Datasets:

hugosousa

/

professor_heideltime_en

like 0

2019-07-29

000000075916

BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court on Monday jailed for 12 years a veteran human rights activist known for running a website tracking abuse accusations and helping victims of a 2008 earthquake in the southwestern province of Sichuan. The province’s Mianyang Intermediate People’s Court handed down the sentence after it “determined that Huang Qi is guilty of deliberately leaking state secrets” and was “guilty of illegally providing the secrets outside of China,” it said in a statement. Huang, who is in his mid-fifties, was also stripped of his political rights for four years. He has been in detention since 2016, to the growing concern of rights groups, the United Nations and his mother. On his website www.64tianwang.com, Huang had tried to help those who wanted to find justice in cases such as forced evictions. Reuters could not immediately reach Huang or his representatives to seek comment. Since 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has led a campaign in which hundreds of rights lawyers and activists have been detained and others jailed. China regularly rejects criticism of its human rights record and says those jailed are criminals who broke the law. Reporting by Huizhong Wu and Lusha Zhang; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

2020-01-23 00:00:00

000000100844

DAVOS, Switzerland (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin called on Thursday for governments and companies to do more to ensure women were treated fairly, saying equality would not happen by itself. Gender parity is a big theme at the 50th annual World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, with a host of reports highlighting continued wealth and opportunity gaps worldwide. Marin, the world’s youngest prime minister at the age of 34, said it was not “that big a deal” for women to be in power in Finland but she welcomed the debate her election had triggered. “Hopefully in the future it will be the new normal,” Marin told a less-than-full session on gender parity, where most of the audience was women. “We need laws and we need structures that lead the way to gender equality ... it just doesn’t happen by itself.” About 3,000 members of the political, philanthropic and corporate elite - gathered for four days in the Swiss Alps - have heard how the free market fails women, who do most domestic work and caring, limiting their paid opportunities. An Oxfam report released as the summit opened found women and girls did three-quarters of unpaid work, putting in 12.4 billion hours a day - worth $10.8 trillion a year. A WEF report last month said it would take 99.5 years to close the gender gap across politics, economics, health and education, according to current trends. A WEF spokesman said female participation among the attendees at the summit had risen to 24% this year from 22% last year with a commitment by the organization to double it by 2030. As well as Marin, other headliners ranged from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to 17-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone. “But equality isn’t something that is only a women’s issue, it is also an issue for men,” said Marin, elected last month. Thando Hopa, the first female model with albinism to appear on Vogue’s front cover, called on business and political leaders to actively give women opportunities. “An absence of representation does not translate into an absence of life, of talent or of value,” said the 31-year-old lawyer as she strode across the stage to a backdrop of colorful images from her modeling career. “Be deliberate about diversity and inclusion.” Gabriela Ramos, chief of staff at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said progress was slow despite a growing awareness of women’s economic worth. She said governments should be more proactive in reviewing tax systems and rules to address the gender gap. “There is a very strong role for governments as regulators,” said Ramos. “We need concrete solutions.” Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith @BeeGoldsmith; Editing by Lyndsay Griffiths. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org

2020-03-13 05:00:04

000000021142

Nonfiction When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission. A HISTORY OF ISLAM IN 21 WOMENBy Hossein Kamaly Thomas Roe, Britain’s envoy in India during the 1620s, wrote of Empress Nur Jehan’s power over her husband, the Mughal emperor Jehangir, that she “governs him, and wynds him up at her pleasure.” The story of Nur Jehan, who was born to migrant parents and rose to a position where she unofficially ruled jointly with her husband, is just one of the intriguing tales that make up Hossein Kamaly’s eminently readable collection “A History of Islam in 21 Women.” Besides Nur Jehan, we hear of the Prophet Muhammad’s wife Khadija, who saw the promise of an orphaned young man and was the first to accept Islam, and the Sufi ascetic Rabia Al-Adawiyya, who insisted that women were the spiritual equals of men. Later on came the Yemeni queen Arwa, who ruled for seven decades and even issued coinage in her own name, and also Noor Inayat Khan, the Sufi-Muslim British spy who went into Nazi-occupied France to radio enemy movements back to Britain. Indeed, the Muslim women recounted by Kamaly (who teaches Islamic studies at Hartford Seminary) are a feisty and intrepid bunch. Collectively, they constitute a foil against the persistent myth that Muslim women are simpering sorts awaiting rescue. This Western “rescue” fantasy and the would-be saviors it creates were duly debunked by the Columbia professor Lila Abu-Lughod in her book “Do Muslim Women Need Saving?” But while Abu-Lughod’s work provides a theoretical critique of Western insouciance and obstinacy in holding on to the myth of Muslim helplessness, Kamaly’s book hands up the lived examples. Here in all their gutsy glory are women whose voices have not received the prominence that is their due within the story of Islam. This is a pity because, as Kamaly demonstrates, women have been crucial players in some of the most defining moments of the faith. There is the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, Fatima, who chastised his feuding followers after his death: “You have left the body of the Apostle of God with us and you have decided among yourselves, without consulting us, without respecting our rights.” It turned out to be a consequential sidelining; the schism between those who believed the Prophet’s male heirs should inherit leadership of the faith (Shia) and those who believed that Fatima should (Sunni) remains pivotal to this day. Similarly, the Prophet’s wife Aisha, nicknamed the “ruddy-cheeked one,” was instrumental in questioning patriarchal sayings attributed to the Prophet. In later life, it was Aisha’s rising power that prompted a man named Abu Bakra to recount that he had heard the Prophet say, “Those who entrust power to a woman will never know prosperity.” It is a saying that has haunted Muslim women and Muslim feminists — including Fatima Mernissi, a Moroccan sociologist, who points out that “Abu Bakra must have had a fabulous memory” because he didn’t recall this line until a quarter century after the Prophet Muhammad died. Still, it has been a handy tool for the patriarchy. Hundreds of years after Abu Bakra’s revelation, the 16th-century Safavid queen Pari Khanum was removed from power because the new king believed that a woman handling the affairs of state is “demeaning to the king’s honor.” As recently as 1986, Islamists who opposed the rise of Pakistan’s prime minister Benazir Bhutto trotted out these possibly apocryphal words as a rationale. “A History of Islam in 21 Women” is an act of reclamation on several fronts. For Muslim women, it provides an empowering and exhilarating genealogy of strong forebears whom they can connect to their contemporary journeys of empowerment. For Western readers, it exposes the untruths that have characterized Muslim women as deferential beings in need of rescue. There is still more work to be done. “A History of Islam in 21 Women” provides the substance of a feminist narrative that has always existed within Islam. The question remains: Will Kamaly’s book will be relegated to the margins, shelved away under “other” feminisms, or will it be integrated into the larger history of feminism, now dominated by white and Western women?

2016-03-10 00:00:00

000000010217

March 10 (Reuters) - Aufeminin SA : * FY EBITDA of 23.5 million euro versus 20.8 million euro ($23.3 million) a year ago * FY net profit group share of 33.8 million versus 14.3 million euro a year ago * In 2016, expects a new increase in profitability Source text: bit.ly/1paWhjN Further company coverage: ($1 = 0.8934 euros) (Gdynia Newsroom)

2016-10-14 07:18:10

000000014727

Sylvie Kauffmann PARIS — If you want a lively dinner party conversation in Paris these days, just mention “les voies sur berges” — the express car lanes that run along the Seine — and your guests will soon be at one another’s throats. Ignoring the advice of an experts’ committee, Mayor Anne Hidalgo last month imposed a permanent ban on traffic on a central section of the drive, which was built in the 1970s, when motorists ruled the city. Today is a different era, of bikers and shared electric cars. Ms. Hidalgo, a Socialist elected in 2014 with the support of ecologists, wants clean air in the City of Light and the riverside express lanes turned into pedestrian walkways. She has declared war on private cars. Parisian drivers feel trapped in a dark plot to eliminate them. And it hurts. The Socialist mayor is betting on a phenomenon called “evaporation of traffic.” The experience of other cities shows that when streets are permanently closed to traffic, drivers tend to alter their habits: They change their itinerary when possible, or choose another means of transportation. What is not evaporating, though, in the first weeks of the experiment on the “voies sur berges,” is the anger of motorists stuck in rush-hour traffic on parallel streets, still stubbornly clinging to their steering wheels. So when the government announced, in the same week, that it was planning to make room somewhere in Paris for a nudist camp — hardly a priority in a city struggling with terrorist threats and refugees, not to mention Kim Kardashian’s travails — tempers flared. Ms. Hidalgo was derided as “Notre-Drame de Paris” (“our drama queen”) by a business magazine, Challenges, and branded “Queen of the Bobos” (bourgeois bohemians) by conservative opponents who accuse her of catering to the left-leaning yuppie voters of a gentrified French capital. They mock her “authoritarian” management style: “She wants to make happiness compulsory.” Unperturbed, the earnest Ms. Hidalgo is racing ahead. Her quiet determination to enforce her agenda on air pollution, social diversity in housing and transit centers for migrants has made her a distinctive voice in a discredited political establishment. The daughter of an electrician and a seamstress who immigrated from Spain in the 1960s, Ms. Hidalgo, 57 and a mother of three, was herself born in Cádiz, did not speak French when she moved to Lyon, and became a French citizen as a teenager. She made her way to law school and worked as a labor relations inspector until getting involved in politics. In her fierce mayoral battle in 2014 against a shining star of the right, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, she often looked like the underdog, having spent 13 years in the shadow of her charismatic mentor, Mayor Bertrand Delanoë. Two years later, she is still no firebrand, but she is emerging as a solid, relevant figure on the national political scene, inviting some comparisons with Angela Merkel’s methodic rise. “Could it be her?” one recent headline asked, betraying the yearning for fresh leadership amid a French presidential campaign crowded with worn-out politicians. So far, Ms. Hidalgo shows no interest in national office next year. She has found a much safer power base than the nation-state: the global city. Picking up on the theme of a 2013 book by the American political scientist Benjamin Barber, “If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities,” Ms. Hidalgo has made the political dynamics of global cities into a personal cause. “We mayors,” she recently told the French magazine Society, “are more agile because our governance is more horizontal, we are closer to people, we can enforce best practices of other cities. In France, the government is being engulfed by bureaucracy.” (This from the mayor of a city with nearly 50,000 employees.) Shrewdly, she prefers to been seen in the company of Sadiq Khan, the new mayor of London, than with President François Hollande, a fellow Socialist, whom she doesn’t mind confronting on hot-button issues like France’s new labor law. Ms. Hidalgo was the first foreign mayor to visit Mr. Khan after his election, making a point, as an immigrant herself, to congratulate the first Muslim mayor of a European capital. They have published two post-Brexit op-ed essays together, one of them in The New York Times with Mayor Bill de Blasio; they showcased cities that are open to immigrants, green technologies and innovation — one way to point out that even when states divorce, cities can stay close. Other mayors she likes to cite are Karin Wanngard of Stockholm, Manuela Carmena of Madrid and Ada Colau of Barcelona. Ms. Hidalgo is a firm believer in the virtues of exercising power through persuasion, which she sees as a feminine characteristic, rather than by “putting a gun on the table,” her view of the male technique. She has been working hard at raising her international profile. She wants the French capital to prevail over Los Angeles to host the Olympic Games in 2024. In Rio de Janeiro in August, she was elected president of C40, a network of cities with “climate ambitions” that represents 85 global cities and, she likes to point out, 650 million people. The world is her stage. Last December, when Paris hosted the United Nations conference on climate change, she proudly posed next to Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York, among 1,000 mayors from across the planet on the grand staircase of the Hôtel de Ville, the city hall. Like her, those mayors know that more than half of humankind now live in cities and that by 2030 the ratio will have risen to two-thirds, according to the United Nations. They also know that cities consume 75 percent of the earth’s resources and generate 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Smart cities are where solutions have to be found. According to opinion polls, Ms. Hidalgo has yet to convince nearly half of Parisians — and most people who drive in from the suburbs — that this starts with banning cars on the express lanes along the Seine. Maybe she should try her feminine way of persuasion. The challenge is definitely worth it.

2018-05-03 12:40:20

000000105892

Editors’ Choice If prison holds a dark mirror to society — reflecting our fissures and anxieties and our blinkered faith in institutional bureaucracy — then prison literature offers one way to restore a human element to the system. This week we recommend two books set in prisons: Rachel Kushner’s novel “The Mars Room,” about a single mother and former stripper serving time in California, and “Wrestling With the Devil,” a memoir by the Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o about the year he was jailed as a politically subversive artist. You’ll also find books on motherhood, embattled Iraqi women and the legacy of freethinking female writers, along with a magical story collection, a look at the new space race and, for people who haven’t been paying attention, a memoir by James Comey about his time in government. Gregory CowlesSenior Editor, Books THE MARS ROOM, by Rachel Kushner. (Scribner, $27.) Rachel Kushner’s follow-up to “The Flamethrowers” is about a woman named Romy. The novel shifts from a strip club in San Francisco, where Romy works, to a women’s prison, where she is sent after killing a stalker. “Kushner’s portrait of life inside the women’s prison is grainy and persuasive,” our critic Dwight Garner writes. “Like Denis Johnson in ‘Jesus’ Son,’ a book this novel references, she is on the lookout for bent moments of comic grace.” MOTHERS: An Essay on Love and Cruelty, by Jacqueline Rose. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26.) Many recent books have combined to offer dispatches from almost every corner of motherhood. Jacqueline Rose’s latest is “a sort of Rosetta Stone for the moment that examines the particular mix of fascination and dread that mothers engender,” our critic Parul Sehgal writes. Rose’s contribution is “a useful synthesis of and loving engagement with many of the writers who have shaped our thinking on motherhood.” A HIGHER LOYALTY: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, by James Comey. (Flatiron, $29.99.) In this memoir, the former F.B.I. director calls the Trump presidency a “forest fire” that is seriously harming the country.”The central themes that Comey returns to throughout this impassioned book,” Michiko Kakutani writes in her review, “are the toxic consequences of lying; and the corrosive effects of choosing loyalty to an individual over truth and the rule of law.” THE SPACE BARONS: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos, by Christian Davenport. (PublicAffairs, $28.) The new space race involves a number of competitive and highly ambitious entrepreneurs who want to make their mark by taking us into orbit. Davenport explores this new frontier, in an in-depth account that Walter Isaacson calls “an exciting narrative filled with colorful reporting and sharp insights. The book sparkles because of Davenport’s access to the main players and his talent for crisp storytelling.” SHARP: The Women Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion, by Michelle Dean. (Grove, $26.) Dean, a journalist and critic, considers 10 influential women writers, including Mary McCarthy, Hannah Arendt, Nora Ephron and Pauline Kael, teasing out their affinities: a taste for battle and intellectual honesty. As her preface notes, she gathered these women together “under the sign of a compliment that every one of them received in their lives: They were called sharp.” It is, of course, a compliment with an edge. Call a man “sharp” and he’s stylish, incisive, smart. Apply it to a woman, Dean writes, and there’s a “sense of terror underlying it. Sharpness, after all, cuts.” AWAYLAND, by Ramona Ausubel. (Riverhead, $26.) A melting mother, a Cyclops with a dating profile and other fanciful characters inhabit Ausubel’s latest collection of stories, many of which revolve around family life. “These are not normal families, not happy or sad families, but families so cracked and mythologically weird that they are more like interesting old ruins,” Rebecca Lee writes in her review. “In Ausubel’s stories, family life is depicted as treacherous and life-giving, and growing up in one is like passing through beautiful, dangerous woods.” WRESTLING WITH THE DEVIL: A Prison Memoir, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o. (The New Press, $25.99.) Ngugi spent nearly a year in prison in 1978 for writing a play in his native language that threatened the Kenyan government. This is the story of how he maintained his creative energies even while suffering the indignities of his detention. In his review, Ariel Dorfman calls it “a welcome addition to the vast literature produced by jailed writers across the centuries,” and adds that “Ngugi is affording us a glimpse into how a prisoner of conscience, by stubbornly reiterating his convictions, keeps faith with the ideals that those in power want him to betray.” THE BEEKEEPER: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq, by Dunya Mikhail. (New Directions, paper, $16.95.) In 2014, ISIS abducted thousands of ethnic Yazidi women and children in Iraq. Mikhail, a poet and journalist, profiles the beekeeper who helped rescue some, delivering a searing portrait of courage. “Through interviews with those who managed to escape, Mikhail has created a searing portrait of courage, humanity and savagery, told in a mosaic of voices,” Deborah Campbell writes in her review. “There are many such heroes in these varied accounts, not least the women themselves, and details so astounding that it was wise of the author to include photographs bearing witness to their truth.” An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Ariel Dorfman. He is a man.

2019-08-14 00:05:18

000000021595

Nigerian freight logistics startup Kobo360 has raised a $20 million Series A round led by Goldman Sachs and $10 million in working capital financing from Nigerian commercial banks. The company — with an Uber -like app that connects truckers and companies to delivery services — will use the funds to upgrade its platform and expand to 10 new countries beyond current operating markets of Nigeria, Togo, Ghana and Kenya. Since its launch in Lagos in 2017, Kobo360 has continued to grow its product offerings, VC backing and  customer base. The startup claims a fleet of more than 10,000 drivers and trucks operating on its app. Top clients include Honeywell, Olam, Unilever, Dangote and DHL. In addition to customer focus, founders Ife Oyedele II and Obi Ozor have prioritized serving the startup’s drivers. They offer the company’s app in languages common to drivers, such as Hausa and Pidgin. Kobo360 also launched its own driver working capital finance program, KoPay, KoboSafe insurance product and KoboCare: a suite of driver services from HMO packages to family tuition assistance. The startup is part of a growing e-logistics and transport space in Africa linking on-demand apps to mobile-based connectivity to move people and goods around the continent more effectively. In the ride-hail space, global players such as Uber and Bolt are competing with each other and homegrown startups to digitize and capture revenues in the continent’s auto and motorcycle taxi markets. Africa’s ride-hail markets are hot spots for startups and VC In e-logistics freight delivery, two startups — Kobo360 and Lori Systems — have continued to compete tit for tat on investment, scale and expansion. Kobo360 moved into Lori Systems’ HQ country Kenya this year. Lori Systems expanded into Nigeria in September of 2018. Commercial research firm MarketLine estimated the value of Nigeria’s transportation sector in 2016 at $6 billion, with 99.4% comprising road freight. Kobo360’s CEO Obi Ozor told TechCrunch the startup would make final decisions on the 10 new  countries by first quarter 2020. As a cross-border freight service, the company looks to benefit from Africa’s Continental Free Trade Area (AFCFTA), signed this year by all the continent’s 54 countries to reduce barriers and friction on Pan-African commercial activity. In addition to lower costs for Kobo360’s country to country freight movement, the startup expects to have a voice in AFCTA’s final implementation. “We’re going to do some policy work through the IFC so we can help shape AFCTA. The key to the deal is really logistics, so if the logistics component doesn’t work out the deal isn’t going to work,” Ozor said. Kobo360 will use part of its $30 million funding to build out its Global Logistics Operating System —  GLOS for short — a blockchain-enabled platform that will help the company transition to more supply-chain services. By Digest Africa’s latest ranking, Kobo360’s $20 million Series A is the 5th largest investment in an African startup this year, after Egyptian ride-hail company Svwl’s $42 million raise in June. Kobo360’s existing investors IFC, TLCom Capital and Y Combinator joined the round. Goldman Sachs confirmed to TechCrunch its lead on the Series A. Over the last several years the U.S. based finance firm’s Africa investments have included backing for e-commerce unicorn Jumia (which recently listed on the NYSE) and leading a $52 million investment in South African fintech startup Jumo in 2018. Goldman Sachs’ Jules Frebault named Kobo360’s ability to scale quickly over a short period of time and use of tech to improve reliability and efficiency in Africa’s logistics ecosystem as a reason for leading the Series A. “It’s also a business model that’s replicable across multiple geographies on the continent,” he told TechCrunch on a call. Kobo360 has a mind toward international expansion but expects to remain focused on Nigeria and Africa for now. “We’re definitely thinking global, we just want to make sure we close out our home market first, then we’ll start looking outside,” Ozor said.

2019-01-21 12:26:00

000000009899

A 42-year-old Oregon man was in the midst of a murder spree when he was shot dead by deputies on Saturday night, PEOPLE confirms. Mark Leo Gregory Gago had murdered four people in the home that he shared with his girlfriend. One of the victims was his 9-month-old daughter. According to authorities, he was trying to kill his girlfriend’s 8-year-old daughter when police killed him before he could take the girl’s life. On 10:15 p.m. on Saturday, sheriff’s deputies responded to a frantic call about a multiple homicide at a home near rural Woodburn, about 20 miles south of Portland. There they found Gago attacking the 8-year-old, the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office says in a statement. Calling the scene “horrific,” the sheriff’s office says in the statement that Gago “was trying to kill (the) child when deputies saved her life by using lethal force against the subject.” The 911 call came from inside the home, Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Brian Jensen told reporters Sunday, according to the Oregonian. “It was described as a violent and a pretty hectic scene” to dispatchers, he said. When deputies arrived at the home in a desolate area surrounded by farmland, they found the body of one victim – a woman – outside, he said. They heard screams coming from inside the home, where Gago was attacking the girl, he said. They shot him to save the child’s life, Jensen says. They found three other homicide victims inside the home, he said. The girl survived and was taken to a local hospital. The sheriff’s office identified the victims as Olivia Lynn Rose Gago, 9 months; Shaina E. Sweitzer, 31 years old; Pamela Denise Bremer, 64; and Jerry William Bremer, 66, according to the statement. Sweitzer is Gago’s girlfriend and Pamela Bremer is his mother, the sheriff’s office says, according to the Associated Press. Jerry Bremer is his stepfather, and the girl is Sweitzer’s daughter from a previous relationship. • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. A woman described as a roommate who also lived in the home was injured. She was also taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Authorities do not have a motive at this time and are investigating exactly how each victim was killed — but firearms were not part of the incident. “They were not shot,” Jensen told reporters Sunday, according to The Oregonian. “We’re not sure what was used at this time. I’ve been told that there were numerous weapons, swords, things of that nature in the residence. The investigators are trying to determine what exactly was used to kill each person.” Deputies are reeling from the “horrific” case. “I’ve talked to investigators, 20-year veterans, and they’re saying this is a shocking scene,” Jensen said. The deputies involved in this incident have been placed on leave pending an investigation of the deadly-force incident — standard procedure in the wake of an officer-involved shooting, the sheriff’s office says in the statement. Online court records show that Gago was arrested for two prior assaults, in 2005 and in 2001. He was arrested in August for unlawful possession of a firearm, Jensen told The Oregonian. Calls to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office were not immediately returned.

