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2017-09-18 00:00:00

Sept 18 (Reuters) - San Miguel Corp * Confirms it will discontinue pursuing plastic bottle water line of business to address environmental issues as reported in Business World article‍​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2016-10-02 19:00:57

Ben Dickson Contributor Ben Dickson is a software engineer and the founder of TechTalks. More posts by this contributor Monetizing computing resources on the blockchain Unlocking the potential of eye tracking technology Ransomware has already managed to carve itself a niche as one of the main cybersecurity threats of 2016. As individuals, organizations and government agencies, we’re taking precautionary steps to protect ourselves against malware that can encrypt files beyond our reach. What we’re ignoring though, is the next wave of ransomware attacks, which will not target our files, but rather our IoT devices, which can be more dangerous and damaging, given the different nature of IoT security. IoT ransomware has been mentioned and discussed on a few occasions, including at recent conferences, but has not been given serious consideration because it is being examined in the same light as the more traditional breed of malware. Here’s what makes IoT ransomware a different and possibly more dangerous threat. Famous brands of ransomware such as Cryptowall and CTB-Locker are aimed at finding and locking valuable files on targeted machines. Aside from their anonymity, their main strength is their irreversibility — victims have no other choice than forking over the ransom money if they want to regain access to their files (unless they’ve taken precautionary measures, of course). Therefore, the general opinion is that files and sensitive data have financial value, and where they go, ransomware will follow. For the most part, IoT devices store little or no data, which would logically make them financially irrelevant to ransomware attacks, right? Wrong. “While traditional ransomware affects your computer and locks your files, IoT ransomware has the opportunity to control systems in the real world, beyond just the computer,” says Neil Cawse, CEO at Geotab, a manufacturer of IoT and telematics for vehicles. “In fact, due to the many practical applications of IoT technology, its ransomware can shut down vehicles, turn off power, or even stop production lines. This potential to cause far more damage means that the potential for hackers can charge much more, ultimately making it an appealing market for them to explore.” Some argue that in most cases, IoT hacks can be reversed with a simple device reset. However, the incentive to pay for IoT ransomware will not stem from irreversibility but rather from the timeliness of the attack and the criticality and potential losses of losing access to critical devices for any amount of time. In fact, with IoT increasingly powering critical devices (such as drug infusion pumps and pacemakers) and industrial systems (such as power grids and water pumping stations), the financial value of locking down IoT ecosystems — and the damage resulting from not unlocking them in time — will rise exponentially. Industrial IoT ecosystems already have every characteristic of an attractive ransomware target. “Holding data for ransom is one thing,” says Rob Conant, CEO at IoT and cloud platform provider Cirrent, “but shutting down the electricity grid, cars, or traffic lights is quite another. Entire cities or regions could be impacted.” “Most concerning is the threat against organizations who rely on IoT devices for Industrial Control Systems (ICS),” says Dave Larson, Chief Operating Officer at Corero Network Security. “This can include electric grid, hospitals and large scale automated manufacturing operations among others.” Proof of concept ransomware attacks have already been presented at the consumer IoT level, which includes smart homes and offices, connected (and soon autonomous) cars and wearables. This August, two researchers from U.K.-based security firm Pen Test Partners showed how they could lock down a connected thermostat with ransomware and force the owner to pay the ransom or have the device locked at 99 degrees. Also, in a recent interview with Bloomberg, SVP at Intel Security Chris Young speculated on how ransomware can affect transportation. “Let’s say you get in your connected car in the morning — or your autonomous vehicle — and you get a pop-up that says, ‘If you pay me $300 I’ll let you drive to work today,’” he said. While he did mention that it isn’t a scenario that is likely to happen today, he emphasized that “it’s certainly not going to be outside the realm of possibility from what we might face.” There’s also the possibility of malicious actors stealing critical data and private information that is being sent to the cloud, such as video feeds from connected cameras in homes and data generated by health devices, and blackmailing the owner into paying a ransom to avoid the publication of the embarrassing or harmful content. It’s still too early to say the threat of ransomware in smart homes and connected cars is imminent, even though consumer-level IoT devices are often attributed with very poor security. The hodgepodge of software and hardware that constitute the consumer IoT industry actually make it hard to stage widespread ransomware attacks. “Currently, the IoT industry is fragmented, lacking a standardized approach, operating system, and communication system,” Geotab’s Cawse says. “This has made it more difficult for ransomware criminals to conduct a generalized attack. Each attack would need to target a specific type of IoT device, which reduces the number of devices that can be targeted at the same time.” We can thus conclude that for the moment, the cost-benefit balance of staging ransomware attacks against consumer IoT devices might not be motivating enough for malicious actors. But this is a situation that is likely to change in the future, as IoT becomes more pervasive in homes and offices. However, industrial IoT ecosystems already have every characteristic of an attractive ransomware target. This can include any of the critical infrastructure that affect the lives of thousands and millions of people and have huge operational costs. For instance, this year, U.S. hospitals were hit by a wave of ransomware attacks that disrupted their operations by denying them access to pertinent file systems. IoT ransomware attacks can be even worse, especially as IoT technology finds its way into the more critical sectors of medicine and healthcare. “If a dark-actor compromises a hospital’s IoT systems, patient health could be at risk — and the value of a life pales in comparison to a ransom demand — so the potential of initial pay out by the hospital might be high because they need to buy time to remediate the infiltration,” says Corero’s Larson. The IoT security landscape will continue to remain complicated and thorny while the industry is still going through its development phase. This scenario can also play out in facilities such as manufacturing plants, Corero says, “where the ability to suspend operations of high value could prompt a payment if the loss of productivity is too substantial.” Another big target of IoT ransomware can be power plants and electricity grids. Cirrent’s Conant refers to the 2003 Northeast U.S. blackout as an example, which, although not a cyber attack, was partly due to a software failure. The disaster cut off electricity for more than 55 million people, caused 11 deaths and resulted in an estimate $6 billion damage. “Most don’t attribute this sequence of events to a bad actor, just a series of bugs and bad coincidences,” Conant says. “But a similar series of events could be caused by bad actors, and these bad actors could create these events for their own economic gain. Would electric utilities pay to prevent this kind of damage? Would politicians? Would businesses?” Ransomware for the IoT could easily create impacts that are even bigger, Conant says, “and ransomware developers may want to find out.” While there’s no silver bullet or one-size-fits-all solution to protecting IoT devices and ecosystems against ransomware attacks, experts do believe that some general guidelines and practices can help organizations and manufacturers improve their defenses against IoT ransomware. Cawse from Geotab emphasizes remote firmware updates as a decisive factor to creating devices that are more resilient to IoT ransomware, because “security is a journey not a destination, meaning that a device is not built secure forever.” According to Cawse, every IoT product should be updated “very easily and effectively, but also securely.” This is especially true because, if not secured, update channels can themselves become mediums to infect devices with ransomware. As Cawse explains, secure updating means “using well-known industry best practices, i.e. locking the processor and firmware and encrypting the communication with our devices.” A robust OTA update mechanism can also serve as a means to recover devices that have fallen victim to IoT ransomware malware. Conant underlines the need for a firm authentication mechanism to protect against IoT ransomware attacks. “In some cases, IoT devices are not even authenticated, which makes it trivial to spoof a product,” he says. “Doing this at large scale could disable millions of products — a problem not just for the companies, but for their customers.” Device spoofing can become especially problematic in a ransomware scenario when a server that connects millions of devices becomes infected with the malware. Conant proposes to mitigate security risks through authentication and certificate life-cycle management, and standardized code base for network security, which “prevents a number of the attack vectors that ransomware hackers may otherwise use to bring a system down.” The IoT security landscape will continue to remain complicated and thorny while the industry is still going through its development phase. For the time being, malicious actors are still weighing and exploring the possibilities and financial value that this hot new phenomenon might offer. Meanwhile, the efforts made by manufacturers and adopters of IoT devices leave a lot to be desired. This will probably change when hackers learn to monetize IoT vulnerabilities and decide to take full advantage. Let’s hope we’ll be ready when they do.

2019-01-08 04:00:01

lens Over the past 50 years, Ms. Iturbide has captured layers of Mexico’s diverse cultures and practices, as well as the struggles and contrasts across the nation. Graciela Iturbide may be one of the most renowned photographers working today. Five decades into her journey with a camera, her work, most famously in indigenous communities in her native Mexico, has achieved that rare trifecta — admired by critics, revered by fellow photographers and adored by the public. She continues to travel, photograph and exhibit all over the world. But it is becoming impossible to discuss her work without mentioning the Zapotec woman wearing live iguanas on her head. Ms. Iturbide made the photo after happening upon Zobeida Díaz at a farmer’s market while living with the Juchitán of southeastern Oaxaca in 1979. It took several tries — the iguanas kept moving around, falling off, reducing her subject to laughter — but on her contact sheet, Ms. Iturbide found her “Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas (Our Lady of the Iguanas),” an image so arresting that 40 years later, its popularity is still growing. In Mexico, “Nuestra Señora” is on murals, posters, postcards and road signs to Juchitán, and rendered into a life-size bronze sculpture in the Juchitán town square. It covers a brick building wall in East Los Angeles. It has gone viral. Fans have taken the rich black-and-white image and recreated it into graphic art, self-portraits, YouTube videos. No wonder Ms. Iturbide says the image “is no longer mine.” Nor is that iconic image her only claim to fame. In a long and varied career, Ms. Iturbide, 76, has done deep dives into her beloved country. She has documented the Seri Indians of Sonora, goat-slaughter festivals among the Mixtec of Oaxaca, funeral rites, cultural practices, complex landscapes, birds, herself. Selections from these projects, “Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico,” drawn primarily from her own collection, will be on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, from Jan. 19 to May 12. Some of her most recent work, on Frida Kahlo’s bathroom (opened 50 years after Diego Rivera locked it upon her death), goes on display on Feb. 27 through June 16) as part of the museum’s exhibit “Frida Kahlo and Arte Popular.” “Graciela Iturbide’s Mexico” unpacks Ms. Iturbide’s artistic journey as she captures layers of Mexico’s exquisitely diverse cultures and practices, struggles and contrasts. Of course, it includes “Our Lady of the Iguanas,” on loan from the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum. It also includes “Angel Woman (Mujer Angel),” arguably Ms. Iturbide’s second-most famous image, an ethereal image taken from behind of a Seri woman with hair down her back and traditional dress who seems to float through the desert carrying the cultural prop of urban life at the time: a boombox. In image after image, there is more going on than meets the eye. Kristen Gresh, the Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh curator of photographs at the Museum of Fine Arts, who worked closely with Ms. Iturbide in organizing the exhibit, said what made her unique among the pantheon of photographers working today was her empathetic approach. “For her, the camera is an instrument of sharing, making visible what, to many, is invisible,” Ms. Gresh said. Ms. Iturbide’s photos, she added, provide “a poetic vision of contemporary culture informed by a sense of life’s surprises and mysteries.” To Ms. Iturbide, based in Mexico City, her approach is simple. Using natural light, sans tripod, flashes and telephoto lenses, she follows her curiosity and takes photos — always black-and-white — when she sees what she likes. She allows for the magic of surprise when she examines her contact sheets. She eschews labels (don’t ask her if she’s a surrealist or a magical realist) and calls herself “complicit” with her subjects. Ms. Iturbide followed her passion when she chucked the comfortable confines of a wealthy Catholic upbringing, got divorced and began studying film at age 27. She switched to still photography upon meeting her mentor, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, considered the father of modern Mexican photography. (She never fails to mention his influence.) She also credits Francisco Toledo, the acclaimed artist, for her breakthrough project for inviting her to photograph Juchitán, his hometown. More recently, in 1998, Mr. Toledo invited her to photograph the newly opened Ethnobotanical Garden of Oaxaca, designed to tell the story of the cultural and ecological relationship of Oaxacans with their native plants. As images from the Museum of Fine Arts exhibit show, Ms. Iturbide was most fascinated with plants — cactuses — ailing and bandaged — that revealed the interconnectedness explicitly and symbolically. Asked what inspires her, she said, “I find my artistic inspiration in life — in what I see, and in what I do.” Follow @nytimesphoto on Twitter. You can also find Lens on Facebook and Instagram.

2016-07-26

July 26 (Reuters) - Prestige Assurance Plc : * HY ended June 2016 net premium income of 513.3 million naira versus 552.1 million naira year ago * HY ended June 2016 profit before taxation of 282.3 million naira versus 81.8 million naira year ago Source : bit.ly/2abHZuR Further company coverage:

2016-02-22

Feb 22 (Reuters) - Poly Real Estate Group Co Ltd * Says to issue 5 billion yuan ($766.86 million) 5-year, 10-year bonds Source text in Chinese: bit.ly/1QthYSc Further company coverage: ($1 = 6.5201 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom)

2017-03-16

NEW YORK, March 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Famine in South Sudan could be brought to an end if world leaders would step in and keep local politicians from fighting over and wasting funds that could help feed the starving nation, actor George Clooney said in a newspaper opinion piece on Thursday. Describing the famine as “government-made,” Clooney said South Sudan’s political elite are fanning ethnic tensions to build fortunes in the oil-rich nation. Civil war broke out in South Sudan in 2013 after a disagreement between President Salva Kiir and his former vice president Riek Machar exploded into military confrontation. The conflict pits the military of Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, against forces loyal to Machar, a Nuer. Nearly half the population, or about 5.5 million people, is expected to be without a reliable source of food by July. Last month, the United Nations said parts of South Sudan are already suffering from famine. Clooney, in an opinion piece published in the Washington Post, called for “choking the illicit financial flows of the kleptocrats.” “Even while the world responds to the famine, it’s time also to address root causes,” said Clooney, who co-authored the piece with John Prendergast, a human rights activist and author. Clooney, 55, who has appeared in such films as “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Syriana,” has used his stardom to bring attention to humanitarian crises in South Sudan and neighboring Sudan. Last year, the Sentry, a non-profit group he founded with Prendergast, issued a report saying families on both sides of South Sudan's civil war have amassed fortunes from the conflict. (Reporting by Sebastien Malo @sebastienmalo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org)

2017-05-06 00:00:00

USA Today’s Facebook page is being inundated with Likes from fake accounts, and its parent company, Gannett Co., has asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate. Before a purge of such accounts last month, USA Today contends that spam accounts made up a significant percentage of the publication’s followers on the social media platform. While the social media company recently stepped up its efforts to combat fake accounts by purging millions of fake accounts in April, Gannett has gone to the FBI, saying that it remains a target of these types of spam efforts. It’s not immediately clear if the agency will investigate. While fake accounts violate Facebook’s Terms of Service, doing so isn’t a crime, but the company notes that these types of accounts “risks damaging a publisher's brand.” Facebook told USA Today on Friday that it had “detected additional suspicious activity since its April fake-account crackdown,” and that it is working to take action against them. The media company says that it has taken steps to block such accounts by deploying software to delete spam accounts, and iss barring new followers from Bangladesh, where some of the spam activity has originated. According to the paper, there’s “no indication of a security risk to legitimate followers” of its Facebook page. Gannett claims that Facebook’s purge of fake accounts in April “included more than a third of USA Today’s approximately 15.2 million Facebook ‘likes’ at the time,” and Facebook informed the company that it could purge an additional 3 million accounts soon. The page currently has 9.5 million Likes on Facebook, and the company has seen no dip in referrals since the fake accounts were purged. In April, Facebook announced that it shut down a network of spam accounts as part of a larger campaign to shut down fake accounts. This network created what Facebook called “inauthentic accounts,” which in turn liked publisher pages, with the intention of spreading spam to users or distributed false information. USA Today says that it’s not sure why it’s been singled out by spammers, but it notes that media pages are frequently targeted because they post more often, allowing spammers to quickly build up a profile that looks more like a legitimate account. We’ve reached out to the FBI, Facebook, and USA Today for comment, and will update this post if we hear back.

2016-05-07

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.

2016-11-15

Nov 15 (Reuters) - * Carl Icahn says "spoke to Trump, Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross are being considered for treasury and commerce, both would be great choices" - tweet Source text: bit.ly/2fuqCZl

2019-07-24 00:00:00

President Donald Trump kicked off so-called “Mueller Day” exactly how you’d expect: by firing off angry tweets about how he’s “very innocent” and lamenting the lack of an investigation into “Lisa Page and her Psycho lover.” Mueller is set to testify before the House Judiciary and the House Intelligence committees on Wednesday, months after submitting his final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s efforts to obstruct investigators. Naturally, that means the commander in chief of the world's most powerful military, who oversees a federal bureaucracy that employs over 2 million people, who is tasked with solving the toughest geopolitical problems of our time — including things like climate change or the war in Syria — will almost certainly spend his day watching TV and rage-tweeting. The president got a jump-start on his tweetstorm late Tuesday, wondering in a post why Mueller was allowed to bring his “long time Never Trumper lawyer to sit beside him and help with answers.” The president was referring to Aaron Zebley, a top Mueller aide who’s never made a political donation to either party but once represented a Clinton aide who helped set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The Intelligence Committee allowed Mueller to have Zebley sworn in as a witness, while the Judiciary Committee said Zebley could sit beside him and provide counsel. President Donald Trump kicked off so-called “Mueller Day” exactly how you’d expect: by firing off angry tweets about how he’s “very innocent” and lamenting the lack of an investigation into “Lisa Page and her Psycho lover.” Mueller is set to testify before the House Judiciary and the House Intelligence committees on Wednesday, months after submitting his final report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s efforts to obstruct investigators. Naturally, that means the commander in chief of the world's most powerful military, who oversees a federal bureaucracy that employs over 2 million people, who is tasked with solving the toughest geopolitical problems of our time — including things like climate change or the war in Syria — will almost certainly spend his day watching TV and rage-tweeting. The president got a jump-start on his tweetstorm late Tuesday, wondering in a post why Mueller was allowed to bring his “long time Never Trumper lawyer to sit beside him and help with answers.” The president was referring to Aaron Zebley, a top Mueller aide who’s never made a political donation to either party but once represented a Clinton aide who helped set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The Intelligence Committee allowed Mueller to have Zebley sworn in as a witness, while the Judiciary Committee said Zebley could sit beside him and provide counsel. But if Tuesday night was the warm-up, Trump was really ready to dig in on Wednesday. He fired off three angry Mueller tweets before most of America had a chance to grab a cup of coffee. READ MORE: Mueller says charging Trump would've been unconstitutional. These legal scholars beg to differ. First, he went after the “Democrats and others” who “illegally fabricate a crime, try pinning it on a very innocent President, and when he fights back against this illegal and treasonous attack on our Country, they call It Obstruction?” Then he pivoted back to Zebley, again calling him a Never Trumper, without any evidence. READ MORE: Democrats want Mueller to just answer if Trump broke the law Trump kept it up with a third tweet, an unhinged riff that, because it was written by the president, will be preserved for posterity in the Library of Congress forever. “Why didn’t Robert Mueller & his band of 18 Angry Democrats spend any time investigating Crooked Hillary Clinton, Lyin’ & Leakin’ James Comey, Lisa Page and her Psycho lover, Peter S, Andy McCabe, the beautiful Ohr family, Fusion GPS, and many more, including HIMSELF & Andrew W?” he tweeted. The early morning rage tweets seem like quite a bit of attention for a president who told reporters last week: “They’re just playing games. You know, I won’t be watching Mueller.” Cover: U.S. President Donald Trump talks with reporters as he departs the White House July 19, 2019 in Washington, DC. Trump is traveling to New Jersey to host a fundraising dinner and spend the weekend at his Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

2018-09-09

Washington (CNN)There are two months until the midterm elections in November and Democrats still have a narrow path to the Senate majority despite a map that favors Republicans and includes 10 Democratic incumbents running in states President Donald Trump won, five of them by double-digit margins. The President carried Indiana and Missouri by 19 points each, but a pair of new polls released this week by NBC News/Marist show Democratic Sens. Joe Donnelly and Claire McCaskill waging competitive re-election fights. In a two-way contest, Donnelly leads Republican Mike Braun 49% to 43% in the Hoosier State, while McCaskill and Josh Hawley are locked in a dead heat -- each with 47% -- in the Show Me State. Another prime target for Republicans is Florida, where Quinnipiac University found Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott running even with 49% each after some $37 million in television ads -- roughly half of that by Scott's campaign. The Blue Wall of Great Lakes states that Trump toppled in November 2016 so far looks to be holding for Democrats in 2018. Sens. Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Debbie Stabenow (Michigan) and Tammy Baldwin (Wisconsin) are all favorites for re-election. Of that group, Baldwin appears to have the toughest race, facing a challenge from conservative state Sen. Leah Vukmir. To be sure, the deep red states where Democratic incumbents are hoping to hang on may play to type and keep the majority out of reach for the party. But if a blue wave crests higher than expected, it could lift Democrats in states that would be all but lost in a more neutral environment. Democrats are on offense in Nevada, a state Hillary Clinton carried by 2 points and where Rep. Jacky Rosen is now challenging GOP Sen. Dean Heller. The Battle Born State could be ground zero for the health care debate this cycle, with Rosen aggressively attacking Heller's support for the GOP's effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Republicans breathed a sigh of relief late last month when GOP Rep. Martha McSally emerged from a tough primary contest in Arizona with a convincing victory against conservative firebrands Kelli Ward and Joe Arpaio. But McSally's shift to the right during the nominating fight, particularly on immigration, could pose a challenge in the general against Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who entered the general election largely unscathed. The list of Democratic targets this cycle has doubled, with a pair of red states -- Tennessee and Texas -- looking increasingly competitive. With the Senate currently split 51-49 in favor of Republicans, if Democrats were able to win either of those contests -- assuming they also flip Arizona and Nevada -- it would mean the party could afford to see one of its incumbents defeated and still preserve a path to the majority. Tennessee Senate: Race moves from Lean Republican to Toss-Up In Tennessee, former two-term Gov. Phil Bredesen is running a methodical campaign against GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn by focusing on local issues and emphasizing his own moderate brand of politics over that of the national Democratic Party. That strategy seems to be working to his point, with an NBC News/Marist poll released Thursday showing Bredesen and Blackburn running neck and neck -- 48% to 46% -- among likely voters. Bredesen's standing is buoyed by his popularity -- 61% of likely voters have a favorable view of the Democrat versus 22% who hold a negative view of him. By comparison, 46% of likely voters view Blackburn favorably compared with 36% who do not. When it comes to the President, 47% approve of his job performance while 43% disapprove. Blackburn, a staunch ally of the President, is making the argument that electing Bredesen could give Democrats control of the Senate -- a persuasive message in a state that went for Trump by 26 points. Bredesen has pledged to work with the President when he proposes policies that benefit Tennessee, declaring at the start of his campaign he was not "running against" Trump. Texas Senate: Race moves from Likely Republican to Lean Republican Republicans are sending the cavalry to Texas for Sen. Ted Cruz, with the President announcing he'll do an October rally for his former 2016 GOP primary rival, and the political arm of the Club for Growth launching a seven-figure television ad campaign to hammer Cruz's Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto O'Rourke. O'Rourke has been a fundraising phenom, more than doubling Cruz in the second quarter and leading the GOP incumbent in cash on hand by almost $5 million. Polls show O'Rourke within striking distance of Cruz. The latest NBC News/Marist survey showed the race at 49% to 45% in Cruz's favor. For Democrats, the path to victory in the Lone Star State has been elusive. The party's last statewide win came in 1994. The last time Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate was 1988. Clinton lost the state by nine points -- an improvement on Mitt Romney's 16-point margin over Barack Obama in 2012. Having tapped into the Democrats' enthusiasm edge, O'Rourke appears poised to narrow the gap even more this year. West Virginia Senate: Race moves from Toss-Up to Lean Democratic West Virginia should be at or near the top of the GOP's targets this cycle based on Trump's 42-point margin there in 2016. The President has also visited the Mountaineer State six times since taking office. The difficulty for Republicans is they are running against Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, a popular two-term governor who has demonstrated a willingness to buck his party and support the President's policies and nominees. He voted for Trump's first Supreme Court selection, Neil Gorsuch, and has signaled he's open to supporting Brett Kavanaugh, saying Wednesday he has not seen anything disqualifying from the nominee during this week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Manchin also has demonstrated he can win in a less-than-ideal environment, receiving 61% of the vote in 2012 even as Romney carried the state with 62% support. Republican nominee Patrick Morrisey, the state's attorney general, has faced questions about his fundraising ability and Manchin has a six-to-one cash advantage. Morrisey only recently launched his first television ad, a biographical spot that features praise from the President and highlights his legal challenge to environmental regulations implemented by the Obama administration. That comes after Democratic outside groups have spent the summer pummeling Morrisey on TV over his work as a "DC lobbyist" for pharmaceutical companies and his decision to join a lawsuit challenging the ACA, a move that could lead to protections for pre-existing conditions being struck down. That line of attack could resonate in West Virginia, which at 36% has the highest rate of adults under 65 with pre-existing conditions, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study in 2016. North Dakota Senate: Race moves from Toss-Up to Lean Republican One state where Republicans are increasingly bullish about their chances is North Dakota, where GOP Rep. Kevin Cramer is challenging Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in a state the President carried by 36 points. Trump was personally involved in the effort to recruit Cramer into the race and stumped for the three-term GOP lawmaker Friday night in Fargo. For a while it appeared Heitkamp was Trump's favorite Senate Democrat. The President praised her as a "good woman" during a September 2017 event in the Peace Garden State and invited her to the White House in May for the signing of a bank deregulation bill she co-sponsored. Now it seems the President is all-in for Cramer. "You need a senator who doesn't just talk like they're from North Dakota, but votes like they're from North Dakota. That's what you need, and that's Kevin Cramer," Trump said during a Fargo rally in late June. Heitkamp should be able to keep the race close because of her strong personal brand and resource advantage -- leading Cramer $5.2 to $2.4 million in cash on hand. Cramer's bottom line should get a boost thanks to the President's visit, which his campaign says raised over $1 million. Democrats are attacking Cramer on health care, accusing him of voting to strip protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and trade policy, a particularly acute concern in agriculture-rich North Dakota. Republicans, meanwhile, are targeting Heitkamp on hot-button issues such as abortion and so-called sanctuary cities, as well as her vote against the GOP tax cuts. Given Trump's popularity in the state, Cramer's unwavering support for the President could be a more potent pitch to voters than Heitkamp's message of moderation. The national environment this year favors Democrats, but North Dakota is very much Trump country -- and Cramer is Trump's candidate. New Jersey Senate: Race moves from Solid Democratic to Likely Democratic It's been nearly 50 years since New Jersey voters elected a Republican to the Senate. Bob Hugin is a longshot to break that streak, but the pharmaceutical executive is giving Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez a serious challenge in the Garden State. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Hugin trailing Menendez by six points in a state Clinton won by 14 points in 2016 and Obama carried by 17 points four years earlier. The federal corruption trial involving Menendez ended last November in a mistrial, but an ethical cloud continues to hang over the Democrat. Nearly half of New Jersey voters say Menendez was involved in serious wrongdoing, including 38% of Democrats. Democratic primary voters in the state delivered a clear message to Menendez in June when little-known challenger Lisa McCormick drew 38% of the vote against the two-term incumbent. Still, Menendez received more votes than were cast in the GOP primary, which Hugin won with 75% support. Hugin has loaned his campaign more than $15 million and has spent more than $7 million on television ads to boost his candidacy. Menendez has been saving his resources -- holding about $6.4 million cash on hand. He's also getting a little help from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which recently teamed with Menendez on a joint television ad buy. Democrats feel confident Menendez's numbers will improve once he hits the airwaves. He also stands to benefit from several competitive House races in a state where Democrats have strong recruits.

2018-06-01 00:00:00

CUCUTA, Colombia – Legislators from six South American countries are meeting to discuss Venezuela&aposs humanitarian crisis and reject the May 20 re-election of President Nicolas Maduro to a second six-year term. The group of almost two hundred parliamentarians from Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay and Argentina issued a four-page statement that said Maduro is leading a "repressive government" that "systematically violates human rights." They called on their countries to impose financial sanctions on top Venezuelan officials who are suspected of money laundering and said they would work to ease entry requirements for the thousands of Venezuelans who are fleeing the country to escape its harrowing economic crisis. The meeting is being held in Cucuta, a Colombian border city that has struggled to accommodate an influx of Venezuelan migrants.

2019-01-08 14:44:13

This article contains multiple spoilers for the Netflix film “Bird Box.” The bird box in “Bird Box” is full of holes so the birds can breathe; “Bird Box” the movie is full of holes so the audience can meme. For a certain type of fan, half the fun of watching “Bird Box” is pointing out all the logical gaps. The rules in “Bird Box” are never fully articulated, never fully understood, leaving room to debate its mysteries and its deeper allegorical meaning (if any). It’s a movie that loves to raise unanswerable questions, and over the last few weeks, the internet has followed suit: Where did these monsters originate? Was Jacki Weaver’s character a doctor the whole time? Where did Felix and Lucy go? The film has drawn widespread comparisons to last year’s other big sensory-deprivation horror film, “A Quiet Place,” which has plenty of its own inconsistencies. But many of the apparent gaps in “Bird Box” have explanations if you know where to look: Some are tucked away in the movie itself; others can be found in the source novel by Josh Malerman. Below, we’ve done our best to plug some of the holes. And while we may never know what really caused the suicide pandemic — or why any normal person’s kitchen needs a huge glass-fronted freezer — we do think the Janet Tucker School for the Blind has a few things to investigate. [Read The New York Times’s review of “Bird Box.”] Panic maybe? Otherwise … there is no reason. No one can agree on what these entities are — Cthulhu-like demons? biowarfare artifacts? handy metaphors? — but whatever they are, this much seems apparent: They do not have a solid, corporeal form. They can infiltrate your head, imitate voices, throw creepy shadows, even whip up the wind, but they don’t seem able to break down doors or open windows. Their presence sets off a car’s proximity sensors, but they can’t blow off your blindfold. So don’t take it off yourself. And also don’t run! Especially if you can’t see where you’re going. Because you’re still wearing that blindfold, right? That blindfold worn by Malorie (Sandra Bullock) doesn’t obscure everything — some play of light and shadow always seeps through. This suggests that those with limited sight might be safe if they remove their corrective lenses: Somewhere in the spectrum, between perfect eyesight and none, lies a critical threshold. Greg’s experiment with the security camera proved fatal, but he was probably onto something. In the book (in which the character is called George), he has a number of other ideas — refracted glass, indirect vision — but he never gets a chance to experiment with them. Charlie’s (Lil Rel Howery) co-worker from the seafood department, known as Fish Finger (Matt Leonard), was trapped on a loading dock for at least four days. The human body can’t survive more than four days without water, and yet Fish Finger is still strong enough to force open a door while three people do their best to hold it closed. How did he survive? Charlie describes Fish Finger as “a bit crazy”; according to the story’s logic, he must have been more mentally disturbed than Charlie realized. That partly explains his survival. But how mentally ill was he? That may explain the rest. When we catch a glimpse inside the loading dock, we see a couple of dead bodies. A close look at the bodies and the blood on his fingers suggest what he did to stay nourished. Getting Charlie to see the creatures — “Look at it, Charlie, it’s beautiful” — also provided Fish Finger with a new snack. After five years of sub-optimum nutrition, Malorie is still looking toned. Tom (Trevante Rhodes) still has his six-pack. (And, as Missy Elliott noted on Twitter, “His hair cut stayed sharp.”) Although the film mostly shows us stale Pop-Tarts, the book has them stocking up the cellar with canned food, including sources of protein such as tuna, refried beans and nuts, by raiding abandoned homes. (The movie follows Malorie on one of what we can assume are many of those raids.) The garden in the movie seems fairly extensive, too. Worried about running out, Malorie also learned to fish while blindfolded, using a rusted fishing pole fashioned from an umbrella, according to the book. In the movie, watch how she counts down the steps on her way to the river — she has been here before. As for attractive body tone, look at all the running around they have to do! Still, in the book, Malorie is gaunt, her skin tight and sallow from malnutrition. So maybe the best answer is simply: Hollywood. In real life … probably none? After a perilous journey rolling over “speed bumps” of human corpses, the gang arrives at a supermarket — Fields Market, to be precise, which is a real place. If you visited the actual location in West Hills, Calif., you would find pet food in the pets section and batteries in the “electronics section,” but no live animals and no high-end walkie-talkies. (We called and asked; the staffer who answered laughed.) The filmmakers stocked those items themselves. Speaking of pets, a majority of United States households have at least one of them, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. So what happened to all the cats and dogs? Or, for that matter, the wild game and livestock? Early in the movie, a single horse appears on the news — after that, we see mostly birds. Are animals also vulnerable? In the book, we get some answers. The birds aren’t entirely immune, it seems — we’re told about migrating flocks that kill themselves in midair. As for other animals, the group uses seeing-eye dogs in the book, and one of them gets infected. (“It sounded like Victor had chewed through his own leg.”) In the final scene of the movie, we’re shown some seeing-eye dogs at the blind school. Presumably, they have been adequately sheltered from the monsters, just like the seeing humans who are there. The birds in the Bird Box — a shoe box with holes punched in it — appear to be scarlet-chested parakeets, a rare Australian breed that likes to be housed in bigger cages or aviaries … or, of course, allowed to fly free. So how did these birds survive going overboard on a cold river? The short answer is: They shouldn’t have. Unless Girl (Vivien Lyra Blair) held it over her head as she swam to shore — also unlikely for a small child in the rapids — that shoe box would have been a death trap. Brianna Latino of the Bird Shop in Roseville, Calif., which sells exotic birds, confirmed that the birds looked like scarlet-chested parakeets — and probably should have died a few times over. “They surely wouldn’t survive in a freezer,” she said. Such a good question. The community at Janet Tucker School for the Blind seems close to self-sufficient in the film, and in the book, it is. The members farm fields of potatoes, squash, and berries. They’ve captured a cow for milk, a few chickens for eggs and two goats, and they hope to find more to build a little farm. They have a rainwater purification system. They also have a whole medical team. (One hopes it includes therapists to help process everyone’s trauma.) Apparently, the fastest way to get there is the river. Did Dr. Lapham (Parminder Nagra) take a blindfolded rowboat trip, too? That much remains a mystery.

