about the longest span of time that anyone could possibly try to undertake in a film, but then the first film of yours that I saw, “Friday Night,” is about one of the shortest spans, and they both come from the same mind. So, I’m curious. How does Claire Denis approach time? DENIS In terms of writing a script, I have to figure out moments, and if I see a moment that is fulfilled, I think, now I can start writing because at least I have this moment, and I know this moment will be a sort of sample of what the film should be made of. I tried to make diagrams — this happened the day before, and this — but it never worked because it’s abstract. I need to feel those moments, and sometimes, maybe right or wrong, I don’t need to say this moment takes place yesterday. I just go on, piece by piece like a wall, and it gives me, not freedom, but a sort of emotion that I will be able — when I’m shooting — to be inside the scene and not outside that moment. It’s weird to explain it like that. JENKINS It’s perfect. It should be weird because I’ve seen most of your work, and I’m still wrestling with it. In [“High Life”] you can send anyone into space, and yet you choose these kids whom society has discarded. There is something there very profound and emotional [in] this idea that Robert’s character rehabilitates himself and becomes this father, and yet he can’t return. It seems like a very political, activist thing. Did you know that going in? Or was it just about the character? DENIS I cannot stand [the] death penalty. This is, for me, so inhuman. I understand if someone shoots another person, but to organize a society where you have people that are waiting to be [executed], this cruelty, it’s so unnecessary because it doesn’t make the world better. JENKINS I wanted to switch and talk about young people like my friend, Amy Seimetz, a wonderful filmmaker. Then I met you at the Safdie brothers screening of “Good Time” at Cannes [a film that also stars Pattinson]. How does it feel to know that all of us young filmmakers admire you and take such strength from your work? Do you feel a responsibility maybe? DENIS Of course not. I am proud that people, let’s take Mati Diop [an actress in “35 Shots of Rum”], for instance, the fact that she called me to say the film is finished. Of course, she did it all. She doesn’t need me, but I felt, this is something I’m proud of. Not because I’m a woman and she’s a young woman, no. It’s because I know what she wants to do, and I am proud of that. JENKINS Yes, and you should be proud. I want you to own this, because when I had lunch with Mati, she told me you programmed her short film [during an American tour Denis did], and she said it meant so much to her. So I think you’re an inspiration. You should accept it. DENIS No, I accept it. I lost my mother [in 2017], and life is so short; it disappears just like that. To be showing Mati’s film, it’s a good thing I’ve done in my life. JENKINS Among a few other good things. You know, when I made my first film, “Medicine for Melancholy” [about a would-be young couple in San Francisco], it has a piece of score from “Friday Night” in it. And I remember talking to [the composer Dickon Hinchliffe], and Dickon said, you can have the song but Claire has to approve it. And this is before “Moonlight.” You said yes. This little guy, you can have the song, and you know nobody’s ever going to see that film. A few people have seen it, but not many. DENIS You can have any song from me. Me, I own nothing. I hate the idea.

2016-12-12 18:14:55

New York City’s Education Department is withdrawing a plan to merge two elementary schools in southern Harlem after receiving criticism that it had not given parents enough time to respond, it said on Monday. The department announced in October that it wanted to merge Public School 241, the STEM Institute of Manhattan, which has had its enrollment decline steeply in the last decade, with nearby Public School 76. The department also wanted to redraw the school zone lines in the area to divide the STEM Institute’s zone among P.S. 76 and three other nearby schools in Community School District 3. That would require a vote of the district’s Community Education Council, an elected volunteer board. But the proposal faced opposition from STEM Institute parents and members of the council, who said that the department was rushing the plan through and not listening to the concerns of black and Hispanic parents whose children attend the schools. Several parents drew comparisons with the 18 months that the department recently spent pursuing a rezoning of several schools at the southern end of District 3, where more parents are white. Several members of the education council said recently that they were inclined to vote against the rezoning in southern Harlem because the department had not proposed a plan to reverse the decline in enrollment at nearly all the neighborhood’s traditional elementary schools. Many of the schools have struggled academically, and families have been abandoning them for higher-performing charter schools. In the 2015-16 school year, more than a third of the black students attending District 3 public schools in the elementary grades were in charter schools. As the neighborhood has gentrified, the local schools have struggled to attract middle-class families and white families. Many of those families send their children to private schools or to public schools farther south. On Monday, Joe Fiordaliso, the council president, said he was pleased by the news that the city was withdrawing the plan. “We’re hoping that this decision by the department gives us the opportunity to hit the reset button and work on something that makes sense for everyone,” he said.