2017-08-31

000000109054

Everyone loves a good optical illusion. There's a weird sort of delight in realizing that you can't always control your brain's perception of something, even if you try really, really hard to fight against it. This optical illusion — or, ok, it's really just an impressive camouflage situation — spotted on a New York City subway train is one of those when-you-see-it photos that often pop up on Reddit's Mildly Interesting subreddit. Comment from discussion Camouflage socks on the subway. Comment from discussion Camouflage socks on the subway. Fun! Now look at these circles, this hoofed newlywed, these seemingly squiggled lines, and then go lie down because your brain needs a 20-minute nap.

2018-05-09 12:24:34

000000061274

Show Us Your Wall HOLLYWOOD — Cartoons, comics, characters, repeat. Every nook of the Titmouse animation studio in Hollywood is filled with relics of pop-culture history and creations too obscure to name. There are articulated action figures exploding off desks; plush loaves of bread stuffed into bookshelves; a smiling, shark-shaped guitar; and some equally friendly fungus-themed ornaments mounted like family portraits. With offices filled with artists in headphones, silently bobbing their heads; white boards crammed with inside jokes, sketches and work notes; and a 10-foot-tall sculpture of a guitar-toting Bigfoot in sunglasses guarding the parking lot, this is no average workplace, even by Hollywood standards. The artifacts collected here may strike a chord if you watch late-night cartoons. The imprint of Chris Prynoski, president and owner of the company, is everywhere here. He and his wife, Shannon Prynoski, vice president and co-owner, moved here from New York and in 2000 founded Titmouse, a small start-up. The firm grew to a full-service production company well known in the cartoon world, with three offices and more than 500 employees. Titmouse has 12 series in production, including pilots, films, commercials and web promos, and work that has appeared on Netflix, Adult Swim, Nickelodeon, Disney and others. It’s probably best known for the cult hits “Metalocalypse” and “The Venture Bros.” — and for its out-there founder, Mr. Prynoski, 46, with his trademark lumberjack beard, glasses and low-slung cap. You’ll find his lair past a pair of arcade-era consoles — Asteroids and Pacman — and around a sweeping hallway covered by a black-and-white Travis Millard mural of a doglike creature eerily reminiscent of Yoshitomo Nara’s “Your Dog” sculpture. Inside his office, you’ll see animation cels from “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,” a 1980s animated show that achieved cult status, an original comic book page from “Dune,” a signed watercolor of the singer George Clinton by Overton Loyd and a thrift store painting of Elvis in various stages in his career. Mr. Prynoski’s own career began at MTV as a storyboard artist for “Beavis and Butt-Head.” Seeking more creative control, he and his wife, struck out on their own with Titmouse, named for the bird and originally a purveyor of silk-screened T-shirts. “It’s crazy,” says Mr. Prynoski, marveling at the growth and transformation as he walks through the office where you can see a vintage photo of Roddy McDowall, shot between takes of “Planet of the Apes,” in costume but without a mask and a 3-D painting of Bigfoot eating a taco. “I bought that one online because I love Bigfoot,” he said. “What’s cool about that is you can actually look at it in 3-D glasses.” And among the ephemera, there’s a Louisville Slugger baseball bat by his desk. More on that later. Below are edited excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Prynoski. There’s a lot of stuff that isn’t hung up. I’m getting around to it. There’s Jorge Gutiérrez, who painted this image of Mr. T. He’s the director of the film “The Book of Life.” I’m a fan of Mr. T., so this will get hung up pretty soon. Do your art interests influence your collecting choices? A lot of it is friends and people we’ve worked with or has to do with animation production art. It’s all reflective of interests. There’s the “Venture Bros.” statue up there. Or this one here. One of my instructors at school was the storyboard artist of “Frosty the Snowman” [the 1969 animated special], so he drew this weird Frosty art for me, Don Duga. Tell me about your favorite pieces. The picture of Roddy McDowall: I’m a “Planet of the Apes” fan. I like any kind of weird ape-man creature type stuff. And the Elvis one, we do a white elephant gift exchange around the holidays. You can open a gift under the tree or steal something that’s been opened. And then you either have to get a new gift under the tree or steal it. Some can only be stolen three times and I was the last guy to steal that one. And the comic page? The page is from the “Dune” comic, the David Lynch film adaptation of the novel. That’s an original page by Bill Sienkiewicz, who’s a comic artist. What about the baseball bat? We do a smashing party every year where we have this cage and we smash TVs, toilets and stuff. I’ll probably hang that up at some point.

2018-07-24

000000051859

On a recent visit to the Southwest Airlines headquarters in Dallas, I got to fly a Boeing 737. Or, at least, I got as close as someone who is not a licensed commercial pilot can: I sat at the controls of a multimillion-dollar simulator and learned how to “land” at La Guardia Airport in New York City. Honestly, it was easier than I expected. My instructor at the airline’s new Leadership Education and Aircrew Development Center dropped a see-through panel down between my face and the windshield, and explained how to read the indicators. Right in front of my eyes there was a small green circle and a slightly larger green circle. All I had to do to get on the ground safely, he said, was keep the smaller circle inside the larger one by adjusting the airplane’s pitch. More jobs will be cleared for takeoff. Aspiring pilots are ready. Southwest pilot of Flight 1380 is navy veteran hailed for her 'nerves of steel' As the 747 begins its final approach, a pilot takes a flight down memory lane Autopilot features vary by aircraft type and airline, with some planes even able to land themselves under certain conditions. Southwest uses an autopilot technology that assists pilots during every part of the flight, including descent, but I experienced firsthand how the airline’s pilots are ultimately responsible for landing their planes safely. I kept the plane as level as I could as computer-generated facsimiles of low-rise Queens buildings and the Grand Central Parkway slipped quickly beneath me. Controls around me adjusted themselves to keep us moving at the right speed, and with a big bump I made it onto the runway. The simulator, again by itself, came to a stop near Terminal B. I stepped out of the simulation with a renewed appreciation for the sophistication of autopilot, but also for the human pilots who make sure planes operate safely. With airline industry watchers in a seemingly perpetual state of worry about a pilot shortage, some think automation could obviate the need for those human pilots altogether. But, most experts say, the technology, the industry and the passengers are not quite ready for fully autonomous flying. “From what I see, could it happen in the distant future? I think it probably could. Will it happen in the near future? I don’t think so,” said Michael Wiggins, the chairman of the aeronautical science department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. “Right now, any progress toward that area should be done very slowly, very measured and only after a bunch of research with results that suggest we should do that.” For almost as long as planes have been in the sky, aviators and manufacturers have worked to make flying a simple experience for pilots and a smooth one for passengers. “Automated flight controls go back into the 1920s, and through World War II they had rudimentary autopilots,” Dr. Wiggins said. “The idea was that the automation would relieve the pilots of very routine flying and monitoring tasks and would allow them to focus on situational awareness and other monitoring duties they have to take care of.” As those autopilot features grew more sophisticated through the 20th century, Dr. Wiggins said, flying also grew safer because the systems were able to detect problems more quickly and effectively than human pilots could. A person in the cockpit might not see a single needle move on a single gauge, but a computer can detect that kind of warning sign and send out a more noticeable alert. Sweeping technology improvements over the last 50 to 60 years have made flying safer than ever before. The large planes that once flew the longest flights in the world required three or even four people on duty in the cockpit simultaneously. Now, updated versions of those same aircraft or newer, more efficient airframes that replaced them can be managed by two pilots just as effectively. Capt. Tim Canoll, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, said automation had largely been a boon to his union’s members. “At a very high level, it really has done a lot of amazing things for us and it has made us incredibly safe, and that’s why we embrace it so much.” Self-piloting airplanes would have to do more than fly. They would also have to navigate crowded airports like La Guardia in New York City, shown here, and troubleshoot unexpected situations that arise at all stages of the trip.CreditMary Altaffer/Associated Press But, he said, he thinks planes are more or less as automated as they are likely to get. “We will see advancements, further advancements in automation, but they will be on the margins instead of earthshaking,” he said. “And I say that because if you look at the most modern aircraft now, they have fully automated landing capability for very low visibility” and other automated controls. The next most likely developments in automation, he said, will revolve more around predicting and detecting maintenance-related issues. But John Schmidt, the global managing director for the aerospace and defense practice at Accenture, said there was more to automation in aviation than that. “Every time a 787 takes a flight it generates a terabyte of data,” he said. “We use a fraction of that data today.” The engines alone track data on 5,000 parameters. Companies are starting to use artificial-intelligence software to better interpret that data, which leads to better maintenance practices and more efficient equipment usage. Mr. Schmidt also said he was more bullish about the future of automated flight controls. “The technology to be able to do all the things that a pilot does on an unmanned aerial vehicle today exists,” he said. “Is that going to happen in the next year? No. Is that going to happen sooner than we think? Yes.” Regulators are already taking steps toward downsizing the role of humans on the flight deck. The bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration included language to provide funding to study single-pilot operations for cargo planes, a move that the Air Line Pilots Association opposed. Captain Canoll said that a single-pilot aircraft must be safe to fly without anyone at the controls in case the pilot takes a bathroom break or becomes incapacitated. “The security of a sole human in the cockpit is not something we’ve accepted, nor should we accept in the long term,” he said, adding that the two-pilot system had made aviation extremely safe while keeping operations efficient. Students at Lufthansa Aviation Training in Goodyear, Ariz., in May. As thousands of pilots near retirement, some industry watchers worry about a shortage.CreditConor E. Ralph for The New York Times Meanwhile, major aircraft manufacturers like Airbus and Boeing are pushing the technological boundaries. “As technology continues to improve, automation becomes more reliable and can manage more tasks and more sophisticated ones. In parallel, the role of the pilot is evolving,” Airbus said in an email statement. “The pilotless aircraft is not only a matter of technical feasibility, but also social acceptability (not only the industry, but also the traveling public).” Boeing seems even more ready to embrace fully autonomous flight. In an email, Paul Bergman, a spokesman for the company, said it was more actively investigating the potential for unmanned commercial flight. “The safe integration of unmanned aerial systems into national airspace is vital to unlocking their full potential,” he said. “Boeing’s systematic, risk-based approach to integration − that incorporates lessons learned from more than a century of experience in manned flight − can protect the safety and security of our current airspace while opening up new opportunities for unmanned systems.” The company is also exploring ways to further enhance current autopilot features. “This year Boeing will explore the fundamentals of automating the manual airplane tasks that remain with the goal of enhancing safety and reducing pilot workload,” Mr. Bergman said. Both Boeing and Airbus will exhibit new technologies at the Farnborough Airshow in England, which takes place every other year. The show, which opens Monday and will run through Sunday, provides a chance for companies across the aerospace industry to show their latest wares to prospective clients, and exhibitors often use the opportunity to announce major developments or new products. But it is unlikely that a fully autonomous commercial plane will make an appearance this year. Part of the challenge in bringing that kind of technology to fruition, said Dr. Wiggins, is that self-piloting airplanes would have to do more than just fly. They would also have to interact with all the complex parts of the air transportation network. “I think we’re farther away from it than some people would like, and I think we’re probably closer to it than some other people would like,” he said. “Should we continue researching this? I think so. Should we jump into it headlong without understanding the full ramifications of it? I think not.”

2016-05-19

000000067167

LONDON (Reuters) - A man has been arrested in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, the home of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, after scaling a perimeter wall, London police said on Thursday. Police said the 41-year-old man was detained shortly after 8.30 p.m. (1930 GMT) on Wednesday, seven minutes after an alarm was activated. The man was not armed and nor had officers used Taser stun guns during the arrest, police said. “I am content that our security measures worked effectively on this occasion and at no time was any individual at risk,” Commander Adrian Usher, head of London police’s Royalty and Specialist Protection unit, said. Neither the police nor Buckingham Palace would confirm whether the queen or other members of the royal family were at the palace at the time. Earlier on Thursday the queen, 90, and her 94-year-old husband, Prince Philip, had carried out the ceremonial State Opening of Parliament, where legislative plans for the year are announced. She had returned to the palace afterwards. A spokesman for the queen said they did not comment on security issues. The last known security breach at the palace was in October 2013 when a man armed with a knife tried to enter the palace through one of its gates. He was jailed for 16 months. That took place just a month after two men were arrested following a break-in at the palace in one of the most serious security breaches there for about 30 years. One of the biggest security breaches at Buckingham Palace happened in 1982 when an intruder, Michael Fagan, climbed a wall and wandered into a room where the queen was in bed. Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Louise Ireland

2018-01-03 00:00:00

000000045465

Lawyers for the NFL are expected this week to begin handing over documents sought by Colin Kaepernick. The NFL quarterback is suing the league for allegedly blackballing him because of his political protest of the treatment of African-Americans at the hands of police. Legal experts say he will have a tough time proving his collusion case, but Mark Geragos, his lawyer, tells Axios that's because they do not understand the law. Why it matters: Essentially a right-to-work case, the lawsuit is highly politicized. Since Kaepernick began going down on a knee during the national anthem before his games in 2016, dozens of other players followed suit, making him a proud symbol for African-American athletes and others sharing his views. At the same time, he became a lightning rod for critics, including President Trump, who said he was unpatriotic and disrespecting the flag. The background: In 2012, Kaepernick led the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl, their first appearance since 1994. The team reached the conference final the next season, and failed to get to the playoffs for the next three seasons. Kaepernick opted out of his contract in March 2017. He has not played since. There are 64 quarterback slots in the league when you count backups, and several have been signed since Kaepernick became a free agent despite having seemingly lesser ability than him. Kaepernick claims that is circumstantial evidence of a conspiracy to keep him off the field. The NFL collective bargaining agreement bars the teams from deciding collectively "to negotiate or not to negotiate with any player." Brad Snyder, a law professor at Georgetown, tells Axios that it will be difficult for Kaepernick to prove the agreement was violated— that there was collusion among the teams. "It's very possible that all the teams came to this same conclusion that, 'We don't want to hire this guy.' That's not illegal." But Geragos says that he needs only an implied agreement among one or more teams. "We are confident that at a minimum we will be able to prove that the [Collective Bargaining Agreement] impliedly was violated by circumstantial evidence. We expect that direct and express evidence exists as well." The bottom line: Legal experts appear to largely agree that Kaepernick was singled out for his politics. "Were it not for his political stance, he'd be employed right now," said Jeremi Duru, a law professor at American University. "It's not sensible to me. Many people have protested since and more loudly than Kaepernick, but they weren't first." Said Paul Haagen, a law professor at Duke, "This is an extraordinarily competitive environment in which marginal differences count a lot. Given how he's performed when he's played, it's a little surprising that no one wants him." Kaepernick declined to comment.

2016-02-12 13:57:18

000000006938

Congressional Memo WASHINGTON — As diplomatic crises go, the latest doings in the Senate fell somewhat short of Iran’s capture of wayward American sailors or North Korea’s fourth nuclear test. But on Friday morning, an embarrassing stain on the nation was erased. After 869 days, Norway finally has an ambassador. Also approved quietly was the nominee to Sweden, who had been waiting for nearly 500 days. Both nominees were stalled for the same reason: Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and a leading White House contender, wanted to make some points. Senators in both parties often put “holds” on nominations, sometimes because they loathe the nominee, but just as often to press for other policy goals. In this case, it was really nothing personal. Mr. Cruz first declared he would stop all nominees for State Department posts unless President Obama promised to block any United Nations Security Council resolution approving the Iranian nuclear deal, which the president would never do. As the Security Council approved it in July, Mr. Cruz pivoted to his desire to rename a street in front of the Chinese Embassy here after a dissident, Liu Xiaobo, a human-rights activist imprisoned in China. Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, which has a large community with Scandinavian heritage, went to the Senate floor several times to rail about this affront to the nominee for Norway, Sam Heins, a fellow Minnesotan. “Perhaps people don’t understand the importance of these nations because they just think these people wear sweaters all the time,” she said. “I don’t know what they think of Norway and Sweden, but, in fact, Senator Cruz should understand that they are two of our best allies.” (Also, lutefisk.) She and her colleagues have tried to get these and scores of other nominations approved this fall, a normally seamless process if no other lawmaker comes forward to object. But this is the Senate and this is an election year, so the only thing that happens easily is a resolution supporting the goals and ideals of Career and Technical Education Month. Nearly 150 judicial, national security and other Obama administration nominees are still languishing in the Senate. “In most cases they are being held up by just one member of this body,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, said this week, referring to State Department nominee holds, adding, “a member of this body who is out on the campaign trail.” This week, staff members worked to resolve the issue and on Friday morning, in a fairly unusual move, Senator Mitch McConnell — who had aided Mr. Cruz in blocking nominations previously — moved to confirm a cluster of State Department nominations on the floor with no one around to really object. And Mr. Cruz got his street-naming wish, which now must be approved by the House. If the bill is approved, Mr. Obama’s advisers said the president would probably veto it. Given that Mr. Cruz is so busy running for president and rarely in Washington, Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, and Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, had formed a sort of babysitters club for him, objecting on the candidate’s behalf on the Senate floor. Not that Mr. Lee or Mr. McConnell had a personal objection to these nominees. Mr. Lee is more or less the only member of the Senate willing to do a personal favor for Mr. Cruz. He has extended the same courtesy to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, another presidential candidate, by blocking Mr. Obama’s ambassador to Mexico, Roberta Jacobson, over her role in negotiations to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba. “We’re the ones staying home,” said Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Mr. Lee, cheerfully. When Mr. Lee is otherwise occupied, Mr. McConnell — whom Mr. Cruz recently called a liar on the Senate floor — has filled the objection void. That is what leaders have to do sometimes, much like soccer coaches who feel obligated to play the kid who always kicks the ball to the other team. To be fair, Mr. Cruz cannot be blamed fully for Norway’s diplomatic travails. Mr. Obama’s previous nominee, George Tsunis, a major campaign donor, basically blew it when he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and referred to Norway’s prime minister as “president” and also conceded that he had never been to Norway. Mr. Heins was nominated 276 days ago. As such, there was angst among the nearly five million Americans who claim Norwegian ancestry, which, according to State Department figures, is almost equal to Norway’s current population. “Outstanding!” Jon Pederson, the chairman of the board of Norway House in Minneapolis, said Friday when told that an ambassador to Norway had been approved. “They will be pleased to have leadership over there again. There are a lot of duties that ambassadors over there have to do.” Asked to name the most pressing matters of American interest in Norway at present, Mr. Pederson conceded, “I’m not aware of any.” Ms. Klobuchar said otherwise, noting that Sweden and Norway are large investors in the United States. “Norway just purchased 22 fighter planes from Lockheed, valued at up to $200 million apiece,” she said, noting that the planes were made in Fort Worth. “Can you imagine any other senator holding up an ambassador to a country that just made such a purchase from a company in their state? No way.” Azita Raji, a Wall Street executive and an Iranian-American, who was approved unanimously by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last summer as ambassador to Sweden, also got the nod Friday. Sweden, one of the first countries to recognize American independence, is the 11th largest investor in the United States, one of the largest per capita, according to the State Department, and also has played a critical role in accepting Syrian refugees. On Friday, Ms. Klobuchar sounded a more diplomatic note. Also, a notably provincial one. “Minnesota is home to more people of Norwegian heritage than anywhere except Norway itself, so it is only fitting that the new ambassador hails from our state,” she said. “We also have more than our fair share of Swedes and others of Scandinavian descent. I have no doubt that Sam and Azita will serve our country well.”

2018-11-23 12:56:00

000000046756

This Thanksgiving, Carey Hart wanted the world to know he’s thankful for his wife, Pink. The former motocross star, who shares two kids with the singer, posted a sweet holiday message on Instagram, Thursday. “Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving yesterday,” the 43-year-old captioned a shot of the pair posing on a bright balcony. Hart is clad in a cheeky “ugly Christmas sweater” while Pink, 39, opted for a colorful sun dress — and both clutched bottles of what appeared to be beer. “Ours was perfect. Let’s all try to keep this thankful thing rolling. #DontEatMyCarrot #Milf.” Hart shared a less sunny message on social media last Tuesday, as news broke that officers were deployed to evacuated neighborhoods to help combat looting of the properties affected by the deadly California Wildfires. In the post, Hart revealed that he was prepared to use force against any looters. “It’s unfortunate that some people take advantage of others in a crisis,” he wrote. “While the Malibu fires have been burning, some locals have been fighting off and defending their property against the fires. There have been sightings of looters breaking into homes. Well, if you are a looter, think twice if you are heading back into Malibu.” Hart’s comments came alongside a black and white photo of a group of 12 white men holding guns with a sign warning, “Looters will be shot on site.” He hashtagged the post, “#DefendYourLand #2ndamendment.”