2020-02-05 00:00:00

OTTAWA (Reuters) - An outbreak of coronavirus that has rattled financial markets and infected thousands in China could hurt Canada’s economy by disrupting supply chains and depressing oil prices, a top Bank of Canada official said on Wednesday. “It’s never a good time to have an outbreak like this, but when the global economy is feeling a little fragile, (and) we’ve got mixed data in Canada, it’s certainly not great timing,” Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Wilkins told a business audience in Toronto. The central bank has held its key interest steady since October 2018 but said last month a cut was possible if a recent slowdown in domestic growth persisted. The Canadian dollar CAD=D4 held near a two-month low after her remarks, down 0.1% at 1.3286 per U.S. dollar, or 75.27 U.S. cents. China said another 65 people had died in the previous 24 hours, in the highest daily total yet, taking the overall toll on the mainland to 490. Canada has five cases of coronavirus. Ottawa is trying to evacuate some 300 stranded citizens. Wilkins said past virus outbreaks - like an episode of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome that killed 44 people in the Toronto area in 2003 - showed Canada’s economy could be affected even if the epicenter was not domestic. “It can come through lower oil prices, lower commodity prices - we see a bit of that,” she said, adding that some supply chains could be disrupted. Tourism and transportation sectors could “find themselves a little offside their forecasts for a little while” because of lower travel, she said. Financial markets have been spooked by the potential for the impact of the outbreak on China’s economy, the world’s second largest, to reverberate around the globe. On Wednesday, European Central Bank executives said the coronavirus was adding to global economic uncertainty, but its impact may be short term and temporary, limiting the need for policy action. Wilkins appeared to echo that position. She said the bank would need to dissect short- and longer-term outcomes depending on the outbreak’s duration. “If it lasts longer then we’d have to think about what risk management looked like in that space,” Wilkins said. That assessment would be data-dependent and look at business investment and consumer spending. “We already said that we’re looking at all those data and it just means that we’re going to have to concentrate more on it,” she said. Reporting by Kelsey Johnson, additional reporting by Fergal Smith in Toronto; Editing by David Gregorio and Lisa Shumaker

2019-10-02 00:00:00

BOSTON (Reuters) - A California man was sentenced on Wednesday to four months in prison for threatening to kill employees at the Boston Globe in retaliation for its role coordinating an editorial response by hundreds of newspapers to U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on the media. U.S. District Judge William Young in Boston said a prison sentence was necessary to punish Robert Chain, 69, for the “appalling” threats that prosecutors say he made by phone to employees at the Boston Globe and The New York Times. William Weinreb, Chain’s lawyer, argued he deserved just six months of home confinement, saying his “empty threats” were driven not by politics but the depression of a man reeling from the suicide of his youngest son. But while Young said those facts counseled against the 10-month prison term that prosecutors sought, his actions nonetheless warranted a term of incarceration along with a $3,500 fine and a requirement that he pay $16,500 in restitution to the Globe. “In today’s world, where truth is a precious commodity, done right, journalism is perhaps our last best hope of having that truth on which our democracy depends,” Young said. “You attacked that.” In May, Chain pleaded guilty to transmitting violent threats to the Boston Globe after in August 2018 it urged other newspapers nationally to run editorials denouncing what it called a “dirty war against the free press.” More than 350 newspapers subsequently published editorials that Aug. 16 in response to Trump’s repeated criticism of new organizations as the “enemy of the American people” and of news reports he objects to as “fake news.” The threats that prosecutors said Chain made to the Globe in a series of phone calls that August mirrored Trump’s statements, saying in one phone call that “you are the enemy of the people and we are going to shoot you all.” The day the coordinated editorials were published, Chain called the Globe’s newsroom and threatened to shoot employees in the head “later today, at 4 o’clock,” prosecutors said. “This was not overheated political rhetoric,” Assistant U.S. Attorney George Varghese said in court. “It was a campaign of terror against the Boston Globe newsroom.” Prosecutors said Chain also called reporters at the New York Times, a frequent target of Trump’s criticism, telling one opinion writer: “Do you think the pen is mightier than the sword, or that the AR is mightier than the pen?” referring to the AR-15 assault-style rifle. Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Scott Malone and Marguerita Choy

2017-11-13 00:00:00

5:30 PM PT -- Roy Moore has denied Beverly's allegation, going so far as to say he doesn't even know her or know anything about her. A new accuser of Republican Roy Moore says the U.S. Senate candidate once tried to force her to perform oral sex on him when she was just 16 years old. Beverly Young Nelson appeared at a press conference Monday in NYC alongside attorney Gloria Allred to make the accusation, tearing up and crying throughout. Nelson says she was a waitress in Alabama between 1976 and '77, and that Moore -- then the D.A. of their county -- was a regular, and that he would flirt with her. In December of '77, Nelson says Moore signed her yearbook, and then offered a ride home after her shift. Instead of driving her home, though, she says Moore pulled around behind the restaurant and began groping her breasts, before he allegedly grabbed her neck and tried to force her head toward his crotch. Nelson says she resisted, and Moore ultimately gave up. She says he kicked her out his car and told her not to tell anyone since no one would believe her. Moore has also been accused of sexual misconduct with minors by 4 other women. He's been asked by many politicians on both sides of the aisle to step aside.

2017-06-29 14:00:00

Name a prominent act in Chicago's music community, and chances are you'll come across the work of Ohmme's Macie Stewart and Sima Cunningham. Chance the Rapper? Both of them sang on Coloring Book and Surf and have performed with the 24-year-old on numerous occasions. Vic Mensa? In high school, Stewart played in the band Kids These Days which Mensa co-fronted along with Cunningham's brother, Liam Kazar. Wilco? Jeff Tweedy produced Kids These Days' debut album Traphouse Rock, while Cunningham tours with Tweedy, the solo project the Wilco frontman formed with his son Spencer. Whitney? Stewart provided the string arrangements on their acclaimed debut Light Upon The Lake. Twin Peaks? Cunningham and Stewart sang backup vocals and wrote the string section on their recent single "Tossin' Tears." The list goes on. But while the two have worn many musical hats, collaborating with hip-hop stars to rock'n'roll mainstays, their band Ohmme (f.k.a. Homme), which formed in 2014, came out of Chicago's improvisational and experimental music scene. Their debut self-titled EP, which is reissued Friday, showcases this: an adventurous, loose, and mesmerizing six-song collection that was the product of guitar-heavy experiments and hocketed, delicate vocal harmonies. "We were really excited by the improvised music scene and improvised music, but neither of us were improvised musicians or knew a lot of other women that were into it as well. I think both of us thought we should just get together and try it out" explained Cunningham, adding that going to shows at Constellation, a hub for Chicago's avant-garde, experimental, and jazz community kickstarted their partnership. Stewart, who often completes Cunningham's sentences, chimed in: "For me, this band was the opportunity to just create blindly almost. Because I grew up playing classical music, which is very strict, it was really exciting to be able to break out of that." She added, "I still wanted a way to improvise and I think when we started going to shows at Constellation, it was really inspiring to see people just channeling emotions through their instrument and being able to go insane with it." In 2014, as the two hashed out ideas in the studio and began playing gigs at Constellation and Postock, a small Wisconsin-based festival Cunningham has run for several years, their sound began to take shape. Cunningham offered, "Well the band started because we both really wanted to mess around on guitar." The best example of this is EP closer "You, Your Face," which Cunningham and Stewart trace back as one of the first songs they worked on together. It's a woozy and sprawling, near-eight minute track that boasts wafting guitars and Stewart's piercing voice. It's the band at their most atmospheric and moody. Elsewhere on the EP, Ohmme put their find ways to experiment with their voices. Cunningham's smokier croon complements Stewart's higher-register coo near perfectly on the driving "Fingerprints." "We couldn't figure out the chorus for that song, and our producer Dorian Gehring, asked us if we had tried hocketing," explained Stewart, referring to the the technique where vocalists or instruments share alternating parts of a melody (think Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian-era Dirty Projectors). "We hadn't, but when we tried, that part was born, and it's the most memorable part of the song. That was the song where we figured out a sound that was unique to us." Cunningham agreed, "This is where we got more creative with our vocals." It's perhaps the most straightforward rocker on the collection, but their vocal interplay makes for an exceptionally hypnotic hook. Though Ohmme is a reflection of Cunningham and Stewart's creative partnership, last summer the band added drummer Matt Carroll (who plays in Chicago rock band Marrow with Stewart) to anchor their live set for a slot at Pitchfork Music Festival as well as a gig opening up for Tortoise. Carroll's presence added a muscular edge to these already potent songs and, according to Stewart, "it freed us up a lot, which seems kind of counter-intuitive, but with the drums being there holding down this undercurrent under our songs we were able to like stretch our parts a little bit more." Cunningham added, "And personality-wise, Matt's just the best. He wears crop tops with us, and we have massage parties if we don't feel like going out to a bar after we play. He's awesome." It's been such a good fit that Carroll's now a full-time member and will be featured on Ohmme's upcoming full-length debut, which they're currently working on with help from recording engineer Dorian Gehring and Tortoise's Doug McCombs. While the vinyl reissue of the Ohmme EP is out Friday (pre-order it here and grab the vinyl because there are two vinyl-exclusive tracks), the band have shared a brand new video, below, for "Fingerprints" to commemorate the release. Directed by Hannah Welever, it's a whimsical clip featuring costumes sewed by the band themselves. Cunningham explained of the concept: "I wanted it to evoke that feeling when you were a kid and do so much communication with your friends that's nonverbal. Whether you're playing dress-up next to each other or reading comics together there's so much communication there that's not verbal." Follow Josh Terry on Twitter.

2016-02-26

Editor: Sonya Hepinstall, +44 207 542-3479 Global Picture Desk: +65 6870 3775 Global Graphics Desk: + 65 6870 3595 (All times GMT / ET) Receive this schedule by email: mediaexpress.reuters.com China seeks to manage economic reform expectations at G20 SHANGHAI - China sought to restore global confidence in its economy as financial leaders from G20 nations gather in Shanghai against a backdrop of worsening economic conditions and a lack of wider consensus on how to fix the problems. (G20-CHINA/ (WRAPUP 3, PIX, TV), expect by noon GMT/7 AM ET, by Kevin Yao and Gernot Heller, 750 words) + See also: - G20-CHINA/OECD (UPDATE 1), moved, 480 words - CHINA-ECONOMY/HOUSEPRICES (UPDATE 2, PIX), moved, by Xiaoyi Shao and Sue-Lin Wong, 600 words RBS posts another loss as revamp, legal costs hurt LONDON - Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) shares slump more than 10 percent as the state-backed bank reported its eighth straight full-year loss and says past mistakes would likely keep it from being able to resume shareholder payouts until next year. (ROYAL BANK SCOT-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 2), expect by 1000 GMT/5 PM ET, By Richa Naidu and Jane Merriman, 482 words) LSE’s Rolet to bow out to ease Deutsche Boerse deal LONDON - The chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, Xavier Rolet, is to retire after a planned merger with German rival Deutsche Boerse that will see the combined firm have its main listing in the British capital. (LSE-M&A/DEUTSCHE BOERSE (UPDATE 2), expect by 1030 GMT/5.30 AM ET, by Simon Jessop, 350 words) Sharp, Foxconn chiefs to meet as $5.8 bln takeover deal on hold TOKYO/TAIPEI - Sharp Corp CEO Kozo Takahashi and Foxconn Chief Executive Terry Gou plan to meet in China, a person familiar with the matter says, a day after the world’s largest contract maker of electronic goods put its takeover of the ailing Japanese firm on hold. (SHARP-RESTRUCTURING/ (UPDATE 3, PIX, TV), moved, by Ritsuko Ando and J.R. Wu, 630 words) Stocks up with eyes on G20 growth push LONDON - Stock markets gain for the third day in five as G20 policymakers meeting in Shanghai seek common ground on how to do more to reboot a struggling global economy in the face of renewed financial and political risks. (GLOBAL-MARKETS/ (WRAPUP 4), expect by 0945 GMT/4.45 AM ET, By Patrick Graham, 500 words) Oil prices dip on continued oversupply, despite news of meeting to freeze output SINGAPORE - Crude oil prices dip as reports of a meeting by oil producers to freeze output fail to convince traders that enough effort is being made to rein in ballooning global oversupply. (GLOBAL-OIL/ (UPDATE 2), moved, to be updated throughout the day, by Manesha Pereira, 350 words) Dollar edges down as G20 eyed for direction LONDON - The dollar edged down in broadly calm currency markets on Friday, with investors focusing on a two-day Group of 20 (G20) summit of finance ministers and central bankers in Shanghai. (GLOBAL-FOREX/ (UPDATE 3), expect by noon GMT/7 AM ET, By Jemima Kelly, 378 words) Gold rises despite equity gains on bullish technicals, fund flows SINGAPORE - Gold edges higher despite a rebound in stocks, underscoring support for the safe-haven metal from bullish technicals and money flows into exchange traded funds. (GLOBAL-PRECIOUS/ (UPDATE 1), moved, to be updated throughout the day, by A. Ananthalakshmi, 400 words) Japan January core CPI flat, keeps policymakers under pressure TOKYO - Falling fuel costs keep Japan’s core consumer prices unchanged in January from a year earlier, well below the central bank’s 2 percent target, highlighting the daunting task policymakers face in attempting to lift Japan out of stagnation. (JAPAN-ECONOMY/CPI (UPDATE 2, PIX), moved, by Leika Kihara, 420 words) India signals possible deficit revisions in upcoming budget NEW DELHI - India should review its mid-term fiscal strategy, a government report urges, in a possible indication that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley may have to borrow more to raise pay for government employees and bail out banks. (INDIA-BUDGET/SURVEY (UPDATE 3, PIX), moved, By Manoj Kumar and Rajesh Kumar Singh, 710 words) New Zealand posts surprise trade surplus in January WELLINGTON - New Zealand posts a narrow monthly trade surplus in January, beating expectations as exports to top customer China jump 25 percent on a year earlier despite the country’s economic woes. (NEWZEALAND-ECONOMY/TRADE (UPDATE 1), moved, 420 words) Salzgitter sees pretax breakeven, grounds for optimism BERLIN - German steelmaker Salzgitter says it expects to break even at pretax profit level this year and gives a cautiously optimistic outlook on steel prices thanks largely to EU anti-dumping measures coming into effect this year. (SALZGITTER-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 2), expect by 1030 GMT/5.30 AM ET, By Georgina Prodhan, 400 words) Spain’s Telefonica sees revenue growth of 4 percent this year MADRID - Spanish telecoms group Telefonica expects to increase revenue by more than 4 percent in 2016, stabilise its profit margin and pay its dividend fully in cash after completion of the sale of its British unit O2. (TELEFONICA-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 2, PIX) expect by 1100 GMT/0700 ET, by Julien Toyer and Andres Gonzalez, 400 words) BASF braces for lower operating profit on low oil price and China LUDWIGSHAFEN - BASF, the world’s largest chemical company by sales, has warned of a drop in operating income this year on weak chemical sales volumes in China, and as lower crude prices weigh on its oil and gas division. (BASF-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 2), moved, By Ludwig Burger, 329 words) Apple calls FBI iPhone request ‘unprecedented’ in court filing Apple Inc stikes back in court against a U.S. government demand that it unlock an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, arguing such a move would violate its free speech rights and override the will of Congress. (APPLE-ENCRYPTION/LAWSUIT (UPDATE 4, PIX), moved, by Dan Levine and Joseph Menn, 1,010 words) Still strong, China’s Baidu sees revenue growth fading China’s Baidu Inc, the country’s long-dominant Internet search firm, turns in a slightly better-than-expected fourth quarter, but is now grappling with a protracted slowdown in revenue growth - one that the company expects to continue. (BAIDU-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 2, PIX), moved, by Ankur Banerjee and Paul Carsten, 275 words) Singapore Exchange confirms in talks to buy Baltic Exchange LONDON/SINGAPORE - Singapore Exchange Ltd (SGX) says it is in talks to buy the Baltic Exchange, the hub of the global shipping market, a purchase aimed at shoring up the Southeast Asian exchange operator’s derivatives business. (SHIPPING-BALTIC/TALKS (UPDATE 1), moved, by Jonathan Saul and Anshuman Daga, moved, by Jonathan Saul and Anshuman Daga, 500 words) Australia’s Woolworths posts first loss in 23 yrs, names new CEO SYDNEY - Woolworths Ltd, Australia’s top grocer, posts its first loss in 23 years and says it has hired a new chief executive officer, drawing a line under a disastrous foray into hardware and pledging a return to supermarket basics. (WOOLWORTHS-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 2, PIX), moved, by Tom Westbrook and Colin Packham, 410 words) Big verdict doesn’t assure more wins for plaintiffs in talc-cancer cases NEW YORK - The $72 million verdict this week against Johnson & Johnson in a U.S. case alleging links between talc-based powder and ovarian cancer has prompted global headlines, social media buzz and calls to lawyers from would-be plaintiffs. (JOHNSON&JOHNSON-TALC/CANCER, moved, by Jessica Dye, 700 words) Old red dye shows promise as new cancer foe NEW YORK - Modern cancer drugs supercharge immune systems, target specific gene mutations and pack modified viruses into vaccines. Amid the increasing sophistication, one investigational treatment stands out for its simplicity. (CANCER-PROVECTUS/ (PIX, TV), moved, by Bill Berkrot, 810 words) Australia’s Cabcharge says H1 profit slump as Uber overtakes SYDNEY - Cabcharge Australia Ltd, the country’s monopoly taxi booking company, says that first half net profit has slumped by more than a fifth as it loses business to ride sharing service Uber Technologies Inc. (CABCHARGE AUST-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 1), moved, 280 words) As U.S. shale exports begin, Australia readies world’s costliest gas project SINGAPORE - The timing couldn’t be worse for the first production of natural gas from Australia’s $54 billion Gorgon project - the world’s most expensive. (AUSTRALIA-LNG/GORGON (UPDATE 1, GRAPHICS), moved, by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, 750 words) Australia’s GrainCorp sees smaller crop, bigger competition SYDNEY - Australian wheat exporter GrainCorp Ltd says it expects volumes to shrink in the 2016 fiscal year, generating net profit broadly in line with the previous year, thanks to a below average winter crop and fierce competition globally. (GRAINCORP-RESULTS/ (UPDATE 1), moved, 230 words)

2019-05-22 01:46:00

This year, swimsuit season is a family affair! Model Ashley Graham has recruited her younger sister Abigail to star with her in the Swimsuits for All summer 2019 campaign, which was shot by photographer Ben Watts in the Dominican Republic. “My little sister and I have always been strong presences in each other’s lives,” the 30-year-old supermodel said in a news release about the line that is now available online. “We’ve shared countless memories together and going through our childhood photos was a trip down memory lane.” Graham said that her little sister “has always been my rock” and that she was “honored to have her by my side during this photoshoot.” “Plus, she’s a new mom and has never looked hotter in a swimsuit!” she added. Abigail was equally thrilled to pose alongside her sister. “I love to support Ashley in everything she does, especially when it comes to promoting her message of beauty beyond size,” Abigail added. Like Graham, Abigail is also promoting body positivity by encouraging moms not to “stress” over “what you looked like before, during or after” pregnancy. “Remember at one point you were carrying a child, a life, which is incredible in its self, that is miraculous,” Abigail said in the release. “Know that you’re not alone, in the mix of all of the emotions that come with motherhood, all of these changes to your body are part of a journey you are going through an continue on.” “Don’t feel bad asking for help, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for help, I had to ask. My girlfriends had to ask. Many women that I know in general needed help because motherhood is hard so just don’t be afraid of it.”  The collection inspires some definite summertime vibes, reminding the sisters of their summers growing up together. Abigail recalled Midwestern road trips, visits to their grandparents’ house in Nebraska and beach days in Florida. “My mom would make sure that whatever state we lived in previously that we would do a vacation in to visit a friend or a family group from that state, so that we could keep our friendships and connections strong,” the younger sister continued. “For example, we went to Florida and to the beach and Ashley would get stung by jellyfish and it was hilarious. A lot of the people we traveled with we still talk to today which is so fun.” The collection includes nine pieces that feature mesh panels, netting, exotic florals and animal prints. This isn’t the first time Graham has celebrated one of her family members with her swimsuit collection. Last year, Graham teamed up with her mom and role model, Linda Graham, to model her fifth capsule collection on-location in Agadir, Morocco for Swimsuit for All’s Power of Journey campaign. “My mom has been my role model since childhood and has played a vital role in developing my confidence,” Graham said in a release. “She promoted body positivity in our household before it was a movement. Her feel-good attitude toward her own body has shaped my ability to remain positive and self-assured,” Graham continued. “I could not think of anyone better to join me in celebrating beauty of all shapes and sizes in this campaign. Plus, she’s hot and looks incredible in the suits!” The project was especially exciting for Linda as it was the first time she wore a bikini “since the 80s!” “I don’t think I could have uncovered that inner strength without Ashley. That makes being a part of this campaign so much more special – she’s my rock and inspired me at age 53 to be proud of my body again after I lost my own fortitude.”

2017-09-12

LONDON (Reuters) - British 10-year government bond yields headed for their biggest one-day jump in more than 10 weeks on Tuesday, after a sharper-than-expected rise in inflation reignited concern that the Bank of England might take a hawkish turn this week. Consumer price inflation rose to 2.9 percent in August - a level last exceeded more than five years ago - setting in train a slide in gilt prices that gathered pace as the day went on. At 1408 GMT the benchmark 10-year gilt yield was at its highest level since Aug. 17 at 1.116 percent, up more than 7 basis points on the day. This was the biggest one-day rise in yield since June 29, and yields are now more than 15 basis points above a two-and-a-half month low struck on Friday. Ten-year gilts’ yield spread over German Bunds widened by as much 3 basis points to 74 basis points, a level not seen since early August. “Gilts are underperforming on the day, and the sell-off was generally triggered after the CPI data,” RBC fixed income strategist Vatsala Datta said. Inflation worries added to concerns that the BoE could come out with a hawkish message on Thursday. While most economists polled by Reuters expect a 7-2 split in favor of keeping rates on hold at 0.25 percent, there is a chance that chief economist Andy Haldane could switch sides and back a hike. The central bank is also expected to note sterling’s further fall since its meeting last month, which risks pushing inflation well above 3 percent later this year. Datta said markets had brought forward their expectation of a BoE rate rise to August 2018, compared with September 2019 as recently as last week. Economists polled by Reuters last month did not expect a rate rise until 2019. Wednesday brings the release of July labor market data - which is expected to show a small pick-up in lackluster wage growth - as well as the auction of 2.5 billion pounds ($3.32 billion) of the 1.25 percent 2027 gilt. Editing by Alison Williams

2020-03-24 00:00:00

(CNN)Larry Hogan saw what he saw -- and he did not like it. The Maryland governor watched over the weekend as cherry blossom oglers flooded Washington, DC, and beachgoers in Ocean City crowded the boardwalks, despite federal guidelines urging Americans to stay away from large gatherings. "Let me repeat, once again, as strongly as I possibly can: If you are engaged in this kind of activity, you are breaking the law and you are literally endangering the lives of your family, your friends and your fellow citizens," Hogan said at a press conference on Monday, when he announced an executive order that mandated the statewide closure of all non-essential businesses. With large pieces of the federal response tied up on Capitol Hill and President Donald Trump shifting his tone with unnerving regularity, Americans are increasingly turning to their state executives for clear messages and decisive action in the fight against coronavirus. Hogan, the rare two-term Republican governor of a blue state, has been among the more aggressive, taking steps largely in line with the leaders of harder hit states, like Washington, California and New York. And over the last 24 hours, he has also been frank in his response to suggestions from Trump, the leader of his party, that the time could be near to relax national social distancing guidelines in what both economic and health experts have called a misguided bid to rev up the economy. "Some of the messaging is pretty confusing. It's not just it doesn't match with what we're doing here in Maryland. Some of the messaging coming out of the administration doesn't match," Hogan said Tuesday on CNN's "New Day." "We don't think that we're going to be in any way ready to be out of this in five or six days or so, or whenever this 15 days is up from the time that they started this imaginary clock." Avoiding partisan talking points Only a few hours before Hogan began speaking on Monday, Trump declared in a tweet, "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF." The President's growing concern that efforts to mitigate the disease will further decimate major industries, and his suggestion that he would reconsider steps experts say are crucial to saving lives in a bid to revive the stock market, clashed with leaders closer to the crisis, like Hogan, who are moving forward with increasingly forceful efforts to slow the virus's spread. At the press conference announcing his own new order, Hogan avoided any partisan talking points or jabs at Democrats, instead training his criticism on the "irresponsible and reckless behavior" of those who had continued to gather in large groups across Maryland and the capital region, which includes Washington, DC, and Virginia. Hogan's performance in Maryland has won him the praise of the Democrat he defeated in 2018 on his way to a second term in office. "Gov. Hogan has shown great leadership in pulling our state together during this crisis, particularly given the absolute lack of direction from the White House," Ben Jealous, the former NAACP president and Maryland's Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2018, told CNN. "We shouldn't be Democrats and Republicans during this crisis. We have to be one community. Gov. Hogan is setting the right tone to help save lives and for that, he deserves a great deal of credit." As of Tuesday morning, CNN Health had counted nearly 300 cases of coronavirus in the state of Maryland, including three deaths. While that number is small in comparison to a state like New York, which is closing in on 22,000 infections with more than 150 already dead, Hogan was quick to action earlier this month, declaring a state of emergency and then closing all schools, K-12, until at least the end of this week. "He's really built up a lot of bipartisan bona fides,"said Amelia Chassé Alcivar, the Republican Governors Association communications director and a former Hogan spokeswoman. "Through his general messaging, his approach to issues and to policy positions -- he's working with the Democratic leaders in the state of Maryland, which is basically all the leaders in the state of Maryland." Hogan is also the chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association, which has put him in close contact with both Republican and Democratic state executives, including New York's Andrew Cuomo, who has been lauded for his transparency during the crisis. Jared Leopold, the top spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association until joining Washington Gov. Jay Inslee's presidential campaign last year, has done political battle with Hogan. The Maryland governor, he said, has been deft in managing his relationship with the White House. "There is a clear, visible difference between the seriousness with which Hogan takes (the coronavirus) and the callous disregard that Trump is approaching this with," Leopold said. "Hogan has been very smart in not taking on Trump by name, but clearly distancing himself in terms of his approach to this crisis. Governors in the spotlight The push-and-pull between governors, who have seen the devastating effects of the virus up close and are in a fight against time to procure the necessary medical equipment ahead of a surge of new patients, and Trump, who has publicly wavered over the severity of the heath crisis, has made for some awkward political theater. In New York, Cuomo has offered rare praise at times for Trump, as the governor tries to free up federal aid to the state. Hogan, too, and Maryland GOP leadership have mostly steered clear of any attempts to litigate Trump's rollercoaster response. "I agree with Gov. Hogan, who has also said multiple times (that) this is no time for trying to blame anyone for anything," Maryland GOP chairman Dirk Haire told CNN. "The entire focus right now just needs to be on addressing the spread of the virus, containing it, eliminating it, and focusing on getting our economy back on back on firm ground." Haire favorably compared Hogan's actions with Cuomo's in New York, and other more proactive governors, like Ohio Republican Mike DeWine and New Jersey Democrat Phil Murphy, arguing that Maryland's order offered slightly more leeway for business to operate. Asked if he believed Hogan would ramp up restrictions if Maryland's case load spiked to New York levels, Haire suggested the governor would be "flexible." "I don't mean to imply that he will never order a shelter-in-place," Haire said. "I just know they're working hard to try and support small businesses and workers and employees in making sure that, to the extent possible, they can continue to work and get a paycheck." That goal, to back small business first, is shared -- at least publicly -- by both state and federal officials from around the country. But for governors working on less elastic budgets than the federal government, securing financial aid to the hardest hit economically will rely on a resolution to Capitol Hill negotiations now entering a fifth day. Hogan on CNN Tuesday morning described the fight in Washington, in which the fundamental structure of the government's response to potentially the most damaging economic crisis since the Great Depression is in the balance, as "partisan bickering." "We've got to get the Republicans and Democrats working together to get this done for the American people," Hogan said. "But in the meantime, in the states, we're taking our own actions.

2018-08-11

close Video Colyer on too close to call primary race: Count every vote Incumbent Republican Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer says he wants to make sure that election rules are followed in his GOP gubernatorial primary battle with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer dug in for a legal fight over this past week’s Republican gubernatorial primary, hiring an outside lawyer for the vote-counting process with Secretary of State Kris Kobach  leading the incumbent  by less than a tenth of a percentage point. The Colyer campaign has hired Todd Graves, a Kansas City attorney who works on election law. “Governor Colyer is confident that Todd Graves’ experience as a U.S. Attorney and, in particular, his expertise in election law will be a valuable asset as we navigate this process,” Kendall Marr, a spokesperson for Mr. Colyer, wrote in an email. Mr. Colyer has ramped up pressure on Mr. Kobach as election officials continue to review the vote count and tally the remaining ballots. Mr. Colyer in a letter Thursday  asked Mr. Kobach to recuse himself  from advising county election officials on the matter, saying it had come to his attention that Mr. Kobach was making statements that “may serve to suppress the vote.” Mr. Kobach, who was  endorsed by President Trump , formally recused himself Friday from his duties as secretary of state until the end of the primary process and designated assistant secretary of state Erick Rucker to fulfill his election responsibilities—a move that the Colyer campaign said was still insufficient. Mr. Kobach declined Mr. Colyer’s request to transfer responsibility for the election to the Kansas attorney general. Mr. Kobach refuted Mr. Colyer’s allegations in a letter of his own Friday. Continue reading this story in the Wall Street Journal .

2019-06-23 00:00:00

(CNN)An infant formula sold only at Walmart was voluntarily recalled on Friday because of the potential presence of "metal foreign matter" in a single lot of the product, Perrigo Company said in a news release. The recall affects a single lot, or 23,388 containers, of the 35-ounce, 992-gram containers of Parent's Choice Advantage Infant Formula Milk-Based Powder with Iron. No adverse events have been reported to date, the company said, but the recall was made out of an abundance of caution stemming from a consumer report. The recall was also made in consultation with the US Food and Drug Administration. Perrigo said consumers who bought the product should look on the bottom of the package for Lot Code C26EVFV with a "use by" date of February 26, 2021. Those consumers should stop using the formula and go to Walmart for a refund. On Walmart's website, the product is billed as "complete nutrition" for a baby's first year and sells for $19.98. "This formula is quick and easy to make. All you have to do is add water and shake. Feed your kid with confidence by using Parent's Choice Advantage Infant Formula," the product description says.

2018-04-30

April 30 (Reuters) - STRATA MANUFACTURING: * ANNOUNCES A NEW CONTRACT AWARD WITH BOEING TO MANUFACTURE COMPOSITE EMPENNAGE RIBS FOR BOEING’S NEW 777X AIRPLANE

2019-11-27 00:00:00

"This is over six years. Six seasons." That was M. Night Shyamalan, executive producer of Servant, speaking at New York Comic-Con about the path he envisions for Tony Basgallop's Apple TV+ series. Six seasons, 60 episodes. After watching the first 10 half-hour slices, I've gotta say: The greatest dread I feel is the idea that this mystery is going to take 50 more episodes to fully reveal itself. It's not that Servant is bad. The core cast of Lauren Ambrose, Toby Kebbell, Nell Tiger Free, and Rupert Grint (plus a growing assortment of side players) does their best. And in fairness to that cast, the central mystery can be quite riveting at times. But they're all hamstrung by uneven plotting that relegates almost all of the season's most revealing moments to the first and last episodes. You might be wondering, what's the story we're dealing with here? Well, it's complicated. The setup is one thing, but the course the season takes after Episode 1 quickly sets fire to that premise. Knowing where everything starts is helpful, though, so here goes. We enter into the lives of Dorothy (Ambrose) and Sean (Kebbell) Turner a short while after they suffer one of the worst traumas imaginable. Just 13 weeks into their new lives as parents, their firstborn son Jericho died.  The "how" and "why" remain a mystery, but what happened next for the Turners is plain for all to see. Dorothy's grief was so acute that her friend and therapist recommended trying out transitional object therapy. In plainer terms, that means giving Dorothy a creepily bouncy and life-like baby doll to help ease her into the reality of what happened. The therapy successfully dislodges Dorothy from what we're told was a catatonic state, but it creates a new problem. Now, Dorothy thinks the baby doll is actually Jericho. Making matters worse, only a few people know what the Turners went through. So Dorothy is shuttered in at home on maternity leave from her job as a local news reporter, doing all the things that new mothers do in the care of their child. She pumps. She dotes. She works herself so hard that she feels the need to hire a live-in nanny. Enter Leanne Grayson (Free), a wispy young woman with a quiet, patient demeanor and an apparent commitment to her faith. Leanne shows up and immediately buys into Dorothy's delusion without question or concern. Even when she's not in the room. To Leanne, the doll is a living, breathing baby Jericho. Then things start to get really weird. Then things start to get really weird. It's a discomforting premise that plays a lot better on screen than it sounds, mostly because it's only a starting point. By the end of Episode 1, a different version of that reality asserts itself and it carries the story for the rest of the season. Servant does have the feel of something that bears Shyamalan's fingerprints. Unanswered questions are at the center of every episode, each of which treads along a singular theme reflected in the episode title. (The first three, in order, are "Reborn," "Wood," and "Eel.") If there's a big twist to come in one of Shyamalan's trademark long cons, it's not readily apparent. But the twists that do surface feel true to his brand. Each half-hour chapter is also marked by the sort of formal elements that tend to pop up in Shyamalan's work. Sean's increasingly harried exchanges with Julian (Grint), Dorothy's brother, favor tight, canted close-ups that speak to the secretive and at-times-conspiratorial nature of their discussions about Dorothy's well-being.  Most of the one-to-one exchanges in Servant feature tight shots, in fact. Each character's limited understanding of the big picture is a key driver of the story's central mystery. The conversational close-ups, then, are constant reminders that what we're hearing represents just one perspective on what's happening. No one has all the answers, but whoever's speaking in the moment deserves our full attention.  The cinematography, directed by Mike Gioulakis for nine of the 10 episodes, is generally more artful than it is utilitarian. Wide shots and slow, steady pans during dinnertime scenes and serious conversations inject some distance between the viewer and this shattered family, making it clear that we're on the outside looking in. The camera also has a tendency to capture scenes at skewed angles, to accentuate the Turners' grief-stricken-to-the-point-of-unhinged headspace. And lest you think the Shyamalan connection to Servant's look and feel is coincidental, the executive producer, an admirer of legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, makes his own Hitchcockian cameo in the very first episode (one of two he directed himself).  The problem is how little Servant has actually done with its wild premise and lush formal elements by the time the season ends. The central mystery couldn't be more different, but the pacing is vintage Lost. Every episode piles on more questions, pausing only occasionally to hint at an answer or two. The larger story that will presumably drive five more seasons starts to take shape by the end. But it takes nine entire episodes of largely unexplained WTF moments to get there. Servant successfully delivers on creepy atmosphere, but the pace is murder. It works best as a binge, and even then only for patient mystery-seekers.  Unfortunately, Servant kicks off on Nov. 28 with three episodes at once and then flips over to a one-per-week format. The gaps between those final seven episodes is going to be torturous, and could well sink interest in the series. The only consolation is knowing that Apple's already renewed it for at least one more season. That's stressful, too! Remember: six seasons. It's an awful lot of commitment to expect from TV watchers in 2019 in the midst of so many other options. Recent examples like Watchmen and The Mandalorian make a strong case for the value of week-to-week episodic programming. Servant makes it clear that the binge still has value.  I'm not going to sit here and say I didn't enjoy parts of Servant's first season. There's an intriguing mystery at the center of this story, and strong performances from the key players – I haven't even talked about Grint and his growling American accent! – help to carry you past some questionable motivations and choices. That said, it's also a fact that a very long path forward has already been laid out, and there's no certainty at this point that it will all come to fruition. The slow pace of Servant's blooming mystery will feel just right for a certain kind of viewer, especially with the artful execution. But you've got to ask yourself going in if you really want to invest in a question mark.