2016-03-22 00:00:00

Pacers pull out victory over 76ers INDIANAPOLIS — With Chicago, Detroit and Washington closing ground in the Eastern Conference playoff chase, the Indiana Pacers desperately needed a victory Monday night against the NBA’s worst team — the Philadelphia 76ers. Indiana (37-33), which was coming off consecutive home-game losses to Toronto and Oklahoma City and is clinging to the No. 7 seed, was sloppy most of the way but got 15 points from Paul George and double-figure scoring from all five starters in a 91-75 victory in Bankers Life Fieldhouse. “At this point, it’s all on us,” said George, who scored 45 in Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma City. “We have to do a better job in this stretch of games. We came out a little complacent tonight, but it’s great we have 12 games to build toward the playoffs.” The Pacers have seven home games among their remaining 12, including New Orleans (26-43) on Thursday night. “This is the time of year you want everybody healthy, and that finally happened tonight,” Indiana coach Frank Vogel said. “I also would hope that being in a playoff fight, complacency wouldn’t be an issue, no matter the opponent. We have to take care of our own business in this situation. Tonight, we made some shots, but overall, I thought we were disjointed offensively.” Starters Monta Ellis (13 points), George Hill (12), Ian Mahinmi (12) and Myles Turner (10) scored in double figures. Mahinmi added 10 rebounds. “No matter the opponent, you have to impose your will and get a victory,” Turner said. The Pacers improved to 14-0 this season when the opponent fails to reach 90 points. Indiana also ensured its 27th consecutive season with a winning record in home games. “We relied on our defense tonight,” Mahinmi said, noting the 75 points allowed is Indiana’s best defensive effort this season. “We didn’t assume a victory.” Hollis Thompson and Isaiah Canaan each scored 15 for Philadelphia, which lost its sixth in a row. Jerami Grant added 14 for the 76ers, who shot only 38.8 percent (31-for-80). “We have played four games in five nights,” Philadelphia coach Brett Brown said. “We came in without Jahlil Okafor (knee injury), so we just tried to spin the game around to keep fresh legs as much as we could. They play well at home, and they did what they had to do to close out the game.” Indiana, which enjoyed a 29-19 advantage in bench scoring, shot 43.2 percent (35-for-81). A C.J, Miles 3-pointer and a Rodney Stuckey jumper extended the Indiana lead to 71-56 with 9:22 remaining. An Ellis field goal with 4:17 to go gave the Pacers an 82-69 advantage as the 76ers couldn’t maintain the fourth-quarter pressure. Philadelphia (9-62) closed the gap to 55-53 midway through the third quarter, but the Pacers finished the quarter with a 5-0 run, including Ty Lawson’s 3-pointer at the buzzer for a 66-56 lead with 12 minutes remaining. “I thought we did a good job tonight except for at the end of quarters,” said 76ers veteran Carl Landry. “It seemed like the Pacers hit big shots at the end of every quarter. We made it tough on Paul George, but you can’t stop him. You can only try to contain him.” Indiana used a 13-2 run to break away from an 8-8 tie to take an early 21-10 lead. The Pacers led 47-36 through 24 minutes, getting eight points each from Mahinmi and Ellis. Indiana shot 42.2 percent from the field in the first half, including 5-for-13 from 3-point range. Philadelphia shot only 34 percent before the break, including 0-for-7 from beyond the arc. Thompson and Grant each scored eight points during the first half to lead the 76ers. NOTES: Philadelphia played without F Robert Covington (concussion protocol) and F Richaun Holmes (right Achilles strain). ... The 76ers entered Monday’s game having lost five in a row and nine of 10. ... Philadelphia was 3-31 on the road before playing at Indiana. ... The Pacers came in 5-5 in their last 10 games, including consecutive home losses to Toronto and Oklahoma City. ... Indiana came into Monday night’s action holding the No. 7 seed in the East, a half-game ahead of the Chicago Bulls. ... The Pacers are averaging 101.9 points after averaging 97.3 during the 2014-15 season. ... The 76ers rank second in the NBA in blocked shots at 8.2 per game. ... The Pacers are fourth in steals at 9.0. ... Indiana defeated the 76ers 112-85 on Nov. 18, 2015, in the season’s first meeting. ... The teams will play again on April 2 in Philadelphia.

2017-06-21 18:00:00

Remember back when you'd fight your siblings on Sunday morning for the comics section of the paper? How times have changed, but luckily, you can find the same kind of political satire, fart jokes, and — how could we forget? — Calvin and Hobbs cartoons in a little place called Instagram. That's where illustrator Christine (a.k.a. @yeahitschill) showcases her work. Similar to the old-school strips, most of her designs draw inspiration from real-life struggles, like getting a gnarly sunburn, putting your short hair up into a top knot, wearing a lip stain that just won't quit, or, most recently, dealing with body hair. (Fine, so they're real-life beauty struggles.) Well, the post (which she created in collab with @goodbadcomics) triggered a strong reaction. Within the hour, users had stopped being polite and started getting real... nasty. "I woke up to a bunch of comments that progressively got more ridiculous," Christine tells us. "It started with people telling me I'm gross. Saying men won't like me. I went to brunch and came back two hours later to 100 new comments that were completely toxic. This was definitely the most negative reaction I've had on any comic." After multiple slurs — including "hairy slag" and "nasty ass" and countless others that don't deserve repeating — flooded her feed, she decided to disable the comments section. "Body hair is such an small thing and my comic was so lighthearted, but so many people made it about how body hair affects a woman's attractiveness to men," Christine says. "It's as if some people don't think women can live a life not concerning herself with how physically attractive she is to random men." But she brought up an interesting point: "Human women are mammals. Mammals have hair. Sometimes we take it off, but sometimes we leave it on, and it's not a big deal. At all." On the bright side here, nearly 44,000 people liked (and more than likely related to) the comic. And, in case you're curious WTF proper protocol is for your body hair: It's whatever you want, period. You can wax it, grow it out, or dye it the color of the rainbow. Then you'll see who gets the last laugh. Read these stories next:So You Want To Shave Your Vagina...Why I Tattooed My Eyebrows & What It Was Really LikeThis Woman Took A Bath Wearing Coconut Oil — & It Went Horribly Wrong