2018-09-18

000000106137

(Reuters Health) - For preventing health problems in obese patients, intensive behavioral interventions focused on improving things like eating and exercise habits may be the best prescription, U.S. doctors advise. Obese adults should receive counseling and other programs to help them stick to a healthy diet, maintain or increase physical activity, and understand and address obstacles to weight loss, according to recommendations issued today by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). This advice isn’t new. The Task Force made similar recommendations in 2012. But recent research confirms that behavioral approaches really can help people achieve meaningful weight loss and better health, said Task Force member Dr. Chyke Doubeni of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. “The additional evidence shows that obesity continues to impact many Americans and that interventions to promote healthy diet and exercise work,” Doubeni said by email. “This recommendation re-emphasizes that clinicians can really help adults with obesity by offering or referring them to intensive, multicomponent behavioral interventions,” Doubeni added. “These interventions - which can include things like group counseling, one-on-one counseling in-person, and online resources - have been proven to help people lose weight and be healthier, so we continue to recommend that clinicians offer or refer their patients to them.” More than 35 percent of men and 40 percent of women are obese in the U.S., the Task Force notes in its recommendations published in JAMA. Obesity is linked to many chronic health problems including diabetes, heart disease, joint damage, mobility limitations and certain cancers. People with obesity also have a greater risk of premature death than individuals with a healthy weight. Weight loss interventions tested in recent studies varied widely in how they were provided and in the frequency and duration of treatment sessions, said Dr. Erin LeBlanc of the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research Northwest in Portland. Some interventions involved group counseling while others used individual sessions, for example, and certain programs were led by nutritionists while others relied on primary care providers. “However, specific weight loss messages and behavior change techniques were consistent across the trials,” LeBlanc, author of an evidence review accompanying the recommendations, said by email. “Most of the interventions involved group, individual, and technology-based education and counseling that was designed to help participants achieve a five percent or greater weight loss through a combination of dietary changes (including specific caloric goals) and a gradual increase in physical activity (generally promoting at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week),” LeBlanc said. While these efforts can translate into meaningful weight loss for some people, it’s not a one-size-fits all fix, said Dr. Susan Yanovski, author of an accompanying editorial and co-director of the Office of Obesity Research with the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. “Some individuals with obesity don’t respond to even the best behavioral treatment with enough weight loss to improve health,” Yanovski said by email. “Obesity medications added to behavioral treatment can be helpful for some patients,” Yanovski added. “In addition, patients with severe obesity may benefit from bariatric surgery, which has been shown to improve a number of obesity-related medical conditions.” There’s less evidence that weight-loss drugs work, however, and they can have dangerous side effects, the Task Force notes in its recommendation statement. “Lifestyle intervention through diet, exercise and behavioral modifications are the first-line cornerstones of obesity management approaches, said Debra Haire-Joshu of the Brown School and the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. “Weight loss medications and bariatric surgery are additional strategies which can be combined with behavioral intervention to reduce food intake and increase physical activity,” Haire-Joshu, author of an accompanying editorial, said by email. “Primarily medication and surgery offer options for patients who have been unable to successfully lose weight or maintain a goal weight and/or are exhibiting health problems related to their weight.” SOURCE: bit.ly/2NW070s, bit.ly/2NYhtdq, bit.ly/2NTQDTu, bit.ly/2NTEJsT and bit.ly/2NUBb9y JAMA, online September 18, 2018.

2016-07-06 00:00:00

000000031889

LONDON (Reuters) - The number of British property funds suspended after the country’s vote to leave the EU more than doubled on Wednesday, leaving over 18 billion pounds ($23 billion) frozen in the biggest seizing up of investment funds since the 2008 financial crisis. Seven funds have pulled down the shutters after a wave of investors asked for their money back amid speculation about a possible drop in commercial property prices in reaction to the result of the June 23 referendum. That in turn has raised concerns about the outlook for the broader financial system, given the risk of investors bailing out of other asset classes in a panic and of lenders to the sector such as banks suffering fresh balance sheet stress. Henderson Global Investors, part of Henderson Group, said on Wednesday it had temporarily suspended trading in its 3.9 billion pound UK Property PAIF and PAIF feeder funds due to “exceptional liquidity pressures” given uncertainty after the Brexit vote and the other suspensions. It was followed within the hour by Columbia Threadneedle, part of the Ameriprise Group, which said it had suspended trading in its Threadneedle UK Property Fund. Canada Life said it had also suspended its Canlife Property and Canlife UK property funds, describing this as a deferral of requests to withdraw investments. “The deferral can be for up to six months, enabling the funds to ensure property values reflect market conditions,” it said in a statement. Late on Wednesday, Aberdeen Asset Management said withdrawals from its 3.2 billion pound UK Property Fund which it had received before 1100 GMT would face a 17 percent dilution levy, and that it would not fulfil later orders. It expected to re-open the fund at 1100 GMT on Thursday. They joined rival funds managed by M&G Investments, Aviva Investors and Standard Life Investments which suspended trading on Monday and Tuesday. BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, on Friday told investors that it raised quarterly redemption charges on its 3.3 billion pounds BlackRock UK Property Fund to 5.75 percent, from 2 percent. “Over half of the property fund sector is now on ice, and will remain so until managers raise enough cash to meet redemptions. To do that they need to sell properties, and as any homeowner knows, that is not a quick or painless procedure,” said Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown. “These funds are therefore likely to be closed for weeks and months rather than simply a matter of days,” he wrote in a note to clients before Aberdeen’s announcement. Britain’s Financial Ombudsman Service said it had begun to receive calls from retail investors worried about the closures and the potential hit to their savings. “Although the decision to suspend redemptions was expected, the extent of the suspensions by the three funds so far is quite troubling,” a spokeswoman said shortly before Wednesday’s fund announcements. Keenan Vyas, Director in the Real Estate Advisory Group at Duff & Phelps in London, said the consequences could be profound. “If there continues to be a tremendous amount of redemption pressure in a short period of time this could result in a large number of sales transacting below book value and an eventual overall correction in property asset pricing across the UK market,” said Vyas. Despite concern that the banking system - beset for years by toughening capital constraints and misconduct fines - could face a fresh hit from any write-down in commercial property, analysts were generally sanguine as total exposure was light. “Banks haven’t really played the asset class in the last five years - it’s mostly been the shadow banking sector,” said analysts at Bernstein in a note. British banks held about 90 billion pounds of the 183 billion pound commercial property loan market at the end of 2015, according to research by De Montfort University. RBS had the most exposure at 25 billion pounds or 5 percent of its assets, followed by Lloyds Banking Group with 18 billion (2 percent of assets) and Barclays at 11 billion (1 percent), according to Mediobanca Securities. Officials said that banks are better placed than in 2008 to withstand falling real estate values, having reduced their overall exposure and increased capital reserves     “One of the things the PRA (Prudential Regulation Authority)has done over the years is to ensure that the exposure of UK banks to commercial property has been kept quite manageable... This is not a big issue for UK banks,” Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said on Tuesday. Concerns that the UK upheaval could spread to Germany, Europe’s other big real estate investment market, were also overdone, with no increase in demand to redeem there, said managers at Deka and Union Investment, among others. As well as being better diversified, with UK property making up no more than 20 percent of most German funds’ portfolios, retail investors are also prevented from getting their investments back for 12 months. While UK funds still had daily dealing, the Financial Conduct Authority’s Chief Executive said he was keen to look again at the inherent liquidity mismatch given property is tough to sell quickly. Britain’s fund trade body reiterated on Wednesday that the funds need to review their suspensions every month. “The manager and depositary are under a duty to ensure that the suspension is only allowed to continue as long as it is justified having regard to the interests of unit-holders,” it said. Additional reporting by Huw Jones, Kathrin Jones, Lawrence White, Anjuli Davies, Trevor Hunnicutt and David Milliken; Editing by Rachel Armstrong, Mark Potter, David Stamp and Jane Merriman

2018-06-07

000000096590

LONDON/BELFAST (Reuters) - Britain’s Supreme Court expressed the view on Thursday that Northern Ireland’s strict abortion law was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, but added it did not have the powers to make a formal declaration that the law should be changed. British-ruled Northern Ireland is left as the only part of Britain or Ireland with such a restrictive regime, after voters in the Irish republic backed the removal of a ban in a landslide vote last month that sparked calls for change in the North. Abortion rights activists called the court’s ruling on the law’s incompatibility a “landmark decision” that would put pressure on the British government to act, while anti-abortion groups emphasized there was no requirement to do so. Four out of seven Supreme Court justices who considered the issue found that the North’s current law, which bans abortion except when a mother’s life is at risk, was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. However, a different four of the seven ruled that the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which had initiated legal proceedings to try to liberalize the law, did not have the right to bring the case. “As such, the court does not have jurisdiction to make a declaration of incompatibility (with human rights law) in this case,” the court said in a summary of the decision. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission had argued that the law should be changed to allow abortions in cases where pregnancies were as a result of rape or incest, or in cases where the fetus had a fatal abnormality. The Commission welcomed the court’s opinion that the law was incompatible with the European Convention but said it was disappointed in the ruling that it did not have sufficient powers to take the case. Other campaigners joined the Commission in calling on the British government to act without delay. “This is a landmark decision that I hope will lead to changes that will improve the lives of women in Northern Ireland and the care they receive. Change on this is needed and needed now,” Breedagh Hughes, Royal College of Midwives Director for Northern Ireland, said in a statement. A Northern Irish woman gave evidence to the Supreme Court about having to travel abroad for a termination after being told her baby could not survive. Sarah Ewart said she intended to take a case to Belfast’s High Court to seek the declaration of incompatibility the Commission was unable to obtain. Northern Ireland’s elected assembly has the authority to decide on any changes to its abortion laws. It voted against legislating in cases of fatal fetal abnormality and rape in February 2016 and the assembly has not sat since the devolved government collapsed in January 2017. Britain’s Northern Ireland minister has said she would like the law to be changed but that the matter should be decided by local politicians. The two main parties, which have been unable to restore the province’s power-sharing government, are also divided on the issue of abortion. The main nationalist party, Sinn Fein, backs calls for some change in the law. It said the court’s dismissal was on a technicality and its judgment made clear that the status quo was untenable when it came to cases of fatal fetal abnormality and rape. However a lawmaker from the main Unionist party, which opposes liberalizing abortion law and also props up the minority British government in London, said he was “delighted with the decision.” “Had it gone the wrong way Northern Ireland would have faced abortion on demand,” the Democratic Unionist Party’s Jim Wells told Reuters. Writing by Padraic Halpin; editing by Michael Holden and Andrew Roche

2019-12-04 00:00:00

000000021019

(Adds Dombrovskis) BRUSSELS, Dec 4 (Reuters) - European Union governments on Wednesday agreed new rules for handling failures of clearing houses raising the financial burden on them in a rescue, in a move aimed at preventing contagion risk in the global financial system. The rules could set a global standard for regulators, which put clearing houses at the centre of trading in over-the-counter derivatives and interest rate swaps after the 2008 financial crisis but did not agree on how to wind them down safely. The deal, which confirms a preliminary agreement struck last week, concerns 16 EU-based clearing houses which stand behind a significant proportion of the 640 trillion euros ($705 trillion)of derivatives traded globally, the EU said. Most of this clearing is done by houses owned by the London Stock Exchange and International Exchange Inc, which are based in Britain. It is not clear how the new rules will be applied to these firms after Britain leaves the EU. The clearing houses stand behind both sides of a transaction and ensure its completion even if one side goes bust. Large investment banks are their main customers. But in a crisis, there are fears that a clearing house might not have the resources to meet all its commitments which could rock the financial system and force governments to step in. As a result, like large global banks, the clearers have become as analysts describe it "too big to fail," meaning that taxpayers' money would have to be used to rescue them. The rules, which need approval by the European Parliament and are still subject to change, are meant to close this gap. They "will help to address interconnectedness and contagion risks, while encouraging less risky behaviour by clearing houses and other market participants," Finland's Finance Minister Mika Lintila, who chairs the EU council, said. EU finance commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters the deal was a positive step "to address highly unlikely, but potentially systemic, risks to financial stability." In a major regulatory shift, EU governments agreed a clear procedure to address clearing house failures, putting a higher financial burden on them and reducing costs for banks and other clients, which are known as "clearing members". The industry's European trade association, EACH, said the rules would increase financial stability, but warned about the impact on clearers from the additional contributions required. Under the draft deal, clearing houses should use their own resources to cover losses "before resorting to other recovery measures requiring financial contributions from clearing members." This would double clearing houses' contributions in a crisis to 50% of the capital they are required to set aside by regulators against losses. Under existing rules, when one party in a transaction, whether a bank or fund, cannot meet its commitments, it is the first to pay for its failure by using backstop capital set aside before the transaction. If that is not enough, the clearing houses contribute up to 25% of their capital, before a default fund financed by banks and other clearing clients is used. The new rules would force clearing houses to put up more of their own capital if the default fund was not sufficient to cover losses. Banks would need to pay extra cash only if this was not enough. But the new draft rules do not explicitly require the clearing houses to raise more capital after a recovery, leaving it unclear how they would fill any shortfall created by their crisis contributions. Under the agreement, the new rules would be applied two years after the date of entry into force of the regulation. ($1 = 0.9073 euros) (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio. Editing by Jane Merriman)

2017-10-09

000000040188

Vertex Ventures, the venture capital arm of Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings, said it has raised a $210 million fund to invest in Southeast Asian and Indian startups, exceeding its original target size of $150 million. Vertex plans to continue its strategy of investing in early-stage technology companies in Southeast Asia and India across enterprise technology, financial technology and consumer internet, it said in a statement. Vertex was an early investor in ride-hailing firm Grab. In July, Grab announced a $2.5 billion fundraising round, which a source said values it at $6 billion. Vertex's recent investments include SpaceMob, which has been acquired by co-working space startup WeWork, remittance payments firm InstaRem and digital marketer Synup. The combined Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India team operates out of three main offices in Singapore, Bangalore and Jakarta. "In addition to our current offices, we will expand our presence to other SEA cities in the near future to better access local opportunities," Joo Hock Chua, managing partner, said. The new fund is Vertex's third for the region, but the first with external investors. Vertex's previous two funds for Southeast Asia were fully funded by Temasek Holdings.

2018-11-23 00:00:00

000000063874

Black Friday isn't just for retail and electronics, kids— NordVPN is kicking off their Cyber Month with a killer Black Friday deal that'll get you a 3-year VPN plan for just $2.99/month.  Ever since the FCC decided to kill off Net Neutrality back in December 2017, protecting online privacy has never been more crucial. This is where VPNs come in. As NordVPN puts it, "VPN is essentially a hack-proof, encrypted tunnel for online traffic to flow." In other words, nobody besides you has access to your internet data—meaning you can stream, download, and search for things without worrying about hackers or unwanted third parties accessing your private information, even when traveling or using public Wi-Fi.  It'll also protect you from the overwhelming annoyance that is buffering. With NordVPN, you can choose from over 5000 servers in 62 countries and enjoy lightning fast loading (so no, it won't take you 4 hours to load an episode of your favorite show on the go). With NordVPN, you can connect up to six devices to one VPN account, so all of your devices can be protected. Plus, with different applications for programs like Windows, macOS, Linux and more—you'll be set to connect from any and all of your favorite devices regardless of what you're using. At just $2.99 per month, this Black Friday special has you walking away with three years of top-notch internet security for a measly $107.55 total. Talk about an absolute steal.  Grab the deal here before it's gone, people.  Get a 3-year NordVPN plan for 75% off See Details Black Friday 2018: All the best deals are right here Shopping tips and tactics for Black Friday 2018 Amazon: Shop sales on Fire tablets, Echo Spot, and more Walmart: Shop sales on Xbox One S, Instant Pot, Nintendo Switch Macy's: Shop sales on Vitamix, Dyson, Instant Pot, Roomba Target: Shop sales on iPhone XS, Apple Watch, 23andMe, TVs, and more Best Buy: Shop sales on QLED TVs, Microsoft laptops, Nintendo, and more Gaming deals: Xbox One X, PlayStation 4, Nintendo, Alienware laptops, and more Laptop deals: Lenovo Yoga, Alienware, Dell, HP, Asus, and more TV deals: OLEDs from Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, and more Smart home deals: Amazon Echo, Roomba, Google Home, Apple HomePod Instant Pot deals: Where to get the cheapest price Clothing deals and promo codes: J.Crew, Macy's, Kohl's, Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor Mattress deals: Nectar, Casper, Leesa, Eight Sleep, and more

2016-02-02 00:35:00

000000067610

Though a winner still hadn’t officially been named in Iowa’s Democratic caucuses, that didn’t stop Hillary Clinton from seemingly declaring victory as her neck and neck battle with rival Bernie Sanders drew to a close Monday night. The former secretary of state took the stage to address her supporters and breathe “a big sigh of relief,” despite a narrow margin of victory. “Hillary Clinton has won the Iowa Caucus,” Clinton’s campaign said in a statement on Tuesday. “After thorough reporting – and analysis – of results, there is no uncertainty and Secretary Clinton has clearly won the most national and state delegates.” The campaign added that there is “no outstanding information” that could change the results to Sanders’ advantage. “Standing still is not an option,” Clinton said on Monday night. “The Democratic party and this campaign stands for what is best in America and we have to be united when it is all said and done. We have to be united against a Republican vision and candidate who would drive us apart and divide us. That is not who we are, my friends … I will not let their divisiveness, their efforts to rip away the progress that we’ve made be successful.” Punctuated by Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song,” Clinton closed by saying, “So as I stand here tonight, breathing a big sigh of relief – thank you, Iowa! – I want you to know I will keep standing up for you, I will keep fighting for you Join me! Let’s go win the nomination!” And with that, she was off to New Hampshire. (“[I’ll be] hitting the ground, getting to work in New Hampshire,” Clinton told PEOPLE ahead of the caucuses. “That’s the rhythm. You just keep moving forward.”) Later, Clinton shared her appreciation for the Iowa voters on Twitter, writing, “So grateful to everyone who gives your all to support this campaign. You made this possible.” So grateful to everyone who gives your all to support this campaign. You made this possible. pic.twitter.com/gk58CeS3vF — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 2, 2016 Sanders was up next on Monday, taking the stage to chants of “Bernie! Bernie!” and “Feel. The. Burn!” The Vermont senator thanked voters in the Hawkeye State, saying, “Nine months ago, we came to this beautiful state. We had no political organization. We had no money. We had no name recognition. And we were taking on the most powerful political organization in the United States of America. “And tonight while the results are still not known, it looks like we are in a virtual tie – whoa!” “I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Secretary Clinton – yup – and her organization for waging a vigorous campaign,” he continued. “As I think about what happened tonight, I think the people of Iowa have sent a very profound message to the political establishment, the economic establishment and, by the way, the media establishment. And that is, given the enormous crises facing our country, it is just too late for establishment politics and establishment economics.” “…What Iowa has begun tonight is a political revolution.” The former secretary of state and the Vermont senator had been locked in a tight race in Iowa, and Clinton’s probable victory could help set the tone for the rest of the 2016 race – and for what will no doubt be a high-stakes battle at next week’s New Hampshire primary on Feb. 9. Sanders continues to lead Clinton by a wide margin, 57 percent to 34 percent, in New Hampshire, according to a new CNN/WMUR poll conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Meanwhile, after a poor showing at the Iowa caucuses, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley suspended his campaign before Monday night’s winner was even declared.

2020-02-26 00:00:00

000000059616

The coronavirus-driven market sell-off knocked hundreds of stocks from their recent highs but Wall Street is still betting on a handful of names at correction levels that can recover and rally from here.

2017-09-17 07:36:49

000000111126

SpaceX has confirmed that the Dragon capsule used to ferry cargo including supplies and experimentation material has returned to Earth as planned, with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. The Dragon went up to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s CRS-12 resupply mission, which launched in August. Dragon brought a number of experimental payloads to the ISS, including a supercomputer built by HPE that is designed to test whether software hardening alone, without any additional hardware changes vs. a standard supercomputer configuration, can keep the computer operating as intended in the harsh conditions of space. Dragon was also loaded up with experimental results and other cargo during its month-long stay at the ISS, and with good splashdown and proper deployment of its parachutes after re-entry, those should be intact and ready for Earth-based researchers to analyze. This is the 12th successful ISS resupply mission SpaceX has conducted using one of its Dragon cargo capsules. The capsule used this time around is also intended to be the last brand new capsule SpaceX employs for this purpose – from now on, it hopes to only use refurbished Dragons used on previous missions. SpaceX first re-used a Dragon capsule back in June of this year, and while the company later said that its first attempt really didn’t actually save it any money vs. using a new one, it hopes to gain efficiencies over time by turning around Dragon for repeat use more quickly and easily. Note: Above image is the Dragon capsule used for Space’s CRS-10 mission. The company hasn’t released any photos of the CRS-12 capsule, and won’t until it has a chance to recover it from its ocean landing spot.

2017-11-16 12:00:06

000000035804

Netflix and Marvel Television are conscientious about making sure the series they make together, good and bad, have distinct personalities. The latest, “Marvel’s The Punisher,” is the slow, quiet one, at least for a significant portion of its first season, which is available to stream on Friday. This iteration of Frank Castle, one of Marvel’s most brutal heroes, certainly has its moments of graphic, over-the-top violence. But in the early going, at least, they’re more widely spaced than you might expect for a comic-book story about a revenge-obsessed, gun-happy vigilante. New movies and TV shows are added to streaming platforms each month. Here are the titles we think are most interesting in December. To what extent that’s a prudent choice in light of the seemingly endless succession of mass shootings plaguing the country, and to what extent it’s a result of Netflix bloat — stretching a slender story to fill 13 episodes — is up for debate. The producers didn’t exercise much restraint with the show’s opening titles, a twirling ballet of multiplying automatic weapons. (A “Punisher” panel scheduled for the New York Comic-Con was canceled after the Las Vegas mass shooting.) In any case, it fits with a couple of other major choices made by the show’s creator, Steve Lightfoot, whose primary experience as a writer and producer was on another chilly, slow-moving show, “Hannibal.” He’s shifted the focus of the Punisher story away from violent street-level revenge and placed it on post-traumatic stress, one of the great American themes of our day. The very leisurely pace and sparsely populated long shots of the early episodes sometimes recall another PTSD story, “The Walking Dead.” He’s also skipped over the foundational Punisher story — ex-Marine goes on rampage, wiping out the mobsters, Irish gangsters and bikers he blames for the death of his wife and children — which already formed the backbone of the second season of the Netflix-Marvel “Daredevil.” It’s recapitulated in the first few minutes of “The Punisher,” after which, with some shaky continuity and timeline fuzziness, the show turns into a military conspiracy thriller. In its flashbacks to Castle’s time in Afghanistan, the show feels less akin to other Marvel series than to the fall’s spate of special-ops dramas. The slow boil and downcast vibe fit the skill set of its star, Jon Bernthal, who originated this version of the character in “Daredevil.” (Also crossing over is Deborah Ann Woll as the reporter Karen Page.) Mr. Bernthal does dour well, and he’s good at befuddled reactions and cloudy, churning anger. His expressive range doesn’t extend too far beyond that, but Castle doesn’t require much more. In the post-rampage narrative of “The Punisher,” Castle is trying to recover from double traumas: the destruction of his family, and the lingering guilt from his mission in Afghanistan. A support group for veterans figures prominently, and when Castle isn’t talking about “the things we did over there,” he’s having recurring nightmares about his wife’s death and sledgehammering walls at a construction site deep into the night, like a really depressed John Henry. The tropes of post-traumatic stress and recovery mesh with the topical elements of Mr. Lightfoot’s story, which are presented with more polish than nuance. Castle’s continuing struggle to decode his past — punctuated by those occasional eruptions of bone-crunching mayhem — plays out against a backdrop of enhanced interrogation, surveillance and the disaffection of embittered veterans, some of whom are eager to stage an insurrection to make America great again. The action picks up as the season progresses, but “The Punisher” never quite gets in touch with the visceral roots of its material, something that all of the other Netflix-Marvel series do, no matter how much they distance themselves from their comic-book sources. It’s handsomely shot (on New York City locations) and smoothly assembled, and its naturalistic, psychological, more moody than pulpy approach may work for non-comics fans who don’t mind some gore with their procedural thrillers. But if you want your Frank Castle to be a single-minded avenger, heed the words of one of his fellow construction workers: “He ain’t all there.”