2017-07-17

WHAT DOES THE STUDY SAY? A draft version of the Department of Energy's (DOE) baseload power study blames declining demand and cheap natural gas -- not regulations or renewable power -- for changes in the electricity grid. The grid has changed because of "a long-standing drop in electricity demand relative to previous expectations and years of low electric prices driven by high natural gas availability," according to a June 26 draft version of the report. ThinkProgess and Reuters both posted leaked versions of the report on Monday. The report is likely to change before it's released, possibly this month. E&E News reported that the current version of the study pulls out its conclusions about cheap gas and electricity demand, and a spokeswoman told the paper the draft report is not current. An Energy Department spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment from The Hill on Monday. But the early version of the study is out of step with Trump administration rhetoric on energy policy. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who mandated the report in April, has said the study is designed to ensure regulations and the rise of renewables don't undercut the electric grid, a premise that renewable power supporters have repeatedly criticized. Read more here.   EPA: NO NEW NITROGEN DIOXIDE LIMIT: The Trump administration says the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not update its standards for nitrogen dioxide pollution concentrations. The agency said it has completed a scientific review of the nitrogen dioxide standard from 2010 and determined that it is sufficiently protective of public health. "EPA proposes that the current [standards] don't need to be changed because they provide the appropriate public health protection, with an adequate margin of safety, including for older adults, children and people with asthma," an agency spokeswoman said in a statement. The EPA released a formal proposal Monday to keep the current limits in place. It will take public comments on the proposal before making it final. Nitrogen dioxide is a pollutant from burning fossil fuels and comes primarily from vehicles, power plants and industrial facilities. Inhaling it can exacerbate asthma and other respiratory illnesses. The current limit for nitrogen dioxide concentrations in ambient air are 53 parts per billion averaged over a year and a maximum 100 parts per billion for a one-hour period. The standard was last updated in 2010, and the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, recommended in April to keep the existing standard, based on its review of the scientific literature. Read more here.   ENERGY WEEK IN THE HOUSE: It might be "Made in America" week at the White House, but the House of Representatives has a different agenda.   The House will vote on four energy or environment bills this week designed both to crack down on federal regulatory efforts and spur energy development in the United States. The Rules Committee on Monday will begin the process of bringing to the floor Rep. Pete Olson's (R-Texas) bill to slow down the EPA's regulatory schedule for ozone pollution. Republicans and industry groups have rallied around the bill as a way to help states and localities come into compliance with current ozone standards before new ones roll out. Later in the week, the House will vote on three energy bills. One would extend permitting for hydropower facilities; another would ease restrictions on energy imports and exports with Canada and Mexico; and the third would overhaul the permitting of interstate natural gas pipeline projects.       DEPUTY INTERIOR PICK HEADING TO THE FLOOR: Senate leaders are teeing up a vote on a controversial Interior Department nominee. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellTrump faces crucial decisions on economy, guns Are Democrats turning Trump-like? House Democrat calls for gun control: Cities can ban plastic straws but 'we can't ban assault weapons?' MORE (R-Ky.) filed cloture on David Bernhardt's nomination to be deputy secretary of Interior on Monday, putting the chamber on a path toward a likely procedural vote Wednesday, followed by up to 30 hours of debate before a final vote. Bernhardt would be only the second nominee at Interior to get a confirmation vote, following Secretary Ryan Zinke. Democrats have raised concerns about Bernhardt's lobbying work, which overlaps with a lot of the industries that Bernhardt would help to regulate at Interior. The senators questioned his ability to act impartially as the No. 2 official in charge the bulk of the nation's public land, though Bernhardt promised to follow ethics rules regarding recusals from matters involving former clients. Republicans broadly support Bernhardt, and the Senate Western Caucus last week urged McConnell to bring his nomination to the floor. Read more here.   ON TAP TUESDAY I: The House Appropriations Committee will mark up its $31.4 billion Interior and EPA spending bill. In other spending moves, a Senate Appropriations Committee panel will mark up its energy and water spending bill. Senators will do the same with their version of the Interior and EPA bill later this week. Read more about the rest of the week's schedule here.   ON TAP TUESDAY II: Perry and Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, will hold a press conference at the National Press Club.   Rest of Tuesday's agenda ... A House Energy and Commerce Committee panel will hold a hearing on energy markets. Birol will testify at a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on North American energy and resources security. Two House Natural Resources Committee panels will hold hearings: one on the impact of natural resources laws and another on oil and gas development in Alaska.   AROUND THE WEB: A federal judge has ordered Virginia's largest utility to revise its plan for fixing a leaking coal ash storage facility, the Associated Press reports. A California state Senate committee moved along the bill to extend the state's cap-and-trade program Monday, setting up the legislation for an evening final vote, the Los Angeles Times reports. India has purchased its first ever crude oil shipment from the United States, Reuters reports.   IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Check out stories from Monday and the weekend ... -Senate moves toward vote on Trump's Interior deputy nominee -Draft DOE study blames low demand, not regs, for power plant closures -EPA to retain standards for nitrogen dioxide pollution -Greens launch ad campaign to defend EPA budget -Week ahead: House panel taking up EPA, Interior spending bill -Macron says Trump 'understood' importance of Paris climate deal   Please send tips and comments to Timothy Cama, [email protected] and Devin Henry [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter: @Timothy_Cama, @dhenry, @thehill 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.

2019-04-27

National Rifle Association (NRA) President Oliver NorthOliver Laurence NorthThree more NRA officials reportedly step down Fox News host roasts NRA's LaPierre: 'An odious little grifter' who needs to go Fourth NRA board member resigns amid leadership turmoil MORE announced Saturday that he will not run for reelection amid a rash of infighting at the gun rights group's annual meeting. “Please know I hoped to be with you today as NRA president endorsed for reelection. I’m now informed that that will not happen,” North said in a letter read at the NRA’s national convention by Richard Childress, the group’s first vice president. BREAKING: @NRA Board member reads a letter from Oliver North saying he has been forced out of the organization due to his allegations that NRA leaders engaged in financial improprieties. North’s term ends Monday. #NRAAM pic.twitter.com/NNUgjhFmwh The announcement comes less than a day after bombshell reports surfaced in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal detailing a leadership struggle between North and NRA CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre. The reports revealed a letter LaPierre sent to the NRA board alleging that North was extorting him and pressuring him to resign over allegations of financial misdeeds. In his own letter, North said he was looking out for the NRA’s best interests and that he was forming a crisis committee to probe internal financial matters.  The clash between North and LaPierre is playing out amid the group's annual national convention in Indianapolis. President TrumpDonald John TrumpFacebook releases audit on conservative bias claims Harry Reid: 'Decriminalizing border crossings is not something that should be at the top of the list' Recessions happen when presidents overlook key problems MORE traveled to Indiana to address the gathering of gun rights advocates on Friday before returning to Washington. The feud between the top NRA officials is reportedly rooted in a larger row between the gun rights group and Ackerman McQueen, its advertising firm, which led the NRA to file a lawsuit earlier this month. The NRA says Ackerman McQueen has refused to provide records to support its billings, while the advertising firm ripped the lawsuit as “frivolous” and “inaccurate.” The NRA is seeking details regarding Ackerman McQueen’s contract with North. The firm produces a documentary program on NRATV hosted by North. The NRA executive vice president claimed that while the advertising firm paid North millions of dollars annually for the documentary program, only three episodes have been produced so far. LaPierre revealed in his letter a phone conversation between North and a senior NRA staffer this week in which North said Ackerman McQueen was preparing to send a letter to the board that would be “bad for me, two other members of my executive team and the Association.” LaPierre reportedly wrote that the letter in question “would contain a devastating account of our financial status, sexual harassment charges against a staff member, accusations of wardrobe expenses and excessive staff travel expenses.” He added that after the call “others informed me that I needed to withdraw the NRA lawsuit against [Ackerman McQueen] or be smeared.” He added that he was informed that Ackerman McQueen would not send the damaging letter if he resigned. “Without notice to the board, the NRA filed a lawsuit against Ackerman McQueen. In addition, a series of articles in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times were alleged of financial mismanagement by senior NRA officers. If true, the NRA nonprofit status is threatened,” North said of the dispute to the NRA in Saturday’s letter. North, whose term ends Monday, said he joined the NRA as president at LaPierre’s urging. “In spring of 2018, NRA EVP and CEO Wayne LaPierre urged me to retire from my job at Fox News, become the president and [accept] a salary position with Ackerman McQueen, so I agreed to do so in order to help build the NRA membership and resources,” he said.  The 76-member NRA board will likely seek to work to resolve the new leadership vacuum when it meets on Monday. 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.

2019-12-20 00:00:00

* Euro zone periphery govt bond yields http://tmsnrt.rs/2ii2Bqr (Updates prices, adds details) LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Germany's 10-year government bond yield held steady near six-month highs on Friday before the release of euro zone consumer confidence data. Bond yields have risen this week, following the release of better-than-expected business confidence data and an interest rate increase by the Swedish central bank that ended negative rates, causing speculation about the European Central Bank's policy next year, where the key interest rate is at minus 0.5%. "There is no convincing single reason for this movement in yields," UniCredit analysts said in a note sent out to clients. "The most likely explanation is a mixture of uncertainty regarding the monetary policy outlook for next year ... improving sentiment and profit taking after a strong year-to-date performance and ahead of the year end." Analysts also stressed that thin year-end trading volumes meant it took little to move markets. Market sentiment saw a boost after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that the United States and China would sign phase one of their trade agreement in early January. Mnuchin said the documentation was completely finished and just undergoing a technical "scrub", though Beijing has so far dodged all details of the deal. Most 10-year bond yields were unchanged in early trade , with Germany's benchmark at -0.231%, off Thursday's six-month high at -0.208%. Italian yields gained, with the 10-year bond rising 2 basis points to 1.414%. Data on Friday showed that morale among Italian businesses and consumers improved in December. The "flash" euro zone consumer confidence reading is due at 1500 GMT. A minus 7 reading is expected by a Reuters poll, a marginal improvement on last month's figure. It follows Germany's Ifo business sentiment survey on Wednesday, which beat expectations and implied growth of 0.2% in the fourth quarter for the euro zone's largest economy . Investors will also be watching the final U.S. gross domestic product reading due at 1330 GMT. (Reporting by Yoruk Bahceli, editing by Larry King and Nick Macfie)

2017-08-02 09:00:00

It's no secret that Ryan Murphy loves using his favorite actors and actresses across his many TV shows. Sarah Paulson, for instance, is a given player in any American Horror Story season, but she also starred in Murphy's American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson. This time around, Murphy is tapping Scream Queens stars for American Horror Story: Cult. The American Horror Story creator revealed in April that Scream Queens' Billie Lourd would be show for season 7. But it looks like she's not the only Chanel we'll be seeing more of this fall. Murphy revealed on Tuesday that Emma Roberts, the original Chanel herself, will be a part of American Horror Story: Cult, too. Murphy's photo shows Roberts in a trench coat, with her hair pulled back — oh, and she's holding a giant knife. Even with the knife, though, she still looks more normal than the other cast members in the photos Murphy's shared. There's no blue hair in sight, and she's not covered in bees. "Look who showed up on the set of Cult looking glamorous and ready for action," Murphy captioned the photo. So it's safe to assume this wasn't just a set visit to see her pals. Plus, Roberts starred in American Horror Story: Coven, so she's clearly familiar with Murphy's twisted anthology series. Roberts also shared the same photo on her own Instagram page. As Refinery29 entertainment editor Maia Efrem pointed out, the Scream Queens Chanels were honestly running something pretty close to a cult anyway. So this AHS season shouldn't be too much of a stretch for Lourd and Roberts. All we need now is an appearance from Abigail Breslin, and AHS: Cult will have the whole Chanel trifecta down. Read These Stories Next: Sick Of TV? These Shows Will Get You Addicted All Over AgainExactly What Women Spend To Compete On The BachelorThe Best British Shows You Should Be Watching

2019-08-21 19:00:04

Why isn’t anyone taking this problem more seriously? Unlikely isn’t the same thing as impossible, even though it’s human nature to conflate the two. Mr. Walsh is the author of a forthcoming book on existential risks. If you’re planning to visit Yellowstone National Park this Labor Day weekend, I have good news: It is very, very, very unlikely that the supervolcano beneath it will erupt while you’re there. The Yellowstone supervolcano — an 8 out of 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index — has erupted three times over the past 2.1 million years, most recently 640,000 years ago. A Yellowstone eruption would be like nothing humanity has ever experienced. First would come increasingly intense earthquakes, a sign that magma beneath Yellowstone was rushing toward the surface. Then magma would burst through the ground in a titanic eruption, discharging the toxic innards of the earth to the air. It would continue for days, burying Yellowstone in lava within a 40-mile radius. A bad day at the park. But the devastation around Yellowstone would be just the beginning. Volcanologists believe a Yellowstone supereruption would bury large swaths of Colorado, Wyoming and Utah in up to three feet of toxic volcanic ash. Depending on the weather patterns, much of the Midwest would receive a few inches, too, plunging the region into darkness. Even the coasts — where a majority of Americans live — would most likely see a dusting as the ash cloud spread. Crops would be destroyed; pastureland would be contaminated. Power lines and electrical transformers would be ruined, potentially knocking out much of the grid. That’s just the United States. Modeling by meteorologists has found that the aerosols released could spread globally if the eruption occurred during the summer. Over the short term, as the toxic cloud blocked sunlight, global average temperatures could plunge significantly — and not return to normal for several years. Rainfall would decline sharply. That might be enough to trigger a die-off of tropical rain forests. Farming could collapse, beginning with the Midwest. It would be, as a group of researchers wrote in a 2015 report on extreme geohazards for the European Science Foundation, “the greatest catastrophe since the dawn of civilization.” Supervolcanoes like Yellowstone represent what are known as existential risks — ultra-catastrophes that could lead to global devastation, even human extinction. They can be natural, like supereruptions or a major asteroid impact of the scale that helped kill off the dinosaurs, or they can be human-made, like nuclear war or an engineered virus. They are, by definition, worse than the worst things humanity has ever experienced. What they are not, however, is common — and that presents a major psychological and political challenge. Though asteroids get the press and the Michael Bay movies, existential risk experts largely agree that supervolcanoes — of which there are 20 scattered around the planet — are the natural threat that poses the highest probability of human extinction. But that’s not the same thing as high. The probability of a supereruption at Yellowstone in any given year is 1 in 730,000. But extremely unlikely isn’t the same thing as impossible, even though it’s human nature to conflate the two. What sets existential risks apart from everyday dangers isn’t likelihood but consequence. Let’s say, as scientists have modeled, that a supereruption might kill 10 percent of the global population. Even if such eruptions occur roughly every 714,000 years — the low end of the frequency range — the death toll of that catastrophe equates to the expected loss of over 1,000 people annually, averaged out between now and when that supervolcano finally blows. If they occur roughly every 45,000 years — the high end of the range — that annual expected death toll jumps to some 17,000. A bit of comparison helps here. Aviation accidents around the world caused 556 deaths in 2018. The Federal Aviation Administration alone spends more than $7 billion a year on aviation safety. Yet the United States spends only about $22 million annually on its volcano hazard programs — even though supervolcanoes, viewed over the longest of the long term, will kill far more people than plane crashes. The difference, of course, is that aviation poses a risk that is relatively constant and known. There will probably never be a year in which no one dies in an aviation accident, but there will definitely never be a year in which 10 percent of the global population dies in a single plane crash. Yet that could happen with a supervolcano, an asteroid strike or a nuclear war. We can reduce these existential risks. NASA has budgeted $150 million a year on planetary defense and could invest in space-based telescopes that might catch the asteroids we’re missing now. It would cost about $370 million a year to bring the rest of the world up to the same level of volcanic monitoring that the United States has, which would lessen the chance of being surprised by a supereruption and thus reduce the potential death toll. Human-made existential risks like nuclear war or even artificial intelligence are, of course, well within our ability to prevent. Our species faces greater existential peril than we ever have before, but unlike through most of our existence, we now have the ability to protect ourselves. What has happened before can and will happen again, eventually — but because we remain confined to the brief human time horizons of our own experience, we treat them as unreal. In doing so, we leave ourselves vulnerable to what we can’t imagine. Bryan Walsh (@bryanrwalsh) is the author of “End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World.” The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected]. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

2019-08-23 00:00:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire industrialist David Koch, a driving force behind conglomerate Koch Industries who as one of the world’s richest people became a major financier of conservative causes and political candidates, has died at age 79, his brother said on Friday. Charles Koch, Koch Industries Inc’s chairman, disclosed the death in a statement that touched on his younger brother’s lengthy battle with prostate cancer and his philanthropic contributions to medical research, education and the arts. “He will be greatly missed, but never forgotten,” Koch said in a statement addressed to employees. “David was proud of the extraordinary work you all have done to make Koch Industries the successful company that it is today.” Koch, a philanthropist and patron of cultural and medical institutions, amassed his vast wealth with a large ownership stake in Koch Industries, the Wichita, Kansas-based company he ran with Charles. With Charles as chairman and chief executive and David as executive vice president, Koch Industries - one of the world’s largest privately held businesses - aggressively expanded beyond the oil refining business their father created into an array of new ventures. David Koch stepped down from the business and political activities in June 2018, citing declining health. He and his brother Charles, both Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained engineers, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to back conservative causes and Republican political candidates. They were fierce critics of Democratic President Barack Obama but failed in their bid to stop him from being re-elected in 2012. The brothers funded groups like Americans for Prosperity that spread their libertarian vision of conservatism advocating lower taxes and fewer regulations on businesses, and donated heavily to Republican candidates. Critics said the brothers used their riches to buy political influence and peddle positions that would benefit them financially. The Kochs were no fans of businessman-turned-politican Donald Trump and backed rivals for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Once Trump was nominated by the party, the brothers redirected their political donations toward congressional races rather than the presidential election in which Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Koch brothers strongly opposed Trump’s protectionist trade policies, which abandoned free trade deals, aimed tariffs at close U.S. allies and picked fights with major trade partners like China. David and Charles Koch (pronounced “Coke”) each were worth $58.7 billion, ranking 7th and 8th on the list of the world’s richest people, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Their combined wealth exceeded that of the world’s richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Their father, Fred Koch, founded Koch Industries and built gas plants in Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union before becoming an ardent anti-communist and a founder of the archconservative John Birch Society. In 1991, David survived a plane collision in Los Angeles that killed 34 people. After landing, his USAir flight from Ohio slammed into a SkyWest commuter plane on the runway. “I felt that the good Lord spared my life for a purpose. And since then, I’ve been busy doing all the good works I can think of,” Koch told New York magazine in 2010. David, a 6-foot-5-inch (2-meter) former star of the MIT basketball team, was a familiar figure at cultural events in New York City, joined by his wife, Julia, 23 years his junior. Koch donated more than $1 billion in his lifetime. He gave hundreds of millions of dollars to medical facilities, art and natural history museums and the New York City Ballet. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children. Koch ran unsuccessfully for U.S. vice president in 1980 - running to the right of conservative hero Ronald Reagan - on a long-shot Libertarian Party ticket that called for abolishing income taxes, minimum wage laws, government regulatory agencies, the Social Security retirement program, the FBI and the CIA. Under the leadership of John and David, Koch Industries was involved in oil refining, chemicals, biofuels, pipelines, commodities trading, ranching, fertilizer and paper. It made well-known everyday products such as Dixie disposable cups, Brawny paper towels, Quilted Northern toilet paper, Stainmaster carpet and stretchy Lycra fabric. David guided the chemical equipment side of his company from his home in New York while Charles remained in Wichita. The two brothers each owned 42 percent of Koch Industries. The Koch brothers helped back the conservative Tea Party movement that arose after Obama took office and tenaciously fought his policies, including the 2010 Obamacare healthcare law that reduced the number of Americans without medical insurance by millions. Koch was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1992 and underwent radiation treatment, surgery and hormone therapy. The experience prompted him to donate hundreds of millions of dollars to medical institutions, including MIT, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. David Koch was embroiled in a bitter family feud that erupted in 1980 in which his fraternal twin, Bill, and another brother, Frederick, accused David and Charles of cheating them out of hundreds of millions of dollars. Two decades of court battles ensued. Their mother disinherited Bill and Frederick before her death. During one courtroom showdown in 1998, David sobbed on the witness stand while describing his broken relationship with his twin. After a legal settlement with undisclosed terms in 2001 resolved the feud, the twins restored their relationship, and David served as best man when Bill married his third wife. Koch married his wife Julia in 1996. She recalled his dedication to their family on Friday, describing Koch as a father whose “sensitive heart had him shed a tear at the beauty of his daughter’s ballet, and beam with pride when his son beat him at chess. We will miss the fifth link in our family.” Reporting by Will Dunham and Steve Holland; Writing by Makini Brice; editing by Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis

2016-11-23

DENVER (Reuters) - A federal judge in Denver ordered the U.S. Department of State to reconsider its denial of a passport to a Navy veteran from Colorado who identifies as neither male or female, court documents showed on Tuesday. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Dana Zzyym, who was born with ambiguous sex characteristics, and had been attempting to travel to Mexico City for a meeting of intersex people - those born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not fit the typical definitions of male or female. “I shouldn’t have to suffer at the hands of my government,” said Zzyym, who was born in 1958 and raised as a boy. Zzyym welcomed the ruling but said it was the first step in a long battle for rights of intersex people. Zzyym’s lawsuit, filed last year by the LGBT rights legal firm Lambda Legal Defense Fund in federal court in Denver, argued that the policy of requiring either a male or female designation on passport applications violated due process and equal protection rights for intersex people. U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson concluded in a 12-page ruling that the State Department’s “binary-only gender passport policy” did not follow a rational decision-making process and ordered officials to reconsider it. Jackson did not consider the constitutionality of the policy but kept the door open for doing so. “The Court will not address the constitutional issues unless and until it needs to,” Jackson wrote. A spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs said the agency is “not able to comment on current litigation.” When Zzyym was born, the gender box on the birth certificate was initially left blank, according to the lawsuit. Zzyym’s parents later decided to raise the child as a boy named Brian Orin Whitney and “male” was added to the birth certificate. Enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1978, Whitney served for six years as a machinist mate, with three tours of duty in Beirut. After being discharged, Whitney determined the male gender identification was “arbitrary” and explored living as a woman but found that did not fit either, the lawsuit said. Whitney ultimately adopted the name Dana Zzyym and was denied a passport while trying to travel to Mexico City for the International Intersex Forum in 2014. “It’s a painful hypocrisy that, simply because I refused to lie about my gender on a government document, the government would ignore who I am,” Zzyym said.

2016-10-05 19:12:00

Kourtney Kardashian touched down in Los Angeles on Monday afternoon — returning from Paris Fashion week where her sister Kim Kardashian West was robbed at gunpoint. The 37-year-old mother of two was flanked by bodyguards upon her LAX arrival, shedding Kardashian from a sea of reporters and paparazzi. Kardashian was partying at Paris nightclub L’Arc with sister Kendall Jenner, 20, at the time of the robbery — accompanied by Kardashian West’s bodyguard Pascal Duvier. They were photographed at they left The Peninsula Paris with Hailey Baldwin and Kim’s assistant-slash-BFF Stephanie Sheppard, among others. Kardashian West was staying at The No Address Hotel on Monday when she was held at gunpoint in her room by five masked men dressed as police officers. The took two cellphones and approximately $10 million worth of jewelry, including a $4 million ring. She had finished FaceTiming with brother Rob Kardashian and his fiancée Blac Chyna to congratulate them on their baby shower around about 2:30 a.m. – minutes before armed robbers broke into her hotel room. A source tells PEOPLE it was perfectly routine that Duvier was with her sisters at the time. “It wouldn’t be that strange for Pascal to be dispatched to be with Kourtney or the other family members once Kim was ‘safely’ in her residence,” a source close to the family told PEOPLE. “And he regularly provides security for the whole family – not just Kim.” The Kardashian sisters had spent the week in Paris with mom Kris Jenner and husband Kanye West. Ahead of the incident, Kim and Kourtney attended a private dinner hosted by designer Azzedine Alaïa on Sunday evening. • With reporting by ELIZABETH LEONARD

2017-08-26

Aug 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said late Friday it had lifted some gasoline requirements for Texas to address potential shortages resulting from Hurricane Harvey. The waiver allows for the sale of gasoline that does not comply with regular environmental guidelines until Sept. 15. (Reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

2018-02-22

Feb 23 (Reuters) - Myob Group Ltd: * ‍FY REVENUE FROM ORDINARY ACTIVITIES UP 12.44% TO $416.5 MILLION * FINAL 2017 DIVIDEND PER SECURITY DECLARED 5.75 CENTS PER SECURITY * FY ‍PROFIT FROM ORDINARY ACTIVITIES AFTER TAX ATTRIBUTABLE UP 16.33 % TO $60.7 MILLION​ * EXPECT TRANSACTION AND INTEGRATION COSTS (INCLUDING ACCELERATING PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT) BETWEEN $15 MILLION TO $20 MILLION IN FY18 * EXPECTS FY18 ORGANIC REVENUE GROWTH TO REMAIN IN 8-10 PERCENT RANGE AND EBITDA MARGINS OF 43-45 PCT‍​ * EXPECTS FY18 RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INVESTMENT TO BE ABOUT 16% OF REVENUE Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: ([email protected])

2017-02-06

Like many great tech companies, it all started in a garage. Now they work with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Making movies and television shows can be a wasteful process. But when lights work more efficiently, it means the crew needs fewer generators and the demand for power is less, thus helping to decrease the carbon footprint of a given production. LA-based lighting manufacturing company Hive makes high output, energy efficient plasma lighting specifically for the television and film industry.  Hive is part of a community of socially-minded innovators and entrepreneurs who make up the LA Cleantech Incubator (LACI) and are committed to finding clean tech solutions for California and beyond. “It’s inspiring to come to work every day in an environment where people are pushing the boundaries of technology and doing so in a sustainable way,” says Robert Rutherford, co-founder and CEO of Hive Lighting. Watch the video above to learn more.

2017-09-08

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The European Central Bank will maintain its ultra-easy policy stance until it is happy with the path of inflation in the euro zone, ECB’s policymaker Philip Lane said, citing a new round of cheap loans to banks as one of the available tools. “What we have now is the forward guidance for 2018 and the accommodative monetary stance is there until we see convincing evidence that inflation is on a sustainable path toward the target,” Lane, who heads the Irish central bank, said. The ECB is due to decide next month on the future of its 2.3 trillion euro bond-buying program, with sources telling Reuters a cut in the pace of buying is on the cards. “What we would be doing in the autumn is to work out the calibration of our monetary policy instruments,” he added. “Of course we’ve accumulated a big stock at this point as well and then you’ve other measures that are not currently active that as a matter of logic, they are part of what can be done such as versions of TLTROs (targeted longer-term refinancing operations).” Reporting By Padraic Halpin; Writing by Francesco Canepa in Frankfurt

2018-10-17 19:00:03

Democrats need to be focused on the midterms. Ms. Cottle is a member of the editorial board. Hillary Clinton has been on a bit of a media tear the past few weeks, holding forth on both the personal and the political — and making clear that someone needs to perform an intervention before she further complicates life for her fellow Democrats. In these furious, final days before the midterms, Democratic candidates need to be laser focused on their message to voters. They need to be talking health care and jobs and other issues of intense, personal concern to their electorate. They do not need to be talking about impeachment, or about the results of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s DNA testing. And they definitely do not need to get distracted by unnecessary drama generated by comments from one of the party’s most iconic, and most controversial, figures. And yet, there was Mrs. Clinton, in an Oct. 9 interview with CNN, sharing her take on the need for Democrats to — as Michelle Obama might have put it — go low with today’s Republicans. As Mrs. Clinton sees it, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.” She is hardly alone in this assessment. It’s safe to say that a vast majority of Democrats feel that President Trump and his congressional accomplices need to be reined in — and preferably hogtied — to halt their flagrant assault on democratic norms and institutions. But there are also plenty of Americans, including many of the independents and swing voters the Democrats are working so hard to woo in this cycle, who feel queasy about the depths to which public discourse has sunk and are not eager for an arms race of unpleasantness. Having Mrs. Clinton proclaim political civility dead until her team wins again is unlikely to prove an inspirational message for these voters. It is, however, extremely likely to electrify the Republican base, in whose collective lizard brain Mrs. Clinton still looms large — the ultimate boogeyman to be invoked whenever a Republican politician is having trouble exciting his constituents, or when a Supreme Court hopeful needs to shore up his endangered nomination. For a G.O.P. desperate to get its voters to the polls on Nov. 6, what could be more welcome than “Crooked Hillary” jumping in to inflame partisan passions? Unfortunately, it took Mrs. Clinton less than a week to come up with an even juicier midterm gift for Trump & Company. In a sit-down with “CBS Sunday Morning,” she was asked several pointed questions about her husband’s Oval Office dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. To be fair, she was asked the questions. But her reaction was to point out that Ms. Lewinsky had been an adult at the time of the affair — as though that technical legality, when the president of the United States was getting busy with an intern who was young enough to be his daughter, was all that mattered. Mrs. Clinton then pivoted to demand why no one was investigating the myriad accusations of sexual harassment and assault against the current occupant of the White House. President Trump being a pig and an alleged sexual predator in no way excuses Bill Clinton from being a pig and an alleged sexual predator. In fact, by declining to re-examine her own husband’s acts, Mrs. Clinton only makes it easier for Mr. Trump’s defenders to ignore the current president’s. (Juanita Broaddrick’s accusation that she was raped by Mr. Clinton in 1978 can be revisited in a recent episode of the Slate podcast “Slow Burn.”) But Mrs. Clinton went further. She smacked down the notion that her husband should have resigned over the whole sordid mess — “Absolutely not” — or that it constituted an abuse of power. Which it absolutely did — and would have been even if Mr. Clinton had been the president of a small business rather than of the United States. She also insisted that she had no regrets about how she had handled her “personal life” in the 1990s: “I did what I thought was right, and I feel very good about that.” And she rejected the suggestion that having “not contended fully” with her husband’s accusers makes it harder for her to be an effective supporter of the #MeToo movement. “Well, no,” she said, “because there was the most intense, comprehensive investigation,” which she believes “came out in the right place.” It’s one thing for a wife to stand by her spouse, especially when both have long been the targets of partisan warriors dead-set on destroying them. But it is no secret that Mr. Clinton’s response to sexual scandal was to try to trash the reputations of the women involved. And while the degree to which Mrs. Clinton joined in such efforts may remain in dispute — in the CBS interview, she denies having played any role — her fundamental complicity is beyond reasonable doubt. This is the sort of moral arrogance and self-justification that has long troubled even many Democrats about Mrs. Clinton. The former first lady, turned senator, turned secretary of state may have been one of the most qualified nominees ever to run for president. But widespread ambivalence about her among not only swing voters but also her own base set the stage for her to lose the presidency to arguably the least qualified individual ever to hold that office. Two years since that loss, Mrs. Clinton remains broadly unpopular. As of late September, her favorability rating still hovered at 36 percent, down several points from where it was at the time of the election. Mrs. Clinton remains a singular obsession of Mr. Trump and his followers. The higher her profile, the more Republican leaders can use her as a rallying point for their voters. Months ago, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee boasted of his party’s plan to hang her around Democrats’ neck in the midterms: “We’re going to make them own her.” Hillary Clinton is a woman of extraordinary achievement who has earned the right to share her views on whatever topic she sees fit. But this close to Election Day, discussing hot-button issues in national interviews is nothing but problematic for her party — and, ultimately, her own legacy. She and Mr. Clinton are set to begin a series of joint speaking appearances soon after the elections. Perhaps she could save her more incendiary observations for then. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

2017-05-02 12:20:02

On Tuesday, Democrats in South Carolina will pick between a Goldman Sachs executive heavily favored by the state's party establishment and a 26-year-old Army veteran with no experience in elected office. The results say a lot about where Democrats think their opportunities are to take down Republicans. The primary will decide who vies against the Republican candidate for the seat vacated by former Rep. Mick Mulvaney, now President Trump's director of Office of Management and Budget, in a general election for the state’s Fifth Congressional District on June 20. On the Republican side, a former speaker of Georgia's House of Representatives and the state's Republican Party chair are largely seen as the leading candidates — though one outside conservative candidate has started running ads attacking her establishment rivals for removing Confederate memorials from state property. But as Roll Call points out, Democrats actually did better in 2016 in South Carolina's Fifth District than they did in any of the other special election races. And though they did lose that race by 19 points, a Democratic representative held the seat for 29 years before lawmakers redrew its boundaries in 2010. This is just one of many stories about how Democrats can best use the opportunities handed to them by an unpopular president and a congressional majority that keeps pushing unpopular bills. The winners in special elections like the one in South Carolina — and Georgia and Montana — help Democrats test out their message ahead of the 2018 midterms, when they stand to win big if they can get it right. So far, the race has attracted very little attention from the national media — with the special elections in Georgia, Kansas, and Montana drawing far more press and money from outside donors. But in South Carolina, Democrats will chose who they want to lead them into that uphill battle for the seat. The frontrunner is Archie Parnell, 66, of Sumter, who served as the managing director of Goldman Sachs Hong Kong from 1996 to 2016. Parnell spent 10 years as a tax attorney for Exxon Mobil before that. "He'll be the smartest candidate," Steve Creech, the former mayor of Sumter, said of Parnell, while adding that the House candidate does not participate in local politics. But Parnell's CV didn't sound like the right choice for Democrats in the district to Alexis Frank, the 26-year-old who decided to launch her long-shot bid against Parnell after learning he was the choice of local Democratic Party officials. She lists as her key experience serving as a paralegal in the US Army. "After the election, I reached out to the Democratic Party here and they said they already had a candidate and that they didn't want to have a primary, and I said I'd love to put my support behind him because this is a really important election," Frank said. "Then I found out who he was." Frank, a biracial mother of two who lives with her husband at an Army base, added that she “was more equipped to speak to people on the level that they need." “People are looking for something different, and I didn’t think [Parnell] was different enough,” she said. Members of Frank’s team say they had a similar reaction. Brittany Kelly, a volunteer with the campaign, recalled researching Parnell after local Democrats announced his candidacy, and said the only thing she could find was his LinkedIn page listing his Exxon and Goldman positions. She and a few friends then decided to look for someone else to support, drawing on a group that attended the local Women's March held after Trump's victory. “Everyone started texting and messaging each other and asking, 'Is this really the guy they told us to trust?’ And, ‘My god, isn't this everything we want to run against?'" Kelly said of Parnell. "They're going by the traditional Democratic playbook, and we've decided that's already caused us a huge number of losses." A third Democratic candidate, former Marine Les Murphy, entered the race late and has received less attention. Among the Republicans, Georgia state representative and real estate businessman Ralph Norman Jr. has raised the most money — $614,000, half of which he donated to himself, according to OpenSecrets. Of the other six Republican candidates in the field, state Rep. Tommy Pope is expected to be Norman’s leading challenger. Then there's Sheri Few, who has released online ads blasting Pope and Norman for voting to take down the Confederate flag from the state Capitol after a white supremacist murdered nine black parishioners at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston in 2015. "It's erasing not only Southern heritage but American history. ... Now they're renaming streets and colleges and destroying monuments to Confederate soldiers," Few said in the ad. Her slogan is "Make America America Again," according to the State. Democrats have viewed the handful of special elections being held this spring and summer as an opportunity to field-test which kind of candidate gives them the best chance to erase Republicans' congressional majority. Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old Georgia Democrat and Hill aide, represents one path for the party. Competing in a wealthy Atlanta suburb, Ossoff ran a campaign that minimized economic populism in favor of one that attacked Republicans over Trump’s values and personality. Ossoff failed to clear the 50 percent mark needed to avoid a runoff, but he did win 48 percent of the vote — a big improvement for Democrats in the deeply red district. Other kinds of Democratic candidates have also shown promising signs of improving the party’s formula. James Thompson, a civil rights attorney and vocal Bernie Sanders supporter, improved Democrats' performance in Kansas's Fourth Congressional District by 20 points in a special election this February — with almost no support from the national Democratic Party. And Rob Quist, the banjo-playing, Sanders-loving populist trying to win an upcoming special election in Montana on May 25, will give us another chance to see if Sanders-style populism can be harnessed by Democrats in conservative territory. Also coming up for Democrats: a race on June 6 to replace former Rep. Xavier Becerra in California’s 34th Congressional District, a race to replace former Rep. Tom Marino in Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District (the special election hasn’t yet been scheduled), and then a special election on August 15 in Alabama to replace former Sen. Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general. But the Democratic candidates in South Carolina are offering two entirely different possibilities. None of the candidates in the other races have the deep ties to Goldman that Parnell does — a connection that seemed to hurt Hillary Clinton during the presidential but does not appear to bother the host of prominent South Carolina Democrats who have lined up behind Parnell’s candidacy. But Frank, too, would represent a path for the party that none of the other special elections has presented. In our interview, the young candidate said she was more intimately connected to the grassroots protesters who came out to oppose Trump’s agenda on the streets, and implied that she’d emerged organically from the party ranks in a way that Parnell had not. That, Frank said, is one reason she thought she’d have a better chance of winning the special election runoff in June. But to find out, she’ll have to get through her own party first on Tuesday.