2018-03-06 19:08:59

WASHINGTON — As the United States and China look to protect their national security needs and economic interests, the fight between the two financial superpowers is increasingly focused on a single area: technology. The clash erupted in public on Tuesday after the United States government, citing national security concerns, called for a full investigation into a hostile bid to buy the American chip stalwart Qualcomm — a review that is often a death knell for a corporate deal. The proposed acquisition by the Singapore-based Broadcom would have been the largest deal in technology history, creating a major force in the development of the computer chips that power smartphones and many internet-connected devices. But a government panel said the takeover could weaken Qualcomm and give its Chinese rivals an advantage. “China would likely compete robustly to fill any void left by Qualcomm as a result of this hostile takeover,” a United States Treasury official wrote in a letter calling for a review of the deal. The fight over technology is redefining the rules of engagement in an era when national security and economic power are closely intertwined. China, under President Xi Jinping, has launched an ambitious plan to dominate mobile technology, supercomputers, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge industries, putting huge resources behind an effort that it considers crucial to the country’s government, military and economy. Beijing wants to build its own technology champions and is encouraging companies to acquire the engineering, expertise and intellectual property from big rivals in the United States and elsewhere. The aggressive push has set off alarms in Washington, with policymakers and lawmakers fearful that American giants could lose their edge. President Trump is now building up the country’s defenses, as the government investigates potential violations of American intellectual property rights and intensifies scrutiny of overseas deals. The secretive panel that is reviewing the Qualcomm deal, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, has taken on a central role in the resistance to Chinese investment. The panel, which is led by the Treasury Department and made up of representatives from multiple agencies, has the authority to block foreign acquisitions of American companies for national security reasons; it has effectively killed several acquisitions linked to Chinese buyers over the past year. Lawmakers are also calling to expand the powers of Cfius to reflect the broader scope of China’s interests. [ What is Cfius? It is the “ultimate regulatory bazooka,” according to an executive who works on mergers and acquisitions. Read more about the panel here » ] “The Trump administration turbocharged it,” Tony Balloon, the head of the corporate China practice at the law firm Alston & Bird, said, referring to Cfius. “There is now a recognition in government that foreign investors, particularly from China, are getting more and more sophisticated on how they get access to technology in the U.S.” With Qualcomm, the government has articulated its evolving vision for global economic leadership. The company, which is a major supplier to the United States government, is a leading player in the race to build the next generation wireless technology, known as 5G. These high-speed mobile networks will form the infrastructure backbone that ultimately connects home appliances, streetlights and driverless cars to the internet. And Qualcomm’s chips will be in the multitude of devices and machines that will run on those networks. “Having a well-known and trusted company hold the dominant role that Qualcomm does in the telecommunications infrastructure provides significant confidence in the integrity of such infrastructure as it relates to national security,” the Treasury official wrote in the letter. The government specifically cited Huawei, the Chinese telecom-equipment giant, as a potential competitor that could move into a breach created by a merger. The Chinese company has spent heavily on 5G, and the government said it owns 10 percent of the essential patents. “It is the new paradigm,” said Paul Triolo, head of global technology policy at Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk consulting company. “That implies technologies with 5G, artificial intelligence, biotech and automation are now considered more sensitive and part of a national innovation base that needs to be protected.” Broadcom said it was cooperating with Cfius, saying it was “making the combined company a global leader in critical 5G and other technologies.” Qualcomm, in an earlier statement, said the review was a “very serious matter.” The letter and the call for an investigation reflect the newly forceful position of Cfius. In most cases, the panel weighs in after a deal is announced. With Qualcomm, Cfius is taking a proactive role and investigating before an acquisition agreement has even been signed. Cfius has stymied several deals in the past year. MoneyGram, the money transfer company, and Ant Financial, the Chinese electronics payment company, called off their merger in January, citing regulatory concerns of Cfius. If the deal had gone through, Ant Financial would have had access to reams of financial data, which could have created security problems. Ant Financial has said that consumer data would have stayed in the United States. Last year, the White House blocked a Chinese-backed investor from buying Lattice Semiconductor, which is a supplier to the United States government. China Venture Capital Fund Corporation, which was part of the investment group, is owned by state-backed entities. “It’s very much an expansion of what is considered to be national security,” said Tai Ming Cheung, director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California at San Diego. “This is about China’s efforts to invest and acquire key parts of the U.S. innovation system.” Cfius could soon have even more muscle. There is new legislation to broaden the jurisdiction of Cfius; it has bipartisan support in the Senate. The Trump administration has expressed support for rewriting the rules governing Cfius, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said last year that the administration was working closely with the House and the Senate. The bill, proposed by Senators John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, and Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, would give Cfius the authority to assess some types of joint ventures, minority investments and real estate transactions near military bases. The legislation would also widen the definition of “critical technologies” slated for potential review to include “emerging technologies that could be essential for maintaining the U.S. technological advantage over countries that pose threats, such as China,” according to a news release on the bill. Adding to the scrutiny, the United States Trade Representative has also opened an investigation into whether China is “harming American intellectual property rights, innovation or technology development.” One concern is that American companies have been forced to hand over technology, create joint ventures and otherwise help homegrown players, in exchange for access to the Chinese market. Qualcomm, for example, has been working with the Chinese government to develop drones, artificial intelligence and mobile technology. Technology companies are stuck in the middle of the fight between the United States and China. While there are concerns about Chinese encroachment, the industry also recognizes that such deals are the price for entry to the world’s second-largest economy. Companies have protested the proposed changes to Cfius, saying an expansion of its powers could be misused and that the new definitions of emerging technologies are unclear. IBM has said the bill would limit the “ability of American firms to do business abroad while empowering foreign competitors to capture global markets.” The Information Technology Industry Council, a tech trade group, has lobbied against the changes, saying they add complexity for Silicon Valley companies that often have intricate business ties in China. “They are between a rock and a hard place,” said Rob Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a think tank that is sponsored by technology firms like Microsoft. “The Chinese government says you have to do this to operate here. The U.S. says, but you can’t do that.”

2020-01-08 00:00:00

Quentin Tarantino will do the line-of-autographs thing, but don't push your luck ... 'cause he's got no problem telling you to screw off and to never bother him again. All love though. The acclaimed director -- who's clearly still riding out the high of winning big at the Golden Globes this past weekend with "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" -- was making his way out of a hotel Wednesday in NYC ... and was met with a crush of paps and Hancock hounds. He played along pretty well, jokingly telling the swarm of photogs to cool it and to stop following him everywhere. After that, he went down the line with a pen in hand and signed a bunch of memorabilia, making sure no one double-dipped with security in tow. You gotta see how QT goes about talking to the mega-fans here ... telling a lot of them he never wants to see them after this, and also ... to GTFOH with their BS questions. It's pretty hilarious, and kinda classic Quentin if you ask us. His acceptance speech on Sunday was in the same vein, humorous and a little cocky. All in good fun, of course. Now, just imagine how he'll act if he cleans up at the Oscars in a month ... oh, boy!