2017-01-11 00:00:00

000000022846

(Reuters) - The following are highlights from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s hour-long news conference in New York on Wednesday, nine days before he takes the oath of office. Trump blasted the release of an unsubstantiated intelligence report saying he had been compromised by Russia and was vulnerable to blackmail, characterizing it as “nonsense that was released by, maybe the intelligence agencies, who knows, but maybe the intelligence agencies ... It should never have been written, it should never have been released.” “It’s all fake news. It didn’t happen. It’s phony stuff. It was a group of opponents who got together, sick people, who put that out.” “I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out there ... That’s something that Nazi Germany would have done.” He praised some news organizations for not initially reporting on the document. “I just want to compliment many of the people in the room ... I have great respect for the news and great respect for freedom of the press.” He strongly criticized CNN for its reporting of the story, refusing to take a question from a reporter for the network, telling him, “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news.” “Some of the media outlets we are dealing with are fake news ... All I can ask for are honest reporters.” Asked whether he accepted that Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to help him win the election, Trump said, “If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability.” He denied having any business dealings with or in Russia. “I have no loans with Russia at all.” “As far as hacking, I think it’s Russia. But we also get hacked by other countries and other people, and I can say that.” On Putin and hacking, Trump said, “He shouldn’t be doing it. He won’t be doing it.” “Within 90 days we will be coming up with a major report on hacking defense, how do we stop this new phenomena.” “Russia will have far greater respect for our country when I’m leading it ... We’re either going to get along, or we’re not. I hope we get along, but if we don’t, that’s possible too. “But Russia and other countries, and other countries, including China, which has taken total advantage of us economically... and (taken) advantage of us in the South China Sea ... Russia, China, Japan, Mexico, all countries will respect us far more, far more, than they do under past administrations.” Asked about nominating a Supreme Court justice, Trump said, “So, as you know, I have a list of 20. I’ve gone through them ... They were outstanding in every case ... I’ll be making the decision on who we will put up for justice of the United States Supreme Court, a replacement for the great, great Justice (Antonin) Scalia. That will be probably within two weeks of the 20th (of January) ... “It will be a decision which I very strongly believe in. I think it’s one of the reasons I got elected.” “We have to get our drug industry coming back” to the United States, he said, adding that companies had been “leaving left and right.” Trump also called for new bidding procedures for U.S. drug companies, saying, “They’re getting away with murder (with drug prices) ... There’s very little bidding for drugs. “We’re the largest buyer of drugs in the world and yet we don’t bid properly. We’re going to start bidding and we’re going to start saving billions of dollars.” “I said I will be the greatest jobs producer that God ever created, and I mean that.” “You want to move your plant, and you think, as an example, you’re going to build that plant in Mexico, and you’re going to make your air conditioners or your cars, or whatever you’re making, and you’re going to sell them through what will be a very, very strong border ... Not going to happen. You’re going to pay a very large border tax.” Trump said he would not wait for negotiations with Mexico to be completed before starting to build a wall along the two countries’ border. “I could wait about a year and a half until we finish our negotiations with Mexico, which will start immediately after we get into office; but I don’t want to wait.” “We’re going to be submitting ... a plan. It’ll be repeal and replace; it will be essentially simultaneously; it will be various segments, you understand, but will most likely be on the same day or the same week.” “Obamacare is the Democrats’ problem. We are going to take the problem off the shelf for them ... we are doing the Democrats a great service.” Trump announced the nomination of Dr. David Shulkin as secretary of Veteran Affairs. Shulkin is currently under secretary for health at the VA. “We’re going to straighten out the VA for our veterans. I have been promising that for a long time ... We interviewed at least 100 people (for VA head), some good, some not so good ... Our veterans have been treated very unfairly.” Compiled by Jonathan Oatis; Edited by Tom Brown

2017-07-26

000000111765

July 26 (Reuters) - TAMDEEN INVESTMENT CO * H1 NET PROFIT ATTRIBUTABLE TO SHAREHOLDERS 8 MILLION DINARS VERSUS 9 MILLION DINARS YEAR AGO * H1 TOTAL OPERATING REVENUE 10.8 MILLION DINARS VERSUS 12 MILLION DINARS YEAR AGO Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2016-10-26 00:00:00

000000015814

Around the world, apartment blocks are springing up in cities in lieu of older houses. But this apartment in Sydney, Australia is pretty bizarre. It's a semi-detached house, sliced in half, and a five-story apartment block has been built snugly right next to it. The neighbour in the remaining single-level home, Vincenzo Scaturro, still lives there  and isn't particularly happy about the transformation, according to Domain. "But you can't stop progress and you can't stop people from doing what they want to," he told the news outlet. Twitter user @TheNezzie managed to snap photos of the odd development, and asked what we're all wondering: "How did this get approved?" Inner west development craziness 😐 how did this get approved? pic.twitter.com/CoYBwFIDXV — Narelle C (@TheNezzie) October 23, 2016 The now demolished home was purchased earlier this year and seven apartment units were approved for the site.  It's somewhat reminiscent of "nail houses" in China, where longtime homeowners refuse to make way for new developments such as buildings and highways. These isolated buildings make for a surreal sight (the property below was razed back in 2012_.  There's also the house that resembles the one from Up in Seattle, which is kinda cool if you enjoy seeing nothing but concrete walls out your window. As houses keep reaching for the skies in cities, you can bet these kind of oddball developments aren't going to be that much of an oddity soon enough.

2017-02-13

000000087510

CNN host John King slammed White House aide Stephen Miller on Monday for his claims about voter fraud in the election. King was responding to Miller's statement Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that illegal voters were bused in to New Hampshire to help Democratic presidential nominee Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonTop Sanders adviser: Warren isn't competing for 'same pool of voters' Anti-Trump vets join Steyer group in pressing Democrats to impeach Trump Republicans plot comeback in New Jersey MORE, who won the state by less than 3,000 votes, or 0.3 percent of those cast.   “Ask Democrats, ask Republicans, ask anybody in New Hampshire. They will tell you that is ludicrous,” said King, who is host of CNN's "Inside Politics." “He is on the payroll now — you pay him,” King reminded the participants in a panel segment. “He’s a taxpayer-paid employee standing in the White House briefing room spewing garbage.” “To quote Sean Spicer here, ‘This is something the president believes,’” said Molly Ball of The Atlantic, referring to the White House president secretary. King saids President Trump's staff needs to push back if evidence isn't there to support such claims.  “Forgive me; is it your job if you work for the president and he believes this, isn’t it your job to work on the president to get him through this?” King asked.  “Or at least not to repeat it on television? Just say, ‘I can’t say that on television because we have no evidence that it’s true.’” Trump won the Electoral College 304-227, but Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes. Trump has said he would have won the overall vote had it not been for voter fraud.  View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2016-05-15 00:00:00

000000041180

Washington (CNN)Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said Sunday Donald Trump "is going to have to answer for" his behavior around women -- but said Trump's presidential campaign isn't being judged based on his personal life. The GOP leader was asked on ABC's "This Week" about a New York Times report that Trump's private conduct with women has involved unwelcome romantic advances and commentary on women's figures. "Look, I mean, these are things that he is going to have to answer for," Priebus said. "But I also think there are things from many years ago and I think that, you know, as Christians, judging each other I think is -- is problematic. I think it's when people live in glass houses and throw stones is when people get in trouble." READ: Trump's woman problem The report about Trump's treatment of women was the latest reminder of the landmines from his personal life that the presumptive Republican nominee carries into the general election -- the downside of the unconventional style and resume that vaulted him to the front of the GOP pack. Priebus argued that Trump's character won't be evaluated based on his previous personal behavior. "It's not necessarily that people make mistakes or have regrets or seek forgiveness; it's whether or not the person launching the charge is authentic in their own life and can actually be pure enough to make such a charge. That's what I think most people can look at when they evaluate people's character. Priebus said he doesn't believe voters are judging the thrice-married Trump on his personal life. "I think people are judging Donald Trump as to whether or not he's someone that's going to go to Washington and shake things up. And that's why he's doing so well," Priebus said. Another Trump ally, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, similarly downplayed the importance of Trump's previous interactions with women on ABC's "This Week." "Well, of course, he has to answer and people will ask those questions," Sessions said. But he added that "they've got 20 or -- they've got hundreds, I suppose -- people digging in to everything he's done for all these years." Sessions echoed Priebus, saying that voters don't expect Trump to be pure and also aren't judging him on his private life. "People have not expected purity on his part. What they're concerned about, they're deeply concerned about is this: somebody strong enough to take on Washington," he said. "Will he challenge the establishment? Will he end the illegality in immigration? Will he insist on trade agreements that lift our economy, increase manufacturing? And will he stand up to the elites? And he's doing so and the people are responding." Trump's allies' comments come as he's deflecting other personal inquiries, too, over whether he previously posed as his own publicist, under the alias "John Miller," and why he won't release his tax returns. Trump convention manager Paul Manafort defended the GOP's presumptive nominee on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday. "I couldn't tell who it is. If Donald Trump says it's not him, I believe it's not him," Manafort told CNN's Jake Tapper of recordings from a People magazine interview with "John Miller." Pressed on Trump's admissions in the past that he has used the names John Miller and John Barron, and that recordings of "John Miller" from an interview with People magazine sound like Trump, Manafort dismissed the question, noting that he's worked for Trump for six weeks and already uses language similar to Trump's. "I just know that he said it's not him," Manafort said. "I believe him. I don't even know the relevance of this, frankly." Manafort also stuck by Trump's refusal to release his tax returns, citing Trump's explanation that his returns since 2009 are still the subject of Internal Revenue Service audits. "This is an issue the media is interested in. It's not an issue the rest of America is interested in, frankly," Manafort said. Asked whether there's something those returns would reveal that Trump doesn't want America to see, Manafort said: "He said there's nothing in there. I have no basis to believe otherwise." Louise Sunshine, a former Trump Organization executive vice president and one of the women included in The New York Times' article on Trump's treatment of women, defended her former boss in an interview with CNN's Fredricka Whitfield. She said Trump "doesn't distinguish between men and women." "He looks for talent. He looks for trustworthy talent ... T means trustworthy talent, just think about it that way," she said. She pointed out that he's insulted men in the course of his presidential campaign as proof that he doesn't just target women. "He also called Marco Rubio short, he called Ted Cruz something else," she said. Sunshine said Trump hasn't changed in the decades she's known him. "I see the same Donald Trump," she said. "But I'm not sure that the way he has led his business, which has been entirely successful, works in politics because I think sometimes he forgets what the 'politics' thing is to say. And of course, that's what politics is all about. And I think he just marches -- he continues to march to the tune of his own drummer."

2019-12-03 00:00:00

000000050108

PARIS, Dec 3 (Reuters) - France will be “pugnacious” over the latest U.S. tariff threats on French products and will not go back on its digital tax plan, junior economy minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said on Tuesday. On Monday, the U.S. government said it may slap punitive duties of up to 100% on $2.4 billion of imports from France of champagne, handbags, cheese and other products, after concluding that France’s new digital services tax would harm U.S. tech companies. “It is very clear that we do not need to go back on this, with regards to a topic that economically speaking makes sense,” Pannier-Runacher told Sud Radio, referring to the digital tax. “We need to be pugnacious on the subject,” she added. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Benoit Van Overstraeten; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

2016-10-10 00:00:00

000000100943

This story was originally published on CNN.com in 2015. (CNN)Justine Brooks Froelker said her infertility journey, which has not resulted in that "adorable picture of the 'complete' family, baby and all," makes people uncomfortable and sad. She and her husband, Chad, are unable to have children, and after two unsuccessful rounds of in vitro fertilization, they have decided they are done with fertility treatments. When people hear that, they immediately move into problem-solving mode, she said. "People's first reactions, even my pastor's reaction, is 'Well, why don't you just adopt?' " said Brooks Froelker, 35, a mental health therapist in St. Louis. "And I know that question, for the most part, comes from a place of love, and they know I would be a great mother. They want to take care of my pain. They sure as heck don't want to sit in pain with me, because it's so uncomfortable, so they'd rather have sympathy for me and fix it," she said. Peace after infertility Instead of getting angry and frustrated when she gets the question, as a therapist, she shifts into educator mode and tries to help people understand that adoption is an "awesome option" for many families, but it wasn't on the table for her and her husband. Her husband was always open and honest in saying that adoption wasn't an option for him, she writes in "Ever Upward," a beautiful book about her infertility journey released this month. For herself, she said, she almost feels like she knows "too much" about attachment disorders from her work as a therapist, treating patients including mothers struggling with an adopted child or adopted children who never feel like they know who they are or where they belong. "We have not made this decision in a place of fear because we really worked through it," she said. It is OK to say adoption isn't for you, she said. It is OK to own that decision, she writes in the book. "It takes a lot more courage for me to stand up and say, 'I know adoption is not right for my family,' but the only thing harder than that would be to not listen to my truth and my husband's truth and what I know is right for our family and to just adopt because that is what we are supposed to do." When you can't afford to adopt During her five-year battle with infertility, Christy Harris, 27, of Calgary, Alberta, said she too would constantly get the question why doesn't she just adopt. "Like it's that easy," she said. "People think you can just walk down to City Hall and say, 'I want a kid,' and they go, 'OK.' " She and her husband started looking into adoption and determined that, financially, they couldn't swing it. Adoptions through private agencies can cost $20,000 to $30,000, she said. "We couldn't even consider IVF because I didn't think we could afford IVF. So if we can't afford the $15,000 they want for IVF, I can't spend $30,000 to adopt," she said. Infertility: Why don't more people talk about it? Public adoptions in Canada, which are provided through government or public agencies and don't involve hefty costs, weren't an option either, because they typically come with multiyear waiting lists, she said. There is also an emotional side to the decision, Harris said. "You're letting go of this idea of carrying your own child, of having that kind of bond. You won't be able to breast-feed. You won't be able to feel them move," she said. "Letting go of the concept that you won't be able to carry your own child is really hard. It's really emotional, and I don't think there's anything wrong with adoption. If I could afford it, I would absolutely be all over it, but it's one of those things where I don't think it's fair that people assume that just because you can't have kids you are now responsible to go and adopt. "People consider you selfish if that's not what you're looking at, and it's not that you're selfish. You just want a chance to have a family and kind of be like everybody else," said Harris, who learned this year, after taking fertility medications to increase her production of eggs, that she was pregnant. She is now in her fourth month and documenting every part of the journey on a blog, just as she detailed on her blog and the site Unspoken Grief the "roller coaster" of her life during five years of trying to conceive. "I think infertility is something that people should talk about. We need to get rid of the idea that people just need to relax and try and think about adoption and you'll instantly get pregnant, because that's not the way life works," she said. 'Single and barren: Don't label me' So often, when we hear about infertility stories in the media, they involve a successful outcome, which we know, from experiences such as Brooks Froelker's, is not always the case. We also tend to hear about people in relationships who are trying to conceive, not single women such as Ahuva Constance Scharff, director of addiction research for Cliffside Malibu. Scharff, 43, shared her story with CNN's iReport and called it "Single and barren: Don't label me." She said she always had a suspicion she might have trouble getting pregnant, because she was badly sexually abused from the age of 7 until 10. When she got her period, her menstrual cycle was never right, which made her wonder whether she suffered physical damage because of the abuse. She never looked into it because she wasn't with a partner and trying to have children. At a crossroads: 4 infertility journeys Years later, in her late 30s, she started hemorrhaging and was literally bleeding to death, she said. Her uterus ultimately had to be removed, which meant she would definitely never be able to carry her own child. She comforted herself by knowing that she would be the best "auntie" she could be. But when her brother married outside the Jewish religion and had only one child, with whom she doesn't have much contact, she hit rock bottom. "I was like, 'Oh, wait a minute. I'm not going to be the auntie that I wanted to be, and I don't have a choice of having my own child,' and those two things were absolutely devastating," said Scharff, author of "Meeting God at Midnight," a book of poetry. She didn't get out of bed for months, she said. For probably two years, if a pregnant woman or a child under 2 entered a room she was in, she left. "I just couldn't even handle seeing it." Even today, she said she still can't quite talk about her inability to have a child without crying, especially as a Jewish woman committed to a faith and culture that traditionally revolves around family. "There's so much pressure for everybody to have (a) child, or many children, to rebuild the community in the traditional sense. And so I get hammered constantly by everyone, from the rabbis to the old ladies to the young parents who are like, 'It's your responsibility to do this,' and I'm like, 'I can't. I physically can't.' " Their response often is "adoption is always an option," but it's not, she said. When she was younger, she didn't meet the financial threshold to win approval for adoption. Plus, internationally, there are challenges trying to adopt from orphanages, which are often run by Christians, when you are a Jew, she said. DNA on ice: The next step in women's equality Even now, when she makes enough money to qualify, she knows adoption would always be tough, she said. "Really? Like a middle-aged single lady is going to beat out a lovely young couple? Of course not." Scharff has since decided she is not cut out to be a single mother. "The season for me to be a mother is over. It's gone." What ultimately saved her during her darkest days was the realization that she had to go and live her life, or she was going to die. "I kept looking at the barrenness, and finally a friend of mine said, 'You are not barren. You have so much to give,' and that's what I focused on," she said, pouring herself into her work as an author and speaker and her expertise on addiction research. "Every single day, I try to help save people's lives, and I write beautiful books to inspire people," she said. "It really is what saved me ... having that friend (say), 'You are not a waste of space because you can't reproduce. You have so much to give.' " When you feel like you just have to keep trying The question Nelwyn Luman gets from time to time is why she can't just be happy with her two healthy children, who are 5 and 8. Luman, 40, a registered nurse in Marianna, Florida, grew up in a family of three siblings and always wanted three children of her own. But she is suffering from what is called secondary infertility, which is the inability to have children after the birth of one or more biological children. She has lost seven pregnancies, ranging from four weeks to 16 weeks, and miscarried five times since the birth of her second child, a daughter, in 2010. The losses have led to anxiety attacks, severe depression, sleeplessness and mental and physical fatigue. Some days, the "grief hits full force, and it seems there is no letting up," Luman wrote in an email. Sofia Vergara reportedly sued by ex-fiance over frozen embryos "There's a drive in you that you ... feel like you just have to keep trying," she said. "It's just a nagging feeling. The feeling is overwhelming at times with a sense of urgency knowing that after age 35 fertility begins to significantly decline. "It's not the stereotypical feeling of being incomplete that some have heard over and over," said Luman, who created a Facebook page for people to share their experience with infertility, pregnancy loss, stillbirth and infant loss. "Suddenly your growing baby and dreams filled with your every ounce of being are taken from you and you feel completely helpless." When she was in the emergency room during her last miscarriage -- waiting for doctors to tell her and her husband what they already knew, that there was no heartbeat again -- her husband suggested they try to adopt. "The desperation of wanting another child consumed me and all my energy went forth into the paperwork and calls that were necessary to get the adoption process going," she wrote. Deep inside, though, there was just something that "didn't feel right" about adopting. She had concerns about being able to bond with an adopted child, the way she bonded with her biological children, and the thought of what the child might have experienced before being adopted and how that could affect the child's development. So right before they were about to have someone come to their house to do a home study, a necessary step before you can be approved for any adoption, she and her husband stopped the process. They have since turned their attention to fertility treatments, and were about to begin the process of IVF when, at the last minute, her husband said he was not ready yet, so they backed out. "He's watching me go through so much that I think it's kind of hard for him," she said. 11 myths fertility doctors hear The experience is draining, she said. What helps is when people are compassionate about how difficult infertility can be no matter where you are on the journey, she said. "I think it's best for people to know that it's OK not to have the right answer or the right thing to say," she said. "It's OK to just be. You don't have to mend anything." Defining a 'happy ending' When infertility journeys don't lead to children, people often think there is no possible "happy ending," said Brooks Froelker. But her book and her blogs for The Huffington Post are all about conveying the message that every woman, no matter what her infertility path, can find her own happiness. She said she and her husband have found different ways to parent and have kids in their lives, making their lives "childfull," not "childless." They are guardians and godparents to many children. They are also close to the family of the gestational surrogate they used during their two rounds of IVF. They reached out to a surrogate because Brooks Froelker had two back surgeries when she was younger and did not know whether she could carry a child. A few months after their surrogate miscarried with their last embryo, the surrogate became pregnant with her own child. Brooks Froelker said the surrogate then called her, which she said "had to be the hardest phone call she ever made." Adoption: The photo shoot that changed a teen's life It felt like a "huge slap in the face," Brooks Froelker said, but it left her with a life-changing choice. "I may never get to know exactly why I'm the one that had to have two back surgeries or I'm the one whose surrogate did not get pregnant with my child ... but got pregnant with a third unexpected child," she said. "But I can choose what I do with that, and that's what I call 'rising ever upward.' That's why the book is called 'Ever Upward.' It's choosing my perspective, and I get to choose what the heck I do with that." Accepting her infertility and her "childfull life," which includes relationships with her surrogate's three children, doesn't mean she still doesn't have those bad days where she thinks, "Damn it, why didn't it work for us?" It's a "forever journey," where she will always be continuing to heal, but what helps, she said, is a society more understanding about what happens when infertility treatments don't work and adoption is not an option. "Knowing the difference between empathy and sympathy" is crucial, she said. "I don't need you to feel sorry that I am a 35-year-old woman who wanted to be a mother but doesn't get to be a mother in your traditional sense of the word. When you feel sorry for me, that leaves me feeling more alone ... but for you to look at me, and say, 'That sucks. I'm sorry. You would have been a great mother. What do you do now?' That's different. "That difference between feeling with me and feeling for me, I think that's a big part of it." Do you know anyone who is battling infertility and can't or won't adopt? Share your thoughts with Kelly Wallace on Twitter.