2019-09-19 00:00:00

MADRID (Reuters) - British Brexit minister Stephen Barclay said on Thursday the conservative government will abide by the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on the parliament suspension ordered by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Britain’s top judicial body, the Supreme Court, is hearing a third and final day of legal arguments on Thursday over whether Prime Minister Boris Johnson acted unlawfully when he suspended parliament in the run-up to Brexit. Barclay was speaking in Madrid just six weeks before the date on which Prime Minister Boris Johnson has vowed to take Britain out of the European Union by Oct. 31 “do or die”, with or without a deal. Reporting by Isla Binnie, writing by Jose Elías Rodríguez; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

2017-10-15 08:18:20

MOGADISHU, Somalia — When a double truck bombing shattered the night in Mogadishu on Saturday, rescue workers began the grim search for survivors that has become all too common as Somalia battles an Islamist insurgency. They picked through burned-out cars and hunted as best they could in a collapsed hotel. But it was only on Sunday, as emergency workers pulled body after body from the rubble of a nearly leveled downtown street, that the magnitude of the latest attack came into focus. The numbers of dead surged from 20 on Saturday night to more than 270 and counting, according to government officials. More than 300 people were injured. “This is the deadliest incident I ever remember” since the 1990s, when the government collapsed, a shaken Senator Abshir Ahmed said in a Facebook posting. The attack came as the United States under President Trump has made a renewed push to defeat the Shabab, Somali-based militants who have terrorized the country and East Africa for years, killing civilians across borders, worsening famine and destabilizing a broad stretch of the region. While no one had yet claimed responsibility for the bombings, suspicion immediately fell on the group, which frequently targets the capital, Mogadishu. The Shabab — which once controlled most of the city — have lost much of their territory in recent years, the result of attacks by African Union forces, a fitfully strengthening Somali Army and increasing American air power. But the group remains a potent killing force, despite years of American counterterrorism operations. Some of the militants have proclaimed allegiance to Al Qaeda, while others support the Islamic State. As the death toll grew Sunday, the Somali president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, declared three days of national mourning. He donated blood for the victims and asked his fellow citizens to do the same. “Today’s horrific attack proves our enemy would stop nothing to cause our people pain and suffering. Let’s unite against terror,” Mr. Mohamed said on Twitter. “Time to unite and pray together. Terror won’t win.” On Sunday, fires were still burning at the scene of the bombings. Senator Ahmed, deputy speaker of the upper house of Parliament, wrote on his Facebook page that the director of one hospital had told him at least 130 bodies there were burned beyond recognition. Witnesses said the attack was made even worse by the number of cars stuck on the road where one of the bombs exploded. “There was a traffic jam, and the road was packed with bystanders and cars,” a waiter at a nearby restaurant said. “It’s a disaster.” Doctors at hospitals in Mogadishu struggled to save the wounded on Sunday. The Associated Press quoted one nurse as saying staff members had seen “unspeakable horrors” in a hospital where the smell of blood was strong. The news agency reported that exhausted doctors fought to keep their eyes open even as the screams of victims echoed through the halls. Hopes for Somalia tend to ebb and flow after more than 25 years of chaos since its central government collapsed. In recent years, there has been a bit more optimism with a new government in power. Still, in the fragile world of Somali politics, the threat of the Shabab never went away. Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in attacks on the capital this year alone. Analysts thought the latest attack might have been in retaliation both for the loss of territory and for increasing American drone attacks since Mr. Trump loosened restrictions meant to strictly limit civilian casualties. United States Special Operations forces have launched 15 airstrikes against Shabab leaders, fighters and training camps since the beginning of the year, including five strikes last month, according to The Long War Journal, which tracks American strikes against militants in Africa. One of the strikes, on July 30, killed Ali Jabal, a Shabab commander who led forces and conducted attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia. After he was killed, the Pentagon’s Africa Command said his removal from the battlefield would significantly degrade the Shabab’s ability to coordinate attacks in the capital and in southern Somalia. Counterterrorism specialists said the size of the bombings Saturday, which were well beyond what the Shabab have conducted before, suggested that the group might have received help from operatives with the Qaeda arm in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is renowned for its prowess with explosives. Africa specialists said the attack could backfire on the Shabab — and that may be one reason the group has not claimed responsibility, at least so far. “When the group feels under pressure, it lashes out with more significant attacks,” said Tricia Bacon, a Somali specialist at American University in Washington and a former State Department counterterrorism analyst. She called the attack “a bad miscalculation” by the Shabab that will likely shore up public resolve for the government’s commitment to fighting the militants. Some analysts also suggest that the Shabab may have been trying to take advantage of Somalia’s most recent political instability; the federal and regional governments have disagreed over which side to support in a political standoff between Qatar and a group of countries led by Saudi Arabia. One of those countries, the United Arab Emirates, supplied weapons to some of the regional governments in 2015. American officials condemned the Mogadishu bombings, calling them “cowardly attacks” that “reinvigorate the commitment of the United States to assist our Somali and African Union partners to combat the scourge of terrorism.” Previous attacks on the capital this year have killed or wounded at least 771 people, according to data compiled by the Long War Journal. The operations included remotely detonated vehicles, suicide car bombings and suicide assaults. At least 11 of these attacks have been assassination attempts against Somali military, intelligence, and government personnel, as well as Somali journalists. The blast occurred two days after the head of the United States Africa Command was in Mogadishu to meet with Somalia’s president, and after the country’s defense minister and army chief resigned for undisclosed reasons. About 200 to 300 members of American Special Operations forces work with soldiers from Somalia and other African nations like Kenya and Uganda to carry out more than a half-dozen raids per month, according to senior American military officials. The operations are a combination of ground raids and drone strikes. A member of the United States Navy SEALs was killed and two troops were wounded in May during a raid on one of the Shabab’s compounds. It appeared to be the first American combat death in Somalia since the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident.

2019-03-28

(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is closely tracking the recent increase in farm bankruptcies which is a signal of stress in the agricultural economy, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said on Thursday. “The challenging outlook has prompted some to wonder if the industry is about to relive the hard times of the 1980s farm crisis,” Bowman said in prepared remarks at an agricultural lending conference in Deming, New Mexico. “There are some similarities.” Bowman, a Washington-based policymaker at the U.S. central bank, noted that Chapter 12 federal court filings - a type of bankruptcy protection geared mostly toward small farmers - had increased from 360 filings in 2014 to 500 in 2018. “The Federal Reserve tracks these developments closely because of their potential implications for both the economy and banking supervision,” Bowman said in remarks that did not address the outlook for monetary policy. She said the recent drop in farm incomes was a “troubling echo” of the 1980s. Bowman noted, however, that there were substantial differences between the current state of the agricultural economy and the darker days of the 1980s. Debt servicing costs for farmers are currently lower, in part because inflation and interest rates are historically low and because farmer leverage is not as high, she said. Bowman said another contrast to the 1980s was that farmland values have only declined modestly in recent years. This means banks currently lending to farmers are doing so based on relatively strong collateral. “The outlook for U.S. agriculture is challenging, though agricultural banks remain relatively stable,” Bowman said. Reporting by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

2018-12-04

Wall Street is shaping up to end the year on a high note with a strong Santa Claus rally, John Stoltzfus, Oppenheimer Asset Management's chief investment strategist, told CNBC on Monday. "I think we could probably get 7 percent out of it," he said on "Fast Money." A so-called Santa Claus rally is an increase in the stock market during late December. "There's a lot of stuff happening, and the market's not recognizing it," he argued. With wages up, consumer discretionary stocks are in position to do well through the end of the year, he said. The sector on the rose 2.5 percent on Monday, and the index finished the day up 1.1 percent. Stoltzfus says tech companies, which were ravaged by the October sell-off and ongoing volatility in November, are also a good bet because they are innovative. He compared the sector to the automotive industry's early years of replacing horses. "The changes [in technology] are so dramatic in the way companies deal with other companies, the way they deal with their customers, the way customers deal with companies," Stoltzfus said. "And now medicine is [soon] to be distributed, you know, by smartphones." The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 1.5 percent to close at 7,441.51 Monday after gaining 0.3 percent all of November. Amazon and Apple shares increased 4.9 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, on Monday. Stoltzfus also points to resumption in trade negotiations between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping as a positive sign. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also rose 287.97 points to 25,826.43 on Monday. "The fundamentals are still good," Stoltzfus said. "People are plenty worried — that's a good sign — and there's a real hot fire under the chairs of both President Trump and President Xi because they both recognize the fact" that their political careers depend on the outcome of the trade talks, he said.

2017-07-17

WASHINGTON, July 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. Trade Representative’s office said on Monday it is seeking a provision to deter currency manipulation as part of its renegotiation of the North American Free trade agreement, a move that would set a precedent in a U.S. trade deal. In a letter to lawmakers setting out negotiating objectives, USTR Robert Lighthizer said that the pact should, “through an appropriate mechanism, ensure that the NAFTA countries avoid manipulating exchange rates in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage.” Neither Canada or Mexico is currently on a U.S. Treasury a “watch list” for possible currency manipulation. (Reporting by David Lawder)

2017-06-05 22:00:00

Happy Monday, Bachelor Nation. We’re on the third episode of The Bachelorette, and you know what that means — the men are inevitably starting to go stir-crazy in the mansion, and the claws are coming out. On this week’s episode there were several shirtless scenes, quite a few catfights and one surprise elimination. Let’s jump in. Picking up where we left off last week, disgraced DeMario returned to beg for one last chance after he was gloriously exposed for lying about having a girlfriend back home. On Monday’s episode, he showed up in the middle of the cocktail party and pleaded for Rachel’s forgiveness in the driveway while every single other contestant hovered protectively 10 feet away. Unsurprisingly, DeMario is not very good at groveling and essentially made the whole apology about himself. “In order to experience joy, you need pain” — just stop right there. Rachel, our queen, was pretty much like, thanks, but no thanks, you’re a man-child.  Rachel: “What I saw yesterday — that was a boy, and I’m looking for a man.” Once she returned to the cocktail party, Rachel was faced with more unpleasantness, this time in the form of Lucas, who has only gotten more insufferable as time goes on. Lucas decided to use his time with Rachel to bring up his arch nemesis Blake and proceeded to accuse him of standing over his bed while he sleeps, eating a banana. Rachel then had to confront Blake about the disturbing banana allegations. LE SIGH. Can she please go back to making out with Peter? Rachel: “Lucas said something to me about you standing over his bed while he sleeps, eating over him with a peeled banana?” Blake: “Well, one of those is for sure not true because I don’t eat carbs.” YOU MISSED THE POINT OF THE QUESTION THERE BLAKE. SHE WASN’T ASKING IF YOU ENJOY BANANAS. Blake is so obsessed with Lucas it’s almost concerning. By the time the rose ceremony rolled around, even he started to realize that he had spent legitimately every interview talking about him and should probably chill. Blake: “The more I talk about it, the more it seems like I’m bitter and I’m the crazy one. You can see how riled up it gets me just thinking about it.” … Blake, are you … in love with Lucas? Lucas: “Knowing as much as I know about Rachel, she wants a guy that she’s sexually attracted to, but she also wants a guy with a sense of humor.” So, that rules you out on both counts then, Lucas. Spoiler alert: Rachel sent Blake and Lucas home, thank God. But it wasn’t over yet, because Blake just couldn’t leave without one last lover’s quarrel with Lucas. Blake: “At least I’m not a failed comedian — I’m a personal trainer!” And a 31-year-old aspiring drummer. Let’s not forget about that one, Blake. Fare thee well. For the first group date this week, Rachel took Fred, Alex, Jonathan, Bryan, Will and Peter to The Ellen DeGeneres show. Obviously the men were forced to dance around shirtless and collect money from women in the audience, and we’re just here to say that they all enjoyed that a little too much. The guys also played a game of Never Have I Ever, which publicly revealed that at that point, of the six guys on the date, Jonathan, Alex and Fred still hadn’t kissed Rachel — and that’s when things got weird. Fred (who went to grade school with Rachel) declared he had been waiting 20 years to kiss her and became fixated on making it happen during the evening portion of the group date. So fixated, in fact, that he couldn’t let it happen organically — so he straight up asked her if he could just do it. Everyone knows that asking someone for permission to kiss them before doing so is the least sexy move of all time, and Rachel recoiled in appropriate disgust and said no. But instead of backing down, Fred decided to swoop in literally mid-sentence a few seconds later. What followed was probably one of the worst first kisses in the history of first kisses. Rachel later admitted that kissing Fred felt like kissing “a little boy,” and there’s no recovering from that. Unfortunately, Fred did not feel the same way and instead started making all kinds of red-flag statements. Fred: “The feeling that came after kissing her was of bliss. I saw me in a tuxedo, I saw her in a wedding gown.” Rachel: After the kiss fiasco, it was time for Rachel to hand out the group date rose — but not before taking Fred aside and sending him home right then and there. And just when you thought she’d been through enough trauma in one night, she had to take the longest elevator ride of all time downstairs with him. In total silence.   Rachel’s one-on-one this week was with Anthony, who is a great guy but probably isn’t going to be Rachel’s husband. For their date, the two strolled around and shopped Rodeo Drive on horseback. (Horse cupcake from Sprinkles included.) Anthony got the one-on-one rose, and when he returned to the mansion that evening, Eric decided to ask him about how the date had gone since he had been feeling uneasy about his own relationship with Rachel. (Eric had been voicing his concerns about the situation with a few of the other guys that morning, admitting that he didn’t know where Rachel’s head was at and felt that she was “emotionally unavailable” to him.) Halfway through Eric and Anthony’s conversation, Iggy decided to sit down with them and brought up the topic of Rachel’s approach to the show. Eric’s response seemed to question Rachel, with him saying that it seemed like she was “playing a game until she gets what she’s supposed to get.” That prompted an argument with Iggy, who got protective and started to defend Rachel — all of which would eventually spark major drama at the cocktail party. (More on that later.) The next day, Rachel invited her Bachelor besties Corinne Olympios, Alexis Waters, Raven Gates and Jasmine Goode over for the group date, which was with Brady, Dean, Adam, Kenny, Bryce, Lee, Jack, and Eric. They took the boys mud wrestling, which was highly entertaining — but the real drama actually went down on the bus on the way to the bar, when Raven asked Bryce and Lee who they felt was the least appropriate guy for Rachel — and they both said Eric. Raven later passed on this information to Rachel, who was taken aback and decided to bring it up with Eric during the evening portion of the date that night. Eric — who, by the way, was wearing a ridiculous scarf and looked like a high schooler trying to hide a hickey — did his best to defend himself, and Rachel decided to take his word for it, reassuring him that she had feelings for him and was glad that he’s there. After his conversation with Rachel, Eric returned to the rest of the group to confront Bryce and Lee. (Important side note: this is Lee.) Bryce, for his part, wriggled right out of the situation, insisting that he never questioned Eric’s motives — but things escalated when Lee pointed out that Eric has the least amount of relationship experience in the house and has never been in love. The two argued back and forth for a while, but when Rachel returned she had a group date rose to hand out … and ‘lo and behold, it went to Eric. FROM PEN: Rachel Lindsay on Why She Might Not be Able to Resist the Fantasy Suites   At the pre-rose ceremony cocktail party the next day, some of the guys’ feathers were slightly ruffled at the fact that Eric had secured a rose and was safe for the week — especially Iggy. During his time with Rachel, Iggy brought up his confrontation with Eric in the house and told her that Eric had questioned how “genuine” she is, which Rachel did not seem happy about. Then Lee did the same thing, bringing up Eric and Iggy’s argument and informing her that he heard Eric screaming at Iggy and being generally aggressive. Rachel — who at this point was probably exhausted from mediating the petty drama amongst all of these grown men — decided to sit down with Eric to discuss the new developments. Eric responded by denying ever having questioned her or how genuine her intentions are, and she decided to take his word for it — but not without warning him that her antennas are up now. At that point, Eric called all the men into the living room and promptly proceeded to go off on Lee … but we’ll have to wait for next week to see how that goes down. The Bachelorette airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.

2018-10-10 00:00:00

SAN FRANCISCO/BOSTON (Reuters) - Elon Musk replied with a Tweet saying: “This is incorrect” after the Financial Times reported that outgoing Twenty-First Century Fox Inc Chief Executive James Murdoch was the lead candidate to replace him as Tesla Inc chairman. Tesla has until Nov. 13 to appoint an independent chairman of the board, part of settlements reached last month between Tesla, Musk and U.S. regulators after Musk tweeted in August that he had secured funding to take the electric car maker private. The SEC settlement capped months of debate and some investor calls for stronger oversight of Musk, whose recent erratic public behavior raised concerns about his ability to steer the money-losing company through a rocky phase of growth. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which said Musk’s tweeted statements about going private were fraudulent, allowed the billionaire to retain his role as CEO while requiring he give up his chairmanship. Musk had said he was considering taking Tesla private at a price of $420 a share, a number that is slang for marijuana. He tweeted the three-word denial of the Financial Times story, on Wednesday at 4:20 pm PT (2320 GMT), about six hours after the newspaper’s post. In a vote of confidence for Musk, shareholder T. Rowe Price Group Inc said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that it had raised its stake to 10.2 percent at the end of September from just under 7 percent in June. The Financial Times cited two people briefed on discussions saying Murdoch was the lead candidate for the job. Murdoch, already an independent director of Tesla, has signaled he wants the job, the report said. The son of Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch, he joined Tesla’s board last year after years of work with media companies. He has no experience in manufacturing and has never led a company that makes cars or electric vehicles. Murdoch could not immediately be reached for comment. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment. Twenty-First Century Fox declined to comment. Musk is the public face of Tesla, and any chairman would have to contend with his powerful personality. Thanks to his vision and audacious showmanship, Tesla’s valuation has at times eclipsed that of traditional, established U.S. automakers with billions in revenues and the company has garnered legions of fans, despite repeated production issues. “The question when it comes to James Murdoch is, ‘Is he the guy who’ll be able to establish that level of authority with Elon Musk?’” asked Abby Adlerman, CEO of Boardspan, a corporate governance consulting company. Murdoch, who at 45 is a near contemporary of 47-year-old Musk, recently navigated a takeover battle between Fox and Comcast Corp to buy European pay-TV company Sky, which he also chaired. His record in ensuring Sky’s independent shareholders were represented throughout was exemplary, media analyst Alice Enders said. “His experience is very recent and very relevant,” she said. Investor concerns that Tesla’s board was too closely tied to Musk led to the company’s addition of two independent directors, including Murdoch, in July 2017. Earlier this year, leading U.S. proxy advisers Glass Lewis & Co and Institutional Shareholder Services, and union-affiliated investment adviser CtW Investment Group, had recommended investors cast votes “against” the re-election of Murdoch as a Tesla director at the company’s annual meeting held on June 5. While CtW cited a lack of relevant experience and a “troubled history as an executive and director,” both proxy firms warned that Murdoch already served on too many boards. Murdoch currently serves on the boards of Twenty-First Century Fox and News Corp. He stepped down from Sky Plc on Tuesday following the completion of Comcast Corp’s takeover of the broadcaster. He was appointed chief executive of Sky, founded by his father, in 2003, becoming the youngest CEO of a FTSE 100 company. “Under his leadership, Sky went down the technology route,” Enders said. “It’s no accident he oversaw that strategy, which was really distinct from the strategy other pay-TV companies followed, and in my view was his most valuable contribution.” Murdoch replaced his father as chairman of Sky in 2007, but was forced out in 2012 after being embroiled in Britain’s phone-hacking scandal. He returned to Sky’s board in 2016 after rebuilding his career at Fox. Glass Lewis research director Courteney Keatinge said on Wednesday that while Murdoch’s departure from Sky could alleviate some concerns, the Tesla chairmanship would still require a big time commitment as the company faces pressures on many fronts. “I would still have reservations about the time he would be able to allot to this,” Keatinge said. According to the FT report, external options were still being considered. Considering a broad choice of candidates was important, said Dieter Waizenegger, executive director of CtW Investment Group, because “Investors should really be wary about the board making the easy choice here” in opting for Murdoch. Murdoch is set to be succeeded by his brother Lachlan Murdoch as Twenty First Century Fox chief executive officer, after the media group completes the sale of bulk of its assets to Walt Disney. Tesla faces a crucial moment as it struggles to produce its Model 3 sedan in large volume and deliver it quickly to customers amid an ongoing cash crunch that has concerned some analysts. Musk has vowed that the loss-making company will be profitable and cash flow-positive in its third and fourth quarters. Concerns about production delays and manufacturing challenges have been exacerbated by a series of damaging actions, including Musk insulting analysts on a conference call, calling a British cave rescuer a pedophile, and joking on April Fool’s Day that Tesla was going bankrupt. Shares are down 20 percent since the beginning of the year. “Elon Musk is building a great company but has been erratic to say the least when it comes to thinking about his investors,” said Chaim Siegel, an analyst at Elazar Advisors. “The company needs some added stability at the top to win back investor confidence.” Under terms of the SEC settlement, Musk is not permitted to be re-elected to the chairman’s post for three years. Tesla is also required to appoint two new independent directors to its board. Reporting by Sonam Rai, Munsif Vengattil and Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru, Ross Kerber in Boston and Alexandria Sage in San Francisco and Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Peter Henderson, Matthew Lewis, Diane Craft and Keith Weir

2017-07-16

Golfer Shanshan Feng sought to quickly change subjects when asked a question in a recent interview about President Trump. Feng was asked whether she had thought about what she might say to President Trump if she had the opportunity to talk to him. "Hmmmmmmmm. You want to talk about what I'm wearing tomorrow [instead]?" she responded, according to NJ.com. President Trump attended the U.S. Women's Open on Saturday, appearing for the second straight day at the golf tournament being held at one of his properties. The tournament is being held at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., where Trump arrived after returning from Paris last week. On Saturday, Trump tweeted about the event. "Just got to the #USWomensOpen in Bedminster, New Jersey. People are really happy with record high stock market - up over 17% since election!" Trump tweeted. He later posted a tweet commending the athletes for their performance at the event. "The women played great today at the @USGA #USWomensOpen," he tweeted. "I look forward to being there tomorrow for the final round!" The women played great today at the @USGA #USWomensOpen I look forward to being there tomorrow for the final round! pic.twitter.com/2oWyptgfIY 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.

2016-10-20

Oct 20 (Reuters) - Amc Entertainment Holdings Inc : * AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. Announces $1.4 billion private placement of usd and gbp senior subordinated notes and term loans * Amc Entertainment Holdings Inc - intends to offer about $900 million aggregate principal amount of dollar-denominated senior subordinated notes due 2026 * Intends to offer about $500 million principal amount dollar-denominated “b” term loans due 2023 * AMC Entertainment Holdings - proceeds from offering to be used to fund acquisitions of odeon & uci cinemas holdings and carmike cinemas * AMC Entertainment Holdings - proceeds to also be used to repay certain outstanding debt of odeon & uci and fund related transaction fees and expenses Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2016-12-06

After a major breakout, the has experienced a "buying climax," according to Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James. But he believes that after a brief refractory period, the bull run will resume. A "buying climax" refers to a sharp increase in price accompanied by heavy volume that is then followed by a slip, which is just what happened last week. "What it suggests is that the demand for stocks has waned in the short run, and it either causes the S&P to pause or to have an attempt at a pullback," the strategist said Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation. " But even though he diagnoses "the near-term exhaustion of demand," Saut still sees the bright side of the climax. "Buying climaxes tend to happen in bull markets," he said. "And I continue to think we're in a secular bull market — and those typically last 14 or 15 years. We're just about 7½ years into this one, so I think we've got years left to go." He said an improving earnings picture should serve as a major tailwind for the market. In other words, while stock may need a bit of time to rest in the short term, for Saut, the long-term picture still remains very constructive.

2017-04-28

April 28 (Reuters) - Oxley Holdings Ltd: * Qtrly revenue S$386.5 million versus S$202.6 million * Qtrly PATMI S$45.7 million versus S$52.2 million Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2017-05-31

The San Diego Padres attempt to extend their winning streak to a season-high four games when they host the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday afternoon for the finale of their three-game series. San Diego has won three straight for the third time this year after recording a 6-2 victory on Tuesday. Austin Hedges was the hitting star for the Padres, belting a two-run homer in the second inning before capping a four-run fifth with a two-RBI double. Chicago is hoping to salvage the finale of its disastrous six-game road trip. The Cubs were shut out twice while being swept of a three-game set by the Los Angeles Dodgers and look to avoid a similar result after scoring just two runs in each of the first two contests in San Diego. Kyle Schwarber launched a solo homer on Tuesday for his first hit since May 23 while Jason Heyward recorded his second consecutive two-hit performance. TV: 3:40 p.m. ET, WGN (Chicago), FSN San Diego PITCHING MATCHUP: Cubs RH Jake Arrieta (5-4, 4.92 ERA) vs. Padres RH Luis Perdomo (0-2, 5.61) Arrieta has lost three of his last four decisions, including a setback against the Dodgers in Los Angeles on Friday in which he yielded four runs over six innings. It marked the fifth time in his last seven outings the 31-year-old former National League Cy Young Award winner has surrendered at least four runs and fourth time this year he has served up two homers. Arrieta, who has allowed 10 blasts in as many turns after yielding 16 in 31 outings last season, is 2-1 with a 3.18 ERA in three career starts against San Diego. Perdomo has lost each of his last two starts after beginning the season with six no-decisions. The 24-year-old Dominican has worked six innings in five of his last six outings, including a setback at Washington on Friday in which he gave up three runs and six hits. Perdomo made a relief appearance at Chicago last year, allowing two runs on two hits and a pair of walks in three frames. WALK-OFFS 1. Hedges collected six RBIs over his first 25 games this month. 2. Chicago (25-26) has not been below .500 this late in a season since finishing the 2014 campaign at 73-89. 3. San Diego RF Hunter Renfroe has recorded six of his 26 RBIs on the season in his last two contests. PREDICTION: Cubs 5, Padres 3

2018-04-23

April 23 (Reuters) - Independent Bank Group Inc: * INDEPENDENT BANK GROUP REPORTS FIRST QUARTER FINANCIAL RESULTS * Q1 ADJUSTED NON-GAAP EARNINGS PER SHARE $1.03 * Q1 EARNINGS PER SHARE VIEW $1.07 — THOMSON REUTERS I/B/E/S * NET INTEREST INCOME WAS $74.0 MILLION FOR Q1 2018 COMPARED TO $47.9 MILLION FOR Q1 2017 Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2018-04-04 00:00:00

MISSION, Texas (Reuters) - On Tuesday, the same day that U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to deploy military to help patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, Edwin Valdez and four other Central American migrants were walking through dense brush at a south Texas wildlife reserve, hoping to escape notice. The men had illegally crossed into the United States that morning, guided by a smuggler who had since abandoned them. Now they were lost and uncertain how to proceed. In vehicles nearby, U.S. Border Patrol agents had been alerted to migrants moving through the area, and after detecting movement in the bushes, they swooped in to arrest the men. It was business as usual in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the busiest crossing points for migrants trying to enter the United States illegally. In just a few hours that morning, 61 migrants, including Valdez, were rounded up in the area. Ten, including four from China, were caught with the help of a tracking dog in a sugar cane field. Two Hondurans were taken into custody at a public park. Several of those caught said they were unfazed by tough talk from Trump, who has made headlines around the world with tweets railing about border security and threatening to end the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) unless Mexico does more to “stop the big drug and people flows.” Trump’s renewed frustration about border security, rekindled over the weekend by news of a “caravan” of Central American migrants moving through Mexico toward the U.S. border, reflects the broader frustration of his administration. In the months after Trump took office, the number of migrants caught along the U.S.-Mexico border fell dramatically, hitting a low of about 15,700 in April, from more than 42,400 in January 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows. But arrests have crept back up since, and in the first months of 2018 have reached levels at, or near, those seen during the last year of his predecessor, President Barack Obama. Rising arrests of families and unaccompanied minors along the border are a particular concern. In March, their numbers surpassed the previous three years and “rivaled fiscal year 2014, when we had a crisis,” Manuel Padilla, chief of the border patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, said in an interview with Reuters. He said families with children, who are more difficult to deport quickly, form about 49 percent of the current apprehensions in his region. He said they often walk up to the first U.S. officials they find to ask for help. “It doesn’t matter how many agents are out there,” when it comes to families, he said, “because this population is turning themselves in.” Valdez, 20, who worked as an electrician’s assistant in his home country of El Salvador, said he previously tried to cross the border illegally in 2016. That time, he was picked up by border patrol officers after wandering lost and dehydrated in the desert for four days. After six months in detention, he was deported last year, but decided to travel north again after gangs threatened him at his job. While crossing has become more and more difficult in recent years, Valdez said, need is a powerful motivator. “Necessity forces people to leave their countries so they can bring a better life to their families,” he said. “That’s why people are willing to suffer through all this.” People like Valdez who have been previously deported can often be quickly sent home. Immigrants traveling with small children when caught, however, often spend only a few days in custody because of a shortage of detention facilities suitable for families and court settlements that preclude prolonged detention of minors. In the Rio Grande Valley, parents are often released with electronic ankle monitors and ordered to appear with their children in court on a specific date for deportation proceedings. Trump has railed against the practice, which he calls “catch and release.” At the Hidalgo port of entry, one of the busiest crossings in South Texas for legal trade and traffic across the U.S.-Mexico border, Customs and Border Protection officers seemed largely indifferent to the renewed rhetoric from Washington. “Everyone who is in office has their own agenda, which is different than the law. But the law is the law and that’s what we are enforcing,” said Port Director Carlos Rodriguez, who has been with the enforcement agency for 20 years. “That has been true consistently through administrations.” For migrants like Jose Romero, 27, who made the harrowing days-long trip through Mexico with his 8-year-old daughter in the back of a dark cargo truck, threats from the president are little deterrent. In his mountain home in Honduras, Romero made just $4 a day as a farm laborer, not enough to feed his family of five, he said. After his arrest at the border and subsequent release to wait court proceedings, he said he doubted if migrants can be deterred. “They will keep coming,” he said, because of violence and poverty south of the border. “The people are afraid.” Reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Sue Horton, Clarence Fernandez and Richard Chang

2020-02-13 00:00:00

Feb 13 (Reuters) - American International Group Inc: * CFO SAYS EXPECTS 2020 LIFE AND RETIREMENT UNIT ADJUSTED PRE-TAX INCOME BETWEEN $3.1 BILLION AND $3.3 BILLION - CONF CALL * CFO SAYS EXPECTS 2020 GENERAL INSURANCE ACCIDENT YEAR COMBINED RATIO TO BE IN THE RANGE OF 93.8% TO 94.8% “EX CAT” - CONF CALL * LIFE INSURANCE HEAD SAYS UNIT’S FULL YEAR 2020 BASE INVESTMENT SPREADS TO DECLINE BY ABOUT 8 TO 16 BASIS POINTS ANNUALLY - CONF CALL * LIFE INSURANCE HEAD SAYS EXPECTS DECREASED 2020 INDIVIDUAL ANNUITY SALES, PARTICULARLY IN FIXED ANNUITIES - CONF CALL * CFO MARK LYONS SAYS EXPECTS 2020 NET INVESTMENT INCOME OF NEARLY $13.6 BILLION ON FULL YEAR BASIS - CONF CALL Further company coverage:

2018-04-25 15:52:00

A Florida student is under investigation by his high school for a racist prom invitation that quickly drew controversy on social media over the weekend. In a Snapchat screengrabbed and shared online by numerous accounts, a white male student — since identified by The Herald-Tribune as 18-year-old Noah Crowley, a student at Riverview High School in Sarasota — held a poster board that read, “If I was black, I’d be picking cotton, but I’m white, so I’m picking u 4 prom.” The Snapchatter added two smiley face emojis with heart eyes over the image. Come on Noah. We have to do better than this. This is why racism is still a thing, “let me see what I can get away with”. Smh. #noahcrowley #lowkeyracism pic.twitter.com/tXvnEtcey9 — Cherita Is Random (@cheritaisrandom) April 23, 2018 Crowley has since apologized for the poster. “I want to sincerely apologize if I have offended anyone with the picture going around. That was not my intention. Anyone who knows me or [name redacted] knows that that’s not how we truly feel,” the statement — provided to PEOPLE through Crowley’s family’s spokeswoman Beth Leytham — said. “It was a completely joke and it went too far.  After reading the texts and Snapchats I truly see how I have offended people and I’m sorry.” Crowley’s family also issued a statement through Leytham, saying, “While our son has apologized himself, on behalf of our family, we wish to also express our most sincere apologies for the terrible words used in his ‘promposal.’  We love our son dearly and know that he is a far better person than reflected in this reckless behavior.  That said, as loving parents, we also feel compelled to share our own deep regret and serious concern about his actions.” The statement said that Crowley will not attend the school’s prom, graduation or any other school activities. “As a family, we truly recognize this incident is a very difficult but important life lesson and pledge to do all we can to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. Certainly, we hope that all of the people and communities who were hurt and offended will forgive our son and family,” the Crowley family said. Students did not see the poster as a joke, however. One Riverview High senior shared her reaction with Fox13, saying, “You think this happens in other cities and states and it’s just, like, no it’s right here in your hometown, the school that you go to, a boy that you know.” Williams added to Fox13, “It does put a damper on things, but I think that it’s made us closer as a class of 2018. It’s made us closer. It’s made us realize that we don’t deserve that, we don’t deserve to go through that. Being black or white, it’s not acceptable.” The Sarasota County School District confirmed that they began “looking into the incident” on Sunday in a statement released online, noting that “this issue has caused incredible disruption to our school and community.” The statement said that the district’s investigation into the incident is ongoing, noting, “We are working with school administrators, students and their parents to determine a course of disciplinary action according to school policy.” “We do not want the behavior of individuals to be considered the narrative of the entire school community,” the school district’s statement said. The district said that “a diverse cross-section of students” met with school officials on Monday to “talk about various issues including economic, racial, ethnic and gender disparities,” as well as what the statement called “racial tensions at the school.” In response, the Sarasota NAACP chapter president will “facilitate a student-led conversation at Riverview High School to learn more and share ideas for change,” the school said. “We believe our students can be powerful voices of reason and help us fund solutions to the racial alienation that some children may feel. It is our goal that these roundtable discussions take place at other schools throughout the district to directly hear from students about these topics that are national in scope, but important to our community,” the district said. “From there, we will make resources available to our students to effectively address the issue of inequality in our schools.” Neither the Sarasota County School District nor the Riverview High Principal Kathy Wilks immediately responded to PEOPLE’s request for further comment.