2016-01-12

Speaker Paul RyanPaul Davis RyanEmbattled Juul seeks allies in Washington Ex-Parkland students criticize Kellyanne Conway Latina leaders: 'It's a women's world more than anything' MORE (R-Wis.) launched a broad critique of President Obama’s economic record hours before the president delivers his final State of the Union address. Speaking before reporters Tuesday, Ryan argued that while the president might tout the falling unemployment rate and growing economy under his watch, he shouldn’t take a victory lap. The Speaker said Obama’s policies are actually holding the economy back. “Wages are stagnant … 46 million people are still living in poverty today, among the highest poverty rates in a generation,” said Ryan. “These are not the signs of a recovery, these are not the signs of a strong economy. These are signs of a weak economy.” Instead of crediting Obama for any of the economic gains that have occurred in the last seven years, Ryan argued that the Federal Reserve's policies pushed the recovery. He added that the central bank’s controversial efforts to drive down borrowing costs may have driven growth, but the benefits failed to spread to everyone. “I think the Federal Reserve has done more,” he said. “What’s happening is people at the high end are doing pretty darn well because of loose money from the Fed. And all these regulations, all this uncertainty, all these taxes are giving us weak economic growth.” Obama will appear before Congress Tuesday evening to deliver his final State of the Union. After taking office in the middle of a financial crisis and recession, the president will likely want to recount the economic comeback that happened since then. Ryan’s jab at the Fed also comes at a critical juncture in Congress. The Senate is poised to vote on legislation Tuesday to subject the Fed to a full outside review of its operations, including monetary policy decisions. The Fed is intensely opposed to such legislation, arguing it would open its economic steering to political pressure. But similar bills have passed the House with bipartisan votes, and if Republicans are able to convince a handful of Democrats to back the bill, it could end up heading to Obama’s desk. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2016-12-03

President-elect Donald Trump on Friday broke with decades of U.S. diplomatic tradition in speaking with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, a seemingly innocuous call that started the relationship between two of the world's greatest powers on the wrong foot. Trump's call, and the ensuing debate over its meaning, created an initial furor on both sides of the Pacific. Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party makes Beijing uncomfortable because of its official stance that Taiwan is independent and sovereign, rather than an extension of mainland China—the government's position that underpins the "One China" policy. Yet foreign policy experts think the fallout on U.S.-Sino relations will be limited. Beijing is likely to attribute the move to inexperience — even as elements of the U.S.-Taiwan call were unorthodox in more ways than one. "The call by itself and the potential for shift in U.S. policy to strengthen ties in Taiwan would create enormous anxiety in Beijing regardless of who is president," Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, told CNBC. "But with Tsai Ing-wen, a president seen as pro-independent and one that has not accepted the one China principle makes it even more alarming," she added. As expected, the Chinese government was not happy with the news. China's Foreign Ministry issued a formal statement on the conversation, saying it had lodged "a solemn representation to the United States" over the call and echoing the country's Anti-Secession Law, "there is only one China in the world, and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China." This initial reaction from Beijing seemed constructive, noted Barry Pavel, senior vice president and director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security. He said that China seems to be saying that it understands that Trump's team "made a mistake and we're going to let it slide." Lindsey Ford, director of Asian security at the Asia Society Policy Institute, agreed that Beijing seems to be taking a wait and see approach. "People are going to give a bit of latitude to a new administration, but that will only last for so long," she cautioned. "On things like our U.S.-China policy and sovereignty that are extremely sensitive issues, it would be a tremendous concern were we to suddenly change our position on something like this that has been a fundamental basic element of how we approach China for many, many years," Ford added. Following the news that Trump had spoken with Tsai, Ned Price, spokesman for the White House national security council said, "There is no change to our longstanding policy on cross-Strait issues." "We remain firmly committed to our 'one China' policy based on the three Joint Communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act. Our fundamental interest is in peaceful and stable cross-Strait relations," Price said in a statement. Ian Bremmer, president of the global intelligence firm Eurasia Group, said that the call was "not the way you want to start" a diplomatic relationship with China. "Trump has been accepting calls of congratulations from everybody, without the focus on usual protocol and absence of regular intelligence briefs," Bremmer explained in an email to CNBC. "He knows there's a problem between China and Taiwan, but unlikely thought taking a call would cause an international incident. That's just lack of policy experience… but it puts him in a very tough place with Beijing." The DPP believes that the only way Taiwan's sovereignty could be changed is if the people voted on a referendum for that change. Beijing may be concerned that the call with Trump has emboldened Tsai to pursue Taiwan independence more actively, even if, so far, there hasn't been indication that she would do so. Beijing "will fear this could be interpreted in Taiwan as a signal from the U.S. that the U.S. might support a pro-independence agenda," Glaser said. Bremmer noted that had Taiwan's president been a politician from the Mainland-friendly Kuomintang Party, they "probably wouldn't have made the call, fearing potential Beijing fallout." Yet experts who spoke to CNBC agreed that the incident highlighted the fact that Trump's brand of improvisation, which served him well during the election, may not translate on the international stage. Diplomatic interactions are normally tightly scripted because of how much word choice and optics matters, Asia Society's Ford said. Eurasia Group's Bremmer said that what this incident shows is that the president-elect "clearly needs a team of foreign policy professionals around him immediately." He added: "You improvise around this stuff and U.S. national interests will be damaged." Pavel said that it's fortunate that China seems to have given Trump a pass this time. "The worst thing is if [China] took it as completely deliberate. It'd be the beginning of a downward spiral in the most important bilateral relationship in the world," he said. CSIS' Glaser agreed. "This will be a wake up call for President-elect Trump about the importance of understanding the intricacies of foreign policy. I hope he draws some lessons from it." — NBC News contributed to this report. Correction: This story was revised to correct in headlines that the call was made by Taiwan's president.