2019-05-24 00:00:00

000000048050

New York (CNN Business)Chipotle dealt with a major health crisis that could have led to permanent damage to the restaurant chain's reputation and stock price. But customers have clearly forgiven (and perhaps forgotten) about the E. coli outbreak of late 2015 and early 2016. So has Wall Street. Shares of Chipotle (CMG) have soared nearly 55% this year, making it the fourth-best performer in the S&P 500. The stock did tumble Thursday after an analyst at BMO Securities cited concerns about African swine fever in China leading to higher pork prices that could hurt profits. But Chipotle told CNN Business the worries were overdone and that the company did not expect a significant impact from the swine fever outbreak. Shares rebounded Friday. This year's stock pop also follows a 57% gain last year. Chipotle has done so well that it's now trading at about $667 -- just 12% below the all-time high of about $759 that it hit in August 2015 just before the E. coli outbreak. New food and bigger emphasis on digital It's a testament to the changes Chipotle made to shake up its menu and embrace digital ordering since Brian Niccol, the former head of Yum Brands (YUM)-owned Taco Bell, took over the company in early 2018. Since then, Chipotle has added new salad bowls to cater to consumers on paleo and ketogenic diets and has also introduced more menu options for vegetarians and vegans. Chipotle's first-quarter results clearly show the company's woes are now a thing of the past. Total revenue surged 13.9% and sales at restaurants open at least a year were up nearly 10%. Digital sales more than doubled and now account for about 16% of total revenue. "We are definitely under a digital transformation at Chipotle," Niccol told CNN's Christine Romans in February. Ackman loves Chipotle Even hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, an activist who has gotten a lot of attention for betting against Herbalife (HLF), likes the stock. Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management is the second-largest investor in Chipotle, with a 6.7% stake. Only mutual fund giant Vanguard owns more of Chipotle. It has a 10.6% stake. Ackman wrote in his first quarter shareholder letter that the latest Chipotle results "continued to demonstrate the significant progress that CEO Brian Niccol and his team have made in dramatically improving performance and positioning the company for long-term sustainable growth." He added that "we believe that Chipotle is in the early innings of its transformation" and that its "world-class management team should drive superlative growth in sales and profits for years to come." Many Wall Street analysts also believe the momentum will continue. Overall sales are expected to increase more than 10% this year and 2020 while earnings are projected to rise at a nearly 30% clip, on average, for the next five years. What's more, eight analysts now have a price target on Chipotle that's higher than the all-time high it hit in 2015, including one analyst who believes the stock could hit $820 -- nearly 25% above current levels.

2019-05-08 11:44:00

000000092458

A Japanese tourist and her husband are facing multiple charges after they allegedly lured a woman up to their Waikiki hotel room and sexually and physically assaulted her multiple times. Nagisa Dorch, 35, and husband Darrell Dorch, 46, were staying at the Outrigger Waikiki Beach Resort when they befriended the victim, a 26-year-old Japanese woman, on April 30, Hawaii News Now reports. Though the victim reportedly declined an initial dinner invitation, she agreed to meet Nagisa by the hotel pool the next day. There, Nagisa offered her alcoholic beverages, and invited her up to her hotel room in order to help her pick out a bathing suit, according to court documents obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Darrell allegedly entered the room where the women were looking at bathing suits and became intimate with his wife, causing the victim to become “uncomfortable” and prompting her to make an attempted exit. She was stopped, however, by Darrell, who allegedly pulled her hair and punched her an estimated 10 times before sexually assaulting her, according to the Star-Advertiser. The court documents reportedly say that Nagisa translated her husband’s sexual demands to the victim, and also kissed the woman as the hours-long assault stretched on. Hawaii News Now reports that court documents say the victim was allegedly raped by Darrell at least four times. Eventually, the couple’s son knocked on the door of the room, leading Nagisa to help the victim escape and report the attack to police, according to the Star-Advertiser. The couple was arrested May 2, and online records show Nagisa was charged with first-degree sexual assault and two counts of second-degree sexual assault. Darrell was charged with three counts of first-degree sexual assault, kidnapping and attempted first-degree sexual assault. Nagisa appeared in Honolulu District Court Monday, where she cried before the judge as her bail was set at $300,000, the Star-Advertiser reports. Darrell was a no-show in court, as he was reportedly being “uncooperative.” His bail was set at $500,000. Nagisa’s attorney Walter Robdy’s request to reduce her bail to $50,000 was reportedly denied. “Mrs. Dorch has never been in trouble before,” he said in court. According to the Associated Press, State Public Defender Jack Tonaki, whose office represented Darrell in court, declined to comment, noting it was too early to tell if his office would continue to represent him.

2019-04-26

000000111605

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., both appeared to take shots at former Vice President Joe Biden in his first official day on the campaign trail. Their remarks offered some of the first intraparty criticism to emerge from the pool of at least 20 Democrats running to defeat President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. When Biden joined the race Thursday, he was widely viewed as an instant front-runner. On Thursday, Sanders' campaign sent a shot across the bow at Biden in response to a reported fundraiser in Philadelphia on Thursday evening at the home of Comcast Senior Executive Vice President David Cohen. Comcast owns CNBC parent NBCUniversal. Warren, meanwhile, dredged up her past criticisms of Biden's record on financial issues during his three decades in the Senate. "Joe Biden was on the side of credit card companies," Warren said Thursday at an event in Iowa when asked about Biden's relationship to Wall Street, according to The New York Times. Her disagreement with Biden over bankruptcy legislation "is a matter of public record," she said. Indeed, Warren targeted Biden in her 2014 autobiography for his sponsorship of a bill supported by the financial services industry that tightened rules on consumers seeking bankruptcy protections. "The Senate was evenly split between the two parties, but one of the bill's lead sponsors was Democratic powerhouse Joe Biden, and right behind him were plenty of other Democrats offering to help," Warren wrote, the Times reported. "Never mind that the country was sunk in an ugly recession and millions of families were struggling — the banking industry pressed forward and Congress obliged." Warren's campaign did not respond to CNBC's inquiry about her remarks. Biden's campaign and Sanders' campaign declined to comment. In less than one full day as a 2020 presidential candidate, Biden had already received more criticism from his fellow Democrats' campaigns than any other candidate in his party. "There's a saying in politics: 'You try to tackle the one with the ball,'" said Philadelphia-based Democratic strategist Aren Platt. "Until Biden emerged, I don't think there was a clear ball runner." Both Warren and Sanders, who is running for president as a Democrat, have established reputations as critics and watchdogs of corporate interests and big banks. Biden, on the other hand, was singled out for his corporate ties during his years in the Senate. With the money primary well underway, Biden's early fundraising efforts have already drawn scrutiny from Democrats who have championed small-dollar donations. "Because Biden been in this position for so long, the people who he was friends with, his contemporaries, have risen to the highest levels," Platt said. "That's Joe Biden's social circle ... the challenge for him and his campaign will be bridging that gap." Among the Democrats running in 2020, Warren, a former Harvard law professor, has been among the most vocal about policy. She has shared her plans for breaking up tech giants including Amazon and Apple, as well as raising revenue by slapping a new tax on corporate profits over $100 million. Sanders proffered legislation last October to break up the big banks. Predictably, Trump and Republicans have not held back in taking early swings at Biden. "I'm a young, vibrant man!" Trump, 72, told reporters outside the White House on Friday. "I look at Joe, I don't know about him. I don't know." Biden is 76. Republican officials have laid out their own strategy on Biden: compare Trump's economic record with Biden's during President Barack Obama's two-term presidency.

2016-09-08 00:00:00

000000107200

(Adds details on economic performance, background) DAR ES SALAAM, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Tanzania’s economic growth slowed in the first quarter of 2016 compared with the same period last year, hurt by a slump in construction, transport and manufacturing sectors, official data showed on Thursday. The state-run National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement gross domestic product grew 5.5 percent in the first quarter compared with 5.7 percent in the same period a year ago. NBS said the construction sector grew 4.3 percent in January to March, compared with 23.2 percent a year ago due to low investment in the activity during the period under review. “The performance of the first quarter GDP 2016 indicates that the financial and insurance services recorded the highest growth rate of 13.5 percent followed by information and communication at 13.4 percent,” it said. The transport sector grew 7.9 percent in the first quarter compared with 14.5 percent a year ago, while growth in the manufacturing sector also slowed to 7.4 percent from 9.9 percent a year ago. Mining, financial services, agriculture and communications grew faster compared with first quarter 2015, NBS said. The statistics office did not give more explanations behind the performance of the various sectors. Tanzania’s economy, Africa’s fourth biggest gold miner, also relies on rain-fed farming, tourism, mining, financial services and communications. Tanzania sees economic growth rising to 7.2 percent this year from 7.0 percent in 2015, making it one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. The mining sector grew 6.5 percent in Q1 2016 compared to 0.6 percent recorded during a similar quarter of 2015. The communications sector grew 13.4 percent in the first quarter of 2016, from 11.5 percent a year ago, while agriculture grew 2.7 percent from 1.9 percent previously. (Reporting by Fumbuka Ng’wanakilala; Editing by George Obulutsa and Louise Ireland)

2019-10-21 15:34:00

000000010232

Amber Heard recently posted a photo of herself with one nipple exposed, but it was removed from Instagram for violating the app's community guidelines.In protest, she posted the same image that was edited to have Jason Momoa's face and body instead of hers, including his nipple."I decided to pay homage by replacing it with a picture that DID meet IG's strict nudity guidelines and such careful gender policies," she wrote in the caption.She also reposted her own photo on Twitter.Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.Amber Heard recently flouted Instagram's controversial nipple policy with a shirtless photo of her "Aquaman" costar Jason Momoa.Heard had posted a photo of herself wearing a blazer without an undershirt, exposing one nipple. But the photo, taken by Matthew Welch for a collaborative project between Interview magazine and Saint Laurent, was removed from Instagram for violating the app's community guidelines.Over the weekend, she reposted the same image — but edited to have Momoa's face and body instead of hers."In honor of IG's rigorous and equitable Community Guidelines against showing the Female nipple," she wrote, "and since mine enjoyed the brief privilege that's afforded to my male counterparts.. I decided to pay homage by replacing it with a picture that DID meet IG's strict nudity guidelines and such careful gender policies." In honor of IG’s rigorous and equitable Community Guidelines against showing the Female nipple ..and since mine enjoyed the brief privilege that’s afforded to my male counterparts.. I decided to pay homage by replacing it with a picture that DID meet IG’s strict nudity guidelines and such careful gender policies. See my stories to vote on which edit you prefer the most ..and thank you IG, here’s to 2019! A post shared by Amber Heard (@amberheard) on Oct 19, 2019 at 8:36pm PDTOct 19, 2019 at 8:36pm PDT Heard also posted the original photo next to Momoa's edited photo on her Instagram Story, asking her followers to vote in a poll: "Is there a difference?"The two poll options were "Yes, one is art" and "This policy is bulls---."—Amber Heard (@realamberheard) October 20, 2019As Insider's Rob Price previously reported, while Facebook's internal guidelines for content moderators allow photos showing women's nipples in some circumstances — like breastfeeding photos and political protests — they remain mostly banned.Read more: Facebook bans most photos of female nipples for 'safety' reasons, exec saysCritics consider the policy to be outdated and unfairly biased, which inspired the "Free the Nipple" movement.Celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski, Chrissy Teigen, and Chelsea Handler have challenged the boundaries of the policy, pushed for greater social acceptance of female bodies, and called on tech firms like Facebook (which owns Instagram) to end the double standard. The actor @amberheard reveals why she finally caved and got on social media 🤳🏼, and why seeing herself on-screen is like hearing your voice on an answering machine—multiplied by 100 ⛓ in bio.⁣ ⁣ Photographed by @matthew_welch. Styled by @karlawelchstylist. A post shared by Interview Magazine (@interviewmag) on Sep 6, 2019 at 9:26am PDTSep 6, 2019 at 9:26am PDT Interestingly, Heard's photo wasn't immediately removed when she posted it in September.After the Instagram account for La Fille d'O, a Belgian lingerie line founded by Murielle Victorine Scherre, reported the photo, Instagram said it didn't violate the app's community guidelines. The account then launched a targeted campaign against Heard, urging followers to report the photo as some kind of experiment. La Fille d'O appeared to be protesting the selective nature of Instagram's policy. Photos posted by small lingerie brands — as well as lesser-known artists, creators, photographers, and models — are frequently censored and their accounts suspended, while Heard's photo was allowed to remain.When Heard caught wind of this campaign to report her photo, she slammed the effort on Twitter."Cool cool - love women supporting women!!" she wrote, reposting her photo and adding the hashtag #NotYourBraNotMyProblem.—Amber Heard (@realamberheard) September 15, 2019"So ladies, if u ever get nipple shamed u can: a) report other women b) try & organize women 2 gang up on other women who r fighting the same fight c) use ANY of that energy 2, i dunno, change the system u think is so unfair 2 begin with," she continued.—Amber Heard (@realamberheard) September 15, 2019Representatives for Heard didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Read the original article on INSIDER. Copyright 2019. Follow INSIDER on Facebook. Follow INSIDER on Twitter.

2016-12-22 09:24:00

000000003575

The author of the Small Victories cookbook whips up a delicious treat ½ cup uncooked regular rolled oats 1½ cups plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour, divided 1 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. ground cinnamon 1 tsp. ground ginger 1 tsp. kosher salt Pinch of ground cloves ¾ cup granulated sugar ½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled ½ cup whole milk 1 large egg, beaten 1 tsp. vanilla extract ½ cup raisins 1 large Granny Smith, Fuji or Gala apple, peeled and diced 1. Preheat oven to 350°. Place baking cups in 1 (12-cup) muffin pan. 2. Spread oats on a rimmed baking sheet; bake in preheated oven, stirring occasionally, until oats are golden brown and smell toasty, 5 to 8 minutes. 3. Stir together toasted oats and 1½ cups of the flour in a large bowl. Whisk in baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt and cloves. Stir in sugar, butter, milk, egg and vanilla. 4. Toss together raisins, diced apple and remaining 2 tablespoons flour until fruit is well coated. Add mixture to batter, and stir to combine. Using an ice cream scoop, spoon about 3 tablespoons batter into each of the 12 baking cups. 5. Bake muffins until browned and a wooden pick inserted in center of muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool to room temperature. Store muffins in an airtight container at room temperature up to 4 days. Split and toast muffins under the broiler or in a toaster oven to refresh. Makes: 12 muffins Active time: 15 minutes Total time: 40 minutes Compound Butters Mix 1 stick softened butter with your favorite ingredients for a sweet spread for your muffins BERRY CITRUS 2 tbsp. raspberry jam + 2 tsp. finely grated orange zest SALTED HONEY 2 tbsp. honey + 1 tsp. flaky sea salt CINNAMON SUGAR 2 tbsp. dark brown sugar+1 tsp. ground cinnamon

2020-03-23

000000002863

March 23 (Reuters) - Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings: * LABCORP DEVELOPING OPTIONS TO PRIORITIZE COVID-19 TESTING FOR INPATIENT POPULATION IN SUPPORT OF GUIDANCE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE * LABCORP - EXPLORING OPTIONS TO PRIORITIZE COVID-19 TESTING FOR HOSPITAL INPATIENT POPULATION WHO ARE BEING TREATED FOR SUSPECTED COVID-19 VIRUS * LABCORP - NOW PERFORMING COVID-19 TESTING IN THREE OF ITS LARGEST LABS IN COUNTRY Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2018-10-16 00:00:00

000000008689

(Corrects to “applauds” from “agrees” in headline, paragraph 1) Oct 16 (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson applauded a U.S. government proposal requiring drugmakers to include price of medicines in television ads, Chief Financial Officer Joseph Wolk said in a CNBC interview on Tuesday. The company’s comment comes a day after U.S. government had sought such a move as part of its effort to increase pressure on drugmakers to lower costs. Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur

2019-11-12 00:00:00

000000070260

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. pork prices rose in recent weeks at a time when they would normally be falling, as a fatal pig disease in China is tightening global meat supplies, the chief executive of Tyson Foods Inc said on Tuesday. The price increase is probably the first time African swine fever (ASF) has significantly affected the United States, CEO Noel White said, after the company posted lower-than-expected quarterly earnings. The increase is “extremely unusual,” White told analysts on a conference call, because prices usually drop in the autumn. The United States also has more hogs than ever. Processors are slaughtering about 2.7 million pigs per week, up from about 2.6 million a year ago. But African swine fever is reshaping global meat markets and China is scouring the world to replace millions of its pigs killed by the disease. Higher U.S. pork prices could benefit meatpackers like Arkansas-based Tyson, though they were overshadowed in the company’s latest earnings by an August fire at a U.S. beef plant. Reduced international supplies are also expected to help Tyson rivals like Seaboard Corp, JBS USA and WH Group’s Smithfield Foods. “Since the product is being produced for export today, we are seeing product prices move higher,” White said. Tyson shares climbed more than 6% after his comments. “We urge investors to buy here before the impact of ASF is felt,” Bernstein analysts said in a note. African swine fever has killed up to half of China’s hog herd since August 2018 and lifted Chinese pork prices to record highs. Vietnam, the Philippines and other nations are also struggling with outbreaks. U.S. processors face a disadvantage for sales to China, compared with other suppliers, because Beijing imposed steep tariffs on U.S. pork as part of the countries’ trade war. Still, Chinese prices are so high that importers are willing to pay the tariff, affecting the U.S. market. From January to September, U.S. pork exports to China and Hong Kong were up 47% in volume from a year earlier. Chicago Mercantile Exchange December lean hog futures have risen about 12% since hitting a one-year low in September. “China has already taken a lot of product,” said Steve Meyer, economist for Kerns and Associates. “They’re going to take more and more.” Tyson fell short of Wall Street estimates for quarterly revenue and profit, after the slaughterhouse fire hurt sales volumes in its beef business, the company’s biggest segment. Excluding items, the company earned $1.21 per share, compared with the average analyst estimate of $1.29, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. Total sales rose nearly 9% to $10.88 billion on strength in its pork and chicken segments, but missed the average estimate of $11 billion. Reporting by Nivedita Balu in Bengaluru and Tom Polansek in Chicago; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Matthew Lewis

2016-02-09 17:13:28

000000013943

MIDLAND, Tex. — On the 15th floor of an office tower in Midland looms a five-foot-long trophy black bear, shot by the son of an executive at Caza Oil & Gas. But it is Caza that has recently fallen prey to a different kind of predator stalking the Texas oil patch: too much debt. While crude prices have dropped more than 70 percent over the last 20 months, a reckoning in the nation’s vast oil industry has only just begun. Until recently, companies were able to ride out the slump using hedges to sell their oil for higher than the low market prices. In recent months, however, most of those hedges expired, leaving a number of oil companies low on cash and unable to pay their debt. More broadly, energy executives and their lenders are realizing that a recovery in oil prices is at least a year away, too long for many companies to hold out. Energy executives and their bankers are bracing for a prolonged downturn that could remake the energy industry in a way not seen since the turmoil of the late 1990s gave rise to mega-mergers like Exxon Mobil. If prices hold at such low levels — oil traded near $28 on Tuesday — as many as 150 oil and gas companies could file for bankruptcy, according to IHS, an energy research firm. Over the last two and a half years, the oil industry experienced its deepest downturn since at least the 1990s. While that represents a relatively small slice of the overall industry, there are hundreds of other companies that had piled on debt to grow from tiny start-ups into significant players in the nation’s shale oil boom. Now they are likely to be acquired or their assets sold off. As much as a third of the oil industry could be consolidated as a result of the downturn, according to one estimate. “Today our goal is to survive,” Danny Campbell, chairman of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, began his welcoming remarks at a dinner here for oil executives last month. “Keep your name in the phone book and your debt low.” There are now virtually no wells in the United States profitable to drill. That has forced some companies into a fatal spiral, producing oil simply to satiate their lenders. Others are getting desperate. In late December, Caza essentially sold itself to a New York investment firm to pay off its lenders. Investors are on edge. A report that Chesapeake Energy, a major natural gas and oil company, hired lawyers to help restructure its more than $10 billion in debt sent its shares plunging on Monday, prompting the company to deny publicly that it was preparing for bankruptcy. The oil industry regularly undergoes booms and busts. But the downside of this cycle may prove more extreme, and the shakeout messier, thanks to the easy money that flooded the industry from hedge funds, private equity firms and tax-advantaged investment structures called business development companies. “The industry will be permanently damaged,” said Steven H. Pruett, chief executive of Elevation Resources, a leading Midland oil company. Energy & Exploration Partners of Fort Worth, for example, borrowed from at least 24 hedge funds to help acquire thousands of acres of land in Texas as oil prices topped $100 a barrel. The company filed for bankruptcy in December, after its lenders could not agree on how to save it. As the losses mount, investors and lenders are already laying the groundwork for the rebound, snapping up assets in fire sales and making new loans. But these are uneasy days, even for opportunists. Burned by forecasts that predicted oil would recover last year, many investors fear that they could be too early if they jump in now. The industry’s crushing debt load — energy companies on average have twice as much leverage, or borrowed money, as companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index — is also having some perverse effects. A glut of crude oil on the markets is pushing the price of oil down to levels not seen since the global financial crisis. Some oil companies are keeping up production simply to generate enough cash to make debt payments, according to bankers and energy executives. Banks looking to shore up collateral on their loans — which is typically a company’s oil reserves — are requiring producers to drill new wells to prove that their reserves can actually produce the oil. Major oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, which have ample cash cushions, may end up benefiting from the turmoil, scooping up broken companies or their assets. But even the global giants are not immune to the slump, as their profits dwindle and credit rating firms downgrade their debt. On Tuesday, Anadarko slashed its quarterly dividend more than 81 percent to conserve cash. And Exxon announced last week that it was curtailing its stock buyback program. The worst pain is hitting the smaller players: thousands of companies that snapped up land in places like West Texas and North Dakota, using billions in borrowed money. Many of these companies operated like start-ups with little control over expenses and without a proven track record to help them survive a slump. None of that seemed to worry Wall Street, which showered the companies with debt. In the summer of 2014, Energy & Exploration Partners borrowed more than $700 million to acquire thousands of acres in East Texas. The land was rich in oil, but it cost more to produce because of the rudimentary infrastructure in the remote area. For a time, Energy & Exploration Partners had to pay for diesel generators to power the rigs because there was limited electricity sources, according to a person briefed on the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. When oil prices topped $100 a barrel, the company could easily cover its production costs and interest payments. But all that changed when, at Saudi Arabia’s urging, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries resisted calls to cut production in late 2014, leading to a worldwide glut and sending prices into a free fall. Energy & Exploration Partners bought hedges, allowing the company to survive for most of last year by selling oil at $70 a barrel. But when those hedges ran out late last year, the company was low on cash. It declared bankruptcy in December. Nationally, just 15 percent of oil and gas production is hedged in 2016, compared with 28 percent of production in the fourth quarter, according to IHS, the research firm. Without the cushioning from hedges, oil prices soon will no longer cover the costs of production. In Midland, the heart of the oil-rich Permian Basin, as many as 40 decommissioned drilling rigs have been stacked along Interstate 20 since the fall, a bitter reminder for many that exploration in the fields is grinding to a halt. As rigs go off-line, companies are using technologies to squeeze as much oil as they can out of existing wells. But if an aging well breaks, many companies are not spending the money to fix it, and executives predict a rapid decline in production as shale wells peter out. Now sensing a possible bottom, a new wave of Wall Street money is flooding the oil patch, trying to catch a recovery. Adventure Exploration Partners sold all of its West Texas oil fields for $210 million just as prices were collapsing in late 2014. A few months later, with oil already below $50 a barrel, Paul L. Lucas, the company’s chief executive, and his partners began to dip back in again. With $50 million committed by Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors of Los Angeles, the company started acquiring new acreage. Adventure Exploration Partners is not drilling yet, because the price is not right. “We’re hoping to see prices stabilize and recover sometime in 2017,” Mr. Lucas said. For David M. Zusman, chief investment officer at Talara Capital in New York, oil has reached an “inflection point” that he is not going to miss. His investment firm, which manages about $500 million for endowments and pensions, bought up Caza Oil & Gas, a distressed oil producer in the Permian Basin, in December. Caza was paying double-digit interest rates to a business development company managed by Apollo, according to people briefed on the matter. The oil company needed a way out. Just before Christmas, the company sold equity to Talara. The deal gave Talara control of the oil company, while severely diluting the holdings of Caza’s existing shareholders. Flush with new equity, Caza was able to pay off the debt to the Apollo-managed fund, as well as other debt to Yorkville Advisors, a hedge fund in Mountainside, N.J. Freed from costly interest payments, Caza now has the flexibility to hold on to its prized shale holdings on the border of Texas and New Mexico. Sitting recently in a Midtown Manhattan conference room adorned with color-coded maps of the Permian Basin, Mr. Zusman was sure about the coming shakeout in the oil patch. “The haves and the have-nots are becoming clear,” he said.