2019-09-11 00:00:00

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran said on Wednesday Washington should distance itself from “warmongers” after the resignation of hawkish White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, and Tehran stood by its demand that sanctions be lifted before any talks. The departure of Bolton removes one of the strongest advocates of a hard line towards Iran from President Donald Trump’s White House, and raises the prospect of steps to open up negotiations after more than a year of escalating tension. “America should understand that ... it should distance itself from warmongers,” Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency quoted President Hassan Rouhani as saying on Wednesday, without mentioning Bolton. “Iran’s policy of resistance will not change as long as our enemy (the United States) continues to put pressure on Iran,” said Rouhani, a pragmatist who won two landslide elections in Iran on promises to open it up to the world. Last year, the United States pulled out of an international accord between Iran and world powers under which Tehran accepted curbs on its nuclear program in return for access to world trade. Washington says the agreement reached by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama was too weak because many of its terms expire in a decade and it does not cover non-nuclear issues such as Iran’s missile program and regional behavior. The White House has followed what the administration calls a policy of “maximum pressure”, including sanctions aimed at halting all Iranian oil exports, saying its ultimate aim is to push Tehran to the table for talks on a new, tougher deal. Immediately after Bolton’s departure, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that Trump could meet with Rouhani at an upcoming U.N, meeting with “no preconditions”. Iran has rejected talks unless sanctions are lifted first. It said on Wednesday that Bolton’s exit had not changed that position. “The departure of ... Bolton from President Donald Trump’s administration will not push Iran to reconsider talking with the U.S.,” Iran’s U.N. envoy, Majid Takhteravanchi, was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif slammed the United States for ordering new sanctions on Iran despite Bolton’s departure. “As the world ... was breathing a sigh of relief over ouster of #B_Team’s henchman in the White House, (Washington) declared further escalation of #EconomicTerrorism (sanctions) against Iran,” Zarif tweeted. “Thirst for war —maximum pressure— should go with the warmonger-in-chief (Bolton).” Zarif has often said that a so-called “B-team” including Bolton could goad Trump into a conflict with Tehran. The United States on Tuesday announced sanctions on a “wide range of terrorists and their supporters”, including Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iran says it hopes to save the deal but cannot do so indefinitely if it gets none of its economic benefits. It has responded to U.S. sanctions with steps to reduce its compliance with the accord, and has said it could eventually leave it unless other parties shield its economy from penalties. “Iran’s commitments to the nuclear deal are proportional to other parties and we will take further steps if necessary,” Rouhani said. Iran started using advanced centrifuges last week to ramp up output of enriched uranium and reduced its commitments to the nuclear deal, but said it was giving European countries another two months to come up with a plan to protect its economy. France has proposed giving Iran a multi-billion dollar credit line which would shield it from some impact of U.S. sanctions, although any such deal would require the Trump administration’s tacit approval. (This story was refiled to correct spelling of ‘weak’ in paragraph 6) Additional Reporting by Tuqa Khalid; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Peter Graff/William Maclean

2017-04-20

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - With its century-old Spanish-style homes tucked behind immaculately trimmed hedges, San Marino, California, is among the most coveted spots to live in the Los Angeles area. Its public schools rank top in the state, attracting families affiliated with CalTech, the elite university blocks away. The city’s zoning rules promote a healthy lifestyle, barring fast food chains. Home values in L.A. County census tract 4641, in the heart of San Marino and 20 minutes from downtown Los Angeles, can rival those in Beverly Hills. The current average listing price: $2.9 million. But the area has another, unsettling distinction, unknown to residents and city leaders until now: More than 17 percent of small children tested here have shown elevated levels of lead in their blood, according to previously undisclosed L.A. County health data. That far exceeds the 5 percent rate of children who tested high for lead in Flint, Michigan, during the peak of that city’s water contamination crisis. The local blood test data, obtained through a records request from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, shows two neighboring San Marino census tracts are among the hotspots for childhood lead exposure in the L.A. area. San Marino is hardly alone. Across sprawling L.A. County, more than 15,000 children under age 6 tested high for lead between 2011 and 2015. In all, Reuters identified 323 neighborhood areas where the rate of elevated tests was at least as high as in Flint. In 26 of them – including the two in San Marino, and some in economically stressed areas – the rate was at least twice Flint’s. The data stunned San Marino Mayor Richard Sun, who said he wasn’t aware of any poisoning cases in the community. “This is a very serious matter, and as the mayor, I really want to further explore it,” Sun said upon reviewing the numbers presented by Reuters. During an interview at City Hall, he directed city officials to investigate potential sources of exposure. The L.A.-area findings are part of an ongoing Reuters examination of hidden lead hazards nationwide. Since last year, the news agency has identified more than 3,300 U.S. neighborhood areas with documented childhood lead poisoning rates double those found in Flint. Studies based on previously available data, surveying broad child populations across entire states or counties, usually couldn’t pinpoint these communities. Despite decades of U.S. progress in curbing lead poisoning, millions of children remain at risk. Flint’s disaster is just one example of a preventable public health crisis that continues in hotspots coast to coast, Reuters has found. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s threshold for elevated lead is 5 micrograms per deciliter of blood. Children who test at or above that threshold warrant a public health response, the agency says. Even a slight elevation can reduce IQ and stunt childhood development. There’s no safe level of lead in children’s bodies. In San Marino, old lead-based paint is likely the main source of exposure, county health officials said, but they added that imported food, medicine or pottery from China could also be a factor. About 80 percent of San Marino homes were built before 1960, and the community has a large Asian population, U.S. Census data show. Exposure from old paint, drinking water and soil are widely researched. Other risks – including some candies, ceramics, spices or remedies containing lead from China, Mexico, India and other countries – are less known. The L.A. blood data covers nearly 1,550 census tracts, or county subdivisions, each with an average population around 4,000. It shows the number of small children tested in each tract, and how many tested high. In California, the exposure risks children face can vary wildly by neighborhood. Many L.A. areas have little or no documented lead poisoning. Countywide, 2 percent of children tested high. But in hundreds of areas, the rate is far higher. Reuters crunched the data, and neighborhood-level results can be explored on an interactive map. In the trouble areas, old housing is commonplace. Nearly half of L.A. County’s homes were built before 1960. Lead was banned from household paint in 1978, but old paint can peel, chip, or pulverize into toxic dust. Children are often exposed in decrepit housing. But in some U.S. areas, nearly a third of lead poisoning cases can be linked to home renovation projects, said Mary Jean Brown, a public health specialist at Harvard University and former director of the CDC’s lead prevention program. San Marino residents take pride in preserving their historic homes. Among the measures Mayor Sun wants to consider: An ordinance to ensure safe practices any time home repairs or renovations could disturb lead paint. Poverty is another predictor of lead poisoning, and many of L.A.’s danger zones are concentrated in low-income or gentrifying areas near downtown and on the city’s densely populated South Side. In one low-income area of South L.A., Reuters met with the family of Kendra Nicole Rojas, a three-year-old recently diagnosed with lead poisoning, only to find that 63 other small children living within a six block radius have also tested high. “A lot of people don’t even think of the West Coast as a place where kids get poisoned,” said Linda Kite, executive director at L.A.-based Healthy Homes Collaborative. “The biggest problem we have is medical apathy. Many doctors don’t test children for lead.” The findings highlight a need for greater medical surveillance, abatement and awareness in the health-conscious county of 10 million, public health specialists said. The county and city of Los Angeles have dedicated lead prevention programs that work with at-risk families. When a child’s blood levels persist above 10 micrograms per deciliter – double the CDC threshold – the family receives a home inspection, nurse visits and follow-up. The effects of lead poisoning are irreversible, and the programs’ broader goal is to prevent any exposure. But success hinges on many actors, and assistance from agencies such as the CDC, the department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency. Like other regions, L.A. faces a looming hurdle in attacking hazards: President Donald Trump’s federal budget proposals would sharply cut funds for many lead-related programs. “We’re aware of lots of areas where homes or soil contain significant levels of lead, and those can represent an urgent need to act,” said Maurice Pantoja, chief environmental health specialist for the county program. “Any fewer resources toward poisoning prevention would be a tragedy.” Just a few miles west of San Marino, in South Pasadena, one boy’s poisoning serves as a cautionary tale. In an old, pastel-colored home on Hope Street, an infant named Connor was exposed to lead paint and dust in 2012. The property is owned by California’s Department of Transportation, Caltrans, which had plans to expand a freeway in the area. Its floors were coated in chipping lead paint. During a bathroom repair, a crew showed up in “hazmat suits,” said tenant Cynthia Wright, Connor’s grandmother. But as the crew worked, stripping toxic paint from walls and fixtures and unleashing plumes of dust, they told the family there was no need to leave the home, Wright said. That was an unfortunate lapse, the state agency acknowledged. “There were errors in handling communications regarding this property and Caltrans has revised its business practices,” spokeswoman Lauren Wonder said, leading to “greater vigilance.” Connor continued crawling around the floors. At age one, he began missing developmental milestones. Suddenly, he lost the ability to use the few words he could say. When his mother, Heather Nolan, had him tested for lead, the result was almost five-fold the CDC threshold. Lead levels often peak among children ages one to two, when they are increasingly mobile and have hand-to-mouth behaviors. Now six, Connor needs speech and occupational therapy up to five times a week. He hasn’t been able to integrate in a mainstream classroom. “It’s not an easy road,” his grandmother said. “I would tell anyone in an old home, you really need to be aware of the risks.” In 2015, the family settled a landmark lawsuit against Caltrans for $10 million. Wright still lives in the home, which has been remediated. Amid an affordable housing crisis in Los Angeles, many renters don’t confront landlords to fix lead paint hazards, fearing eviction if they raise the alarm, said Kite, the healthy homes advocate. That helps explain why so many children in south and central L.A. test high. Karla Rojas, 26, was living with her extended family on 30th Street in a low-income area of South L.A. last year when her toddler, Kendra, started getting chronic bouts of illness. Mother and daughter slept on the floor, near a bookshelf where an inspector later found flaking lead paint. Tested at the local St. John’s Well Child & Family Center, Kendra’s result came back at several times the CDC threshold. Once county officials got involved, the landlord repainted the shelf and other areas where lead was found. Still, terrified her daughter’s exposure would continue, Rojas moved out. “When you read about what lead can do, it makes me fear for her future,” said Rojas, watching three-year-old Kendra play with two new pet rabbits. Exposure is common in the area, said Jeff Sanchez, a consultant at public health research firm Impact Assessment, which works with L.A.’s prevention program. Around the neighborhood, code inspectors have cited at least 35 percent of residential properties for chipping or peeling paint violations over a four-year period. Paint isn’t the only peril. A mile and a half east, in Vernon, the now shuttered Exide Technologies battery-recycling plant spewed noxious emissions for decades, polluting soil in thousands of properties with lead residue. A planned $175 million cleanup will rely in part on children’s blood tests to determine which properties should be sanitized first. Past testing has shown that children living close to the plant are at heightened risk. Yet California, like Michigan, doesn’t require lead screening for all children, leaving many untested. Prompted in part by Reuters’ previous coverage, California cities and lawmakers are pushing new initiatives to protect children. Bill Quirk, chair of the state legislature’s Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials, recently introduced a bill to require screening for all small children. “I strongly support blood lead testing,” said U.S. Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard, who represents part of L.A. County. “It’s important that residents have information about the threats they may face in their communities.” California’s current policy is to test children with known risk factors, including those enrolled in government assistance programs for the poor like Medicaid. The protocol, applied unevenly by healthcare providers, can miss poisoned kids. In 2013, when apparel designer Amanda Gries and her husband, a Hollywood film editor, rented a home in L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood, she was pregnant with son Wyatt, now 3. The century-old mansion was in a rapidly gentrifying area south of downtown, near landmarks such as the Staples Center and the University of Southern California. Gries, concerned about peeling paint and dust in the home, urged a pediatrician to screen Wyatt before his first birthday. “The doctor didn’t want to test,” Gries said. “The message was, ‘Don’t worry, he’s not at risk.’ It was like he didn’t fit the profile.” Gries insisted, and her fears were confirmed when Wyatt tested at nearly double the CDC’s elevated threshold. An inspection found lead in dust on the floor of Wyatt’s bedroom at 30 times the federal hazard level. The family moved out quickly and searched citywide before settling into a home on L.A.’s west side, chosen because no lead was detected inside. Wyatt is bright and energetic, Gries said, but has impulsive behaviors. He needs occupational therapy for sensory issues, at nearly $200 per session. Keeping Wyatt away from lead hazards and feeding him a special diet are part of the Gries’ daily routine. Poor nutrition can worsen lead poisoning, allowing children’s bodies to absorb more of the heavy metal. “All we can do is hope he’s okay,” said Gries. (Additional reporting by M.B. Pell) Editing by Ronnie Greene

2018-07-05 00:00:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Wimbledon 2017 runner-up Marin Cilic, a favorite to go far in the tournament again this year, suffered a shock 3-6 1-6 6-4 7-6(3) 7-5 defeat by Argentine Guido Pella in the second round on Thursday. The Croatian third seed began the day two sets up but 4-3 down on Pella’s serve in the third, following Wednesday evening’s halt for rain and found his opponent very much up for the fight. Pella wrapped up the third set comfortably, then shaded an exciting fourth set that included two breaks of serve for each player with Pella taking command in the tiebreak to clinch it 7-3. The deciding set went with serve until Pella clinched his first victory over a top-five player on his fourth match point after Cilic had already saved two in the 10th game and another when 30-40 down. Pella, who has very limited experience on grass and had lost to Cilic in three sets at the 2015 U.S. Open in their only previous meeting, was undoubtedly helped by Wednesday’s rain interruptions. “Yesterday he was playing so, so good, hitting the ball so hard that I couldn’t do anything,” Pella said. “So the rain helped me a lot. Today I played differently, tried to be more aggressive, he started to feel uncomfortable. I tried to hit the ball hard and fight for every ball and I think in the end that’s why I won. “Every time you play this kind of player, they try to break your serve in the first game and that’s what he got in the first two sets.” Pella said grass was not his favorite surface but he was trying to improve. “The rain came and today I felt much more confident, served better and was so calm until the end. I lost three or four match points before I could close the game, so I am very happy.” The signs were immediate that Thursday’s play would be different as Cilic looked uncomfortable trying to find his length and perhaps ruminating that the weather had denied him a simple win the previous day. The fourth set was key for Pella as he made Cilic work hard for every point and varied his serve to keep Cilic guessing. Cilic broke to take a 3-1 lead, only for Pella to break back, chasing and retrieving a cheeky drop shot from the Croatian to beat him at the net. Then it was Pella’s turn as Cilic double faulted then fell to some fine recovery shots by the Argentine, one across court, the other kissing the line. But Cilic broke back and saw the set through to a tiebreak in which he took a 2-0 lead before Pella, playing superbly, reeled off five successive points to give himself four set points with Cilic managing to save only the first with an ace. Cilic, who won the Queen’s Club tournament 10 days ago, refused to blame the rain interruption. “I was focused on my game, I wasn’t thinking of what comes next,” said the Croatian, who lost last year’s final to Roger Federer. “Pella served well and came back into match, so it became a different match. “It’s a big disappointment to lose in the second round when I was playing well in last few weeks. “I felt not at the right level that I needed to be. He played solid, much better than yesterday. I had two levels between yesterday and today. There were many balls I was not executing well today.” Reporting by Rex Gowar, editing by Clare Lovell

2019-09-25 14:10:00

This story requires our BI Prime membership. To read the full article, simply click here to claim your deal and get access to all exclusive Business Insider PRIME content. On Tuesday Arceo.ai, a risk-analytics startup, announced a $37 million led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and Lightspeed Venture Partners.Though Peter Thiel founded the data-mining company Palantir, Arceo.ai is Founders Fund's first cybersecurity investment. Trae Stephens, an early Palantir employee and partner at Founders Fund, led the deal.Arceo.ai analyzes cybersecurity risks based on data analysis from its customer base and matches customers with appropriate insurance plans to protect them from losses related to attacks like data breaches or ransomware attacks.The glut of cybersecurity startups promising a variety of solutions is proof that the industry can't agree how to move forward with assessing and mitigating growing cybersecurity risks, Stephens told Business Insider. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.An existential threat that all modern businesses are exposed to

2020-01-13 00:00:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Sterling fell sharply on Monday, slipping further below $1.30, after data showed Britain’s economy grew at its weakest annual pace in more than seven years in November and raised the chances of a cut to interest rates. Britain’s economy grew only 0.6% from a year earlier, the weakest expansion since June 2012 and down from 1% annual growth in October. The data covers a politically turbulent period in Britain and does not capture some private-sector surveys that suggested a recovery in sentiment after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s election win on Dec. 12. It also follows recent comments from Bank of England policymakers that raised the prospect of rate cuts to boost the economy. BoE Governor Mark Carney and two other rate-setters, Silvana Tenreyro and Gertjan Vlieghe, said in the past week that a rate cut could be needed if economic assumptions prove over-optimistic. The pound began its slide in Asia on Monday and extended its drop after the data. It was last down 0.7% at $1.2981, on track for its biggest daily loss in nearly two weeks. The pound has fallen more than 2% in the opening weeks of the year. Against the euro, sterling fell to a three-week low at 85.82 pence and was last down 0.75% on the day. “We’ve seen the probability of rate cuts going up smartly this morning and the data amplifies that risk, so it’s no surprise that sterling is the laggard in currency markets today,” said Jeremy Stretch, head of G10 FX strategy at CIBC Capital Markets in London. “The BoE narrative and the economic data are adding to a perception that a rate cut is coming.” Policymaker Vlieghe’s comments on Sunday were the latest sign that the BoE is concerned about weakness in the British economy and the need to act soon. (Graphic: GBP futures - here) Bond markets have ramped up expectations of a rate cut in the coming weeks. Money markets forecast a 50% probability of a cut by the end of January and 85% probability of a cut in May. Interest rate futures rallied as traders bought contracts across the board, betting on imminent rate cuts. December 2020 contracts rallied the most. <0#FSS:> The rate-cut speculation was also reflected in a fall in British gilt yields on a day when U.S. and euro zone government bond yields rose. “We think the Bank of England will cut rates this month, Brexit uncertainty will get worse, not better, and the economy is likely to fall into recession,” said George Saravelos, global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank. BoE policymaker Tenreyro on Friday said that the economy was more likely to undershoot than overshoot the BoE’s last forecast in November. The next forecast will be published alongside the BoE’s rate decision on Jan. 30. Hedge funds, however, have increased their bullish sterling positions to their biggest in more than a year and a half, latest positioning data shows. BMO’s European head of FX strategy, Stephen Gallo, said investors should consider buying the dip in the pound as weak economic data is effectively “old news”, headwinds from Brexit are fading for now and the possibility of looser central bank policy is growing. (Graphic: GBP positions - here) Reporting by Saikat Chatterjee and Dhara Ranasinghe; Additional reporting by Sujata Rao; Editing by Larry King and David Goodman

2017-09-26

Sen. Bob Corker, who has at times served as an ally and a critic of President Donald Trump, will not seek re-election next year. The 65-year-old Republican from Tennessee announced his decision on Tuesday. Corker, who was first elected in 2006, said he told people then that he "couldn't imagine serving more than two terms." "I also believe the most important public service I have to offer our country could well occur over the next 15 months, and I want to be able to do that as thoughtfully and independently as I did the first 10 years and nine months of my Senate career," the senator said in a statement. The vacancy in Tennessee opens a long-shot opportunity for Democrats in a traditionally red state. Trump easily won the state in last year's presidential election with more than 60 percent of the vote. GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander and Corker easily won their 2014 and 2012 re-elections, respectively, with more than 60 percent of the vote. Corker is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Trump reportedly considered him for secretary of State. Corker pointedly criticized Trump last month after the president's defiant response to violence at a white supremacist rally in Virginia. Trump "has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful," Corker said at the time. Trump later responded by saying Tennessee was "not happy" with Corker. He tweeted that the senator "is constantly asking me whether or not he should run again in '18." The senator was asked Tuesday morning by CNBC about reports of his possible retirement. "It's been a tremendous privilege to do what I've been doing, it remains that," Corker said. "I look forward to being in the center of this tax reform debate, so many issues are coming up, as you know Iran likely will be at the forefront again in October. I'm busy doing my job – I will share the plans with you at the right time, maybe very soon." The last Tennessee Senate election without an incumbent took place in 2006. Corker defeated former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. by a margin of about 51 percent to 48 percent.

2019-03-11 20:01:00

Hours after the film’s release, people who had already decided they hated Captain Marvel started review-bombing the movie on Rotten Tomatoes, before they’d even seen it. Captain Marvel is a comic book movie about an Air Force officer who is also kind of an alien, and loves cats, and happens to be female, and for some people that's a big problem. Countless angry reviews on YouTube read the movie's female lead as "feminist propaganda" and pandering to "social justice warriors." According to The Hollywood Reporter, by 8 a.m. on opening day, the film had a 33 percent audience score from more than 58,000 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes said that the site was counting user reviews submitted prior to the movie's release due to a bug, and once the bug was fixed, that score bumped back up to 35 percent. As of writing, it has a 59 percent audience score, which is the score determined by the site’s users. If I happened to check out the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes before deciding what movie I wanted to see at the theater that night, I would have gotten the impression that Captain Marvel is a waste of time and money. If I spent a minute Googling it I would have discovered that these negative reviews were coming from people whose opinion on this subject could not matter less to me, but how would I know to do that? The people who were leaving negative reviews were "review bombing," a tactic that's getting more and more common, and platforms still don’t know how to handle it. That's a problem. User reviews are now just another battlefield in the greater culture war that is devouring the world. This makes them mostly useless when it comes to movies like Captain Marvel, or any product or service that gets caught up in the culture war. In a statement published on its blog on February 25, Rotten Tomatoes said that it was making changes to its pre-release functionality, including no longer allowing users to comment or review movies prior to their release in theaters. “However, we still invite users to vote if they 'want to see' a movie prior to its release, and that vote total is displayed on the site," the statement read. “Unfortunately, we have seen an uptick in non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling, which we believe is a disservice to our general readership.” But those changes didn’t go smoothly: In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter on March 8, Rotten Tomatoes said that a glitch in implementing those changes combined pre- and post-release votes, muddling the two and opening it up to trolling. The statement said: Culture war review bombing is nothing new. We saw it happen with the Red Hen restaurant after the owner asked President Trump’s press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, and people used Yelp as a battleground to try to defend or destroy the establishment. Yelp has guidelines in place that require users to “describe a firsthand consumer experience, not what someone read in the news,” a spokesperson told me at the time of the Red Hen review bombing—but it takes days or a week to review and clean up a Yelp page that’s been review-bombed. Steam, despite absolutely fumbling on what should be obvious content moderation issues and ignoring the presence of hate groups on its platform, was an early platform to seriously attempt to address the problem of review-bombing. Players have to purchase and play a game for at least 20 minutes before they can review it, reviews show how long a player spent with a game, and Steam shows users if there's a spike in negative reviews, which helps them spot bad faith review brigades. These are helpful features, but even with these measures in place, Steam is not immune to review bombing. There's not moderation tool that will change the fact that we’ve tied our identities inexorably to what we consume; it’s what brands have wanted all along. Steak-ums has an existential crisis on main. Sunny D, a drink almost exclusively made for children, enacts some sort of mental breakdown online. Ads target our deepest insecurities and follow us everywhere. These are not just things we consume, it's who we are. What Captain Marvel says about our culture is of course an interesting subject worthy of discussion. Analyzing pop-culture can be rewarding, that's why we read movie reviews. It's even okay if you feel so strongly about a superhero movie that it makes you cry or get angry. But that is not what review bombing is. It's just a way to wage culture war against the things and people you don't like, and the platforms we use to review the things we consume still aren’t ready to combat the full force of an angry internet mob.

2017-02-02 00:00:00

The Jerusalem Post reported today that senior Trump administration officials have confirmed that President Trump is committed to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a shift from his prior harsh rhetoric on the topic. No to settlements: "We urge all parties from taking unilateral actions that could undermine our ability to make progress, including settlement announcements," Trump officials told the paper. This comes after Israel authorized 5,500 new settlement units in the West Bank during Trump's first two weeks in office. Still up in the air: Trump had previously pledged to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would be a major stumbling block for the peace process. Update: After the story broke, the White House put out a clarifying statement:

2016-05-18 03:21:06

The Stone This is the fourth in a series of dialogues with philosophers and critical theorists about violence. This conversation is with Adrian Parr, a professor of environmental politics and cultural criticism at the University of Cincinnati and the director of the Taft Research Center. Her most recent book is “The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics.” Natasha Lennard: In your work, you raise the idea of framing climate degradation as a form of violence, and potentially as a crime against humanity. What does it mean to speak of the human destruction of the climate in terms of criminal justice? Is there a distinct guilty party that can be held responsible for this crime? Adrian Parr: There are three components to the claim that environmental degradation is a crime against humanity. First, it is an appeal to a universal, common humanity that stretches across space and time, and that is oblivious to geographic and historical differences. Second, the crime in question is an existential one that is committed against the very experience of being human, the human élan. Third, it is a crime that calls the established legal order into question, because everyone, and yet no one specifically, can be held responsible. What is the nature of this crime? The human species is the agent of a terrible injustice being perpetrated against other species, future generations, ecosystems and our fellow human beings. Examples include contaminated waterways, mass species extinction, massive fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and unsustainable rates of deforestation, to name just a few. This is leading to extreme and more frequent weather events, expanding deserts, loss of biodiversity, collapsing ecosystems, water depletion and contamination, and the rise of global sea levels. However, humans are not all equally guilty of this crime. Some, such as those advancing the interests of the fossil-fuel industry, or those whose high-income lifestyles carry a heavy environmental footprint, are implicated more than those living in poverty. Present and past generations are collectively more at fault than future generations. At the same time, the human species is an agent of justice, having crafted laws designed to hold criminals accountable. Troubled when we witness violence, discrimination and unnecessary cruelty, we also individually serve as vehicles of justice. N.L.: Yes, so if we consider our relations with our environment to be criminally violent in nature, we find ourselves in a tension as both potential perpetrators or victims, but also as the vehicles whose obligation it is to deliver justice. Why do you think it’s important or useful to frame climate degradation this way? A.P.: A crime against humanity is an action that causes severe and unnecessary human suffering, and environmental destruction unquestionably degrades the quality of human life. The degradation of the environment is a record of past and present human activities. Ours is a landscape that bears the burden of human atrocities waged against other humans through war. The battered and burnt-out environments of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are a few recent examples of this. The more than four million refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria reported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is the horrifying consequence of years of conflict decimating not only that country’s social, cultural, economic, and political systems but its environmental resources as well. Then there is the continual annihilation of numerous habitats which both humanity and other species depend upon for their survival. All of this provides evidence of an environmental crime being committed against humanity. If this situation continues unabated it will cause extreme harm to future generations and eventually a gratuitous loss of human life. Let me ask: Should we confer greater existential importance upon present generations of human beings than future ones? Environmental degradation, and in particular climate change, denies future generations their agency through no fault of their own, leaving them with a world that could very well reduce what life remains to that of mere survival. This is a crime against what makes us uniquely human — the creative agency that comes from a combination of reasoning, imagination and emotion. We may all have different capacities and opportunities through which to realize our agency, but we share the same ability to collectively and individually realize our innovative potential. Because human activities cause this environmental damage, our species is culpable for a crime we are committing against ourselves. But in our defense, humanity is largely trapped by the political form of liberal state power, which facilitates the smooth functioning of global capitalism — the source of the problem. N.L.: On that point, you suggest that climate change cannot be properly challenged with the tools or “innovations” of the neoliberal, capitalist system that caused it. Can you expand on this? A.P.: Absolutely. In my view, it is futile to try and solve the harms being inflicted upon the environment using the same mechanisms that produced the problem in the first place. Environmental degradation is the concrete form of late capitalism. The failure to recognize and respond to this situation is in bad faith. For instance, the idea that we can “green” a capitalist economy without radically rethinking the basic premises at the heart of neoliberal economic theory is truly an example of misplaced politics. The system is premised upon a model of endless growth, competition, private property and consumer citizenship, all of which combine to produce a terribly exploitative, oppressive and violent structure that has come to infuse all aspects of everyday life. N.L.: Yet, you have worked with Unesco in the past — an example of an organization that I think it’s fair to say is more interested in mainstream climate “solutions” than in radical political change. How do you approach this contrast? A.P.: It is important to strategically work across a variety of political platforms in order to be effective. I am completely realistic about the limitations of my role as a Unesco water chair, meaning I acknowledge the fact that I am not producing radical change in this context. That said, I maintain a strong and honest position, one that resists being mediated by the institutional power relations that define a large international organization. As a Unesco water chair I am both external and internal to the organization. This allows me to maintain a position of partial autonomy. The people whom I have been in dialogue with at Unesco are deeply committed to creating policies and practices that address social and environmental injustices. We may not always agree on how to do this, but it is crucial that different voices, experiences and situations are part of the discussion, even when the outcome falls short of radical change. It is better to be at the table and contributing to the discussion than not at all. Every now and then, what one brings to the table animates the discussion enough to create small but meaningful changes. N.L.: During the ’90s, it was common in policy circles to link the causes of conflict and violence to conditions of poverty and underdevelopment. A number of critics challenged this, as it seemed to place the blame for insecurity and vulnerability onto the shoulders of the global poor. Is there a danger that the same is happening today as environmental concerns are increasingly brought into discussions concerning the likelihood of violence and war? A.P.: This question raises an important issue concerning displacement: the way in which structural and historical violence is obfuscated by pointing the finger of blame somewhere else. In much the same way that poverty has been identified as the cause of unrest, today environmental degradation is increasingly viewed as causing or having the potential to trigger social conflict, providing justification for the privatization of common pool resources or defensive strategies to secure and gain a monopoly over valuable natural resources. Whether the conflict in Darfur is blamed on desertification, or water scarcity as underpinning the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, the problem of the equitable distribution of scarce natural resources and the deeper power relations concerning who reaps the benefits of these and at whose expense remains dormant. I am not suggesting that environmental degradation is unconnected to social and political unrest — it definitely is. However, to form a neat causal connection between the two disguises the myriad ways in which violence in the contemporary world operates. For instance, the threat of environmental degradation is used as a weapon of war. Here, I am thinking of ISIS taking control of Mosul Dam in August of 2014, or of Syria, where water supplies were cut off from residents in Aleppo in both government- and opposition-controlled areas of the city.. Environmental degradation is also used to justify the privatization of resources we share in common, under the guise of sustainable management, such as the privatization of water in Bolivia in the late 1990s, which increased the price of water, exacerbated poverty in the country and fueled mass unrest. In this case, entire groups of people, future generations and other species are denied or given limited access to common pool resources. I don’t see much difference between this and the previous example of ISIS seizing Mosul Dam. In varying degrees all are instances of what the social theorist David Harvey might call “‘accumulation by dispossession.” N.L.: If we maintain that climate degradation is indeed a form of criminal violence, and that neoliberal solutions cannot serve justice, what might a practice toward justice look like? A.P.: There are two dominant political strategies that currently prevail in response to this problem. Either we try to mediate capitalism (this would be the “greening” of the economy argument) or we work from the outside to resist it (namely, the position of the radical activist). However, we’re now seeing a system of government that responds to environmental degradation by protecting the interests of the corporate sector ahead of civil society. The government is now a corporate actor that works with the private sector to privatize our shared resources. Meanwhile, the radical activist who frees minks from a fur farm, for example, can now be prosecuted under federal terrorism laws. In this way, tactics of working within the system to change it and the alternative approach of radical resistance each, in their own way, end up being absorbed into capitalist society and facilitating its smooth functioning. I am more interested in connecting conflicting political models, with the aim of creating new political solidarities. I don’t mean solidarity simply based on an issue, for instance when climate- change activists link arms with indigenous-rights activists or the anti-fracking movement. While this is important to do, I think the whole notion of solidarity needs to be deepened and expanded to include solidarities across different political practices, strategically switching between oppositional intervention from the outside and working from the inside to find a more effective path forward. This would be a bastard solidarity that combines the immanent politics of Spinoza and all its offshoots, which emerge by affirming the current situation differently to produce change, with the dialectics descended from Hegel and Marx, which begin by negating the current state of affairs so that contradiction leads to change. In my view the change in question is only ever a provisional synthesis, not a stable, finished solution. As such, the struggle is necessarily continual and manifold, occurring in multiple ways and across numerous platforms. What unites them is a struggle premised upon love. A love of life, diversity, and openness. A love that works to defy hatred, oppression, and intolerance, and the violence this perpetuates. An emancipatory politics needs to be quick on its feet and recognize how capital accumulation functions and in turn build its political practices and thinking as a strategic response to this. No one political program is immune to appropriation by capital. Working within the system to change it is always going to involve risks of co-option, just as much as a politics that positions itself outside of the capitalist system would. Recognizing this and developing a critical realism regarding this situation that can switch deftly and quickly between the two positions is the basis for crafting a path forward. Environmental degradation is calling us to the witness stand of history. It demands we testify against ourselves and mount a case in our defense. Ultimately, we are all agents of history. To reduce ourselves to a role of mere observation is to deny us of our humanity.

2018-08-25

Regardless of your political leanings, it is hard to deny that Michael Cohen’s guilty plea and Paul ManafortPaul John ManafortTrial of ex-Obama White House counsel suddenly postponed Top Mueller probe prosecutor to join Georgetown Law as lecturer DOJ releases notes from official Bruce Ohr's Russia probe interviews MORE’s conviction spell bad news for Donald Trump. The president will now need to contemplate new ways to insulate himself from sprawling investigations and new legal risks that may threaten his job. As this occurs, Wall Street has a lot at stake, whether it knows it or not. The Trump administration has been a true friend to the financial sector. From tax cuts to regulatory relief, the White House has waged war on red tape to keep profits high and markets at ease. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have also dropped their “broken windows” enforcement strategies that previously spurred a spike in actions against banks, investment management firms and other market participants. But the good times are now in jeopardy. If Cohen’s campaign finance violations and Manafort’s illegal Russian business dealings are smoke, President TrumpDonald John TrumpFacebook releases audit on conservative bias claims Harry Reid: 'Decriminalizing border crossings is not something that should be at the top of the list' Recessions happen when presidents overlook key problems MORE may have been somewhere near the fire. The U.S. attorney in Manhattan and Robert MuellerRobert (Bob) Swan MuellerMueller report fades from political conversation Trump calls for probe of Obama book deal Democrats express private disappointment with Mueller testimony MORE’s investigative team are getting close to finding out if he, in fact, lit the match. If you operate in the financial world, what may look like old fashioned Washington drama bears extra close watching for three additional reasons.  Political turbulence means market volatility Although market participants have grown somewhat immune to President Trump’s tweeting and ad hoc policy directives, this week’s news marks the beginning of a period of tremendous turbulence. Prolonged inquiries into the Trump presidential campaign can no longer be written off as witch hunts now that the U.S. attorney has Cohen cooperating and the Mueller prosecutors have proven their case against Manafort. It is looking like a matter of when, not if, one of the investigations ultimately reaches the Oval Office. This is particularly monumental when one considers that President Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre and Kenneth Starr’s report on President Bill ClintonWilliam (Bill) Jefferson ClintonBen Shapiro: No prominent GOP figure ever questioned Obama's legitimacy The Hill's 12:30 Report: Trump tries to reassure voters on economy 3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 MORE contributed to double-digit declines in the S&P 500 over the course of short periods during 1973 and 1998, respectively. While other economic factors obviously existed during those time periods, political turmoil certainly impacted markets in meaningful ways. Welcome back gridlock It is very likely that the Trump administration’s domestic policy agenda is going to be de-prioritized for the foreseeable future. The president may try to score points with his base through additional protectionism measures and tariffs, but it is unlikely that the White House will continue devoting the time and resources required to accelerate its popular deregulatory initiatives. Campaign promises related to boosting infrastructure spending, reforming health care and rolling back the Dodd-Frank Act are also certainly going to go unfulfilled now that Republicans in Congress must distance themselves from the White House. We could very well be entering a do-nothing period over the next two-and-a-half years. A “blue wave” midterm cycle Midterm election cycles are historically challenging for the political party that controls the White House — and that might be doubly true for Republicans in 2018. Many pollsters predict that Democrats and Independents will be extra motivated to turn out to vote and flip the House of Representatives as a referendum against President Trump. If this occurs, it will roil Wall Street. A Democratically-controlled House would definitely pursue articles of impeachment. In addition, committees chaired by Democrats will use their subpoena power to investigate meddling in the 2016 election and even explore President Trump’s bank records and investment holdings. This could all occur while Rep. Maxine WatersMaxine Moore WatersF-bombs away: Why lawmakers are cursing now more than ever Banks give Congress, New York AG documents related to Russians who may have dealt with Trump: report Maxine Waters: Force us to ban assault weapons 'or kick our a--- out of Congress!' MORE (D-Calif.) becomes chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee and reinitiates hearings that put Wall Street firms under a scrutinizing microscope. It is obviously impossible to predict exactly how much the president’s legal problems will impact investors and markets. Certain pundits are quick to remind us that the economy is humming along with steady growth, solid corporate profits and low unemployment. But with interest rates rising and debt levels increasing in the late innings of a bull run, firms operating across the capital markets and financial sector still must anticipate — rather than react to — the political disruptions to come. Greg Marose is director with Profile Advisors, a financial communications and public affairs firm working with asset managers, investment banks and various institutions. 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.