2019-04-15 00:00:00

President Donald Trump on Monday suggested aviation giant Boeing ditch the designation for its crash-plagued 737 MAX planes and rename the aircraft once a critical software issue is fixed and the planes are able to fly again. “What do I know about branding, maybe nothing (but I did become President!), but if I were Boeing, I would FIX the Boeing 737 MAX, add some additional great features, & REBRAND the plane with a new name,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “No product has suffered like this one. But again, what the hell do I know?” The 737 MAX series planes were grounded worldwide last month after one of the planes crashed shortly after takeoff in Ethiopia, killing everyone on board and drawing comparisons to another deadly crash involving the same model in October. At issue, according to preliminary crash reports for both fatal flights, was a flaw in the plane’s automation software. The crashes have renewed scrutiny of the Federal Aviation Administration’s approval process, parts of which have been outsourced to aircraft manufacturers. It has also spawned questions about how much Boeing knew about the glitch, prompting demands for congressional hearings on both issues. The U.S. was one of the last major countries to ground the planes, with the FAA initially resisting such a move until it said new data collected from the site of the Ethiopian Airlines crash merited grounding the jetliners. The FAA is conducting a review of the planes and has insisted they will remain grounded until the agency can ensure the effectiveness of the eventual software fix. In the meantime, U.S. carriers like American Airlines and Southwest Airlines have continued to cancel flights through August due to the grounding. Boeing has registered more than 7,700 orders for the MAX from air carriers around the world. After last month’s crash, but before the U.S. issued its grounding order, Trump laid the blame on the industry’s technological advances, complaining in a tweet that “pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT.” That insistence from Trump prompted a personal phone call from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, who the company said assured the president the MAX planes were safe to fly. Trump later said that he didn’t think Boeing knew how to fix the software glitch but that he hoped the planes were grounded only “for a short period of time”, and he spoke highly of the company, whose former leader he tapped to lead the Pentagon. “It’s a truly great company. Hopefully they’ll figure it out very quickly. It was a big decision, also one of our largest exporters,” he said. “One of our truly great companies of the world.”

2020-01-27 16:22:08

Google is working on a new file-sharing feature for Android called Nearby Sharing, which would function much like Apple&aposs AirDrop, XDA Developers reported. Google has offered some similar functionality in the past through its older Android Beam feature, which it has since phased out, and its Files by Google app.But this new addition, reportedly called Nearby Sharing, would be built into the operating system and work across all Android devices.Samsung is also said to be working on its own similar feature for Galaxy devices.Visit Business Insider&aposs homepage for more stories.Google could be gearing up to launch its own version of Apple&aposs AirDrop, the feature that allows you to wirelessly transfer files between Apple devices, according to the XDA Developers forum.  A developer used the new file-sharing feature, which is said to be called Nearby Sharing, on a Google Pixel 2 XL and OnePlus 7T Pro, according to the forum. XDA Developers said it was also able to get the feature to work on the Google Pixel 2 XL and Google Pixel 4.In the video, XDA Developers&apos Mishaal Rahman shows how it would be possible to have your Android device visible to all nearby Google contacts, only contacts of your choosing, or keep your device hidden so that you must manually accept all file requests. Like AirDrop, Google&aposs Nearby Sharing would use Bluetooth to connect with other devices and location services to determine which compatible devices are nearby.Google did not immediately respond to Business Insider&aposs request for comment.The launch would be significant because it would give Android device owners a uniform way to share files across all types of Android devices. Google previously offered a feature called Android Beam for Android devices that allowed users to share content between devices by tapping their phones together, but it has since phased out that capability. And while Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi announced standard software that would let device owners transmit files wirelessly between phones made by any of these companies, Google has yet to launch an Android Beam replacement that works across all Android phones. The company does have an app called Files by Google that allows users to transfer files without an internet connection, but to do so, the recipient must also have the app. This new Nearby Sharing feature looks like it would be built in at the operating-system level, removing the need to download a specific app in order for it to work. Samsung is also working on its own AirDrop alternative called Quick Share, XDA Developers also reported. It&aposs not the first time we&aposve heard that Google may be working on a new file-sharing feature for Android. In June, 9to5Google reported that the company was developing a wireless-transfer feature called Fast Share. Nearby Sharing is said to be the latest iteration of that feature. Check out the video below to see what XDA Developers says is Google&aposs AirDrop rival in action.   Get the latest Google stock price here. window._taboola = window._taboola || []; window._taboola = window._taboola || [];