2018-11-16 11:30:28

000000044194

ATHENS — An effort by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece to start severing cozy ties between the state and the Greek Orthodox Church, including taking priests off civil service payrolls, has opened up divisions within the church, which has played a dominant role in the country’s life for centuries. In a surprise news conference last week, Mr. Tsipras and the head of the Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, announced a tentative deal to remove clerics from the state payroll and to resolve a longstanding dispute over church property. The Holy Synod, the church’s governing body, whose approval would be required for the proposal to advance, held an emergency session on Friday to discuss the matter, rejecting out of hand any changes to priests’ pay status and calling for more “dialogue” on the other issues. Although the proposed deal would not essentially affect the wages of the roughly 9,000 Greek priests — the state would pay an annual lump sum of around 200 million euros, or about $225 million, into a fund to be managed by the church — they would no longer be civil servants. That prospect has stoked fears for job security in the debt-racked country, where most public sector positions remain all but permanent despite a series of cutbacks during the recent financial crisis. There are also reservations about the proposal for the church properties, under which the Orthodox Church would not pursue claims against those that have been taken over by the state, but both parties would be able to make use of the properties jointly. The initiative is part of a broader review of the Greek Constitution that Mr. Tsipras’s leftist-led coalition has long promised, with the aim of making Greek politics “more democratic and progressive.” On Wednesday, members of the Greek clerics’ association met with leaders of political opposition parties to air their grievances. In a statement, the association said it “cannot be silent faced with the most violent attempt to violate labor rights in the country’s modern history.” Many clerics are outraged at the initiative in principle. The church has long had an influential role in Greek life, and a large number of Greeks see national identity and religion as inextricably linked. (A Pew Research Center survey found that 76 percent of Greeks believe their nationality is defined by Christianity.) Those attitudes may be shifting, however, as an opinion poll released on Friday by ProRata for the leftist newspaper Efimerida Ton Syntakton reported that 59 percent of Greeks believed clerics should be moved off the state payroll. Bishop Anthimos of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, has said the deal would be tantamount to “national suicide,” and predicted that it would not secure the approval of the Holy Synod. Of the 82 bishops on the synod, a majority of whom would have to approve the tentative agreement, at least 30 are believed to oppose it. Bishop Chrysostomos of Messinia — who reacted to the measure last week by declaring that “clerics become wild beasts when you upset them” — walked out of the session on Friday. After the meeting, the synod released a statement saying members had decided unanimously to “continue the dialogue with the state on issues of common interest” and to set up a committee of clerics and legal experts to examine the proposal. The statement added that the synod “insists on the existing salary status of clerics and secular employees of the Church of Greece.” Responding to the Holy Synod’s statement, Mr. Tsipras’s office indicated that the payroll decision was the government’s to make. “The payroll status of clerics is, in any case, the responsibility and decision of the state,” it said in a statement. His office added that the government would prepare a draft law based on the joint declaration by Mr. Tsipras and the archbishop, and would share it with the synod committee before sending it to Parliament. Anthimos and other prominent bishops, particularly in northern Greece, are already displeased with the leftist government over its recent deal with neighboring Macedonia allowing that country to call itself the Republic of North Macedonia. They and other critics say that agreement, which paves the way for Macedonia to join NATO, encroaches on Greece’s cultural heritage and could stoke territorial claims by the Balkan state. The proposal on priests and church property has also fueled skepticism in Istanbul, the seat of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who is regarded as the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians and under whose direct jurisdiction certain Greek churches fall. The Greek minister for education and religious affairs, Konstantinos Gavroglou, traveled to Istanbul last weekend in an effort to ease tensions. After what was said to be a testy meeting, Mr. Gavroglou pledged to “pass on” the patriarch’s concerns about the deal and his discontent at not being consulted. A debate on the governing coalition’s larger constitutional review started this week in Parliament, with Mr. Tsipras declaring his aim to establish the “religious neutrality” of the Greek state. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the leader of the main conservative opposition party New Democracy, which is leading Mr. Tsipras’s Syriza party in opinion polls, dismissed the prime minister’s efforts as “activism.” Political rivals and critics of Mr. Tsipras have accused him of using the constitutional review process in general — and the church-state deal specifically — for political gain ahead of elections next year. In particular, Mr. Tsipras’s promise of 10,000 new civil service openings to replace the priests — who would continue to be funded by the state — has been condemned by his rivals as a cynical pre-election tactic.

2018-04-06

000000026243

April 6 (Reuters) - ENEL SPA: * WILL BE INVESTING OVER $290 MILLION IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE PROJECT WHICH IS LOCATED IN THE STATE OF GUJARAT Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

2017-02-21

000000012235

Feb 21 (Reuters) - Myos Rens Technology Inc * Myos Rens Technology- entered into a sales agreement pursuant to which co may offer and sell up to $6.0 million of its shares of common stock - SEC filing Source text: (bit.ly/2liBGLz) Further company coverage:

2018-08-08 18:00:01

000000087961

Metropolitan Diary Dear Diary: At about 5 o’clock on a perfect Saturday morning in May 1987, I was standing on a sidewalk in the West Village with a friend I had met for the first time about 10 hours before. After an all-night tour of bars and after-hours places, we found ourselves by an abandoned artist’s desk that was resting on a steel-wheeled wooden pallet waiting to be taken away by the garbageman. “I could use that,” my new friend said. “You’re the lawyer. Is it O.K. to take it?” I assured him that it was, and we started wheeling it to his apartment, which was about a mile away. It sounded like rolling thunder. I think we must have woken up more than a few people along the way. In our defense, I would like to note that 31 years later, we are still the best of friends and that he still has the desk.

2018-09-05 00:00:00

000000075634

My mother didn’t want to be a psychic. “Divination is a sin,” she was always saying — as a warning, as an explanation for her bad luck, and as a preface to all the stories about her father. Her father had been a curandero. I am sure he would have liked me to use the polite word: homeopath. In fact, that’s what his business card read: “Rafael Contreras A. Homeopath. Cures you of all kinds of illnesses: diabetes, obesity, sinusitis, cancer, and witchcraft.” It was said Nono had the power to move clouds. Many people came from neighboring cities in the state of Santander, Colombia, to see Nono in Bucaramanga, and in the house Mami grew up in, the living room teemed with people awaiting treatment and readings. Nono taught Mami to read fortunes. He gave her a normal deck of playing cards and told her, “It’s not the cards that matter, it’s what you see.” So, at 10 years old, Mami developed a system of meanings and symbols I know is not in any book, and which she tells me I cannot reveal. Mami practiced on Nono’s tarrying clientele and soon became a central attraction. When Nono died at 40 from a liver ravaged by alcoholism, the family decided divination was wrong. Only a man who had led a morally bankrupt life could die such an undistinguished death. Before his casket, as Mami attempted and failed to make Nono’s eyes stay closed, she agreed. It had to be sinful to interfere with people’s destinies. That was why Nono was unable to close his eyes and rest. Mami left that life behind and she didn’t look back — until, 11 years later, when my father lost his job. In our home in Bogotá, Papi spent his days sitting in the dark, his back bent as he stared off into space, unable to eat. The bills continued to arrive. We had no savings and no way of paying them. So, in the attic, over a round table, Mami draped a blue cotton tapestry printed with galaxies and moons and stars, and over this image of the universe she scattered her small hand mirrors, her golden pyramids, and her royal blue cones of incense. “God forgive me,” she said. Mami’s clients came, in ones and twos and threes, at all hours of the day. They were doctors, business people, seamstresses, cooks, security guards, engineers. There were the regulars: the fashion designer, the psychologist, the lawyer. I was 12 years old, and I’d sit in a bed of pillows at the landing, reading books and watching Mami’s clients travel between the floors of our house. They walked slowly behind her, staring at me. I stared back. We looked at one another as if we were each an item in a cabinet of curiosities. I lost interest in my books. Here, marching up and down my own house, was a more accessible and fascinating literature. What I really wanted was to be inside the room when Mami gave her readings, but I was not allowed, so I eavesdropped behind the closed door instead. I heard Mami’s commanding prayers, her clients sobbing or gasping; otherwise, I heard an eerie silence. I satisfied my curiosity by asking about her clients once they left. Psychic-client confidentiality didn’t exist, so Mami shared everything. There was the school grounds caretaker who wanted to know about her son’s father — not her husband, but a man she saw once and never again. There was the lawyer whose ex-wife had cursed him to die in a car accident, who came 12 days in a row so Mami could fix him, and then returned every weekend to have his fortune read. When no one was scheduled to see her, I sat with Mami in the attic. It was my favorite place in the house. I’d watch her, mesmerized, as she lit a tea candle and placed it beneath a small tin bowl to burn rose water into the air. She smoked cigarette after cigarette. She was someone that loved to hear herself talk, and I was someone that loved to listen to her. “Good divination is the art of a good story,” she told me, describing the legend-building, the assured guesswork about a client’s desires, the bridging of what she clearly saw and what she intuited. “But the biggest thing I have learned in all these years,” she confided, “is that nobody wants the truth, but everyone wants a story.” I thought I understood what Mami meant then. Once, when we were idling around the Plaza de Bolívar on a Sunday, Mami let go of my hand to take a picture of my sister chasing pigeons into flight. An old Roma woman grabbed my hand, looked at my palm, and exclaimed, “Your life line is split in two! You will have the choice of two lives. One is more exciting but you will die young, the other—” Mami pulled me away from the Roma woman, and we crossed the Plaza with great speed, past grandfathers sipping coffee, past children throwing breadcrumbs at pigeons. The Roma woman ran after us demanding money for her reading, and Mami yelled over her shoulder, “Nobody asked you for a reading! Leave my little girl alone.” Receiving a prediction did not feel good. I didn’t like being told what would lie ahead, and I didn’t like the way the Roma woman’s words haunted me. While I didn’t want to believe in her words, the way she had delivered them to me — so assuredly and so spontaneously — made me question every decision I made. I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly could lead me down a life that ended too early. There is a violence to the truth, or what is presented to us as the truth. It demands to be acknowledged and remembered; even when we want to disarm it, to leave it behind, or to disbelieve in it, it latches on like a persistent nuisance. Did the Roma woman tell me the truth? Years later, at 23, I was hit by a car and lost my memory. In the aftermath of the accident, with no idea of my name or past, I contemplated getting on a boat and disappearing. I knew I had a bag with me, and in it all the clues to my past life. I dangled it over a city trash can, trying to make the choice between abandoning my old life and starting a new one, or retracing my steps and figuring out who I was and where I belonged. That day, I decided to seek my old life. I was too curious. When I recovered my memory four weeks later and I remembered the Roma woman’s words, I felt the prophecy releasing its clutches. This is the thing with divination — you carry the prediction until something happens that fits it. What she had said had come to pass, so I could move on. I thought what my mother did was kinder. She told stories, spoke in allegories, in metaphors, gave hints. Stories are puzzles that fall into the background of our lives until we are ready to deconstruct or remember them. Either way, I liked the way it sounded: Nobody wants the truth, but everyone wants a story. I stared off into space and repeated it to myself like an incantation. When Mami first started to do readings, she gave her clients only the straight answers they sought: Yes, your husband is cheating on you. No, you should not go on that trip. Yes, he likes you, but he is not meant for you. Her readings were brief and to the point, and none of her clients came back. Sensing something was wrong with the way her message was being received, Mami experimented by disguising what she saw in a story. There was a young woman, for example, who been disinherited by her father. Mami didn’t tell her the simple truth — that she needed to extend forgiveness to him before he extended forgiveness back to her. “Some truths are so simple, people dismiss them,” Mami said. “Nobody wants to be told: be a good person, be nice to your family, be kind. But sometimes that is the answer.” Instead, Mami told the woman that the day her father had disinherited her, he had pinched one of her plants in anger, and until this plant was cleansed and released into the wild, her father would be deaf to her entreaties. Apparently, it was true that the father had been toying with a plant when he told his daughter she was to receive no more family money and was on her own. Mami and the woman wore surgical gloves and drove the plant to a nearby river, where they cleaned it with river water, said prayers, and it was at this point that Mami instructed the woman to forgive her father. The plant was a metaphor, but the woman would never know. Mami had given her a tangible task in the face of a broken relationship. Whether the ritual worked or not is beside the point, in my opinion. In the attic, Mami told me, “You have to speak in metaphors, in paradox, in symbolism. You have to tell a story that will allow the client to experience the truth without you ever having to name it.” Mami gave the woman a story, and the woman forgave her father, and eventually, he forgave her, too. Whenever there was a lull, and Mami became a little bored, she dealt the tarot cards into a star and read her own fortune. In her cards, Mami was always the empress, a woman wearing a crown of stars reclining on a throne with a scepter in her hand. Whenever she drew the card, she clapped in glee. Oh! There I am! I loved to see how the stories bubbled to the surface in Mami’s tarot. It wasn’t the empress herself who told the story, but the cards around her. They were the ones that unfolded each chapter of Mami’s life. The poverty and violence of her childhood. The anger and obsession she awoke in the men around her. The cousin who nearly raped her. The man she was forced to marry. My father whom she finally made a home with. When Mami turned her attention to the area of the star that spoke of her future she stared breathlessly, but she did not dare tell me what she saw. Even Mami was reticent in the face of a truth she had no control over. While Mami was a popular fortune-teller, her main source of income came from filling empty plastic bottles with water from our sink. She held the mouth of the bottle to her lips, flashed the whites of her eyes, and delivered a long murmur. It was a healing practice that my grandfather taught her, which he had learned from his father, who had learned from his father. Mami blessed water so that her prayers, buoyant in the liquid, could be ingested. For the price of 5,000 pesos, the blessed water promised to rekindle marriages, turn up jobs, protect against the evil eye, carry out light exorcisms, and remedy the pain of unrequited love. She laid the bottles sideways in a row, then stacked them in pyramid formations in the kitchen. Customers came and went, giving Mami money and stealing away with our tap water. My sister, Francis, and I were becoming increasingly skeptical of such traditions because of the private school we attended, which was comprised mostly of American and British teachers. We made fun of the healing water incessantly. We blew on each other’s morning coffees, which as Colombian children we drank regularly and without sugar, mocking, “Here you go, you will get an A in math today!” Mami pursed her lips. “Ajá! And what do you think is paying for the roof over your heads and the food on your table?” Meanwhile, on the second floor, down the hall, Papi sat still and broken on his bed. He said a word to no one and barely moved. We were giving him time to recover, but then he didn’t sleep for three consecutive days. Mami said she would fix it, but Francis scolded her: “What he needs is a doctor. Take him to the hospital.” Mami tsked. “What are they going to do? Medicate him until he can’t think?” So she spent hours in the kitchen murmuring over the surface of three glasses of water. Usually Papi would have refused to drink anything Mami had prayed over, but he was becoming a different man. She said, “Drink,” and he tipped back each glass and swallowed every drop. That afternoon, he fell into a deep sleep. “Que les dije,” Mami beamed. “My water WORKS.” “It’s a coincidence, Mami,” Francis rolled her eyes. “He had to fall asleep at some point.” Except Papi then went two days without waking up. We tried to shake him, but we couldn’t make him come to. He moaned. He tossed. We couldn’t make him keep his eyes open. We became worried again. Mami ran to the kitchen. “Ay jueputa, I overdid it.” I couldn’t help but laugh. In the kitchen, she opened the faucet and held a glass beneath the stream. “It’s because I used the wrong word,” she told me. “This time I am going to bless the water with the clear objective of making him alert.” While the water in the glass rose and then overflowed over her hand, she said: “You have to choose the words accurately, you see. You can’t be inexact. A vagueness on your part, and kaput.” You can’t be inexact, I repeated in my head. A vagueness on your part, and kaput. The water meant to make Papi alert didn’t have an obvious effect — though maybe he became more alert to the television. Francis and I made fun of Mami. Each day she gave Papi a different diagnosis. One day, she made him water so he could reconnect with his purpose. Another day, she made him water so he could find his voice. And finally, she made water so that his voice, wherever it was being held captive, could return to him. When Papi drank this last water, he threw up in the bathroom. He retched until there was bile. “Good,” Mami said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.” Papi crawled into bed looking pale and exhausted. He said he didn’t want to be bothered and Mami closed the door. “Now we wait,” she whispered. She made her way to the attic and I followed. I waited until we were seated amidst her trinkets and asked, “Wait for what?” “Hmm?” Mami was simultaneously sucking on a cigarette and shaking a lit match in the air to extinguish the flame. “Oh! Your father? For his confidence to come back. That’s what’s wrong with him.” “It is? Then why didn’t you tell him?” Mami exhaled smoke. “The truth? I already explained this. You can only point the client in the right direction.” After Papi vomited bile, he got the courage to start looking for work. He called in favors and got preliminary interviews. The problem came, each time, when he had to explain why he had been fired from his previous job. “A colleague backstabbed me,” he explained the first time. “Nothing, in the end, was proven,” he tried in the next interview. Then he hit on the right words: “I made the mistake of not being vigilant of the budget that people beneath me were handling. I will not make that mistake twice.” In a week, he was invited to visit an oil site and see if the project and new company was a good fit. Like Mami, Papi had to find the right words before it worked. There was one regular client of Mami’s who was the most intriguing to me. She wore stylish ponchos and high-heeled leather boots. She was a trader, and what she asked Mami never varied. She brought handfuls of dates and wanted to know which dates were auspicious and which were inauspicious. My mother never asked, “Auspicious for what?” She assumed it had to do with shipments of some sort. I told her I thought the woman was lying and that maybe she was a wedding planner. Mami was sure the woman was lying, too, but suspected she was hiding worse things. What? She wouldn’t say. “What are we going to do? We need the money.” As Papi was away interviewing at the oil site, the trader arrived with a big envelope. Mami pulled it out to show me: Inside there were three tickets for an all-expenses-paid vacation to Medellín. “What did you do to deserve that?” I asked. Apparently, one date that Mami had approved had been a great business decision and the woman was thankful. Mami didn’t think we should take the vacation, but Francis and I begged her to accept it. “You never take us anywhere!” we said. “Nothing interesting ever happens to us!” We argued that Papi was away and it didn’t matter where we went or what we did. So we got on the plane. Medellín was very unlike Bogotá. It was warm and hilly and the hotel was luxurious. We lounged by the pool. The hotel staff were overly attentive. We reveled in the freedom of the warm air, the fresh towels, and all the virgin daiquiris we wanted. For the first time in our lives, we didn’t have to worry about money. We greased our limbs in coconut oil and browned under the sun. We only had to lift a finger for someone on the staff to notice and run to our side. We were told not to go sightseeing, however; Medellín was Pablo Escobar’s turf and he was on the run from hired assassins, riding motorcycles in search of him. When we got home, Papi called to let us know he was still at the oil site and there was a chance the job might be offered to him on the spot. Francis and I were happy, but Mami seemed distracted and worried. When we hung up with Papi, she told us the trip had left a bad taste in her mouth. She said, “This smells like drug traffic to me.” When the trader showed up to her next appointment, Mami thanked her profusely. The woman smiled and said she was glad we had enjoyed ourselves. She pulled out her new dates. “Maybe you can help me again!” Mami said, half-joking, “Thank god you’re not testing your luck by being a mule.” “Me?” the trader said. “No, nothing like that! That’s for the people I recruit.” Mami hid her shock, and through a smile, she asked, “And business has been good?” “Yes! Ever since coming to you, our people are almost never pulled aside by the customs officers!” Mami gave the trader dates one last time, and once she was gone, she vowed to never see her again. When the trader called, Mami excused herself, saying, “I am retiring and there is a lot of darkness in what you do. I will not be involved.” After the woman left, Mami lit a candle for my father and prayed that he would get the job and she could quit her psychic business. “Nothing about this business ever brings good luck!” She looked at me, her eyes glinting with what seemed like fear. “What if my life gets torn apart from all this meddling?” Mami was sure it was a curse to take money that indirectly came from Pablo Escobar. On our television, Pablo Escobar was setting off bombs all over the country, in malls and highways, in front of banks, under bridges, on airplanes. Her hands shook as she told us we had received blood money. This time Mami made glasses of water for my sister and me. I was ready to refuse, knowing my older sister would refuse first. But Francis didn’t protest. I watched my sister drink hers, then in a moment, she felt sick, and she retched in the bathroom until there was bile, just like Papi had. I could not grasp how the same thing that had happened to Papi had happened to Francis — until I drank my glass of water and threw up and retched myself. The water I had just swallowed came back up, and after it, an orange, foul-smelling bile. The stories we are told matter to us immensely, whether we choose to believe in them or not. I had not believed in Mami’s water, but when it touched my stomach it made me sick. My reaction — maybe to the water, maybe to the story around it — was visceral and subconscious. After drinking my mother’s water and retching, I felt clean and spent. My body tingled, and a deep rest overtook my body. For a moment before drifting off to sleep, I reveled in the physical sensation of the transformative nature of what had taken place. This is why I think of my mother each time I sit before my screen and begin to write. You have to speak in metaphors, in paradox, in symbolism, I hear her voice. You have to tell a story that will allow the client to experience the truth without you ever having to name it. I write first drafts as if I were turning over tarot cards, too: I scribble single, disjointed paragraphs until the right image of a character emerges. And I think constantly of Mami’s biggest lesson: Nobody wants the truth, but everyone wants a story. Mami didn’t read books to me at night, but she gave me the experience of story in a way I will never forget. ● Illustrations by Tania Guerra for BuzzFeed News. Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Electric Literature, Guernica, and HuffPost, among others. She has received fellowships and awards from the Missouri Review, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, VONA, Hedgebrook, the Camargo Foundation, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures. She is the book columnist for KQED Arts, the Bay Area’s NPR affiliate. Her debut novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree, is available now.