2017-02-15 00:00:00

Washington (CNN)In the end, Andrew Puzder had too much baggage -- both personal and professional -- to be confirmed as President Donald Trump's Cabinet. Puzder withdrew his name from contention to be Trump's pick to lead the Labor Department on Wednesday, a move that ended weeks of negative stories about the fast food executive. The relentless drumbeat of negative press -- including stories about his divorce, how he employed an undocumented immigrant for years and scrutiny into his business practices -- wore on Puzder, people close to him said. Republicans understood that any labor secretary nominated by Trump would have been attacked by Democrats and their union allies. But even they were surprised at the breadth of attacks against Pudzer. It was the fact that Puzder had no easy path towards the nomination, though, that was the last straw for the nominee. Senate Republicans told the White House on Wednesday that Puzder was losing support, urging the Trump administration to pull his nomination. Once word got to Puzder and his team, the decision was made to begin to cancel his confirmation commitments and, eventually, drop out all together. "After careful consideration and discussions with my family, I am withdrawing my nomination for Secretary of Labor," Puzder said. "I am honored to have been considered by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Labor and put America's workers and businesses back on a path to sustainable prosperity." Puzder's nomination, which the Trump transition team announced in early December, was immediately met with criticism from labor unions and Democrats. While Trump said in a statement at the time that he would "save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages," Democrats and associated groups began to dig in, believing early on the Pudzer was one of the most vulnerable Trump cabinet nominees. Christine Owens, executive director at the National Employment Law Project, laid out the battle lines on Puzder's business practices this way: "It's hard to think of anyone less suited for the job of lifting up forgotten workers than Puzder, a billionaire CEO who vocally opposes any meaningful increase in the minimum wage, who talks glibly about replacing workers with machines, and who consistently attacks rules that protect both workers and law-abiding employers." Shortly after his nomination, though, it began to grow clear -- both to people inside his camp and Democrats outside -- that a key battle in Puzder's fight would focus on his treatment of women, both those he employed as an executive and the woman he divorced in the 1980s. The RiverFront Times, a paper in St. Louis, reported on December 8 -- shortly after he was nominated -- that Puzder was accused of domestic abuse during 1986 divorce proceedings. The story grew from there, leading mainstream media outlets to check with the lawyer, who told Time magazine that he found Lisa Henning, Puzder's ex-wife, to be "to be credible and believable." The personal nature of the attacks against him began to take a toll on Puzder, people close to the former Labor nominee told CNN. Puzder, these sources said, viewed his divorce as a private, personal matter that shouldn't be exploited by his opponents. Henning would later walk back her charges against her ex-husband, but the damage was already done. The divorce storyline continued, propelled by the fact that Henning had appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in disguise at the time to recount her abuse story. The video of the interview was eventually shown to senators and went public Wednesday, the day Puzder withdrew his nomination. At the same time, Democrats privately began drawing up plans to hold Puzder's feet to the fire on comments he made about women and racy ads run by Carl's Jr, the company he oversaw for years. Puzder defended the ads, which featured scantily-clad models eating burgers while washing cars, but the storyline, pushed by Democrats, was meant to raise questions about the nominee's character. "It certainly raises questions for Democrats that the nominee for Department of Labor would not only advocate for harmful stereotypes about women, but go so far as to say they are at the core of his company's values," a Democratic Senate aide told CNN in December. "And given the role that the secretary of labor plays in standing up for women's rights at work, Republicans should be concerned as well." As the drumbeat of negative stories continued, Puzder grew wary and was taken aback by the harshness of politics, a business ally and GOP sources told CNN in January. "He may be bailing," said a Republican source plugged into the Trump transition effort. "He is not into the pounding he is taking, and the paperwork." Puzder and his team maintained that he was looking forward to his hearing, but behind the scenes, there was more apprehension on the path forward. Puzder's initial hearing with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions was delayed, in part because his ethics paperwork and financial disclosure form had yet to be approved by the Office of Government Ethics. Puzder suffered another significant hit in early February when he was forced to admit that he had employed an undocumented immigrant for years, an admission that in the past has sunk other Cabinet secretary nominees. "My wife and I employed a housekeeper for a few years, during which I was unaware that she was not legally permitted to work in the US," Puzder said in a statement. "When I learned of her status, we immediately ended her employment and offered her assistance in getting legal status." Though Puzder said he and his wife paid back taxes on the employee, the damage was done and Democrats set in, calling on the nominee to withdraw by noting how past Democrats had withdrawn over the same offense. "They ought to withdraw Mr. Puzder before he further embarrasses this administration and further exposes the hypocrisy of President Trump, who says one thing to the American worker and does another," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on February 9. In the face of all this, however, Puzder's nomination lurched along. The nominee's spokesman, George Thompson, called Schumer's comments "fake news." Eventually, weeks after Puzder initial hearing was set to take place, the ethics office approved the businessman's paperwork, requiring him to liquidate all of his holdings in two companies before he assumed his role at the Department of Labor. The Senate committee tasked with considering Puzder then set a hearing date: February 16. The movement, though, seemingly kicked opposition to Puzder in overdrive, with liberal groups marshaling significant support to sink the nomination and keep all Democrats in line against the fast food executive. These groups, including labor unions, organized pseudo call centers to hammer senators thinking about approving the nominee. Republicans in the Senate responded with an aggressive effort to save Puzder's embattled nomination, leaning on well-funded business groups, the White House and Mitch McConnell, the powerful Senate majority leader. McConnell was Puzder's top cheerleader on Capitol Hill, sources told CNN, telling fellow senators that the nominee would be more prepared than any nominee in history to be labor secretary. McConnell's efforts, though, didn't end up being enough. The balance fully tipped against Puzder when four Republican senators -- Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Johnny Isakson of Georgia -- told their leadership that they were withholding their support for Puzder until they get more information. The comments sent shockwaves around Washington, including in the White House, where aides tasked with shepherding Trump's nominees through the Senate spent long nights trying to lock up Republican support. The effort failed, and Puzder eventually began to recoil from continuing to fight. At first, Puzder told the White House the he wanted to withdraw if they felt there was no path forward. His team then began to cancel their plans, including a grueling prep session Puzder was set to undergo on Wednesday afternoon. After Puzder officially withdrew, the finger-pointing began in earnest, with much of the blame falling on industry groups that Republicans feel did not back up the fast food executive. Republican sources said they were swamped by labor groups and progressive forces looking to derail Puzder, while the business community sat on the sidelines. "There was no campaign to support him or defend him," a source close to Puzder told CNN. "It is unfortunate that the industry did not step up to run a modern day campaign." Another Republican source put it more bluntly when blaming business groups: "His entire support network made one TV ad that looked like a welcome video for new Hardy's employees. ... It's no wonder the unions eat their lunch every time out." CNN's John King and Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.

2017-10-24 00:00:00

Republican Sen. Bob Corker reignited his feud with Donald Trump on Tuesday. Though the back and forth between Corker and Trump goes back months, the Tennessee senator seemed to strike a cord when he said the president should let Congress handle tax reform. In response, Trump tweeted that Corker “couldn’t get elected dog catcher in Tennessee.” Later in the day, when asked whether he regretted voting for Trump, Corker said “Well let’s just put it this way, I would not do that again.” Few Republicans have gone after Trump like Corker.

2019-08-20 00:00:00

SYDNEY, (Reuters) - Australia’s central bank discussed unconventional monetary policies, including negative interest rates, at its August board meeting as it left the door ajar for further easing having already cut rates twice to 1%. Minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) Aug.6 meeting showed it would consider further cuts to interest rates if it was needed to support growth and achieve its 2% to 3% inflation target. The RBA left interest rates at all-time lows earlier this month after easing by a quarter point in both June and July. Financial markets <0#YIB:> are fully priced for another rate cut to 0.75% by year-end, and to 0.5% by February. Economists polled by Reuters prior to the August meeting predicted a third cut would come in November. The RBA was tight-lipped about the timing of the next move, saying only that it would consider a further easing “if the accumulation of additional evidence suggested this was needed” to support its growth and inflation targets. This implied that a September cut might be unlikely. The country’s A$1.9 trillion economy ($1.3 trillion) is expanding at its weakest pace since the global financial crisis, weighed by a long downturn in the property market and sluggish household consumption. RBA policy makers have repeatedly singled out consumption as one of the biggest domestic uncertainties for Australia’s stuttering economy. The prospect of further reductions have stimulated debates on how low rates can go in Australia and the benefits from ultra easy monetary policies. The RBA board reviewed the experience of other advanced economies with unconventional policies such as very low and negative rates, explicit forward guidance, buying government bonds and providing long-term funding to banks, the minutes showed. “Members noted that a package of measures tended to be more effective than measures implemented in isolation,” the minutes showed. “Finally, it was important for the central bank to communicate clearly and consistently about these measures.” The RBA has already taken a step toward forward guidance. The minutes showed “it was reasonable to expect that an extended period of low interest rates would be required in Australia.” Last week, some economists, including at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AX), revised their outlook to price in steeper RBA rate cuts following an escalation in an ongoing Sino-U.S. trade war. The RBA Board saw the trade dispute as increasing the downside risks to global growth, noting businesses around the world had already significantly cut back investment plans. Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Wayne Cole

2017-11-09

Image: Warner BrothersImagine for a minute that you survive a terrible accident, and lose function of your right arm. You receive a brain implant able to interpret your brain’s neural activity and reroute commands to a robotic arm. Then one day, someone hacks that chip, sending malicious commands to the robotic arm. It’s a biological invasion of privacy in which you are suddenly no longer in control. A future in which we can simply download karate skills a la The Matrix or use computers to restore functionality to damaged limbs seems like the stuff of a far-off future, but that future is inching closer to the present with each passing day. Early research has had success using brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) to move prosthetic limbs and treat mental illness. DARPA is exploring how to use the technology to make soldiers learn faster. Companies like Elon Musk’s Neuralink want to use it to read your mind. Already, researchers can interpret basic information about what a person is thinking simply by reading scans of their brain activity from an fMRI.As incredible as the potential of these technologies are, they also present serious ethical conundrums that could one day compromise our privacy, identity, agency, and equality. In an essay published Thursday in Nature, a group of 27 neuroscientists, neurotechnologists, clinicians, ethicists and machine-intelligence engineers spell out their concerns.“We are on a path to a world in which it will be possible to decode people’s mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions; where individuals could communicate with others simply by thinking; and where powerful computational systems linked directly to people’s brains aid their interactions with the world such that their mental and physical abilities are greatly enhanced,” the researchers write.This, they claim, will mean remarkable power to change the human experience for the better. But such technology may also come with tradeoffs that are hard to swallow. “The technology could also exacerbate social inequalities and offer corporations, hackers, governments or anyone else new ways to exploit and manipulate people,” they write. “And it could profoundly alter some core human characteristics: private mental life, individual agency and an understanding of individuals as entities bound by their bodies.”The aim of the essay is to catalyze the development of stronger ethics guidelines to govern technologies that interact with the human brain. The essay focuses on four areas of concern:Privacy: “Algorithms that are used to target advertising, calculate insurance premiums or match potential partners will be considerably more powerful if they draw on neural information — for instance, activity patterns from neurons associated with certain states of attention,” the researchers write. “And neural devices connected to the Internet open up the possibility of individuals or organizations (hackers, corporations or government agencies) tracking or even manipulating an individual’s mental experience.” The sharing of neural data, they argue, should be automatically opt-out, rather than opt-in as, say, Facebook is. Technologies like blockchain could help protect user privacy, too.Agency and identity: In some cases, people who have received brain chip implants to treat mental health problems and Parkinson’s disease symptoms have reported feeling an altered sense of identity. “People could end up behaving in ways that they struggle to claim as their own, if machine learning and brain-interfacing devices enable faster translation between an intention and an action, perhaps by using an ‘auto-complete’ or ‘auto-correct’ function,” the researchers write. “If people can control devices through their thoughts across great distances, or if several brains are wired to work collaboratively, our understanding of who we are and where we are acting will be disrupted.” In light of this, they argue, treaties like the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights need to include clauses to protect identity and enforce education about the potential cognitive and emotional effects of neurotechnologies.Augmentation: “The pressure to adopt enhancing neurotechnologies, such as those that allow people to radically expand their endurance or sensory or mental capacities, is likely to change societal norms, raise issues of equitable access and generate new forms of discrimination,” the essay reads. Like all new technologies, a disparity of access could lead to an even wider chasm between those who can access it and those who cannot. Bias: We often view algorithms as impartial judges devoid of human bias. But algorithms are created by people, and that means they sometimes inherit our biases, too. To wit: last year a ProPublica investigation found algorithms used by US law-enforcement agencies wrongly predict that black defendants are more likely to reoffend than white defendants with a similar record. “Such biases could become embedded in neural devices,” the researchers write. “We advocate that countermeasures to combat bias become the norm for machine learning.”In other technologies, we have already begun to see examples of the privacy issues of a digital world creeping into our bodies. A few years ago, in a move that at the time seemed rooted in incredible paranoia, former Vice President Dick Cheney opted to remove the wireless functionality of his pacemaker, fearing a hack. It turned out he was instead incredibly prescient. This year, a report found pacemakers are vulnerable to literally thousands of bugs. Last year, Johnson & Johnson warned diabetic patients about a defect in one of its insulin pumps that could also theoretically allow an attack. Hacking aside, even the biological data we voluntarily share can have troublesome unforseen consequences. In February, data from man’s pacemaker helped put him in prison for arson. Data from Fitbits has similarly been used in court to prove personal injury claims and undermine a woman’s rape claim.From just a study of people’s movement derived from their smartphone’s activity monitor, one 2017 study was able to diagnose early signs of cognitive impairment associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Imagine what a direct line into the brain might reveal.There are a lot of things that need to happen before neurotechnologies are ready for the mainstream. For one, most effective brain-computer interface technologies currently require brain surgery. But companies like Facebook and OpenWater are working on developing non-invasive, consumer-friendly versions of these technologies. And while they might not get there in the next few years (as both companies have proposed), they probably will get there eventually.“The possible clinical and societal benefits of neurotechnologies are vast,” the essay concluded. “To reap them, we must guide their development in a way that respects, protects and enables what is best in humanity.”[Nature]

2019-12-18 00:00:00

If there's anything I've realized about all of the technology that's come out over the decade, it's that we, as humans, are very spoiled. From a home appliance that magically whips up meals with pressure to a car that drives for you, it's tough to say any of us are truly self-sufficient anymore.  But, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. We've come a long way these past ten years and it was tough to narrow down all of the best tech products to a short list. But, in the end, we chose the ones that made the biggest impact on the way we live. Let's just say, it's been a pretty wild ride. So, buckle up, because we're about to take a trip through the best tech of the decade. 1. Apple iPhone 4 This makes me miss the physical home button. It's been nearly ten years since the iPhone 4 came out and I'd still gladly rock it in 2020. As the successor to the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4 brought with it a lot of upgrades. For starters, it came complete with an LED light for notifications on its face, as well as a 5-megapixel rear camera, and a front-facing camera for both selfies and FaceTime calls.  Then, consider its design: With a stainless-steel frame and a more defined, square build (in comparison to the rounded edges on the iPhone 3GS), it set the stage for what smartphones would look like for years to come.  There's also the fact that it was the perfect size for a smartphone; it just felt so damn comfortable in the palm of your hands. In a world where large smartphones feel like the norm — specifically, the iPhone XS Max or the iPhone 11 Pro — the iPhone 4 reminds us all that smaller can sometimes actually be better.  Now, let's hope the iPhone SE 2 isn't just a rumor. 2. Google Assistant  Hey Google, thanks for letting me be extra lazy. Thanks to the Google Assistant, I often find myself randomly wanting to say "Hey, Google" even when there isn't a Pixel or Google Home in sight. While the company's voice assistant is only three years old — it launched in 2016 — it's since transformed the lifestyles of many, both at home and on the go.  And, sure, the Google Assistant is always there to answer your questions, help you with your schedule, and inform you of the latest news. But, it's also there to make sure you never have to get off your couch. With integration into tons of smart home products, it's tough to name a device that doesn't already come Google Assistant-ready. From TVs and smart speakers to washing machines and robot vacuums, a few simple voice commands can get the job done. Even the electronics in my tiny room, where I can technically reach everything from my bed, are set up to a smart power strip. That way, I literally don't have to lift a finger to turn on my lamp, space heater, TV ... well, you get the point. 3. Apple AirPods They're ugly, but still great. When AirPods first came out in 2016, I thought they were the dumbest looking earbuds I'd ever seen. Then I tried them. And now, I can't live without them.  While I'm still angry at Apple for removing the iPhone's headphone jack, I don't miss being tethered to my phone. With a pair of these sitting in my ears, the possibilities of things I can do are endless. I can cook, fold laundry, go for a run, or talk on the phone while walking around my apartment, all hands-free. There's also the fact that they're just so damn easy to use. Pairing AirPods to your iPhone is as simple as opening the case. And, speaking of the case, it has a built-in battery that quickly charges them so you don't have to worry that your earbuds are going to die with no outlet in sight.  4. Amazon Alexa  Alexa, order me some cookies. Sure, Apple's Siri came out in 2011, but it's been nine years and it still needs a lot of improvement. That being said, there's no doubt that Amazon truly set the tone for smart assistants everywhere with the debut of the Amazon Echo smart speaker in 2014. With a simple voice command, Alexa, as Amazon's assistant is called, turned off the lights, told you the weather, added items to your shopping list, played music, and set timers. From there, Google swooped in with its very own Google Assistant and Google Home smart speaker in 2016. Meanwhile, Apple played catch up with the Siri-powered HomePod in 2018. All of which operate very similarly to both Alexa and the Amazon Echo. But, while Amazon's lineup of smart speakers have since expanded their capabilities, the one thing I'll always be most impressed by is Alexa's ability to order products via your Amazon account. There's just something about ordering useless stuff via voice command, where you can't see the price, that makes you feel less guilty about shopping.  5. Apple Watch Series 4 Heartbeat readings can be fun! Also, terrifying! While the Apple Watch was already on plenty of wrists prior to the release of the Series 4 in 2018, this model truly set the tone for the future of smartwatches. Activity tracking and smartphone notifications? That's child's play. Apple managed to pack an ECG sensor into its smartwatch, giving it the ability to take electrocardiograms and identify signs of atrial fibrillation.  To add to its list of medical capabilities, it also comes with fall detection. So, whenever the watch detects that you've fallen and can't get up (yes, we went there), it sends an alert to your emergency contacts and dials emergency services. From there, other brands followed suit: Only a few months later, Withings launched its Move ECG hybrid smartwatch. Meanwhile, Samsung also added fall detection and an ECG monitor to its second-generation Galaxy Watch Active 2. (Although, that sensor has yet to actually work. But that's another story for another time.) Regardless, Apple managed to set new the tone for smartwatches with the Series 4; one that digs deeper into our health metrics than mere heart rate and calories burned. Now, if it could only track sleep next. 6. Nintendo Switch You can play it literally anywhere. The Nintendo Switch came out in 2017 and, two years later, is one of the top-selling video game consoles in the U.S., with 41.67 million units sold as of Sept. 30. Considering Nintendo's previous console, the Wii U, only sold about 13 million units in its lifetime, let's just say people's expectations for the Switch weren't very high.  With this bad boy, you can take your pick from recent critical hits starring the likes of Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong — the list goes on. Or, you can opt for something a little more fresh.  Its portability also truly embodies the lifestyle of the late 2000's, you know, since no one knows how to sit still nowadays. With the Switch, you can swap back and forth between playing on the portable screen or on your TV thanks to the included dock. That way, you can easily pick up where you left off.  7. Instant Pot The pressure cooker is a little scary, but totally worth it. The Instant Pot has developed somewhat of a cult following since its debut in 2010 and I couldn't understand why until I used one myself. Let me tell you: This thing is magical. The same way Instagram turned everyone into a photographer, Instant Pot turned everyone into a chef — including me. For starters, it's literally a bunch of appliances morphed into one device that sits on your countertop. It's also super easy to use. Throw a bunch of ingredients into it, wait a little while, release that steam, and you have yourself an entire meal.  There's really nothing the Instant Pot can't cook: soup, chili, porridge, rice, stew, poultry, etc. I mean, this thing can even make cake and yogurt! And, speaking from personal experience, it makes a delicious chicken tikka masala. 8. Google Chromecast Plug a Chromecast into your TV and you'll never leave your room. Plug a Google Chromecast into your TV's HDMI port and you're ready to stream — it's that simple. To me, it's just as magical a gadget as the Instant Pot. Especially, if you watch as much TV as I do. Rather than going out of your way to purchase an expensive smart TV, Chromecast lets you stream all the content you want from Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, HBO Go, and more.  Since its debut in 2013, Chromecast has been through three revisions, each making it a faster and better streaming dongle. But for the most part, this precious little device has remained the same in terms of both look and features. And, for those of you in the market for a new TV,  you also have the option to purchase a set with Chromecast built-in. That way, it's all set up for you right out of the box. 9. Apple CarPlay Safety first! I never truly appreciated Apple CarPlay until I realized how outdated my car's Bluetooth speaker was. The feature, which first came out in 2014, essentially turns the display in your car into a second iPhone screen.  With CarPlay, you can read and answer text messages, play music, view your calendar, and more, all without actually touching or looking at your actual phone. (That' something we all know we shouldn't do while driving anyways. But hey, no one's perfect.) 10. Tesla Autopilot Because driving is hard enough. Tesla's Autopilot truly raised the bar for autonomous driving systems. Originally released in 2014, it's come a long way in the last five years despite some issues. The feature comes with multiple capabilities including adaptive cruise control, auto-steer, speed assist, and autopark. The newest Teslas even have the ability to look at your calendar and take you where you need to go. If my next car can't do this, then I don't want it. And I know not everyone will agree with this statement but, you guys, driving can be tough. Then again, this is coming from the person who failed her driver's test on the first try (and also recently drove the wrong direction into a one-way street). So, I'll gladly welcome Autopilot into my life with open arms.

2018-09-02

Senior running back Squally Canada scored three touchdowns, leading BYU to a 28-23 victory over Arizona on Saturday in the season opener for both teams in Tucson, Ariz. The Cougars’ victory spoiled Kevin Sumlin’s debut as Arizona’s coach. Sumlin had gone 9-1 in season openers as a head coach. The result also snapped the Wildcats’ 17-game home win streak in season openers. BYU was methodical and patient all night, finding a way to get through Arizona’s supposedly improved defense. The Cougars finished with 392 yards in total offense to the Wildcats’ 326. Arizona made a late-game rally, scoring a touchdown with 3:20 left on a 1-yard rush by J.J. Taylor to make it 28-23. The Wildcats fell just short on the two-point conversion. It was the last time Arizona touched the ball, as BYU ran out the clock. Cougars senior quarterback Tanner Mangum outdueled Arizona junior quarterback Khalil Tate most of the night, passing for one touchdown and 209 yards. He completed 18 of 28 attempts. Tate was limited throughout the game and was all but stuffed on the run, something that made him a major threat last season after averaging 128.3 rushing yards a game. Tate amassed 197 yards on 17-of-34 passing. He ran for a touchdown and threw for one. It was the second most passes he’s thrown in his career (35). Tate gained 14 yards on eight carries. BYU broke the game open in the third quarter as it scored three touchdowns, one on a 24-yard scoring pass from Mangum to tight end Matt Bushman, a Tucson native, to make it 14-10. On the Cougars’ next possession, Canada scored on a 1-yard run to make it 21-10. After Tate and the Wildcats failed to move the ball on their next drive, BYU drove 36 yards for Canada’s final touchdown of the night. BYU took a 28-10 lead into the fourth quarter. Tate inched Arizona closer on a 2-yard run early into the fourth quarter to make it 28-17. —Field Level Media

2017-05-09 18:54:15

Trilobites Ever since it was discovered curled up in a nest of supersized dinosaur eggs in the early 1990s, Baby Louie has been an orphan. A 90-million-year-old fossilized dinosaur embryo, it was found among a clutch of eggs in Henan Province, in central China. Each of the squash-shaped eggs measured about 18 inches long and 6 inches wide, making them among the largest dinosaur eggs ever uncovered. But remains of their parents were nowhere to be found. “There were all sorts of speculation on what laid the eggs; was it the tyrannosaur?” said Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist at the University of Calgary in Alberta. But now, after nearly 25 years, Dr. Zelenitsky and her colleagues have linked the orphaned dinosaurs with their prehistoric lineage. Baby Louie and its kin belong to a group of large, birdlike dinosaurs known as giant oviraptorosaurs. They resembled cassowaries and ostriches but were about as heavy as a rhino and as tall as an elephant. Baby Louie is the first discovered member of a new species of giant oviraptorosaur called Beibeilong sinensis, which roughly means “Chinese baby dragon.” “We finally know the parentage of the largest known dinosaur eggs,” Dr. Zelenitsky said. The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. These kinds of large dinosaur eggs are known as Macroelongatoolithus eggs, and have also been found in North America. They are typically arranged in a large ring with up to about 30 eggs in a nest. But only the clutch with Baby Louie offered a skeleton that was closely associated with the eggs. It provided the best clues for figuring out what creatures could produce such massive eggs. Entombed in a large block of rocks, Baby Louie was collected sometime between December 1992 and early 1993 in China. Charlie Magovern, a fossil dealer, came into possession of the rocks and unexpectedly discovered the fossilized fetus bones. In 1996, Baby Louie was featured on the cover of National Geographic, and was named after the photographer for the feature article, Louie Psihoyos. Baby Louie remained with the fossil dealers until 2001, when they sold it to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. The museum put the fossil on display for about 12 years. During this time an exciting discovery occurred in China: The first giant oviraptorosaur fossil was unearthed in 2007. Paleontologists had previously known of oviraptors, and they were aware that Baby Louie resembled one. But until that time, all of the oviraptors that had ever been found were much too small to have laid the giant eggs. But with the newly discovered one-ton oviraptorosaur, the idea that the massive eggs came from a giant oviraptorosaur seemed plausible. “Finally here it is — there are giant oviraptorosaurs that could have laid these eggs,” Dr. Zelenitsky said. Still, even with the discovery of giant oviraptorosaurs, it took another decade before the researchers could publish the connection. Concerned about the legal status of the fossil, Dr. Zelenitsky and her colleagues wanted to wait until Baby Louie was repatriated to China. In 2013, the fossilized embryo was finally returned and put on display in the Henan Geological Museum in Zhengzhou. Then in 2015, some of Dr. Zelenitsky’s colleagues returned to the site in China where Baby Louie was found and uncovered fossilized egg shells that were identical to the ones from “Baby Louie’s nest. David J. Varricchio, a paleontologist from Montana State University, who was not involved in the study, said it was satisfying to finally see the identity of Baby Louie confirmed. He added that the findings could help paleontologists better understand dinosaurs and their eggs. “It answers an interesting puzzle of who these giant eggs belong to,” he said.

2019-11-20 17:09:00

If the little ones in your life (or you, no judgment!) have been counting down the days until the November 22 release of Frozen 2, you’re in the home stretch! With the highly anticipated sequel set to hit theaters this weekend, the movie’s co-stars landing their own spots on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the original available to stream on Disney+, there’s been plenty of excitement around the animated movie’s upcoming release.  And thanks to Wet Brush — the brand behind Amazon’s best-selling detangling brush — there’s yet another collab out there for fans who just can’t seem to get enough of the Frozen characters. For its limited-edition Frozen 2 collection, Wet Brush has released four detangling brushes that feature the film’s faves, including Elsa, Anna, and Olaf. You could call this the brand’s own Disney sequel, since a Princess Collection launched earlier this year, and between the new film’s release and the holidays right around the corner, it couldn’t arrive at a better time. You can head to Amazon and shop the collection right now!  Aside from adding a bit of Frozen fun to your household’s morning routine, the Wet Brush’s ultra-soft IntelliFlex bristles are designed to gently and quickly untangle, especially while gliding through wet and damp knot-prone hair, so you can count on less breakage and fewer split ends with continued use. And parents and Amazon shoppers both agree: These brushes really work!  “This brush is magic!” said one Amazon shopper. “I have had issues trying to get my 3-year-old to let me brush her hair. I tried de-tangling sprays and conditioners. A friend suggested the Wet Brush, and the fact it has Elsa and Anna on it, helped, too. Hair brushing no longer ends in tears!” While hairbrushes wouldn’t usually be the first thing that comes to mind when putting together a list of holiday must-haves and stocking stuffers for little ones, this collab is one you’ll want to pick up for the Frozen lover in your life before it’s gone for good.  Scroll down to shop the entire Frozen 2 Wet Brush collection while you await the movie’s release! Buy It! Wet Brush Disney Frozen 2 Original Detangler- Anna, $12.93; amazon.com Buy It! Wet Brush Disney Frozen 2 Original Detangler- Olaf, $12.98; amazon.com Buy It! Wet Brush Disney Frozen 2 Original Detangler- Elsa, $12.98; amazon.com Buy It! Wet Brush Disney Frozen 2 Original Detangler- Anna & Elsa, $12.98; amazon.com

2017-09-27

(The Sept. 27 story corrects headline to attribute risk factor to expert, not WHO) By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - Nearly half of the estimated 56 million abortions performed worldwide every year are unsafe and women in poor countries face even higher risks due to U.S. funding cuts to family planning programs abroad, health experts said on Thursday. U.S. President Donald Trump has reinstated a policy that requires foreign NGOs that receive U.S. global family planning funds to certify that they do not perform abortions or provide abortion advice as a method of family planning. Worldwide, 25 million unsafe abortions occurred every year between 2010 and 2014, according to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Guttmacher Institute. Some 97 percent of those are in Africa, Asia and Latin America. “Nearly half of abortions in the world are unsafe. And that is surprising because safe abortion is a simple intervention, scientifically speaking,” said Dr. Bela Ganatra of WHO department’s of reproductive health and research. “There is an association between highly restrictive laws and unsafe abortion,” she told a news briefing. All women and girls need access to sex education and effective contraception to avoid unwanted pregnancies and get safe abortion services if desired, Ganatra said. Uruguay, Nepal and Ethiopia have made safe abortion accessible in recent years, she added. Ireland plans to hold a referendum next May or June on whether it should loosen some of the world’s strictest abortion laws, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said on Tuesday. Around 88 percent of abortions occur in developing countries, where contraception is often lacking, said Dr. Gilda Sedgh, principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, speaking from New York. Sedgh, asked about the impact of Trump’s executive order, said it bans U.S. health assistance to foreign NGOs if they provide abortion services, counseling or referrals, “even if they use non-U.S. funds for those activities”. “Funding cuts to USAID, which is the channel through which family planning assistance is provided, has also been proposed in the U.S. budget,” she said. “We don’t have hard evidence yet of the impact of those policy changes and proposed budget cuts.” But a more limited so-called “gag rule” was imposed by previous Republican administrations, Sedgh said. Studies indicated that in sub-Saharan Africa this had led to an increase in abortions after clinics were forced to close. “So looking ahead, we can only speculate based on the past, that it’s possible that this policy will again compromise women’s access to family planning services and put them at greater risk of abortion, including unsafe abortions.” Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Mark Heinrich

2016-11-26 00:00:00

HAVANA — Former President Fidel Castro, who led a rebel army to improbable victory in Cuba, embraced Soviet-style communism and defied the power of 10 U.S. presidents during his half century rule, has died at age 90. Castro's reign over the island-nation 90 miles from Florida was marked by the U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis a year later that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. The bearded revolutionary, who survived a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots, died eight years after ill health forced him to formally hand power over to his younger brother Raul, who announced his death late Friday on state television. Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of dictator Fulgencio Batista, exile in Mexico and a disastrous start to his rebellion before triumphantly riding into Havana in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America. For decades, he served as an inspiration and source of support to revolutionaries from Latin America to Africa. His commitment to socialism was unwavering, though his power finally began to fade in mid-2006 when a gastrointestinal ailment forced him to hand over the presidency to Raul in 2008, provisionally at first and then permanently. His defiant image lingered long after he gave up his trademark Cohiba cigars for health reasons and his tall frame grew stooped. "Socialism or death" remained Castro's rallying cry even as Western-style democracy swept the globe and other communist regimes in China and Vietnam embraced capitalism, leaving this island of 11 million people an economically crippled Marxist curiosity. He survived long enough to see Raul Castro negotiate an opening with U.S. President Barack Obama on Dec. 17, 2014, when Washington and Havana announced they would move to restore diplomatic ties for the first time since they were severed in 1961. He cautiously blessed the historic deal with his lifelong enemy in a letter published after a month-long silence. Fidel Castro Ruz was born Aug. 13, 1926, in eastern Cuba's sugar country, where his Spanish immigrant father worked first recruiting labor for U.S. sugar companies and later built up a prosperous plantation of his own. Castro attended Jesuit schools, then the University of Havana, where he received law and social science degrees. His life as a rebel began in 1953 with a reckless attack on the Moncada military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. Most of his comrades were killed and Fidel and his brother Raul went to prison. Fidel turned his trial defense into a manifesto that he smuggled out of jail, famously declaring, "History will absolve me." Freed under a pardon, Castro fled to Mexico and organized a rebel band that returned in 1956, sailing across the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba on a yacht named Granma. After losing most of his group in a bungled landing, he rallied support in Cuba's eastern Sierra Maestra mountains. Three years later, tens of thousands spilled into the streets of Havana to celebrate Batista's downfall and catch a glimpse of Castro as his rebel caravan arrived in the capital on Jan. 8, 1959. The U.S. was among the first to formally recognize his government, cautiously trusting Castro's early assurances he merely wanted to restore democracy, not install socialism. Within months, Castro was imposing radical economic reforms. Members of the old government went before summary courts, and at least 582 were shot by firing squads over two years. Independent newspapers were closed and in the early years, homosexuals were herded into camps for "re-education." In 1964, Castro acknowledged holding 15,000 political prisoners. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled, including Castro's daughter Alina Fernandez Revuelta and his younger sister Juana. Still, the revolution thrilled millions in Cuba and across Latin America who saw it as an example of how the seemingly arrogant Yankees could be defied. And many on the island were happy to see the seizure of property of the landed class, the expulsion of American gangsters and the closure of their casinos. Castro's speeches, lasting up to six hours, became the soundtrack of Cuban life and his 269-minute speech to the U.N. General Assembly in 1960 set the world body's record for length that still stood more than five decades later. As Castro moved into the Soviet bloc, Washington began working to oust him, cutting U.S. purchases of sugar, the island's economic mainstay. Castro, in turn, confiscated $1 billion in U.S. assets. The American government imposed a trade embargo, banning virtually all U.S. exports to the island except for food and medicine, and it severed diplomatic ties on Jan. 3, 1961. On April 16 of that year, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist, and the next day, about 1,400 Cuban exiles stormed the beach at the Bay of Pigs on Cuba's south coast. But the CIA-backed invasion failed. The debacle forced the U.S. to give up on the idea of invading Cuba, but that didn't stop Washington and Castro's exiled enemies from trying to do him in. By Cuban count, he was the target of more than 630 assassination plots by militant Cuban exiles or the U.S. government. The biggest crisis of the Cold War between Washington and Moscow exploded on Oct. 22, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and imposed a naval blockade of the island. Humankind held its breath, and after a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev removed them. Never had the world felt so close to nuclear war. Castro cobbled revolutionary groups together into the new Cuban Communist Party, with him as first secretary. Labor unions lost the right to strike. The Catholic Church and other religious institutions were harassed. Neighborhood "revolutionary defense committees" kept an eye on everyone. Castro exported revolution to Latin American countries in the 1960s, and dispatched Cuban troops to Africa to fight Western-backed regimes in the 1970s. Over the decades, he sent Cuban doctors abroad to tend to the poor, and gave sanctuary to fugitive Black Panther leaders from the U.S. But the collapse of the Soviet bloc ended billions in preferential trade and subsidies for Cuba, sending its economy into a tailspin. Castro briefly experimented with an opening to foreign capitalists and limited private enterprise. As the end of the Cold War eased global tensions, many Latin American and European countries re-established relations with Cuba. In January 1998, Pope John Paul II visited a nation that had been officially atheist until the early 1990s. Aided by a tourism boom, the economy slowly recovered and Castro steadily reasserted government control, stifling much of the limited free enterprise tolerated during harder times. As flamboyant as he was in public, Castro tried to lead a discreet private life. He and his first wife, Mirta Diaz Balart, had one son before divorcing in 1956. Then, for more than four decades, Castro had a relationship with Dalia Soto del Valle. They had five sons together and were said to have married quietly in 1980. By the time Castro resigned 49 years after his triumphant arrival in Havana, he was the world's longest ruling head of government, aside from monarchs. In retirement, Castro voiced unwavering support as Raul slowly but deliberately enacted sweeping changes to the Marxist system he had built. His longevity allowed the younger brother to consolidate control, perhaps lengthening the revolution well past both men's lives. In February 2013, Raul announced that he would retire as president in 2018 and named newly minted Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel as his successor. "I'll be 90 years old soon," Castro said at an April 2016 communist party congress where he made his most extensive public appearance in years. "Soon I'll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain as proof that on this planet, if one works with fervor and dignity, they can produce the material and cultural goods that human beings need and that need to be fought for without ever giving up."