2019-04-03 04:00:00

Article of the Day Before reading the article: In the summer of 2017, a team of six Afghan girls and their coach were denied visas into the United States for a robotics competition in Washington, prompting an international outcry. Did you hear about this story? What do you know about it? Watch the three-minute video from The Washington Post below. Then answer the following questions: — What challenges did the Afghan girls face on their way to the competition? — Have you ever seen or participated in a robotics competition? What was it like? What is your reaction to the one you saw in the video? — What do the girls hope to accomplish through this experience? Now, read the article, “‘In Afghanistan, We Laugh Differently’,” and answer the following questions: 1. In the summer of 2017, Kawsar and her robotics team were denied visas into the United States for a competition in Washington. How did the international community respond? What happened next for the girls? 2. Danna Harman, the reporter, writes that the girls’ experience was an “unimaginable odyssey between two worlds.” What does she mean by that? What “two worlds” were the girls navigating? Why was this moment previously “unimaginable” for them? 3. After being invited to the competition, the girls set up a workshop to build their robots. What was that workshop like? 4. What was Fatemah’s relationship with her father like? What happened to him? 5. Sometimes, the girls poke fun at the things people have said to them like: “You are so awesome.” “You guys are really inspiring!” “Yes, yes, you have touched our hearts!” Why do you think they find these comments funny? 6. What were some of the cultural differences between Afghanistan and the United States the girls discovered during their travels? Give two examples from the article. 7. Why do the girls envision their futures in Afghanistan and not in the United States or another country? 8. What impact has this journey had on the girls and their communities? Finally, tell us more about what you think: — What stereotypes about girls or Afghans does this article help break down? Give a few specific examples. — Have you ever participated in an activity that has expanded your world, as robotics did for these Afghan girls? If so, what was it and what was the experience like for you? What effect did it have on you and your life? For example, did it allow you to travel? Give you a new perspective? Teach you new things? Lead to other opportunities? Create some other positive outcome for you or your community?

2019-09-12 00:00:00

(Reuters) - Christian Coleman wants an apology from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) now that the body has dropped a whereabouts charge against him, the American sprinter said on Wednesday. In a lengthy video posted on YouTube ahead of the world championships in Doha, Coleman said the charge had damaged his reputation as a clean athlete and he had foregone over $150,000 in potential earnings to fight it. “I can afford a lawyer and have the best people defending me but a lot of people don’t make a lot of money and if you’re a lower name you might get run over by USADA,” he said. “I feel you can’t put a price on the fact I have to deal with this situation ... and the smear of my reputation.” The case had been scheduled to go to arbitration but USADA withdrew the charge after receiving guidance from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on how to calculate the 12-month window for whereabouts breaches. Coleman said he had forfeited over $150,000 by missing part of the European circuit to stay home and fight the charge. “My plan was to run in these two meets and then go to world championships but I had to all of a sudden, at the drop of a dime, switch up my schedule,” he said. Coleman, 23, claimed the silver medal in the 100 meters at the 2017 world titles in London, relegating Usain Bolt to third in the Jamaican’s final solo race. Coleman explained why he had racked up three whereabouts violations, each the result of different situations. “People don’t realize how easy it is to miss tests,” he said. “Sometimes you forget to update the app, but it has nothing to do with doping or trying to dodge tests. “A lot of people have a misunderstanding of how the system works. I’m tested 30-40 times a year. It’s a crazy amount of times. I’m a human being. I forget sometimes.” Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina; Editing by Ian Ransom

2016-05-26 00:00:00

(CNN)Donald Trump, in dropping hints about his potential running mate, has said that he is looking for a "political person" who could help him with the workings of Congress. A top aide, Corey Lewandowski, has said the pick will have "federal legislative experience." But there are some indications that a non-political candidate may be on Trump's radar: Trump has asked about Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in the context of his search for a vice president, a source familiar with the conversation told CNN. When asked about the possibility of serving as Trump's running mate, Flynn's chief of staff didn't dismiss the idea. "We are not going to comment at this time. Let's let the process play itself out," said Michael G. Flynn, the general's son and top aide, told CNN. Flynn might seem an unlikely choice given his lack of political experience -- and the fact that he's a registered Democrat. "If someone were to look it up right now, I'm a registered Democrat, and I'm OK with that," he told Foreign Policy, adding, he is "about as centrist as possible." But Trump has promised to "knock out ISIS" and Flynn boasts an impressive military resume. The presumptive Republican nominee told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren in May that he had one person in mind for the job who is "not government-related as much" but who would "fit the role very nicely." If Trump were to go this route and decide he wanted an out-of-the-box pick, Flynn would fit the bill. So, with the potential to play spoiler in a politician-heavy VP field, who exactly is Lt. General Michael Flynn? Military background In 1981 Flynn was commissioned in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant in Military Intelligence and assigned as a paratrooper to the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Flynn is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, has an MBA, and a degree from the U.S. Naval War College. Flynn has held a number of military intelligence leadership posts, including commander of a military intelligence battalion in Afghanistan, director of Intelligence for United States Central Command, which oversees all U.S. military operations in the Middle East, and director of Intelligence for the Joint Staff. Most recently, Flynn was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency before he was forced out after facing "pressure from Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. and others in recent months," according to The Washington Post. The Military Times reported that he was "forced out of his role after sparring with Obama advisers on a range of policy decisions. "I was asked to step down," Flynn told Foreign Policy. "It wasn't necessarily the timing that I wanted, but I understand." Entering politics After leaving the DIA, Flynn became a harsh critic of the Obama administration's military and foreign policy, as well as a frequent commentator on the 2016 race. Flynn told Al-Jazeera that he thought the Obama administration's drone policy was a failed strategy and told CNN that the White House ignored reports prefacing the rise of ISIS in 2011 and 2012 because they did not fit its re-election "narrative." In an interview with the German publication Der Spiegel, Flynn said that removing Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Moammar Gadhafi in Libya helped destabilize the region. He also told CNN's Jake Tapper that he thought Hillary Clinton should withdraw from the presidential race while the FBI investigate her use of a private email server for official government communication while secretary of state. "If it were me, I would have been out the door and probably in jail." Flynn said, adding that Clinton demonstrated a "lack of accountability, frankly, in a person who should have been much more responsible in her actions as the secretary of state of the United States of America." When pressed by Tapper, however, Flynn said, "I don't have any personal evidence" of any wrongdoing on behalf of Clinton. Trump connection Flynn told CNN in February that he has been advising Trump "on a range of issues," such as national security and foreign policy. Flynn has taken to Twitter to re-tweet Trump often, including key Trump foreign policy points such as "In trade, military and EVERYTHING else, it will be AMERICA FIRST! This will quickly lead to our ultimate goal: MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" Speaking with Al-Jazeera English, however, Flynn said that he "doesn't agree with everything Donald Trump has said," expressing hesitation about some of Trump's more controversial foreign policy statements such as bringing back waterboarding and "taking out" terrorists families. "There must be more precision in the use of the language that he uses as the potential leader of the free world," Flynn said, adding that is the "advice that I'm trying to get into him." CNN's Jeremy Diamond and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