2017-04-18

000000012758

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African miner Sibanye Gold (SGLJ.J) plans to tap shareholders for about $1 billion to partly fund a takeover of U.S.-based Stillwater Mining Co SWC.N, it said on Tuesday, a day after the deal secured a U.S. regulatory approval. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which examines deals for potential national security concerns, has cleared Sibanye’s $2.2 billion takeover of the country’s sole platinum and palladium miner. The deal will increase South Africa’s grip over global platinum and palladium supply and underline Sibanye Chief Executive Neal Froneman’s determination to branch out of gold mining and South Africa. “Sibanye management and board has determined that a US$1 billion equity capital raise, through the rights offer, is optimal given current market conditions,” it said in a statement. The company also said it would raise a further $1 billion in debt, most likely in the bond market, to fund the transaction. It expects the two tranches of capital to be raised by the end of June. The deal is still subject to shareholder votes of both companies. Stillwater and Sibanye have scheduled shareholders’ meetings on April 25 to vote on the proposed merger. Reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng, editing by David Evans

2018-03-07

000000017424

As concerns about inappropriate content on Facebook increase, some advertising agencies are recommending against buying certain types of Facebook ads. But so far, advertisers are not heeding their warnings — Facebook's audience is too large and its targeting too good. Facebook is maxing out on places to put ads in the Facebook News Feed and Instagram areas without annoying its users. Instant Articles and Audience Network provide alternate Facebook-owned venues to put ads and gain revenue, but several agencies have become concerned enough about fake news and trolling to warn their clients away from these products. Digitas, whose clients have included Buick, Dunkin' Donuts and Whirlpool, has expressed concerns about Facebook's Audience Network, a program that lets advertisers buy ads on a network of third-party websites. It is also cautious about Instant Articles, a way for publishers to upload their articles onto the Facebook platform. "Digitas advises clients against running [ads] in Audience Network or Instant Articles until the point at which Facebook provides 100 percent transparency on the partners within its network and simplified tools for us to control where our ads are placed," said Jeanne Bright, vice president and group director of paid social at Publicis' DigitasLBi. The majority of the Facebook ads Digitas buys for its clients are in the Facebook News Feed, Instagram and Instagram Stories, all of which are safe for advertisers, Bright said. Noble People, an ad agency that has worked with Coca-Cola and PayPal, is also concerned about Audience Network. Noble's media director, Matt Borchard, explained, "there's no control as to where you show up and video is served as mid-roll which as a consumer I absolutely loathe." Facebook does have tools to prevent ads from appearing next to questionable items, including options to blacklist certain categories and topics. Companies can also blacklist specific websites and apps within Audience Network and Instant Articles. It also increased standards for which types of publishers can receive ad revenue in an effort to boost quality. But Facebook's main olive branch to advertisers has been a promise to list exactly where ads could potentially run and did run, especially on Instant Articles and Audience Network. That feature was announced in September, and still isn't available. Digitas' Bright points out this feature is "continuously delayed." "My issue with these lists is that they aren't 100 percent transparent with listing every single site/article/video your ad runs against – that's what we'd need to feel absolutely comfortable running there," said Bright. "From what I've heard from Facebook, the lists will be 90 percent-plus transparent — though that percent isn't firm — mostly because they have agreements with some publishers that don't allow them to be completely transparent. They won't share who those publishers are either." A source close to Facebook said while the company can provide all the places an ad may potentially run, it's still working on being able to provide where ads actually ran. Ideally Facebook would allow third parties to audit for brand safety like DoubleVerify, Oracle's Moat or Integral Ad Science as other digital media companies allow, Bright said. However that option isn't being discussed, she said. A source with knowledge about the situation said Facebook plans on fully launching pre-ad-campaign lists for those two products by the end of Q1, while post-campaign lists should be available to all advertisers by mid-2018. But though companies are aware of the dangers, most won't leave Facebook, said Noble People's Borchard. So far, none of its clients have pulled money for safety issues. "Facebook's pure size and targeting capabilities make it easily the best place to capture sales, next to Google," Borchard said. "CPMs (ad price of 1,000 views) are cheap and targeting is excellent. The duopoly is strong and shows no signs of slowing down." Overall Facebook is still a "low level of risk" for advertisers, said Interpublic's Huge CEO Aaron Shapiro. The company's move to include more personal content is helping because it highlights better content and increases quality engagement, Shapiro said. Facebook users self-censor because they don't want to embarrass themselves in front of family and friends, who are likely to see their posts. That makes it generally safer than platforms like YouTube, where people can post freely without people in their personal lives knowing, he said. "Brands are concerned about it, but right now at the end of the day it's a very manageable problem," Shapiro said, whose agency's clients have included LG, Nike, Pfizer and Proctor & Gamble. Meanwhile, both Facebook and Google are hiring thousands of people to review content, and Shapiro believes both platforms will be able to eliminate most of the advertiser concerns. "Look at what China is doing with censorship," he said. "If China can censor the internet when the Chinese internet is bigger than the U.S. internet, it can be done."

2016-02-19

000000087578

A key measure of U.S. inflation surprised to the upside Friday morning and possibly put additional Fed rate hikes this year back on the table. What should investors buy in periods of rising inflation? The consumer price index excluding the food and energy components increased 0.3 percent in January versus the 0.2 percent consensus estimate, the biggest rise since August 2011. On a year-over-year basis, core CPI rose 2.2 percent, the highest level since June 2012. "Higher prices on medical care, new and used cars, clothing and rent drove the beat," said Michael Block, chief strategist at Rhino Trading Partners, in an email. This report "actually gets the would-be hawks salivating about more 'gradual' rate hikes this year." Utilizing Kensho, a quantitative tool used by hedge funds, CNBC Pro screened for the best-performing sectors and Dow Jones industrial average stocks during time periods since 1980 where core CPI was rising year over year.

2016-05-25

000000083027

HERE ARE THE TOP STORIES The Afghan Taliban has picked an extremist scholar as its successor to leader Mullah Mansour, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last week. (BuzzFeed News) The U.S. Justice Department will seek the death penalty for Dylann Roof, the man accused of gunning down nine people inside a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, last summer. (BuzzFeed News) A Pennsylvania judge has ordered Bill Cosby to face trial for a felony sex-assault case. Andrea Constand has accused the comedian of drugging and sexually assaulting her at his home in 2004. Almost 60 women have made similar allegations. (BuzzFeed News) In sports: BMX legend Dave Mirra, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot, is the first action-sports athlete diagnosed with CTE, a degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head. (BuzzFeed News) The NFL meddled with and tried to redirect funds in a study on brain injury and football, investigators say. (BuzzFeed News) And these are the next five Super Bowl locations. (BuzzFeed News Twitter) In tech: Billionaire investor Peter Thiel is bankrolling Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media, which was filed after the company published excerpts of a leaked sex tape featuring the former pro wrestler. (BuzzFeed News) Twitter will no longer count photos, polls, quote tweets, reply @names, and GIFs toward its 140-character limit. You can also retweet yourself now. (BuzzFeed News) 140, still. For the latest news and updates, download the BuzzFeed News app for iOS and Android (available in Canadian, UK, Australian, and U.S. app stores). WE’RE KEEPING AN EYE ON A group of 100 protesters pushed through police barricades outside the Albuquerque Convention Center where Trump was speaking. Demonstrators were seen throwing rocks and bottles at officers on horseback and burning Trump T-shirts. At least one arrest was made, BuzzFeed News reports. Writers on Trump More than 450 authors have signed a petition against Trump. Stephen King, Amy Tan, Junot Díaz, Michael Chabon, and Dave Eggers are among the famous writers who signed an open letter that opposes the presumptive Republican nominee’s presidential candidacy. The statement is now open to the public as an online petition, and has since accumulated more than 1,000 signatures. DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS? In search of the cashless, cardless, walletless, frictionless future promised by Silicon Valley and the booming financial tech industry, BuzzFeed News’ Charlie Warzel spent a month living in it. That meant abandoning his wallet and only using payment apps. We chatted with Warzel about his month of living wallet-free. Check out the video here. What did you learn? So much of financial technology is just a digital copy of the stuff we’re using every day. Apple Pay is basically a digital version of a credit card and not — as they’d have you believe — some huge technological leap forward. I think we’re still in the real early days of the digital-money future. The next few years will see a huge shift in behavior, but it's going to take some time before we’re all walking around without wallets. What happened that you didn't expect? Relying solely on my phone to pay pushed me to different extremes. There were the big-box retail chain stores (such as Best Buy, Whole Foods, Starbucks) that accept things like phone payments and Apple Pay and then there were really fancy, overpriced boutique coffee shops with $5 lattes. That and getting a microchip injected inside me! I did not expect I’d do that when I initially took on this project. Talk to us about that chip — what did that feel like? It definitely hurt way more than people said it would but it's also not exactly surgery. People have been asking me all the time if I’m going to get it removed and for now, I see no reason I need to do that. It’s just a weird little reminder and a decent way to make conversation at a party. Where do you see the future of money going? Finance is one of the few industries that is really decently protected from disruption so it’s going to be gradual to see any real change that will help those without bank accounts and those who truly want to live off the grid. But I think there’s reason to be verrrrry cautiously optimistic: Silicon Valley and financial tech just need to prioritize innovation that simplifies and doesn’t exclude. The glass-encased microchip, roughly the size of an engorged grain of rice, implanted in the fat between Charlie Warzel’s thumb and forefinger. “Being chipped was oddly anticlimactic,” he writes. “A trip to the doctor revealed that I hadn’t done anything too horrible to myself.” This letter was edited and brought to you by Claire Moses and Brianne O’Brien. You can always reach us here.

2018-06-09 00:00:00

000000074244

(Reuters) - Justify became the 13th horse to win thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown on Saturday after charging to victory at the Belmont Stakes in New York. Here are some facts about the undefeated three-year-old: ** The chestnut colt is trained by Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert and was ridden to victory by veteran jockey Mike Smith. ** He is owned by China Horse Club, Head of Plains Partners, Starlight Racing & WinStar Farm and was sired by Scat Daddy, who won the Champagne Stakes and the Florida Derby. ** His mother is Stage Magic and he was born at Glenwood Farm in Versailles, Kentucky. ** Justify, who did not race as a two-year-old, is now undefeated in six starts. ** Won his first race on Feb. 18 at Santa Anita Park by 9-1/2 lengths. ** Came from behind to win his second race at Santa Anita on March 11 by a comfortable 6-1/2 lengths. ** He triumphed at the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby on April 7, earning him enough points to qualify for the Kentucky Derby. ** He won the 144th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville on May 5, becoming the first horse since Apollo in 1882 to win the ‘Run for the Roses’ without a start as a two-year-old, breaking the so-called “Curse of Apollo”. ** Followed that win up with a narrow, half-length victory over Bravazo at the Preakness Stakes in sloppy conditions and thick fog before winning the final jewel of the Triple Crown on Saturday. ** The muscular horse is 1,268 pounds, more than 100 pounds more than American Pharoah, the Baffert-trained horse that won the Triple Crown in 2015, and stands at 16.3 hands high, slightly taller than American Pharoah. Compiled by Rory Carroll; editing by Clare Fallon

2018-06-27 22:45:00

000000007457

Nick Viall is setting the record straight on his love life. The former Bachelor star stopped by PEOPLE TV‘s Chatter on Wednesday, when he addressed rumors about him dating Mad Men alum January Jones and Dancing with the Stars champ Rumer Willis. “Rumer is one of my very best and closest friends,” Viall, 37, said about Willis, who posted an Instagram picture of the pair earlier this month laying side-by-side. “She decided to post a picture of us. And I was like, ‘Just so you know, people pay attention to who I’m dating or not’ and she was like, ‘[I] don’t care.’ So, she was kind of fun with it,” he explained about Willis, 29. “We are very close, very platonic friends. We bounce our love lives off each other at times, but no romantic situation going on there. But I love her to death — she’s a great friend. I’m glad she’s a part of my life,” he said. Of being romantically linked to Jones, Viall played coy and replied, “I have?” WATCH: Nick Viall Reveals He’s ‘Done’ With ‘The Bachelor’ Franchise and Talks ‘Bachelor In Paradise’ Cast Viall also discussed the members of Bachelor Nation who will star on the upcoming fifth season of Bachelor in Paradise, which he previously appeared on. “It’s great,” he said of the new cast. “Everyone’s looking for love on the show this season. I’m most excited, I think as Bachelor Nation is: grocery store Joe really didn’t get a chance at love.” As an alum of the franchise, Viall said that if he wanted to, he could “crash the beach,” but admitted that his time on the series has concluded. “They probably would let me. But I think my time on the show has come to an end, at least as a cast member. I mean, if there’s a fun cameo that makes sense, I’ll pop by,” he said. “Certainly in the spirit of finding love, probably done with that,” added Viall. Catch PeopleTV‘s Chatter live on Twitter and streaming on People.com every weekday at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

2018-06-25

000000110458

Most Americans are focused on what matters to their families and their communities, not on the latest overblown scandals reported by the mainstream media. Unsurprisingly, that focus is producing unprecedented economic optimism. 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 is delivering on his promise. America is open for business. Most significantly, America is open for small business. Trump is the most supportive small business leader the nation has seen in recent memory. Just this month, Trump signed off on a new rule that allows small businesses and self-employed workers to buy coalition health insurance plans, a move that will lower the price of policies, expand coverage, and free these businesses from some of the worst regulations imposed by the Affordable Care Act. The MetLife and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Small Business Index also recorded record optimism. Of those surveyed, 48 percent felt good about their local economies, the highest level in the history of the index. Confidence in the Midwest is at 50 percent, and in the West, confidence is at 55 percent. Moreover, 40 percent of millennials said they plan to quit traditional jobs in order to start their own small businesses. The historic tax cut spearheaded by Trump and advised by my friend Larry Kudlow has not only stimulated remarkable growth, investment and record low unemployment, but has also garnered widespread support, with more than 60 percent of respondents to a recent poll by Frank Luntz anticipating an overall positive effect on the economy. It is time to call this economy and the attendant optimism what it is: the Trump boom. So who benefits? That is where it gets really interesting. A 2017 survey by the Kauffman Foundation found that 24 percent of new entrepreneurs were Hispanic, 9 percent were African American, and 7.5 percent were Asian. Just over 40 percent of new businesses were formed by minorities. This past quarter, 18 percent of small business owners said they were adding staff. Finally, 65 percent of women small business owners expect higher revenues in the next year, compared to 61 percent of men. Trump has made opportunity, entrepreneurship and wealth creation both possible and appealing again. Consumers are buying and wages are rising. America is getting back to work. Trump promised to roll back 22 regulations for every new regulation, and he is making good on that. Granger MacDonald, a homebuilder in Texas, told the New York Times, “It’s an overall sense that you’re not going to face any new regulatory fights. We’re not spending more, which is the main thing.” He added that homebuilders have benefitted from rolling back regulations under the Obama administration, including a rule that broadened the definition of wetlands, which would have restricted homebuilding in many areas. Finally, millions of Americans on Main Street, not just Wall Street, are reaping the benefits of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, which promotes innovation and economic growth. The media continues to moan, but the rest of us hear a different tune, that of ringing cash registers, which are the sounds of prosperity and hope. Adam Brandon is the president of FreedomWorks, an organization dedicated to individual liberty and limited federal government. 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.

2019-01-29 00:00:00

000000055071

Michael Carbonaro might need to pull a rabbit out of his hat -- or from behind the counter -- 'cause he's heading to trial for allegedly screwing over the lady who created the idea for his hit TV magic show. Carbonaro was sued in 2015 by producer Beth Einhorn, when she claimed he'd broken a verbal agreement that she says they struck in 2012, to create a show based on the popular 'Tonight Show' skit called "Magic Clerk" ... which she wrote and he starred in. Waiting for your permission to load Vimeo video. Best of Magic Clerk from Trickster Productions on Vimeo. Einhorn claims she and Carbonaro entered into a 50/50 verbal contract to produce a spin-off series based on "Magic Clerk," which she says they called "TrickShow." It would've been similar in premise -- a hidden camera show where in-store hijinks fool customers. Fast-forward to 2014 ... Einhorn says she discovered Michael suddenly had his own show, "The Carbonaro Effect" ... which Beth says is an exact duplicate of what they allegedly agreed to produce together. Einhorn claims Carbonaro peddled the show as his own thing ... without crediting or paying her a dime. 'TCE' went on to be a huge hit on truTV, and now the 2015 lawsuit is heading to a jury trial, which starts Wednesday. Einhorn's gunning for major damages, alleging fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, unfair competition and more.

2017-01-31 00:00:00

000000026966

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The European Commission needs to hold further talks with Gazprom (GAZP.MM) before seeking feedback on concessions submitted by the Russian state gas exporter aimed at resolving a competition dispute, the EU’s antitrust regulator said on Tuesday. Gazprom, Europe’s largest gas supplier, said in December it had filed proposals with the Commission, seeking to resolve a five-year EU case over the Russian gas giant’s alleged monopoly practices. “We still have some exchanges with Gazprom before we are ready to market test the commitments but I do hope we will be able to do that soon and we’re exchanging that with Gazprom more or less as we speak,” Margrethe Vestager told a news conference. Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Mark Potter

2016-12-13

000000094813

With President-elect Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpPossible GOP challenger says Trump doesn't doesn't deserve reelection, but would vote for him over Democrat O'Rourke: Trump driving global, U.S. economy into recession Manchin: Trump has 'golden opportunity' on gun reforms MORE's selection of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of State, national attention has fixated on the relative political newcomer: Who is Tillerson? What are his policies? What will he be like as America's top diplomat? Less noticed but more important than every detail of the Tillerson pick, however, is Trump's consideration of former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton for deputy secretary of State, a role in which a transition team source told NBC News he would be "handling day-to-day management of the department." Bolton's name was on the table for State since well before Tillerson was publicly favored, which suggests he is a serious contender. That is terrible news. Bolton is a dangerous pick for State who will undermine Trump's own agenda and risk American security. A hardline, unrepentant neoconservative, Bolton embodies the worst of the bipartisan foreign policy failures of the last decade and a half. His inclination is ever toward war — preemptive, reckless, counterproductive war that costs much and gains little for U.S. national interests while putting far too many lives on the line. If Trump is at all serious about the new direction in foreign policy he has promised — if there is any sincerity in his announcement of a "new era of peace, understanding and goodwill" — he won’t give Bolton a position at State or anywhere in his administration. Unfortunately, far too few have sounded the alarm against Bolton since the Trump team began floating his name for high-level roles. One welcome exception is Sen. Rand PaulRandal (Rand) Howard PaulGraham promises ObamaCare repeal if Trump, Republicans win in 2020 Conservatives buck Trump over worries of 'socialist' drug pricing Rand Paul to 'limit' August activities due to health MORE (R-Ky.), who on Sunday leveled a rigorous critique of Bolton's unrealistic and dangerous foreign policy. "I don't know about Tillerson," Paul said, "but I do know that John Bolton doesn't get it. He still believes in regime change. He's still a big cheerleader for the Iraq War," and seems all too eager to replicate that misadventure on a bigger scale with Iran. "I also think regime change in Syria is a bad idea," Paul continued. "And that's an ongoing question. It's one of the things I like about Donald Trump: One of the reasons I endorsed him is he thinks regime change is a mistake. But John Bolton thinks completely the opposite. They are diametric opposites," on this issue. "I'm an automatic 'no' on Bolton," the Kentucky senator concluded, pledging on Twitter that he would "work to defeat [Bolton’s] nomination to any post." Paul is quite correct that Bolton's affection for regime change is in direct opposition to one of the more consistent and positive foreign policy principles Trump has articulated. In his first victory tour speech in Ohio on Dec. 1, Trump swore his presidency would be marked by "a new foreign policy that finally learns from the mistakes of the past." "We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments, folks," he said. "Our goal is stability, not chaos because we want to rebuild our country." To pursue this new direction, Trump cannot hire Bolton. At best, he will find himself with a deputy secretary he must soon replace. More likely, Bolton will use his Washington insider expertise to steamroll Trump's best instincts of restraint and push America into yet another imprudent and unpredictable war with no real connection to our country's vital interests. He will do his damnedest to replicate all the failures of Iraq from which the former ambassador so stubbornly refuses to learn. Sen. Paul is right that John Bolton "should get nowhere close to the State Department." The president-elect would do well to heed that counsel. Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities. She is a weekend editor at The Week and a columnist at Rare, and her writing has also appeared at Time magazine, Politico, Relevant Magazine, The Hill and The American Conservative, among other outlets. The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill. View the discussion thread. Contributor's Signup The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2017-01-11 15:37:44

000000105645

With the smartwatch field facing an uphill battle for the attention of the gadget-buying audience, Google’s Android Wear delay couldn’t have come at a less opportune moment. The wearable operating system was originally scheduled for release by year’s end, only to get pushed back to a broad “early next year,” a move that may well have contributed to the surprising lack of devices on display at CES last week. The release date just got a decidedly firmer time frame of “early February,” courtesy of an email sent out to Google Play developers, soliciting people to publish their apps for the OS and highlighting the on-watch Play Store functionality that’s set for the release. The timing of the release may well coincide with a pair of new Google-designed devices rumored to debut with the operating system’s launch. The pieces of hardware, set to showcase the new version of Wear, are expected to take a form similar to Google’s Nexus partner devices. And maybe we’ll start to see the fruits of the operating system begin to develop later that month in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress.