2018-04-20 17:00:02

CNN political commentator Sally Kohn published a new book, The Opposite of Hate, earlier this month. It’s a book devoted to the laudable cause of understanding and then fighting back against hatred throughout the world, especially in the form of bigotry and prejudice. So far so good, right? Here’s the problem: One chapter features a fairly explosive quote from Call Your Girlfriend podcast host Aminatou Sow. Kohn quotes Sow as saying that if she is provoked by a Twitter troll, “I can fucking kill you and I’m justified in doing that.” Metaphorically speaking, Kohn adds. Sow says that she never said those words. Moreover, she says that she never went on the record with Kohn. Kohn, for her part, maintains that Sow did say those words and that she did go on the record with them, but as a courtesy, she has removed the quote from the digital edition of her book and has committed to removing it from any subsequent printed editions. The entire controversy is a deeply vexed situation that’s become a referendum on liberal racism and on the way that black women are used as props by progressives. (For more on its social implications, I’d recommend takes by Amanda Arnold at the Cut and Amy Thomson at Mother Jones.) But the controversy has also brought up one of the knottier and more confusing questions that periodically rears its head in book publishing. Sow says that the misquote would have been caught in fact-checking if anyone had contacted her to verify it. Kohn says that she fact-checked the quote by checking it against her notes and that this method is the journalistic standard. So how does fact-checking work in book publishing? And is the way that it works effective? In general, fact-checking is not a standard part of the workflow in book publishing, even in nonfiction book publishing. What usually happens is this: Authors submit their manuscripts, the manuscripts go to editors who help to refine them and shape them, and from there the book goes into production and copy editing. The copy editor will look for grammatical errors, and sometimes the publisher’s lawyer will check the book to make sure there’s nothing libelous in there, but fact-checking is not part of the standard publisher’s process. There have been exceptions to this rule. In 2015, Vulture reported that Penguin Random House imprint Tim Duggan Books “has been quietly promoting in-house fact-checking as a special feature of his new shop,” and confirmed that at least one of the books Tim Duggan published had been fact-checked at the publisher’s expense. But the Tim Duggan fact-checking project was an exception, not the norm, and it’s not clear that it survived into 2018. (The imprint did not respond to requests for comment.) So how do publishers generally handle it if factual errors creep into a book? Basically, the same way they handle plagiarism: They make it the author’s problem. One of the standard parts of any book contract is the warranty and indemnity clause. By signing on to that clause, an author is guaranteeing that their book is their own, original project, not plagiarism, that it doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights, and — if the book is nonfiction — that its facts are accurate. And if it turns out that any of these claims are untrue, the liability is all on the author. They’re the ones who pay up if someone decides to sue. So the facts are all up to the author. And different authors handle that liability differently. Some might want to hire a freelance fact-checker, but that can get expensive: Vulture cites flat prices of between $5,000 and $25,000, and the Editorial Freelancers Association quotes a rate of about $30 to $40 per hour. The money for fact-checker fees would have to come from the author. And since most nonfiction book authors aren’t exactly rolling in spare cash, it’s a tempting corner to cut. Many authors decide to just fact-check themselves or to skip that step entirely. Either way, we’re left with an industry in which a lot of nonfiction books don’t get looked over by a professional fact-checker. “While I can’t speak for every publisher or author, my experience with book-length material is that fact-checking is the exception, not the rule,” says Rob Liguori, a New York-based freelance fact-checker with nearly a decade of experience. According to Sow, she had a single private conversation with Kohn in the back of a car last summer, after drinks. At no point, she says, did she agree to go on the record for Kohn, and at no point did she see Kohn record or take notes on their conversation. The fact that no one ever contacted Sow to verify her quote after the fact is a major problem, but it’s not the main issue. It’s part of what Sow has framed as the larger problem: According to Sow, Kohn violated basic journalistic principles. (Sow did not respond to a request for comment.) This quote is explosive and not only do I not remember saying it or Sally asking for my permission to quote me in the car ride, she has admitted to me that she did not go back to factcheck sources in her book. This has been a real education the book editing process. pic.twitter.com/PKekIwe5Wc For her part, Kohn maintains that she did ask for Sow’s permission to put her on the record and that she did take notes on their conversation on her iPhone as they spoke. (She’s put a copy of her notes on Twitter.) Moreover, Kohn says, she did fact-check the quote: she checked it against her notes. “That is the standard of journalism. That’s the standard of news reporting. That’s how it’s done,” Kohn said in an interview on the Twitter BuzzFeed morning show AM to DM. “Every Times story you read, every Washington Post story you read, they’re not going back and checking with people who went on record and saying, ‘Are you okay with your quotes?’ … Let’s be clear: I’m not inventing a new standard of book-writing here. It’s false to say that the book wasn’t fact-checked. And it’s false to say that the quotes weren’t checked. They were checked against the notes.” Over the phone, Kohn reiterated her statements. “I have tried to be direct, forthcoming and honest, including about what I wish I had done differently,” she told Vox, saying that she felt that as a white woman she should have been more careful about quoting such an explosive line from a woman of color and that she feels that the critiques of the racial politics of the quote are valid. But, she said, she continues to maintain that she asked for and received consent to put Sow on the record and that she visibly took notes on the conversation as they spoke. And, she added, “It is true that there is not an industry standard of confirming quotes.” It’s certainly the case that there are multiple standards of quote confirmation and fact-checking in journalism. As writer Ann Friedman pointed out on Twitter, in a thread that’s critical of Kohn, “Standards for how (and how rigorously) to check facts vary quite a bit depending on what corner of the industry you’re in, what outlet you work for, how tight your deadline is, and even, sometimes, who’s editing you.” Fact-checking quotes for a newspaper story that has to be published in a matter of hours is a different process than fact-checking a long reported article that has a lot of time and resources going into it, which is part of why magazine fact-checking is more rigorous than newspaper and news website fact-checking. (Disclosure: Vox does not have a dedicated fact-checker on staff, though our copy editors do fact-checking for large, reported articles, and we occasionally hire third-party fact checkers for especially sensitive articles.) And fact-checking a quote transcribed during casual conversation with an acquaintance is a different process from fact-checking a quote gathered in a formal interview. Quote approval, in which a source gets to read their quotes verbatim and then veto what shows up in print and what does not, is a widely disliked practice that reputable outlets use only in special circumstances. But checking the substance of a quote with a source for accuracy is a different matter. “I endeavor to verify every quotation in a book, and there is a hierarchy of what constitutes good backup for quotes,” freelance fact-checker Liguori told me. “Most effective would be a discussion with the source about the substance of the quote — though I do not read back quotations to sources verbatim because of concerns about ‘source remorse’ — followed by checking the quotation against an audio recording or a professionally-prepared transcript. Reliance on the author’s contemporaneous, often piecemeal notes is the least reliable way to check a quotation. (Dear writers: please tape your interviews!)” So while Kohn’s book was fact-checked to an extent, it was not fact-checked with the rigor that an outside party might have brought to the process. And book publishing as an industry is set up to disincentivize bringing an independent fact-checker into the process. All of which is to say that if Kohn’s publisher had made fact-checking a standard part of its workflow, the way that copy editing is, rather than making it the author’s problem, someone might have contacted Sow about her quote before the book went to press, and Kohn and her publisher might have avoided a public controversy. A fact-checker would not have solved the central dispute here, which is about whether a journalist used ethical and accurate practices in getting a quote from a source on a sensitive subject. And using a fact-checker is not a magic solution that puts a book beyond all possibility of reproach. But a fact-checker can act as an effective safety net, a support system that helps make a book the best and most accurate version of itself. And it’s a support system that, for the most part, the book publishing industry does not have. That’s not a great situation for book authors, their sources, or their readers to be in. Correction: An earlier version of this piece has Sow saying her conversation with Kohn took place years ago. Sow actually places it last summer.

2018-11-30 00:00:00

Nancy Pelosi is refusing to entertain an end date on her leadership, even as more detractors have indicated they would support her speakership if she negotiates with them. Pelosi is still short the votes to reclaim the speaker’s gavel in January but said the request many of her opponents are making — that she provide a clear timeline for when she’ll make way for a new crop of Democratic leaders — is unworkable. “Between saying when I’m going to retire or not? … I don’t think so,” she told reporters Friday when asked if there was middle ground she could strike with her critics. “This will be resolved.” She also criticized the group opposing her, made up primarily of men, for targeting her, given her gender: “I don’t think, by the way, they should be putting timelines on a woman speaker.” Pelosi’s comments cap a whirlwind week of public posturing and private jockeying by both the longtime Democratic leader and her rebellious pack of detractors, with neither side willing to move publicly from their positions. Pelosi overwhelmingly won her party's nomination for speaker on Wednesday with 203 votes, prompting many of her allies to say it’s time for the rebel group to end their dissent. But her critics say there’s still enough opposition to block her from becoming speaker, pointing to the 32 Democrats who voted against her on the secret ballot. They say they will keep opposing her unless she talks about when the next generation of leaders will come to power. Pelosi and her two deputies, both of whom were unanimously reelected by the caucus earlier this week, have been in power for more than a dozen years, creating a bottleneck that has made it impossible for any other members to advance beyond the lower rungs of leadership. Of those 32 “no” votes, around 20 have said they are planning to vote against Pelosi on the floor Jan. 3. Sixteen Democrats signed a letter saying as much earlier this month while a handful of other incoming freshmen and current members have made public statements to that effect. By contrast, 63 Democrats opposed her in the closed-door caucus meeting in 2016. Pelosi needs to get 218 votes to grab back the gavel, meaning she can only afford to lose 17 Democrats and needs to peel off at least a handful of her detractors along the way. But there is some movement behind the scenes as Pelosi looks to lock up the votes for speaker, with some of her critics signaling they’re open to some kind of deal. The anti-Pelosi pack huddled Thursday afternoon to talk strategy while some of Pelosi’s allies are privately reaching out to some of the group’s members to see if they’re willing to negotiate. Rep. Tim Ryan, one of the ringleaders of a letter vowing to block Pelosi, said she couldn’t persuade him to change his mind. “I can’t get anything. I don’t want anything. I don’t need anything. So I’m a ‘no,’” Ryan told reporters Friday. But the Ohio Democrat, who challenged Pelosi in 2016, did seem to indicate that other members of his group may take a different tack in January. “Everybody’s got to vote their conscience. Everyone’s got to vote their district, that’s the most important thing. And let the chips fall where they may,” he said. Ryan was one of three anti-Pelosi members who took their case to the Democratic leader directly in a private meeting earlier this week. Reps. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.), two more outspoken Pelosi opponents, also attended the meeting. The trio floated the idea of backing Pelosi if she vows to relinquish power by a certain date. But Pelosi shut down transition talk in the meeting, refusing to detail her exit strategy or even confirm whether she had one. “They want her to lame duck herself,” complained one Pelosi ally after the meeting. Pelosi had previously talked broadly about the idea of a transition, particularly before the election, but has since mostly shut down conversation about the idea after Democrats won the majority earlier this month. On Friday, some of Pelosi’s less vocal critics were planning another go at her: With Pelosi refusing to budge for Rice, Ryan and Moulton — three lawmakers who have tense relationships with the Californian — other members of the rebel group are hoping they can reach her in a friendlier way. Rep. Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, for example, has a strong enough connection with Pelosi that he can call her privately in a way the others in the rebel group can’t. Some in the group are looking to the Colorado Democrat to try to convince Pelosi to commit to an exit plan — even if just privately. “Ed is having conversations with Leader Pelosi, and will support her if an agreement can be reached on some sort of transition plan,” said Perlmutter’s spokeswoman Ashley Verville. Rep. Bill Foster, one of the 16 Democrats who signed the letter, also wants to secure a transition commitment from Pelosi. He told a local news outlet Thursday he could support Pelosi with a “succession plan with a defined time frame.”Later in the interview, Foster seemed to indicate even talk of a firm timeframe was open for compromise: "If a succession plan is on the table, then I think there's a lot of room to negotiate,” he told the Daily Herald. And Foster isn’t the only member of the Pelosi opposition who may be looking for a solution before the Jan. 3 floor vote. “If she comes up with a transition plan, she will clinch the nomination before January,” said a source close to the group. Some in the group are very skeptical that Pelosi will agree to this, and with good reason. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) took a major political hit when he announced he would retire almost a year before his exit. Donors stopped giving, and some in the conference stopped listening to him, turning instead to make their cases to his heir apparent, Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) Pelosi allies believe she would suffer a similar fate should she promise a transition. And as she readies to go up against Trump, a weak hand is the last thing she needs, they argue. But the rebels’ unlikely request hasn’t stopped Pelosi from trying to work some of her opponents one by one, either through private meetings, emissaries reaching out via phone calls and on the House floor, offering political carrots or a combination of all three. Pelosi has already peeled off two of her opponents — Reps. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) and Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) — both of whom said they support her after she offered them legislative goodies. For Higgins, that meant a promise Democrats would look at infrastructure — already a top Democratic priority — and his Medicare enrollment bill in the next Congress. Fudge gave her support in exchange for being appointed chairwoman of an elections subcommittee in the new Congress. And earlier this week, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), another letter signer, said he was “very close” to backing Pelosi after she promised to let him play a key role in efforts to enact an infrastructure bill and pension reform, two initiatives important to his district.

2019-01-04

Image: D-LinkUnless you spent 2018 living in a cave (which would be 100 percent justified given the political climate) you’ve undoubtedly heard the buzz around the new 5G wireless networks coming online. They not only promise faster internet speeds for mobile devices but wireless internet that’s actually fast enough to completely replace the wired broadband you use at home. With D-Link’s new 5G NR router, all you need is electricity and a SIM card to say goodbye to cable forever.It’s safe to assume that eventually every device in your home, from TVs to smartphones to voice-activated microwaves, will each directly connect to the next-generation of cellular networks being implemented—be it 5G, 6G, or whatever number series the future holds. But that’s still a few years away and will require you to upgrade every internet-of-things device you use. Smartphones and tablets will be among the first to offer 5G compatibility, with others eventually following suit. But you don’t upgrade your dishwasher as often as you do your phone, and that’s where a 5G router will be a useful upgrade.Instead of plugging D-Link’s DWR-2010 5G NR router into a prehistoric coaxial cable (or even a network cable if you’re blessed with a fiber connection to your home) it will simply suck high-speed internet from the sub-6 GHz and mmWave frequencies that 5G will rely on, and distribute it amongst all the connected devices in your home using the tried-and-true local wifi network they were already designed to connect to.The D-Link DWR-2010 isn’t expected to arrive until the latter half of 2019, and it will be sold through the various cellular carriers in the country who will dictate the pricing. (The hardware will undoubtedly be subsidized in exchange for multi-year internet plan contracts.) But it will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X55 chipset, will include five gigabit ethernet ports (ideal for gaming or connecting a NAS), as well as AC2600 dual band wifi that also supports connectivity to D-Link’s mesh networking products for extending your wireless network to every last corner of your home.Is the technology worth jumping on right away? Probably not, as it will certainly take a few years for 5G coverage to match the reach of 4G networks right now. But if you happen to live somewhere where reliable broadband connectivity has been hard to come by, 5G maybe, possibly, could finally solve your connectivity woes.[D-Link]Follow along with all of our CES 2019 coverage here.

2016-11-30 00:00:00

Nov 30 (Reuters) - Starhedge SA : * Reported on Tuesday Q3 net loss of 96,472 zlotys versus loss of 161,449 zlotys a year ago Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: Gdynia Newsroom

2017-07-19

BOSTON (Reuters) - Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc said it will reopen a Virginia restaurant on Wednesday, two days after it was closed due to reports that several customers had fallen ill with suspected norovirus. Shares of the restaurant chain tumbled more than 4 percent on Tuesday after Chipotle reported the closure. The former high-flying chain is still fighting to repair its reputation and resuscitate its sales after a string of high-profile food safety lapses in late 2015. Chipotle voluntarily closed the restaurant in Sterling, Virginia, on Monday, according to a health official for the Loudoun County Public Health Department, which has jurisdiction over the restaurant, about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Washington. About 13 people became sick last week, according to a website that follows incidents of foodborne illness. Test results are still pending. Chipotle stock, which traded well above $700 prior to 2015 reports linking the chain to outbreaks of E. coli, salmonella and norovirus, was off 1.4 percent at $369.56 on Wednesday. “It is unfortunate that anyone became ill after visiting our restaurant, and when we learned of this issue, we took aggressive action to correct the problem and protect our customers,” Chipotle Chief Executive Officer Steve Ells said in a statement. “While the restaurant was closed, multiple teams performed complete sanitization of all surfaces,” Ells said. Norovirus, is the leading cause of illness and outbreaks from contaminated food in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can spread from person to person, as well as through food prepared by an infected person. It often hits closed environments such as daycare centers, schools and cruise ships. Most outbreaks happen from November to April in the United States. Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Boston; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe

2018-07-20 00:00:00

WARSAW (Reuters) - The Polish parliament adopted rules on Friday to expedite the naming of a new Supreme Court chief under a judicial overhaul by the ruling party that critics say undercuts democracy. Twenty-two Supreme Court judges were forced into early retirement this month, but chief Judge Malgorzata Gersdorf has refused to go saying her constitutional term expires in 2020. She has become a symbol of resistance to the judicial revamp. Since the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party won election in 2015, dozens of judges have been sacked at the Constitutional Tribunal, the National Judiciary Council, which decides judicial appointments, and now the Supreme Court. New appointments have been made using procedures that give the parliament - where the PiS holds a majority - more say over the courts and the government more control over judges. The European Union as well as human rights groups and Polish opposition parties say the government is infringing on the key democratic principle of impartial courts in Poland, the largest former communist state now in the EU. Poland risks losing billions of euros in EU aid for subverting the rule of law. But Warsaw has only offered cosmetic concessions and says the overhaul is needed to improve efficiency and rid the courts of residual communist influence. In hasty proceedings on Friday, the lower chamber of parliament approved amendments enabling a swift appointment of a new Supreme Court head. The upper chamber is expected to endorse the new rules as soon as next week and President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, to sign them into law soon afterwards. Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz of the opposition Nowoczesna party told the PiS during parliamentary debate before the vote: “When you say you are carrying out judicial reforms, it’s as if a bandit beating someone mercilessly on the face with a knuckle-duster said they were carrying out plastic surgery.” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Thursday it was necessary to replace Gersdorf quickly to avoid damaging legal chaos and that Poland would not heed demands by the EU’s executive Commission to reverse its laws on courts. The Commission is running an unprecedented rule of law investigation against Poland and opened several separate legal cases against Warsaw, including over the Supreme Court. While Brussels may lack the hard tools to force Warsaw to change tack, Poland is haemorrhaging its influence in the EU at a time when the bloc negotiates its next budget from 2021, with significant development subsidies at stake. A dozen protesters gathered outside the Polish parliament on Friday, a sharp decline from the height of anti-government demonstrations that used to attract tens of thousands. “We are fewer and fewer .... but it is still important to state our opposition,” said Piotr Domanski, a 63-year-old translator. The PiS, however, enjoys broad support largely due to generous social spending and an economic boom. It has rallied supporters with nationalist, conservative and Catholic slogans, vilifying social elites including judges, the liberal opposition and the EU as imposing on ordinary Poles. Poland will hold local elections this autumn and a parliamentary vote in late 2019. All EU countries will also pick their representatives for the European Parliament in May 2019. On Friday, the Polish parliament also approved a tweaked election rule that will benefit large parties like the PiS in the European race. President Duda on Friday proposed that Poles hold a constitutional referendum in November with 10 questions including on whether to enshrine Poland’s EU and NATO membership in the charter, or highlight the country’s Catholic identity. Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Mark Heinrich

2019-07-19 15:03:31

ESPN's Dan Le Batard bucked company policy and ripped into President Donald Trump and people who chanted "send her back!" during a recent MAGA rally.Le Batard criticized ESPN for not having the stomach to stand up to racist rhetoric.The son of Cuban immigrants called the chants "deeply offensive" and "un-American."ESPN's Dan Le Batard ripped into President Donald Trump and his recent MAGA rally in North Carolina during his show on Thursday, describing the event and specifically the crowd's chants of "send her back!" as Le Batard first addressed ESPN's company policy has been for broadcast talent to remain apolitical, and the frustrations that come with such a restriction.Read more: Trump is using blatant racism and xenophobia to get his base excited ahead of 2020Le Batard then crediting Fox Sports 1's Nick Wright, who had tweeted out that the attacks against Read more: Championship teams visiting the White House has turned into a mess — here is how Trump and the teams have wrecked the traditionYou can watch Le Batard's segment in full below.Le Batard earned praise for his comments on Twitter, from both fans and former ESPN employees such as Jemele Hill, who was suspended by the company after calling Trump a white supremacist on Twitter.—Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) July 19, 2019ESPN might prefer to stay out of politics, but Le Batard is one of the few personalities at the company with both the conviction and the following capable of taking such a stance.Read more from Tyler Lauletta:'Hell no': Dana White shuts down Jorge Masvidal's 'easy paycheck' challenge to fight Conor McGregorBrooks Koepka spurned Tiger Woods' offer for a practice round in order to prevent Tiger from picking his caddie's brainLeBron James came off the bench once in his career, and he did it to protect a teammate from being booedJimmy Kimmel brought USWNT superstars Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan a fast-food feast to make up for skipping White House visit

2016-09-19 06:21:00

At last night’s Emmy Awards, Game of Thrones had a record-breaking turn out, scoring three golden statuettes, including one for outstanding drama series, rounding their total number of Emmy Awards up to 38, smashing Frasier‘s longstanding record for most awarded show in the process. And while Emilia Clarke may not have personally picked up any trophies for her work on the series, she certainly looked every inch the champion in her pink, sparkly Atelier Versace evening gown. And it turns out choosing the perfect look for the big night was as simple as saying yes to that dress. When asked by People how it felt for the show she’s been a part of for six seasons to win again, Emilia gushed, “Amazing! Amazing. I’m just so full of joy and pride for the whole show.” One more thing that’s pretty amazing is that strapless floor-length gown the actress found herself wearing to this big night in TV history. And as she revealed, the choice in what to wear couldn’t have been easier. She explained she chose it, “because it fits and it’s lovely.” She continued, “I put it on and everyone was like, ‘Yeah!’ So, it was like, ‘Okay! I’ll do that one!’” If only we could all have our own peanut gallery to yea or nay our outfits every day. But Clarke isn’t just a fashion plate on the red carpet, she also brings her pitch perfect sense of style to her everyday outfits. The star confessed that although she’d love to spend the evening partying the night away, she had to wake up early the next day for a flight to Belfast for work. Would she be equally as put-together on the plane? Don’t bet on it, she said. “Most of the time I do try and have like some [style]– and then you just get changed into your pajamas on the plane,” she admitted. “but tomorrow I don’t hold much hope.” We always knew celebrities couldn’t possibly be flying in those over-the-top ensembles they arrive at the airport in (we’re looking at you, Lady Gaga). And Emilia also shattered another celebrity myth while she was at it, doling out some sound advice to young women everywhere: “Never look at pictures of famous people and think that it’s how we get out of bed, because it ain’t. There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears that goes into the life.” As for how she’ll be celebrating the success of all that blood, sweat, and tears, “I think with Mr. Alcohol, probably.” Now that sounds like a winning idea whether you’ve recently picked up your 38th Emmy Award (or are simply watching the ceremony from home for the 38th time). What do you think of Emilia’s Emmy night look? Sound off below!

2016-10-14 00:00:00

Oct 14 (Reuters) - Skypeople Fruit Juice Inc * Skypeople announces receipt of delisting determination letter from Nasdaq Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2017-06-12

WASHINGTON, June 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to widen the reach of a federal law targeting abusive debt-collection tactics such as harassment and threats, ruling it does not cover companies that buy debt, sometimes for pennies on the dollar, and then collect it. The justices, in a 9-0 ruling, upheld a lower court’s dismissal of a proposed consumer class action lawsuit against Santander Consumer USA Holdings Inc over allegations it violated a law called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The four Maryland residents had defaulted on car loans and had sought to sue Santander. The ruling was the first authored by the court’s newest justice, Neil Gorsuch. Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham

2017-11-30

Washington (CNN)The Pentagon will soon issue a new policy on cluster bombs, abandoning a previous plan that mandated the military ditch older versions of the controversial weapons by 2019, according to a copy of a Defense Department memorandum signed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan and obtained by CNN. "The Department will retain cluster munitions currently in active inventories until the capabilities they provide are replaced with enhanced and more reliable munitions," the memorandum said. The memo called the weapons "an effective and necessary capability." Cluster bombs -- which not only deliver an initial explosion on impact but also contain multiple smaller bombs that spread over a wide area -- are largely condemned by the international community due to the risk of civilian casualties when they're used in populated areas. Over 100 countries, including most members of NATO, have called for a ban on the controversial weapon and human rights groups have expressed concerns over civilian casualties resulting from cluster bombs. The United States is one of several nations -- including China, Israel, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Saudi Arabia -- that have rejected a ban on the sale or use of cluster bombs. In 2016, Human Rights Watch accused the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen of using American-made cluster bombs in civilian areas, an action that not only would have violated US export laws but also would raise further questions as to why lawmakers and military officials condone the sale and use of the weapon. The Saudi government has denied using cluster bombs in populated areas. In 2008 then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ordered the military to cease using older types of cluster bombs by Jan. 1, 2019, and to retain only newer versions of the bombs that explode at least 99% of the time or have advanced safeguards that would automatically defuse unexploded ordnance, reducing the risks of injuring civilians. In April, Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California and Patrick Leahy of Vermont introduced a bill that would have banned funding for cluster bombs that do not meet a 1% unexploded ordnance standard. The Defense Department memo also calls on the Pentagon to purchase only the newer, safer version of the bombs and bans exports of the older versions. "This was a hard choice, not one the department made lightly," Tom Crosson, a Department of Defense spokesman, told CNN. While the new policy removes the automatic ban on the older version of the munition, Crosson said "the new policy remains committed to the same end-state of the 2008 policy: acquiring safer and more reliable weapons that ensure both effectiveness on the battlefield and minimal risk of noncombatant and friendly casualties." "Ultimately, it was clear to DoD's senior leadership that removing use of current stocks would have created a critical capability gap for our forces, risking much greater military and civilian casualties in a conflict, and weakening our ability to deter potential adversaries," Crosson added. The new policy was first reported by Reuters.

2017-06-14

June 14 (Reuters) - SAFRAN: * BRAINCHIP HOLDINGS LTD. AND SAFRAN COLLABORATE ON DEVELOPMENT OF MACHINE VISION INSPECTION SYSTEM FOR HARNESSES PRODUCTION ACTIVITIES Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

2018-07-27 00:00:00

Wilmer Valderrama looked worried sick when he visited Demi Lovato at the hospital. Wilmer hit up Cedars-Sinai in L.A. Thursday afternoon and stayed with her for about 5 hours. He also visited Demi Wednesday ... a day after she was rushed to the hospital for an overdose. The 38-year-old actor and 25-year-old singer broke up in June 2016 after dating for about 6 years ... but they remained close, so it's no surprise he rushed to Demi's side when she landed in the hospital. TMZ broke the story ... Demi was in dire straits after she OD'd earlier this week.

2019-06-25 00:00:00

Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright said Tuesday that Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) should participate in a climate-focused town hall next month, noting that the issue has become a key campaign issue in the Democratic presidential race. Former Obama-era counterintelligence official Nate Synder warned Tuesday that the Trump administration should not take any short-cuts on its approach to Huawei. Republican strategist Marissa Martinez predicted Monday that former Vice President Joe Biden will win the Democratic nomination, citing his fundraising prowess. A senior adviser to Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign said Monday that former Vice President Joe Biden’s greatest vulnerability is his “pro-corporate policies.” A senior adviser to Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign said Monday that the Vermont senator and progressive rival Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) aren’t necessarily competing for the same group of voters. Conservative commentator Patrice Onwuka ripped Ben Shapiro on Friday after the conservative commentator said that it is a “you problem” if someone has to work more than one job to support themselves. Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann criticized Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) after the lawmaker questioned whether there would be “any population of the world left” if not for rape and incest. Support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) among college students climbed to its highest mark since April, according to a new weekly Chegg-College Pulse poll. A former FBI intelligence officer said Thursday that combating right-wing extremism and white nationalism poses a serious challenge for security officials going into 2020. The head of a flight attendants union that represents nearly 50,000 members across the country said Thursday that there is “broad support” within the labor movement for “Medicare for All.” A former campaign staffer on President Obama's 2008 campaign is calling on John Hickenlooper to end his White House bid and instead launch a Senate run in Colorado. Ken Cuccinelli, the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told Hill.TV on Wednesday that the number of migrants coming to the U.S. southern border has dropped significantly since record-highs in May. Law professor Richard Hasen said Wednesday that expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court should be a “last resort” for lawmakers. Ken Cuccinelli, the acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,  defended his controversial remarks about the poem etched on the Statue of Liberty in an exclusive interview with Hill.TV Tuesday afternoon.  Republican strategist Holly Turner said Tuesday that former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent string of gaffes won’t necessarily hurt his chances to take on President Trump in the 2020 election. Foreign affairs expert Gordon Chang predicted on Tuesday that the United States and China won’t reach a comprehensive trade deal before the 2020 U.S. elections. Security analyst Gordon Chang on Tuesday criticized President Trump's language on ongoing protests in Hong Kong, saying the U.S. has a much more vested interest in the embattled city than what the president has indicated. Conservative commentator Dennis Prager said Monday that tech giants like Google and Facebook need to decide whether they are publishers or open forums. A top Iowa Democratic Party official said Monday that 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer has an advantage in the state thanks to his name recognition and ties to various grassroots organizations. 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.

2018-04-15 00:00:00

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States will want to maintain a dialogue with Russia about strategic stability following Western missile strikes on Syria, Russian news agencies cited a Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying on Sunday. “There is every reason to believe that after the U.S. strikes on Syria, the Americans will be eager to move to a strategic dialogue,” Interfax news agency quoted Vladimir Ermakov, head of the foreign ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, as saying. “You cannot say the Americans ... do not demonstrate a desire to lead a strategic dialogue,” he said. “In the U.S. administration there are specific people who it is possible to talk with.” Reporting by Jack Stubbs; Editing by Adrian Croft

2020-01-21 22:27:00

Shane Dawson released 36 minutes&apos worth of deleted footage from his latest docuseries in a video called "The End of the Beauty World" on Tuesday.Approximately 29 minutes into the video, Dawson shows himself looking at lipsticks created by Jaclyn Hill&aposs namesake brand, Jaclyn Cosmetics.He&aposs later seen telling Jeffree Star that every lipstick he received from the brand was "hairy." Hill faced major backlash in June 2019 after people accused the YouTuber of selling lipstick that they said was damaged and caused reactions on the skin.Visit Insider&aposs homepage for more stories.Shane Dawson says he previously received damaged lipstick from Jaclyn Hill&aposs namesake beauty brand.In a YouTube video uploaded on Tuesday, Dawson shared 36 minutes&apos worth of deleted footage from his latest docuseries with Jeffree Star. The various clips seen in the video were filmed throughout 2019 as the YouTubers created a collaboration makeup line together.One of those clips shows Dawson and Star&aposs previous reactions to Hill&aposs lipstick scandal, which rocked the beauty community in June 2019.Shane Dawson said every lipstick he received from Jaclyn Hill&aposs brand was covered in hair-like substancesAs Dawson stands over a press package from Jaclyn Cosmetics, Hill&aposs namesake brand, Star can be heard talking about the company in the background."Until you really know what&aposs going on over there, you better — I&aposm gonna refuse to talk or review about Jaclyn&aposs lipsticks on my channel until she figures out what&aposs happening but then Shane forces me to," Star said. Dawson then swatches a lipstick, and says he can feel "little black dots" in the product. The video eventually cuts to a scene showing Dawson chatting with Star over FaceTime."Those lipsticks — hairy the house," Star says to Dawson over the phone. "That&aposs so crazy," Dawson replied. "So what actually happened? Because my PR box — they&aposre all hairy, like to a point where it looks like I rubbed it on my dog."He then included a disclaimer to say that Hill has since "addressed the issue" and "had a very successful launch" of highlighters. Dawson continued the video by sharing more footage of Star talking about the lipstick line."I&aposm on year five of making makeup," Star said over FaceTime. "I have never seen labs wear white furry gloves. On a real level, as a business owner, I can&apost f------ fathom what is going on."Jaclyn Hill faced major backlash in June 2019 after people began receiving damaged lipsticks from her brandAfter Hill launched her namesake brand in May 2019, many people said the brand&aposs lipsticks arrived broken and caused swelling on the lips. Hill eventually released documents to prove that her lipsticks were safe, and also refunded every customer.She&aposs since launched a successful line of highlighters, which have been praised by many including Insider.Representatives for Jeffree Star, Shane Dawson, and Jaclyn Hill did not immediately reply to Insider&aposs request for comment.Read more:Shane Dawson said he asked Kat Von D to stop sending him free makeup while working with Jeffree StarKat Von D has sold her namesake makeup brand and is no longer involved in any capacityShane Dawson told fans he has 2 hours of deleted scenes from his Jeffree Star docuseries, and they&aposre begging him to release it allInside the life of NikkieTutorials, a beauty YouTuber who just came out as transgender in a new video Read the original article on INSIDER. Copyright 2020. Follow INSIDER on Facebook. Follow INSIDER on Twitter. window._taboola = window._taboola || []; window._taboola = window._taboola || [];

2018-08-30

It’s hard to explain just what the Yoga Book C930 is. It’s a laptop, but half of it has an E Ink display in place of a physical keyboard with haptic feedback when you type. But “laptop” doesn’t quite fit because this is a very thin, small device that’s more akin to a folio than a full computer. But it’s a full computer, too: it’s a Windows 10 device with 7th-Gen Intel processors that should be able to keep up with light computing needs. It has a 360 “watch band” hinge that allows you to flip it all the way around into a tablet mode, so it’s also a tablet. You can use it like any Windows tablet with support for a pen. You can jot notes on the E Ink side or read and mark up PDF documents. Once you get all the different things the Yoga Book C930 is trying to do, you can’t help but be intrigued. It’s a svelte, elegant device that seems like it belongs in a gauzy tech concept video — only it’s actually going on sale this October, starting at $999.99. We’re still awaiting pricing information for the upgraded model with a faster processor, as well as pricing and a release date for a model that will integrate LTE. But before you get too excited, there are some hard realities to contend with. This isn’t the first go-round Lenovo has had with this form-factor. Last year’s Yoga Book had many of the same ideas, but its execution was lacking. Instead of an E Ink deck, it had a weird pressure-sensitive thing you were supposed to put a pad of paper on. It had an atrociously outdated processor and was available in both Windows and Android variants. Lenovo is fixing a bunch of those problems this year. The big improvements are the improved processor, a couple of USB-C ports, a fingerprint sensor, and, of course, that E Ink display. Essentially, Lenovo decided to focus on making the Yoga Book a high-end Windows 10 tablet device instead of the weird mix of midrange Android and Windows models it had last year. (It was even considering Chrome OS.) But that doesn’t mean the new Yoga Book is fixing all of them or that it won’t introduce some new compromises. Here’s a simple example: typing on a screen — even with haptic feedback — is still not as ergonomic as typing on a physical keyboard. But if you can get beyond that, you’ll find Lenovo has done some interesting work. The keyboard is expanded out to fill the entire 10.8-inch E Ink screen with a little oval at the bottom. Tap that, and it expands out over a portion of the keyboard to become a larger trackpad; tap outside it, and it goes back into keyboard mode. That’s in addition to easy wins that a touchscreen makes possible, like offering keyboards in multiple languages. Sadly, there’s no emoji-specific keyboard option available. Lenovo just hates fun, I guess. If you use the pen, you can do some other neat tricks with the E Ink screen. Doodles and drawings can be copied and pasted directly into any Windows app. You can also use optical character recognition to translate your handwritten notes into straight text. But for all those neat tricks, there are potential downsides. The display can’t show any arbitrary app, unfortunately. You can read and mark up PDFs with it, but that’s pretty much the extent of what you can put on the display. An e-reader this is not. Switching between modes on the E Ink display took a few seconds on the prototypes Lenovo showed, but it’s possible that could be sped up on the final shipping product. Simply as a piece of hardware, and especially as a concept, the Lenovo Yoga Book C930 feels futuristic. Lenovo added a clever knock-knock feature: rap twice on the lid when it’s closed, and it will pop open. Is it necessary? Nope. Is it neat? Sort of! But whether the execution can live up to the ideas is another question entirely. The prototypes I saw were elegantly designed but had weird preproduction hardware quirks: some were too hard to open, had off-kilter vibrations, or experienced noticeable delays when copying E Ink scribbles into Windows. The burden of proof is on Lenovo to show that those issues won’t appear in the final product. And starting at a thousand bucks, the execution had better be pretty great because that’s more expensive than a decked-out Surface Go. Correction August 30th, 5:08PM ET: The first version of this article referred to E Ink as “E-Ink.” The E Ink Corporation is super particular about how its technology is identified. We have fixed the error.