2019-09-01

Gov. Roy Cooper (D) on Sunday declared a state of emergency in North Carolina ahead of Hurricane Dorian, which has strengthened to a Category 5 storm. In a statement, Cooper urged residents to exercise caution and prepare themselves for potential impacts of the storm. “North Carolina has endured flooding from two strong hurricanes in less than three years,” he said. “Now is the time to prepare for Dorian. To the people of North Carolina, particularly those still recovering in the eastern part of our state, we are working hard to prepare and we are with you.” Declaring a state of emergency mobilizes state resources to address the storm while also allowing state and local governments to seek federal aid. North Carolina was hit hard by Hurricane Florence last year, resulting in heavy flooding and damages. This year's storm has been picking up strength since narrowly missing Puerto Rico and Florida and battering the Bahamas. The National Hurricane Center warned Sunday evening that strong winds are expected to affect the Carolinas and Georgia early this week.   View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2018-09-02 00:00:00

It's September, which means we all need to start thinking about what we're going to be for Halloween. Why not Toad? That's a great question: Why not Toad? Why not Toad? Why not Toad? Why not Toad? This is why. Listed on Amazon as the "Disguise Men's Toad Costume Accessory Mask - Adult," this Toad mask, pictured above, is an affront to the senses. The way it transforms the model's head into the entirety of Toad's mushroom head, the majority of his face obscured by the bulbous, polka-dotted top section. Toad's tiny, black, dead eyes demand your attention, but lurking just above are another set of eyes, obscured slightly by a large red dot, but still present and leering. Which set do you look upon? The answer is neither. You avert your eyes. You turn around quickly and you run. Toad's head does not belong on this human-sized body. It's an abomination. A more reasonable person would select a different costume. Maybe a mask of Mario, or an alternative take on a Toad costume that takes human body proportions into account. Have you chosen this mask to strike fear in the hearts of the ones you love? Imagine this masked individual, staring at you from across the room. Their head tilts, just slightly, to the side. They move toward you. Slowly at first, and then quickly. You want to run but you cannot. You're frozen. Who lies beneath that mask? What kind of person would choose to wear this? Not the kind of person you want to associate with. And yet people have bought it. People like Shane, who left a five-star review. "It was perfect," Shane wrote. "No issues or anything." No issues with what, Shane? No issues with your vision as you did your deeds? No issues with the mask slipping while you committed whatever atrocities you committed while needing to obscure your face? Why did you use this in June, Shane? What happened, Shane? What happened? h/t Mike Drucker

2020-01-24 00:00:00

BERLIN, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Polish carrier LOT is acquiring German airline Condor, which used to belong to Thomas Cook, the companies said in a joint statement on Friday. Condor competes with Lufthansa and TUI fly . Unlike Thomas Cook, Condor received a lifeline from Germany in the form of a 380 million euro ($421.57 million)bridging loan and filed for investor protection proceedings, which requires that a company is not yet insolvent and can be saved. In the statement on Friday, Condor and LOT said they would pay back that loan in its entirety. $1 = 0.9014 euros Reporting by Michelle Martin; editing by Thomas Seythal

2019-11-19 00:00:00

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African Airways (SAA) resumed some regional flights on Tuesday but warned that only a deal with striking unions can resolve its current crisis, as the government said it has no more money for the cash-strapped state carrier. The airline has canceled hundreds of flights since the strike began on Friday, with the stoppage initially costing 50 million rand ($3.36 million) per day, though that figure has come down as some flights have resumed. It has also jeopardized talks with lenders, SAA said. The carrier met with the unions and South Africa’s public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan on Tuesday morning, but SAA acting chairwoman Thandeka Mgoduso said Gordhan had reiterated that there is nothing in the public coffers for the airline. “The statement is the same, there is no more money,” she told a news conference, adding that SAA would continue talks with the unions in the afternoon. “The players who will resolve this ... are SAA and the unions, not the minister.” She later told Reuters that the government had not made any recommendations on what the airline should do to end the strike over job cuts and wages. SAA has not made a profit since 2011 and has relied on state bailouts for its survival. A spokeswoman for the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), which called the strike alongside the South African Cabin Crew Association (SACCA), said the unions had given the minister a framework for ending the strike and solving SAA’s financial problems. A statement issued by the Department of Public Enterprises said the government was committed to saving the airline, but not with money, with repeated bailouts becoming a “moral hazard”. It said the minister had urged the unions to work with SAA, with the ultimate aim of saving both the airline and jobs. But this would “require everybody to make sacrifices”. Another large union at SAA, the National Transport Movement (NTM), is not participating in the strike and says it has a mandate from members to accept the offer of a 5.9% wage increase for the next financial year. However, it will only do so if the airline removes a clause saying it is conditional on the company having sufficient funds for the increase. SAA executives said roughly a fifth of the SAA workforce was still on strike. About 11,000 passengers had been scheduled to fly with the airline on each day of the action so far. NUMSA and SACCA threatened on Sunday to extend the strike to members at more airlines and other organizations across the industry. The strike has cast doubt over SAA’s survival hopes. SAA says it needs to cut headcount to restore profitability and is unable to raise its wage offer any further because of its dire financial situation. Acting finance chief Deon Fredericks told the conference that a multibillion-rand loan being negotiated with banks to provide working capital would, once secured, leave SAA in a much better position to cope with the impact of the strike. If this is not in place by February, he later told Reuters, SAA would look for other lenders. The government is still looking for an equity partner for the airline, but SAA must stabilize first, he said, a process that could take at least two years. In the meantime, other executives said that a few hundred workers had returned to work despite the strike, enabling SAA to resume some regional flights. International flights had already resumed but domestic flights remain grounded. Reporting by Tanisha Heiberg and Naledi Mashishi; Additional reporting by Alexander Winning; Writing by Emma Rumney; Editing by Louise Heavens and David Goodman

2016-05-23 00:00:00

Jane Brody on health and aging. Want more family content? Sign up for our Well Family newsletter. Each week, get the latest news on parenting, child health and relationships plus advice from our experts to help every family live well. In the normal scheme of things, parents and grandparents take care of children when they’re sick or need help or sustenance. But in well over a million American families, this pattern is reversed, with children as young as 8, 9 or 10 partly or fully responsible for the welfare of adults or siblings they live with. They may have to shop, prepare meals, clean house, do the laundry and tend to the hygienic needs of family members unable to care for themselves. At the same time, these children must go to school, do their homework and attempt, but usually fail, to participate in nonacademic activities like sports and friendships widely recognized as important to well-rounded development. Connie Siskowski, a registered nurse in Boca Raton, Fla., knows well the challenges these children face. As an 11-year-old with divorced parents, she began living with her grandparents in New Jersey. Her grandfather was, as she put it, “my hero, the only person I was close to, and it was my honor to help him with personal care issues. “I slept in the living room so I could be near him in case he needed something during the night. One night I went into the bedroom to give him his medicine, and I found him dead of cardiac disease.” There was no support system to help Connie, then 13, deal with the emotional fallout from this loss and put the pieces of her life back together. For years thereafter, she said she made poor personal choices, including three bad marriages. Her only good choice during this time: going straight from high school to nursing school, then getting advanced degrees in cardiac nursing and health care administration and a Ph.D. in educational leadership. After her third marriage failed, she finally found her emotional equilibrium through counseling. She married a fourth time to a man who loves and respects her and, with his encouragement, felt compelled to do something to help caregiving children and “prevent some of the repercussions I experienced.” In 2006, Dr. Siskowski started the Caregiving Youth Project, dedicated to helping young caregivers of ill, elderly or disabled family members. With support from grants and private donations her organization, now called the American Association of Caregiving Youth, works with school districts to identify children who need help navigating the competing demands of caregiving and school and still find some time to be a child. Thus far, more than 1,000 children in Palm Beach County, Florida, have benefited from the support the organization offers to children 18 or younger who regularly help relatives with “physical or mental illness, disability, frailty associated with aging, substance misuse or other conditions.” As many as 1.4 million American children from ages 8 to 18 care for a parent, grandparent or sibling with a disability or illness, the American Psychological Association says, but it remains largely a hidden problem. Parents are often too embarrassed to tell schools how much they depend on their children, and caregiving children fear being taken away from their parents. Many of these youngsters come from low-income, often single-parent households. They often fall behind in school, suffer from sleep deprivation and struggle with depression, anxiety and stress, said Gail G. Hunt of the National Alliance for Caregiving. She said 58 percent of these children “are too worried to concentrate on their schoolwork,” yet few tell their teachers about their responsibilities at home. A 2006 study by Civic Enterprises conducted for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that 22 percent of high school dropouts in this country leave school to care for a family member. Dr. Siskowski’s Caregiving Youth project, now at eight middle schools and nine high schools in Florida, offers classes on topics like coping with stress and anger and managing finances. Along with home-care demonstrations and respite care, the project sponsors field trips, overnight camps and other recreational and social activities. They hope to expand the program to other schools throughout the country. Schools are made aware that the children’s responsibilities may be reasons for incomplete homework, absenteeism and poor academic performance. The project offers in-home tutoring and study programs and even provides computers and printers for children who can’t get to a library. After four house fires resulted from youthful cooking attempts, the association began distributing slow cookers and fire extinguishers. Perhaps most important, the children learn that they are not alone and that there is help available. “The kids feel valued; they learn what love is, and it flips the anger and frustration they may otherwise feel,” Dr. Siskowski said. The project stays in their corner until they graduate from high school. One beneficiary was Nickolaus Dent, featured on CNN in 2012. When Nickolaus was 11, his father died and he became primary caregiver for his mother, sick with H.I.V. The boy was responsible for the grocery shopping and cooking, cleaning and laundry. He made sure his mother took her medication, got her dressed and sometimes even helped her bathe. He said he considered caring for his mother “a bigger priority than going to school.” But with the organization’s help, he managed to do both, getting A’s and B’s. His mother died in December 2012, and Nickolaus expects to graduate from high school this year. Others now being helped include Julianna Doran, a 14-year-old ninth grader, and Alecia Locke, a 13-year-old seventh grader, both in Boca Raton. Julianna helps to care for her 10-year-old brother who has cerebral palsy. “He can’t walk; he can’t control his muscles; he’s dead weight,” she said. Julianna’s parents have serious back problems, so it’s largely her job to lift and carry him. Alecia, whose parents are divorced, spends weekends with her dad, whose mobility is seriously limited by multiple sclerosis. She does his laundry and dishes, cleans floors, assists with his scooter and fills the gas tank. Dr. Siskowski knows much more help for young caregivers is needed now and in the years ahead. “With the increase in technology, more people are living longer and being cared for at home,” she said. “There are more multigenerational households, more women working and more gaps in the health care system that are being filled by children. We need to get these kids recognized as a vulnerable population at risk of dropping out of school.” She added, “Society can benefit from investing in them. Children who graduate from high school have the potential of earning $10,000 more a year. And many of these kids want to get into health care, which needs all the help it can get.” Related: For more fitness, food and wellness news, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or sign up for our newsletter.