2019-09-12 00:00:00

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot EngelEliot Lance EngelHouse chairman reaches deal on classified briefing with Trump's Afghanistan negotiator Overnight Defense: Dems grill Trump Army, Air Force picks | House chair subpoenas Trump Afghanistan negotiator | Trump officials release military aid to Ukraine House chairman subpoenas Trump's Afghanistan negotiator MORE (D-N.Y.) Thursday subpoenaed the Trump’s administration lead negotiator in Afghanistan peace talks to testify before the committee on Sept. 19. Engel said he issued the subpoena for special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad after the State Department ignored requests in February, April and earlier this month for briefings. “More than 2,000 American troops have died in Afghanistan, and I’m fed up with this administration keeping Congress and the American people in the dark on the peace process and how we’re going to bring this long war to a close,” Engel said in a statement Thursday. “I expect to see Ambassador Khalilzad in our hearing room next Thursday at 10 o’clock sharp.” The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the subpoena. Engel hinted last week he would issue a subpoena after Khalilzad told reporters in Afghanistan he had reached an agreement “in principal” with the Taliban. Since then, President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump conversation with foreign leader part of complaint that led to standoff between intel chief, Congress: report Pelosi: Lewandowski should have been held in contempt 'right then and there' Trump to withdraw FEMA chief nominee: report MORE revealed he had canceled a plan to meet with Taliban leaders at Camp David to finalize the peace agreement. The revelation sparked blowback from members of both parties who questioned why Trump thought it would be a good idea to invite the insurgents to the storied presidential retreat, particularly so close to the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that led to the war in Afghanistan. Khalilzad had been negotiating with the Taliban for nearly a year on an agreement that would see U.S. troops withdraw in exchange for Taliban assurances it would not let terrorists launch attacks against the United States from Afghanistan. Trump said he canceled the Camp David summit because of a Taliban-claimed car bomb in Kabul that killed a U.S. soldier, as well as 11 others. Trump has since described the peace talks as “dead.” “For months, we haven’t been able to get answers on the Afghanistan peace plan, and now the president is saying the plan is dead,” Engel said in his statement Thursday. “We need to hear directly from the administration’s point person on Afghanistan to understand how this process went off the rails.” The United States has about 14,000 troops in Afghanistan on a dual mission of helping Afghan forces with their fight against the Taliban and conducting counterterrorism missions against groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS. 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.

2019-10-15 00:00:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will meet with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday in Ankara, where he will urge Turkey to reach an immediate ceasefire in Syria and to work towards a negotiated settlement, the White House said on Tuesday. “Vice President Pence will reiterate President Trump’s commitment to maintain punishing economic sanctions on Turkey until a resolution is reached,” the White House said in a statement. Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler

2017-10-27 00:00:00

56 days after relieving Alan Zinter of his hitting coach duties, the Padres have reportedly hired Matt Stairs to fill the position. As a player, Stairs set a position player record by playing for 12 organizations. If the name sounds familiar to Padres fans, it should. Stairsplayed the role of a pinch-hit specialist for the 2010 Padres, a team that narrowly missedthe postseason. He is most famously known for his 2008 NLCS home run off of Jonathan Brotxton of the Dodgers; a home run that was instrumental in the Phillies eventually going on to win theirsecond World Series in franchise history.All in all, the Canadian hit 265 career home runs. 23 of those home runs were of the pinch-hit variety, which is an MLB record. In 2018, the49-year-old Stairswill be entering his second season as a MLB hitting coach. In the 2017 season, he debuted as hitting coach for the Philadelphia Phillies. Although the Phillies finished with 96 losses, theteam saw improvements in nearly all of their offensive statistics across the board. Per FanGraphs,theyoung Phillies ballclub had a higher team batting average, more home runs, a higher BB%, an identical strikeout rate, a higher on base percentage, and a higher slugging percentage in 2017 compared to 2016. Their weighted runs created plus (wRC+) spiked up from 81 to 88 as well. Perhaps more importantly, reports say that Stairs seemingly developed good relationships will nearly every player he worked with. The Padres are seeking stability at a position that has had anything but that in the last decade, and they are also hoping Stairs will help their young roster develop and improve. In 2017, the Padres struggled mightily at the plate. Although they set a franchise record with 174 home runs, they struck out at a 25.2% clip (2nd worst in MLB) and hit a league-worst .234 with a .299 OBP. The Phillies, who are seeking a new manager, told the coaching staff that the new manager will get to pick his own staff. In doing so, they allowed all of their 2017 coaches to look for jobs elsewhere. San Diego is hoping that the Phillies&apos loss is their gain.

2019-10-17 00:00:00

would close@ (Recasts with details on voting) DETROIT/WASHINGTON, Oct 17 (Reuters) - The United Auto Workers union said on Thursday workers at General Motors Co will stay off the job while they vote on a proposed contract that delivers higher pay and better terms for temporary workers, but allows the automaker to close three U.S. plants, the union said on Thursday. The votes by the striking workers are due by Oct. 25, the union said. The highlights of the agreement were released by the UAW after the union's national council, representing GM plants across the United States, reviewed the terms of the four-year deal. It will now be up to the 48,000 workers to ratify the deal. It was not immediately clear whether the workers would end their strike at that point or stay on the picket lines while the voting occurs - a process that could last up to two weeks. Delaying a vote by the union's national council was a strike by 850 Aramark workers represented by the UAW who work at several GM plants, people familiar with the matter said. UAW members at GM did not want to cross picket lines and return to work if the Aramark labor dispute had not been resolved, but the union reached a deal on Thursday afternoon with Aramark, the sources said. GM shares closed down 1.2% at $36.21 on Thursday, after a modest rally on Wednesday following the UAW's announcement it had reached a tentative contract deal. On Wall Street, reaction to the proposed agreement has been muted. "We continue to believe that if this is ratified, it is a fairly solid outcome for GM," RBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Spak wrote in a note Thursday. "The financial implications of the deal dont look too onerous." The strike began on Sept. 16, with UAW negotiators seeking higher pay for workers, greater job security, a bigger share of profit and protection of healthcare benefits. Other issues included the fate of plants GM has indicated it may close, the use of lower-paid temporary workers and GM's production of vehicles in Mexico. The strike cost GM an estimated $2 billion according to analysts, hurt auto suppliers and played a role in U.S. manufacturing output falling more than expected in September. The longest nationwide strike against a Detroit automaker since 1970 became a political event. Democratic presidential candidates joined UAW picket lines, eager to win union votes in Midwest swing states. For his part, U.S. President Donald Trump put pressure on GM Chief Executive Mary Barra before the strike to preserve jobs at a car plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that she had targeted for closure. The White House did not immediately comment. However, under the deal, GM will move ahead with closing Lordstown and two parts plants in Baltimore and Warren, Michigan. Workers from Lordstown on Thursday were outside GM's Detroit headquarters, where UAW leaders were meeting, to protest the planned agreement. GM also appears to have dodged a significant addition to its long-term balance sheet liabilities by agreeing to make a one-time cash distribution to UAW members eligible for pensions. The union said GM has agreed to put "new product" in the company's Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant as part of the deal. Details were not provided in the UAW summary but sources have said the plant will build electric trucks. Separate from the UAW deal, GM on Thursday confirmed plans for an electric battery plant near the Lordstown complex that could eventually employ 1,000 people. Sources have said the battery plant would be a joint venture, where the workers are represented by the UAW and earn in the range of $15 to $17 an hour. The company did not comment on the deal with the UAW. LORDSTOWN'S DISPLACED WORKERS GM has said it plans to sell the Lordstown plant to a group affiliated with electric truck startup Workhorse Group Inc that would initially employ 400 people - barely a tenth of the workforce Lordstown had when it was operating on three shifts. A Workhorse spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment. A group of workers from the Lordstown plant stood outside the hotel ballroom where UAW leaders were meeting on Thursday, reading the UAW summary of the contract on smartphones. The Lordstown workers, some wearing red shirts with the slogan Stop Building in Mexico, said they were not satisfied with what they saw. Scott Gearhart, who worked for 26 years at Lordstown, said he is now working at GM's Wentzville, Missouri, pickup truck assembly plant, living in an apartment and driving 10 hours to go home on days off. I have my family at home. My moms by herself, Gearhart said, explaining why he has not moved. Tommy Woliko looked up from reading the contract summary on a smartphone. Im looking for something that says were not losing jobs to Mexico, he said. I see nothing. Woliko worked for 11 years at Lordstown before moving to GMs heavy duty pickup truck plant in Flint, Michigan. Its a very good experience working there, Woliko said. But its not home. GM also is moving ahead with plans to invest $9 billion in its U.S. plants over the life of the next UAW deal, sources said. It also would create or retain 9,000 UAW jobs, a substantial number of which would be new, a person familiar with the plans said. The UAW contract summary did not address these figures. As part of the push to protect jobs, the UAW said the union and company will jointly form a committee that would meet at least quarterly to discuss the impact of future technologies like electric and self-driving vehicles and their impact on UAW members. This group would address instances where work has shifted out of the union due to new manufacturing processes. The UAW has expressed concern that it could lose thousands of workers at engine and transmission plants operated by the Detroit Three automakers as the companies launch more electric vehicles in coming years. In the short term, the deal promises better pay and bigger bonuses to UAW workers who have been living for a month on strike pay of $250 to $275 a week. FORD, FIAT CHRYSLER LOOM If the deal is approved by the workers, the union will next begin negotiations with Ford Motor Co or Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCA), covering many of the same issues. The UAW previously agreed to temporary contract extensions with both automakers while it focused on GM. A successful ratification is not a sure thing as workers during the 2015 talks initially rejected a deal with FCA before eventually approving a revised offer. This year's talks have been overshadowed by a widening federal investigation into corruption at the union, although officials and workers said they were focused on the negotiations. (Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit and David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Joseph White, Matthew Lewis and Daniel Wallis)

2020-01-19 22:33:41

Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, accused the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, of keeping the chamber in the dark about his proposed rules and planning to conduct a rushed trial. WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats wrangled publicly on Sunday over the shape, scope and length of the Senate impeachment trial set to reconvene on Tuesday, clashing repeatedly over the time each side will have to present its case and whether additional witnesses should be called to testify. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, lashed out at Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, his Republican counterpart, on Sunday night in a news conference, accusing him of planning to conduct an abbreviated, unfair trial. “Whether it’s because McConnell knows the trial is a cover-up and wants to whip through it as quickly as possible, or because he’s afraid even more evidence will come out, he’s trying to rush it through,” Mr. Schumer said. “That is wrong. And it is so wrong that no one even knows what his plan is a day and a half before one of the most momentous decisions any senator will ever make.” Mr. McConnell has so far refused to reveal details about the resolution he will seek to pass on Tuesday setting up the rules of the trial. But Senator David Perdue, Republican of Georgia, said on Sunday that Mr. McConnell was considering a plan that would give each side 24 hours to present arguments on the floor of the Senate, but with the requirement that they do so over the course of two days. “Twenty-four hours of presentation by the House managers over two days, then 24 hours of presentation by the president’s team over two days and then 16 hours of questions submitted by the members in writing to the chief justice,” Mr. Perdue said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” adding, “That’s our proposal.” Democrats reacted with alarm to that idea on Sunday. One aide working on the impeachment trial noted that it was scheduled to start each day at 1 p.m. and said that forcing the House managers to deliver 12 hours of arguments in a single day could push the trial into the early hours of the next morning, when few people would be watching. In his news conference, Mr. Schumer said the president and his Republican allies were eager for a short trial because they did not want the president’s actions to be put on display for everyone to see. “He’s afraid of what the American people might hear,” Mr. Schumer said of Mr. McConnell. The House managers, who will serve as prosecutors in the trial, met for several hours on Sunday to strategize and refine their presentations, according to congressional aides working on the trial. Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the managers, said Sunday that the Senate must seek testimony from additional witnesses. “It’s not negotiable whether you have witnesses,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And this whole controversy about whether there should be witnesses is really a question of, does the Senate want to have a fair trial, or are they part of the cover-up of the president?” But several Republican senators on Sunday dismissed the idea of calling additional witnesses, saying it was up to the House to conduct those interviews before approving the articles of impeachment and sending them to the Senate. “If the House isn’t prepared to go forward with the evidence that they produced in the impeachment inquiry, maybe they ought to withdraw the articles of impeachment and start over again,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said on “Face the Nation,” adding that it was not the Senate’s responsibility to do work that the House failed to do before voting to impeach Mr. Trump. “This, to me, seems to undermine or indicate that they’re getting cold feet or have a lack of confidence in what they’ve done so far,” he said. Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama, said his early assessment of the case against the president was that the House had not proved Mr. Trump was guilty of abuse of power or obstruction of Congress. He said senators should hear the arguments from both sides before making a decision on witnesses. “If the case looks so flimsy, as some people say, if it’s nothing to it, it doesn’t rise to impeachable offenses, like a court of law, the court disposes of it,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” Some Democrats have suggested that the Senate should hear from Lev Parnas, an associate of the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Parnas, who is under indictment on criminal campaign finance charges, was involved with Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to pressure Ukraine on Mr. Trump’s behalf and has provided texts, emails and other documents to House investigators. Mr. Perdue dismissed Mr. Parnas, calling him a “distraction” and insisting that he had only secondhand information about the president’s actions. “This is a person that’s been indicted right now. He’s out on bail,” Mr. Perdue said. “He’s been meeting with the House Intel Committee — if the House felt like this information was pertinent, I would think they would have included him in this, and his testimony in this.” Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who is the lead manager in the impeachment trial, said the idea of refusing to call witnesses would be like a judge in a criminal case working with the defendant to make sure the prosecution could not call witnesses. “No juror has ever heard that kind of thing from a judge because it would be absurd,” Mr. Schiff said on “This Week.” “It would be a mockery of a trial, not a trial, but that is what Senator McConnell to date is proposing.” If the senators agree to seek the testimony of additional witnesses, that would most likely extend the trial for at least several weeks. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the president’s closest Republican allies, said Mr. Trump was confident about the outcome of the trial but eager to have it over as quickly as possible — if possible before he delivers his State of the Union address, scheduled for Feb. 4. “His mood is to go to the State of the Union with this behind him and talk about what he wants to do for the next — rest of 2020 and what he wants to do for the next four years,” Mr. Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He is very much comfortable with the idea this is going to turn out well for him. He believes politically this has helped him.” transcript How are you? Good, how are you? Good morning. It’s not too cold out. I know it’s — So it’s a little before 9 a.m. We’re just outside the U.S. Capitol. We’re here. To meet with staff of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and to talk to him about this moment in impeachment. And what it’s like to be the leader of the party out of power in the middle of the Senate trial of Donald Trump. Hi. Senator. How are you? I’m good. Good morning. Pleasure. Thanks for coming down. How do you want to do this? Do you mind if we just like — Whatever you want to do. Do you want to do this? We’ll do across from each other? That’s fine. Whatever you want. And if you don’t mind, I put my feet up. For my old basketball knees. So Senator, it is Tuesday morning. Yes. Over the weekend, as I’m sure you know, my colleagues reported that John Bolton, former national security adviser, is about to publish a book in which he directly corroborates the central accusation in the impeachment inquiry. That President Trump conditioned the military aid to Ukraine on the country’s willingness to furnish information on his political rivals — Right. — including Joe Biden. Meantime, you’re heading into day three of listening to the president’s defense lawyers make their case to the Senate in this trial. So in an impeachment trial, where it is more or less seen 100% clear that Republican colleagues of yours in the Senate would acquit the president, this seems like a pretty unexpected and damning development. Maybe even the most unexpected and damning development today. So does this change anything? I think it does some. Look, we have been saying all along, what we want is the truth. And that means, as Americans realize in any trial, you have facts. And the facts are determined by witnesses and documents. Mm-hm. So our goal, we thought originally we would be able to negotiate with Mitch McConnell to have witnesses and documents. It seemed so logical. And what happened was, he went on Sean Hannity about a month ago and said he’s taking his total cues from Donald Trump. Mm-hm. Donald Trump is not interested in the truth. He’s not interested in facts. And so we figured, how do we get at the truth? We looked at the four witnesses, who had the eyewitness view of the actual charge. Why was the aid withheld and who did it? Mm-hm. We asked for them and the contemporaneous four sets of documents surrounding them. One of them was John Bolton. One of them was John Bolton. And for a month, we have been sort of relentless, focusing on getting witnesses and getting documents. Mm-hm. Because we believe the American people — they may be very polarized when it comes to whether to acquit or convict — but how could people resist witnesses and documents? Now, the American people, after we pushed and pushed and pushed this message just about every day — Witnesses, witnesses, witnesses. — witnesses, witnesses, witnesses, documents, documents, documents — are on our side. That’s rare. But only two senators have publicly said — That’s rare. — that they are on your side. Right, but the Republican senators know that their constituencies want witnesses and documents. Now on the other side, of course, is Trump. He will strong arm them. He will be nasty. He will be vindictive. And that’s, I think, one of the things that’s held them back. That’s what makes it so hard. But Bolton is far and away the most major revelation. Well let’s circle back to Bolton. O.K. What does that development with Bolton mean for you? Because I’m guessing that you’re getting at the fact that the power of the voters, that that might start to change the balance. And we saw yesterday, because the Bolton revelation was so devastating. And let me tell you the contrast. When Sekulow got up yesterday morning — One of the president’s lawyers. — after the revelation about Bolton was published in The New York Times, he said there are four mainstays to our case. And the third is there are no eyewitnesses to the account that the House managers had put forward. And there obviously is at least a newspaper report that there is one. It cries out, so why don’t you bring him forward and testify? And a number of Republicans, who had been silent until then, said maybe we need witnesses and documents. Mm-hm. So do I think this is a done deal? Far from it. But do I think we have a chance now to get witnesses and documents? Yes. Senator, how are you talking to these Republican senators, these colleagues of yours? Yes. I’m starting to imagine the conversations. Maybe you’re poking your head into the gym. Maybe it’s — How did you know that? That is where we do a lot of discussing. I know you have a morning routine. Yes. So help me understand. You’re standing next to the elliptical. Mitt Romney’s on it. Well I’m not going to any individual. I have conversations with Republicans, but I don’t talk about them publicly. But I would say this. For maybe a good chunk of the Republicans, appealing to their higher instincts — their better angels as Abraham Lincoln used to call it — is meaningless. Because there aren’t too many better angels around, there. But for a good number of Republicans, certainly more than four — considerably more than four — the idea that this is historic, the idea that this is so important to the nation, and the idea that we are a nation founded on truth. That the founding fathers believed that the truth would prevail and right would prevail, and history is upon them, and they’ll be remembered for this vote long after they’ve left the Senate, has some effect. So wait, are you making a moral case? Yeah, I’m making a case — Or not? — that truth should matter. This does not apply to every Republican, this “better angels” argument. But it applies to some. And those are the ones I try to talk to. And to the others do you make a more pragmatic, practical case? To the others? Look, we only need four. And we know there are about 25 we’ll never get. So you’ve got to focus on the people you can possibly get. And that leaves you a pool of roughly? Well look, there are about 12 Republicans who have never said we shouldn’t have witnesses and documents. They make other arguments. They’re mad about this, Jerry Nadler said that. But they have not made an argument that there shouldn’t be witnesses and documents. But look, is it an uphill fight? Yes. Are we making progress? Yes. So without naming names — I understand why you don’t want to do that — can you give me a little bit of a sense of how this conversation tends to go with the people who seem open to this? And what do they say to you? Well, they listen. And I think they know — you know, when Adam Schiff said on the floor in that closing argument — Mm-hm. — Republicans’ eyes were riveted on Schiff. You know, when you hear the argument that you don’t like to hear, you’ll put your head down, you’ll look this way, you’ll chat with your neighbor. But in Schiff’s both closing moments, their eyes were riveted on him. Sounds like you were watching their eyes, their heads and their eyes. Oh yes, I do. I do. I watch that. And he said, “You know we’re right.” I think many of them know we’re right, but are afraid of the consequences. And our best recourse are two things. Truth and the public’s on our side — for witnesses and documents. If we had started out at the beginning and simply tried to get Republicans to vote to convict, we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. But the strategy that we used — which I think is the right strategy ethically, morally, but also substantively — is witnesses and documents are much harder to resist. And then we’ll let the chips fall where they may, as I’ve said. And I said that to my Republican colleagues. That’s one thing I tell them all the time. I don’t know what these witnesses will say. I don’t know what these documents will reveal. It could go against you. Yes, it could be exculpatory of Trump. But we have an obligation to the Constitution, to the country, to what America has always stood for, to get the facts, get the truth. Do you accept the possibility that for many of the Republicans who are off the table, who cannot be convinced, that the reason they can’t be convinced is because they think they are going with their better angels, because they just don’t think this is an impeachable offense? Look, they’ve made that argument. And Dershowitz tried to make it last night. You’re referring to one of the president’s lawyers. Yes. To me, it’s hard to say this should not be something where removal is justified, that Trump wanted to cut off the aid to get investigations of Biden and of the 2016 elections. But some of them may think that, yes. So let’s say for a moment that you get this scenario that you’re pursuing. You get four Republicans to vote to hear witnesses, including John Bolton. Yes. Which would mean that his testimony would be given in the Senate. It would be admissible in the trial. Under oath. And this would be testimony not heard in the House. It would be brand new evidence. As you said, Dershowitz is making this argument that the president’s behavior, the central charge in this trial, is not behavior that rises to the level of impeachment. Mm-hm. Mm-hm. If the president’s lawyers don’t really dispute the basic facts of the case, and then Bolton comes and bolsters those facts, what’s to be gained from his testimony? We shall see. There may be some Republicans who feel that this is serious enough to merit removal from office. But if everyone agrees with these facts, right, an acquittal isn’t gonna mean much. Because most Americans would feel, I think, that cutting off aid, threatening a foreign country — where our national security is at stake — if our elections are subject to foreign interference, that’s a — When I was in high school, you read the Constitution and all that. And one of the things the founding fathers were most afraid of was foreign interference in our elections. It’s in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere. And when I read it then, back in the ‘60s, I said, “What! That’s not gonna happen.” Well as usual, the founding fathers were a lot smarter than all of us. It’s serious stuff. So even if you get these four senators to come along with you — Yes. — it sounds like what you’re saying is this is still about American sentiment, voter sentiment. It’s not that you think that if you hear from Bolton, suddenly that might lead 20 senators to vote — Look. — to convict the president. It’s that if Bolton testifies, you think it will only strengthen Americans’ belief that something bad and wrong has occurred here. Yes. Yes, I agree with that. But I’d make another point. Things keep coming out. New revelations keep coming out. And you never know what’s gonna happen. Is it an uphill fight when you have the power of Trump and the fear of Trump among the Republican senators and the fear of the Trump hard-core constituency? Absolutely. But do we have a moral obligation to make the fight as strong as we can? Yes. That’s what motivates me. Getting at the truth. And somehow, in ways that go beyond my knowledge, it usually ends up creating the right result. But who knows when and who knows how? I still struggle to see the political incentive for these Republicans to allow for a witness. Because — They’re gonna have to. — they’re in the political bind that you have described very well here. Yes. And allowing witnesses only seems to make the public case against the president worse. — except — But they won’t vote him out of office, so shouldn’t they just not allow Bolton to testify? Well they may. That’s why this is a difficult argument. But when they don’t allow witnesses, their constituencies know they stood with Trump to go against fairness and with a cover-up. But it’s a little bit of a snarl, because he has told — It is. If this were easy, we wouldn’t be sitting here. More after the break. So let’s talk about what may be more likely scenarios when it comes to these witnesses. O.K. There have been two other possibilities raised than this straightforward, four Republican senators vote to get any witness whatsoever. Yeah. Republicans are raising the prospect of what at least one of them is calling a witness swap. Yes. They will give you your desired witness, John Bolton. But in exchange they would like Hunter Biden, the vice president’s son, to testify. Yeah. In other words, if you’re going to embarrass us, we’re going to embarrass you. Would you agree to that? No. Period. Let me say this. Our position is the four witnesses we want, and the four sets of documents we want, are essential to getting at the truth. So all or nothing at all? Well, so let me say — and that’s our position. The Republicans, they have a majority, and they can vote for any witness they want. Why haven’t they? They could have voted for Hunter Biden right now. They don’t need our O.K. You’re saying they’re only bringing him up in the context of getting John Bolton? Well, I’m saying that bringing in a shiny object, a distraction like Hunter Biden, who has nothing to do with — our witnesses all were eyewitness at the scene, if you will. Hunter Biden was nowhere near the scene. Joe Biden was nowhere near the scene. It’s a distraction. It has nothing to do with the impeachment case, O.K.? Mm-hm. And I think a good number of their senators realize it, and I think the American public realizes it. So they themselves haven’t rushed to call Hunter Biden. Why do you think they haven’t called Hunter Biden? For that reason. I think they realize it might backfire. That there would be nothing to see. And it sort of — you know, what did you use to learn in biology? Ontology recapitulates phylogeny. Pardon? I don’t know what it — it means, forget it. It means, certain things measure up in different places. So I don’t know if it helps their case. So — And so far, I’m not sure the Republicans would want him. — so no witness swap. The other possibility that has been raised is instead of relying on Republicans, Democrats should appeal directly to the chief justice John Roberts — Right. — who presides over the Senate impeachment trial, and who has the discretionary power to subpoena witnesses. Yes. Like John Bolton. Would you pursue that route, or would you encourage the House Democratic managers to pursue it to get Bolton on the stand? Well, we just don’t know where Justice Roberts will come down. And you won’t until you ask. And we won’t until we ask. But the rules right now are, he can be overruled by a majority of the Senate. Hm. So even if Chief Justice Roberts were to say, “Yes, Bolton is a relevant witness, we ought to have him,” they could vote it down. They’d be voting against the chief justice. That makes it so much harder, so we’ll have to see if he rules. Are you inclined to ask? I’ll just one other point, Michael, on this. It may be that Roberts just doesn’t want to get involved at all. Right, he’s a conservative figure. He doesn’t seem inclined to put his — Right, and he remembered — — thumb on the scale. — what Renquist did the Clinton trial. Here’s how he summed it up. He said, “I did nothing, and I did it very well.” He just wouldn’t opine. And he’d say, “I’m leaving it up to the Senate.” And Roberts could do that. So the House managers could say, “We want Bolton and we want you to rule.” And he’s saying, “I’m gonna leave that up to the Senate. I’m not ruling.” Mm-hm. You mentioned the Clinton impeachment trial, and I want to talk about that. Sure. You sat through it in an interesting way, both as a member of the House, and you ran for senate in the middle of it all. Became the senator from New York, and you ended up voting twice. No, three times. Three times. I’m a historical footnote. Judiciary — I’m the only one who ever voted three times. — House Judiciary, House, and Senate. Yeah. So does any — and you voted, in all those cases, against impeachment. So does any part of you, Senator, sympathize with Republicans who are resistant — Well — — to your overtures? Who may not be willing to vote for witnesses, who are not willing to vote to convict? Well I think the analogy is — Because you yourself did this. Yeah, but the analogy is different in just about every way. First and foremost, what Clinton did was a personal bad thing, but it didn’t affect the government. It wasn’t an abuse of power. It wasn’t — it didn’t go to the heart of what our democracy is all about. He had a human frailty, and that was that. O.K. Lied to a grand jury. Yeah, yep. Well, but again, over a frailty. It wasn’t governmental. I understand. O.K. But do you understand the conundrum? Second — yes, I do. But wait, let me just — second, he didn’t do what Trump is doing. He didn’t stonewall. He went before a grand jury himself, and he allowed all these witnesses to come forward. So there was a strong record before it got to the Senate. So that’s the second difference. And the third difference is, there was much more bipartisanship going on then. Mitch McConnell would not even entertain talking to us about witnesses and documents. Mm-hm. There is a sense from you all, and I’ve heard you say it, that Republicans prejudged this case. And I bring that up, because you were in a somewhat unique situation, where you had come out and said — Yep. And I know this is, this case is not about you, but you’re in a unique position of being able to identify with — Yeah, well, I had to be first a grand juror, or a prosecutor, and then a juror. It’s a sort of anomalous position. Right, but you had made clear by the time the trial started that you would vote to acquit. You, as a Senate candidate — Yes. — you said I will be voting to acquit the president. Yeah, because I had seen the evidence as a House prosecutor. I just wonder, having been on both sides of this, having been accused of prejudging a trial, which you were — Mm-hm. But it’s a different — if any Republican was in the House the first time, when the House voted and now, it’s different. It’s not analogous. Mm-hm. In any way? No, it’s not. So Senator, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you what an acquittal will mean for 2020. You just can’t tell. And that’s not what guides me. What guides me is getting at the truth. And things in a broad sense, in almost a biblical theological sense, things will work out. Why doesn’t that guide you? You’re the Senate minority leader. You’re the top Democrat in this body, 2020. Why doesn’t that guide you, thinking about 2020? Well no, you asked me — Which — can that guide you? — I don’t know how this impeachment trial will affect the election one way or the other. But I knew you had to do the right thing. That’s what I’m saying. Obviously, I want to fight to win the election. You know, this will have some effect on it. We’ll see. I always believe truth prevails. But so will health care, so will infrastructure, so will college, so will democracy, so will criminal justice, so will immigration reform. And those matter to me. Those matter to me a lot. You hope it will be one of the things — Yeah. — that influence you. Because you’ve said throughout this conversation, you — Well, you know, again, I can’t — I always believe truth will prevail, one way or the other, yeah. Senator, thank you. Right. We always appreciate your time. Likewise. Cheers. Cheers. [CHUCKLING] During their final day of oral arguments on Tuesday, lawyers for President Trump discouraged senators from voting to call Bolton as a witness. Are you gonna stop? Are you gonna allow proceedings on impeachment to go from a New York Times report about someone that says what they hear is in a manuscript? Is that where we are? I don’t think so. I hope not. Hours later, after the lawyers had concluded their presentation, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called a meeting of Republican senators to make his own case against calling witnesses like Bolton. During that gathering, McConnell warned that he was unsure whether he had enough votes to prevent such a witness, because so many Senate Republicans remain publicly uncommitted on the question. The vote on whether to hear witnesses in the trial is now expected on Friday. We’ll be right back. Here’s what else you need to know today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Today, Israel takes a big step towards peace. Young people across the Middle East are ready for a more hopeful future, and governments throughout the region are realizing that terrorism and Islamic extremism are everyone’s common enemy. During a ceremony at the White House on Tuesday, President Trump unveiled his long-awaited blueprint for a two-state plan for Middle East peace, a plan that gives Israel much of what it has sought for decades and offers Palestinians a conditional path to statehood over several years. The plan would formalize Israeli control over large and controversial settlements and grant limited autonomy to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, if their leadership undertakes political reforms and renounces violence. But Palestinian leaders rejected the plan before it was even released, saying that it clearly favors Israel. And the number of coronavirus infections has skyrocketed by almost 60% between Monday and Tuesday to nearly 5,000, and was expected to rapidly rise again by Wednesday morning. In Germany and Japan, officials reported the first cases of transmission there, meaning that they must not only identify and quarantine sick patients traveling from China, but limit the spread of the disease among their own populations. That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.

2016-08-09

GEORGE TOWN (Reuters) - Two people have contracted the Zika virus locally in the Cayman Islands, the health department said on Tuesday, bringing the total number infected by the virus in the Caribbean territory to eight. A woman living in Cayman’s capital George Town first reported her symptoms in July, and a sample sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency for testing came back positive, the department said in a statement. She is not believed to have traveled to any countries in which Zika is present. Late on Monday, the health department announced the first known case of Zika contracted on the islands, by a man who had also not traveled to affected countries. Six other people have contracted the virus overseas and returned home carrying the infection. Health authorities say that when contracted by pregnant women, Zika can cause the birth defect microcephaly and other severe brain abnormalities in babies. The ongoing Zika outbreak was first detected last year in Brazil, where it has been linked to more than 1,700 cases of the birth defect microcephaly. Since that time the virus has spread rapidly through the Americas. In July, Florida confirmed that the mostly mosquito borne virus had been transmitted locally on the U.S. mainland for the first time. Reporting by Peter Polack in George Town; Editing by John Stonestreet and Tom Brown

2020-03-17 00:00:00

March 17 (Reuters) - * MOODY’S SAYS GREATER FOCUS ON ESG IN EMERGING MARKETS WILL SPUR GROWTH IN SUSTAINABLE DEBT * MOODY'S SAYS CORONAVIRUS FALLOUT POSES RISKS TO SUSTAINABLE BOND ISSUANCE ACROSS EMERGING MARKETS IN 2020 Source text: bit.ly/39XBlVI

2016-06-17

Verizon workers who were on strike earlier this year voted Friday to ratify a new four-year contract. The Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers said that their striking members had voted “overwhelmingly” for the contract. Verizon wireless technicians held their own vote on a separate contract, according to the CWA. The votes took place at the local level between May 31 and June 17. The members returned to work earlier this month. The striking Verizon workers, most of whom are were involved in the company’s East Coast wireline business, reached an agreement in principle at the end of May with the firm. That accord — which came as the strike was in its second month — was brokered by federal mediators and Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. Unions had previously said that the company wanted to make draconian cuts in benefits, outsource jobs and make it easy for employees to be moved outside of their home state for months at a time. But they won concessions in the end, including the creation of more union jobs. The roughly 40,000 striking workers garnered the support of both candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, former Secretary of State Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonLewandowski on potential NH Senate run: If I run, 'I'm going to win' Fighter pilot vs. astronaut match-up in Arizona could determine control of Senate Progressive Democrats' turnout plans simply don't add up MORE and Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersJoe Biden faces an uncertain path Bernie Sanders vows to go to 'war with white nationalism and racism' as president Biden: 'There's an awful lot of really good Republicans out there' MORE (I-Vt.), during the strike. They were also backed by progressive favorite Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann WarrenPossible GOP challenger says Trump doesn't doesn't deserve reelection, but would vote for him over Democrat Joe Biden faces an uncertain path The Memo: Trump pushes back amid signs of economic slowdown MORE (D-Mass.). 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.