2019-08-25 00:00:00

000000008778

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif arrived in Biarritz, France, on Sunday, where world leaders are gathered for the Group of Summit (G-7) summit. The Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Zarif made the trip at the invitation of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Zarif's agenda was not immediately clear, but Iranian officials said there would be "no meetings or negotiations with the American delegation on this trip." President TrumpDonald John TrumpOur justice system must reward success Former Biden economic adviser: 'I really like a lot of' Warren's tax proposals Roy Moore calls for Omar to go back from 'whence she came' MORE was asked Sunday morning about reports that Zarif was in town and said he had "no comment." The Trump administration last month sanctioned Zarif because he "acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Iran is one of the most prominent areas of difference among the attendees of the G-7. Trump announced last year that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear pact that granted Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. But other G-7 members have remained committed to the pact. The Trump administration has hammered Iran with sanctions in an effort to cripple its economy. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Iran would like to negotiate a new nuclear deal, but there is no evidence that the two sides are close to coming to the table. The president earlier Sunday again appeared to break with world leaders on their efforts to address Iranian tensions. French President Emmanuel MacronEmmanuel Jean-Michel MacronHas the G-7 outlived its usefulness? Trump, the G-7 and the absence of American leadership The Hill's Morning Report - Dem lawmakers put guns, hate groups on fall agenda MORE said the G-7 member nations had agreed on a message to Iran that contained the group's unified objectives. But Trump said he hadn't discussed it. Trump was critical earlier this month of Macron's efforts to mediate. He complained that the French president and other leaders were sending Iran "mixed signals" by purporting to negotiate on behalf of the U.S. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2017-07-26 00:00:00

000000047416

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Anthem Inc, a health insurer with more than 1 million customers in Obamacare individual insurance plans, on Wednesday threatened to further shrink its 2018 market participation. On a conference call with analysts to discuss second-quarter financial profits, Chief Executive Officer Joe Swedish said that uncertainty about the government paying for the subsidies that make these plans affordable for millions of Americans could force Anthem to exit states where it has already submitted initial 2018 rate proposals. Reporting by Caroline Humer, Editing by Franklin Paul

2018-04-14 00:00:00

000000019297

PARIS (Reuters) - The French military on Saturday targeted Syria’s main chemicals research center as well as two other facilities, French Defence minister Florence Parly said, adding that Russia had been informed before the strikes were carried out. The minister was speaking hours after President Emmanuel Macron ordered a military intervention in Syria alongside the United States and Britain in an attack on the chemical weapons arsenal of the country’s regime. “We are not looking for confrontation and refuse any logic of escalation, that is the reason why we, with our allies, ensured the Russians were warned beforehand,” Parly told journalists in a short statement alongside Foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Parly also said cruise missiles had been fired by the French military. Reporting by Marine Pennetier, Jean-Baptiste Vey; Writing by Matthias Blamont; Editing by Ingrid Melander

2018-10-05 00:00:00

000000072739

Zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion — this is General Motors’ vision. These potential benefits of self-driving technology can only be fully realized when self-driving cars are deployed in large numbers, and when riders feel comfortable and secure. What's needed: Federal legislation would provide a path for manufacturers to put self-driving vehicles on the roads safely, while allowing continued innovation. Current federal law prohibits deployment of self-driving vehicles without steering wheels and other conventional driver controls. And other regulations for self-driving cars vary from state to state. Why it matters: Every year, crashes claim the lives of approximately 1.2 million people around the world — about 40,000 of them in the U.S. And 94% of traffic crashes in the U.S. are caused by human error. Because self-driving vehicles do not operate impaired, tired or distracted, they offer a compelling solution. And when self-driving vehicles are electric, they will help to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. What to watch: The SELF DRIVE Act, passed by the House of Representatives, and the AV START Act, pending in the Senate, would direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to issue new and revised safety regulations on an expedited basis. The bills would allow safe self-driving deployment during the period between enactment and NHTSA’s issuance of new regulations, but only by manufacturers that prove their self-driving cars are as safe as human drivers. The bottom line: Transitioning to a self-driving society will take time, and will require cooperation and collaboration by the private and public sectors. Federal legislation is essential to enabling the journey. Mary Barra is the chairman and CEO of General Motors.

2019-07-13 00:00:00

000000063133

12:26 PM PT -- Here it is -- a clear shot of Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello locking lips in public ... with what appears to be some gnarly morning-after hair to boot. Heyooo!! TMZ got a hold of these photos of Shawn and Camila enjoying coffee this Saturday AM at another cafe in SF -- a different joint than where they initially smooched Friday, we're told. You can see them laughing it up in between pecks and sips of their morning Joe. Shawn looks like he just rolled out of bed ... Camila too, for that matter. If yesterday's clip didn't make things official, this almost certainly does. They're together. Shawn Mendes certainly insinuated he was not dating Camila Cabello, but who's you gonna believe ... him or your lyin' eyes??? .@ShawnMendes & @Camila_Cabello have been spotted kissing. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/EABHbq8xtt Check out this vid of Shawn and Camila making out at Dottie's True Blue Cafe Friday in San Francisco. It did seem all too coincidental that Shawn and Camila were all over each other at the exact time they released their song, "Seniorita," but they seem to be all over the place -- L.A., SFO, etc, and they're all over each other!!! Shawn's in San Fran because he's got a concert at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum tonight and tomorrow. He's currently touring the U.S. We're guessing he's comping Camila. BTW ... Shawn is 20 and Camila is 22.

2017-09-29 00:00:00

000000072499

SEOUL, Sept 29 (Reuters) - South Korea’s finance ministry said it would act to stabilise any financial market volatilities across the long Chuseok holiday week Oct. 2-9, as tensions over North Korea remain elevated. “The government and related agencies will remain on emergency mode through the Chuseok holiday and monitor (markets) 24-hrs a day,” the ministry said in a statement after an urgently scheduled meeting with the Bank of Korea and financial regulators to discuss recent market volatilities. “In cases of unexpected events, the plan is to take swift and stern actions according to contingency plans,” the statement said. South Korea’s markets will be closed during Chuseok holiday and other public holidays from Oct 2 to Oct 9. (Reporting by Cynthia Kim; Editing by Michael Perry)

2019-05-17 00:00:00

000000053643

Former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenHarry Reid: 'Decriminalizing border crossings is not something that should be at the top of the list' Warren offers plan to repeal 1994 crime law authored by Biden Panel: Jill Biden's campaign message MORE is expanding his lead in Democratic presidential primary polls and is aiming to make quick work of his primary opponents. He’s acting like a frontrunner with an air of inevitability. A quick examination of recent history highlights the dangers of being a “next up” candidate — someone whom a plurality of voters quickly rally around because of a perception that it’s simply her/his turn to be president.  In the 1984 Democratic presidential primaries, it was former Vice President Walter Mondale’s turn. The establishment candidate with the 30-year political career was widely expected to win the nomination as soon as he announced, and he did.  The 1996 Republican presidential primaries followed a similar script; after falling short in 1980 and 1988, 72-year-old Senator Bob Dole (R-Kan.) — building off a 35-year political career — immediately became the GOP’s unquestioned standard bearer. In 2000 it was Al GoreAlbert (Al) Arnold Gore2020 Democrats release joint statement ahead of Trump's New Hampshire rally Deregulated energy markets made Texas a clean energy giant Gun safety is actually a consensus issue MORE’s turn — a sitting vice president and second runner-up in the 1988 Democratic primaries who had served the country publicly for nearly 25 years. Former Gov. Mitt RomneyWillard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyA US-UK free trade agreement can hold the Kremlin to account Ex-CIA chief worries campaigns falling short on cybersecurity Overnight Defense: US, Russia tensions grow over nuclear arms | Highlights from Esper's Asia trip | Trump strikes neutral tone on Hong Kong protests | General orders ethics review of special forces MORE (R-Mass.), the 2008 co-runner-up, was handed his party’s reins in 2012. And three years ago it was former Sen. Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonThe exhaustion of Democrats' anti-Trump delusions Poll: Trump trails three Democrats by 10 points in Colorado Soft levels of support mark this year's Democratic primary MORE (D-N.Y.)’s turn, parlaying almost 40 years of public life into a nearly predestined nomination. All five of these candidates were early favorites to land the top spot on their party’s ticket. All five lost in the general election. Coincidence? Not at all. Several factors have hindered “next up” candidates in recent years: Playing it safe When a party rallies around a favored candidate at or near the outset, those candidates are not vetted as thoroughly during the nominating process. Sure, Hillary Clinton was more battle-tested than most U.S. presidential candidates throughout history. Sens. John McCainJohn Sidney McCainMcCain's family, McCain Institute to promote #ActsOfCivility in marking first anniversary of senator's death Arizona poll shows Kelly overtaking McSally 3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 MORE (R-Ariz.) and Bob Dole (R-Kan.) overcame extraordinary adversity to nearly reach the White House. But none of them faced the challenges confronting most upstart candidates — for example, engaging head-on with the media, or staking out policy positions that might be unpopular, but which broaden and/or deepen their appeal. “Next up” candidates play it safer, so as not to fracture the coalition on which their nomination hopes rest. Crafting a winning message  “Why do you want to be president?” “next up” candidates consistently have had trouble responding to this question in a way that inspires the electorate. For example, Mondale recently shared his thinking heading into the 1984 campaign: “I figured if I waited [until 1988] I would be yesterday’s toast — that I was going to run, that somebody needed to challenge Reagan.” No doubt, Mondale and others like him were highly qualified. But most voters demand more than mere competency. “Hope and change” and “drain the swamp” proved to be winning messages. Running because “somebody” needs to is a sign of trouble.  Longer campaigns Mondale announced his run for the presidency 21 months before Election Day. Dole (19 months), Gore (17 months), Romney (17 months), and Hillary Clinton (19 months) all spent a long time on the campaign trail. While upstart candidates like 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 and Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaBen Shapiro: No prominent GOP figure ever questioned Obama's legitimacy 3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 Obama's high school basketball jersey sells for 0,000 at auction MORE usually need extended campaigns to increase name recognition and support, “next up” candidates risk overexposure and voter fatigue. Many of the most successful presidential campaigns in recent years have been built on foundations of discovery: voters listening to new voices, contemplating innovative ideas, and saying for the first time, “I want to see her/him as president.” Fresher faces and fresher ideas — even those that polarize — can become antidotes to the stale status quo of familiar faces and well-worn ideas.  Four of the last six failed presidential nominees were “next up” candidates, and if current trends continue, Biden could be the fifth of seven. In a recent Morning Consult poll he’s up 20 points on Senator Bernie SandersBernie SandersHarry Reid: 'Decriminalizing border crossings is not something that should be at the top of the list' The exhaustion of Democrats' anti-Trump delusions Warren offers plan to repeal 1994 crime law authored by Biden MORE (D-Vt.) and up 31 point on the next closest competitors: Senators Kamala HarrisKamala Devi HarrisHarry Reid: 'Decriminalizing border crossings is not something that should be at the top of the list' Warren offers plan to repeal 1994 crime law authored by Biden Sanders leads Democratic field in Colorado poll MORE (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann WarrenHarry Reid: 'Decriminalizing border crossings is not something that should be at the top of the list' Warren offers plan to repeal 1994 crime law authored by Biden Panel: Jill Biden's campaign message MORE (D-Mass.). He’s ahead of the pack in favorability and is co-leading in name recognition. Biden’s nearly 50-year political career makes him arguably the most establishment non-incumbent presidential aspirant in U.S. history. He is the prototypical “next up” candidate. And that’s the danger. Because there is little new to be found in Biden. The only discoveries that remain, if any, will be bad ones. This is the misfortune of “next up” candidates, and it could soon become the misfortune of the Democratic Party. B.J. Rudell is associate director of POLIS: Duke University’s Center for Political Leadership, Innovation and Service. In a career encompassing stints on Capitol Hill, on a presidential campaign, in a newsroom, in classrooms, and for a consulting firm, he has authored three books and has shared political insights across all media platforms, including for CNN and Fox News. 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 09:01:16

000000016064

STREETSCAPES To make repairs, Westbury House on Long Island needed a supply of Collyweston slate, but all of the mines had closed decades earlier. Then one reopened. 10 Photos View Slide Show › Nobody ever said that New York was a movable feast, but one rich family did its best to make it one a century ago by packing up an entire, sumptuous Fifth Avenue dining room and reassembling it in the country. In 1927, shortly before the demolition of the steel magnate Henry Phipps’s marble Renaissance mansion at 87th Street, his eldest son, John S. Phipps, salvaged its dining room’s ceiling and paneling and brought them under the roof of his grand home in Old Westbury, a colony of millionaires on Long Island. That dining room — now featuring a family portrait by John Singer Sargent — has been a major attraction ever since in the Georgian Revival manse on the Phipps estate, which has been open to the public as Old Westbury Gardens since 1959. But the English slate roof that shelters the room and 22 others has been a beautiful headache ever since it was installed in 1905. By 2005, the slates were in such gross disrepair that a British consultant diagnosed them in terms worthy of a medical examiner. “He declared our roof ‘perished,’” said Lorraine Gilligan, the gardens’ director of preservation. Restoring the roof with historically appropriate new material seemed impossible, however, until recently — when the world’s only mine producing its distinctive limestone slate reopened for the first time in half a century. Westbury House boasts what experts believe is the only roof in the United States made of Collyweston slate, a singular material prized for centuries in England for its hardiness and for the distinctive golden yellow it turns with oxygen exposure. The slate was long employed on farmhouses and manor houses throughout Britain, as well as at Cambridge and Oxford universities. How Westbury House came to be topped by a British stone so alien to America is a trans-Atlantic tale of successes and failures, of fabulously wealthy heirs and hardworking laborers. And the story has come full circle this year, as one of the Englishmen installing the replacement roof is the great-great-grandson of a slater who sailed from Britain in 1905 to consult on the original roof. Both the lady of Westbury House and its designer were English. In 1903, John Phipps, known as Jay, married Margarita Grace, whose family owned the shipping line that became the Grace Steamship Company. Mr. Phipps promised to build his bride a great country house reminiscent of those in her native country. To keep his word, he turned to the London aesthete George Crawley, a passionate student of design with no formal architectural training. According to a biography by Cuthbert Headlam, Mr. Crawley had befriended Amy Phipps, Jay’s sister, while the Phipps clan was renting a manor in England. In 1904 the Phipps patriarch, a partner of Andrew Carnegie, hired Mr. Crawley to decorate several rooms of his Manhattan mansion, including the one that was eventually transferred to Westbury House. That same year, Jay Phipps retained Mr. Crawley to design Westbury House itself. “He was at last enabled to put into actual shape — in stone and marble, in iron and wood — the beautiful things which filled his mind,” Mr. Crawley’s biographer noted. To help him realize his vision, Mr. Crawley was paired with Grosvenor Atterbury, an architect of Gilded Age confections both on Long Island and in Manhattan. At Old Westbury, Mr. Crawley conjured up a home of subdued, symmetrical elegance, its cherry red Virginia brick accented by cream-colored Indiana limestone and a terra-cotta cornice. The house’s crowning glory was to be its broad-hipped roof of gold-hued Collyweston slate, a material Mr. Crawley likely knew from visits to a relative who lived near where it was mined. The slate is made from a unique limestone found only in a narrow, three-foot seam 40 feet beneath the earth in Collyweston, a Northamptonshire village. “Ours is the only working Collyweston slate mine in the world,” said Nigel Smith, whose company, Claude N. Smith, began producing its first new slate in 2016. “But we know from rough drawings of the area that during the 1800s peak, there were at least a dozen.” The laborious traditional production method required three to four winters to create slates. Once mined, hunks of stone called logs were laid in a field and kept constantly wet to promote repeated freeze-thaw cycles. Eventually, the stone began to split and workers separated it into sheets of slate with a hand-forged tool known in England as a cliving hammer. Climate change badly damaged production in the 20th century, however, by reducing the number of frosts. Builders, meanwhile, began buying cheaper, reclaimed slates from farmhouses. By the early 1970s, all the Collyweston mines were shuttered. But as buyers like King’s College, Cambridge, emerged, Mr. Smith reopened the mine beneath the land his father had bought as a builder’s yard in the 1980s. Technological breakthroughs made the new slating business viable. Limestone logs are now mined by a robot called the Brokk 100, and clever innovations have reduced production time from years to about a week. Instead of relying on nature to provide the necessary frosts, Mr. Smith said, he experimented with a “lorry-back freezer,” a frozen-food truck he bought on the cheap from the Tesco supermarket chain. He now uses refrigerated steel containers designed for carrying frozen goods on ships. Among the four workers Mr. Smith sent across the pond this year to install 37,000 new Collyweston slates at Westbury House was 26-year-old Tom Measures, a big, shy man whose baby face is covered with a rugged brown beard. It was Mr. Measures’ ancestor, Arthur Osborne, who sailed on the S.S. Teutonic from Liverpool with a fellow slater in 1905 to consult on the original roof. Mr. Osborne’s services were necessary because American workers had botched the roofing job, failing to allow for air circulation around the slates and using stiff Portland cement instead of a more breathable mortar mix. Many slates also broke during shipping and installation. This time around, Old Westbury Gardens made sure to import Collyweston artisans. “This is a true heritage trade,” said Kurt Hirschberg, the lead designer of the roof restoration for Jan Hird Pokorny Associates, the project’s architect. The slaters perform the job in pairs, he noted, “and there’s a rhythm to the two of them working back and forth that’s amazing to see.” On a recent frigid morning, as a bone-chilling wind sent snow flurries dancing, Mr. Measures and Conor Depellette balanced themselves on a plank supported by ladders near the ridge of the mansion’s 60-foot-high roof. Working toward each other from opposite ends of a stretch of roof, the partners were mirror images as they moved along a horizontal wooden batten that had been nailed across the roof’s surface. After setting a line of lime-rich mortar, each man would lay down a slate and push its bottom edge into the mortar bed until the excess oozed out like mustard from a sandwich. Then he would pick out the optimal next slate, expertly anticipating the width, thickness and texture needed to create the right functional and aesthetic relationship to both its neighboring slate and the two just below it. When the pair met in the middle, each went along his half of the course of slates, driving a nail through a pre-drilled hole in the top of each slate and into a batten. The process, performed with a minimum of words, was intuitive and oddly intimate. Later, as the pair tooled back the mortar in the slate joints to create a clean drip edge, the scraping of their trowels echoed across the countryside. “It’s a long, long way from home, and it’s pretty surreal,” Mr. Measures said, looking out from his rooftop perch. “It’s just crazy to think I’m working on a roof one of my ancestors was working on over a hundred years ago.” Pausing to scratch his beard, he added, “It makes me feel quite proud, really.” For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.

2020-01-18 00:00:00

000000056638

Sen. Josh HawleyJoshua (Josh) David HawleyThe Hill's Morning Report - House prosecutes Trump as 'lawless,' 'corrupt' Tensions between McConnell and Schumer run high as trial gains momentum Restlessness, light rule-breaking and milk spotted on Senate floor as impeachment trial rolls on MORE (R-Mo.) told Axios Saturday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellThe Hill's Morning Report - House prosecutes Trump as 'lawless,' 'corrupt' Tensions between McConnell and Schumer run high as trial gains momentum No. 2 GOP leader eyes Wednesday of next week for possible votes on witnesses MORE (R-Ky.) is expected to present a resolution that will allow President TrumpDonald John TrumpMnuchin knocks Greta Thunberg's activism: Study economics and then 'come back' to us The Hill's Morning Report - House prosecutes Trump as 'lawless,' 'corrupt' What to watch for on Day 3 of Senate impeachment trial MORE's legal counsel to motion to immediately dismiss the charges during the Senate impeachment trial that starts in earnest Tuesday. "I am familiar with the resolution as it stood a day or two ago," Hawley told the news source. "My understanding is that the resolution will give the president's team the option to either move to judgment or to move to dismiss at a meaningful time," the junior senator continued. Hawley also said that he would be "very, very surprised" if the final resolution didn't give Trump's lawyers that ability and that he might not vote for it. Earlier this week, McConnell told reporters that "there is little or no sentiment in the Republican conference for a motion to dismiss. Our members feel that we have an obligation to listen to the arguments." Regardless, Trump's defense team has signaled that it wants a quick Senate trial. According to Axios, GOP lawmakers have prepared for a time frame as short as two weeks. On Saturday, Trump's legal team went after the articles of impeachment that were passed by the House in a statement, calling them "constitutionally invalid." “This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election — now just months away,” the statement continued.  Trump's legal team is headed by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, Trump's personal attorney. Rounding out the team are Harvard Law professor Alan DershowitzAlan Morton Dershowitz'Emotion' from Trump's legal team wins presidential plaudits The Senate should reject Dershowitz argument on Johnson impeachment Barr wrote 2018 memo contradicting Trump's claim that abuse of power is not impeachable MORE, Kenneth Starr, Robert Ray, Jane Raskin and Pam Bondi. Also on Saturday, House Democrats filed a 111-page brief outlining their reasons for impeachment. "The evidence overwhelmingly establishes that he is guilty of both [articles of impeachment]," the brief reads. "The only remaining question is whether the members of the Senate will accept and carry out the responsibility placed on them by the Framers of our Constitution and their constitutional Oaths," it adds. 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 ©2020 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2019-06-07 00:00:00

000000087216

June 7 (Reuters) - Orphazyme A/S: * CONFIRMS ITS INTENTION TO FILE THE MARKETING AUTHORIZATION APPLICATION FOR NIEMANN-PICK DISEASE TYPE C IN H1 2020 * ADDITIONAL DATA, INCLUDING 12-MONTH OPEN-LABEL EXTENSION DATA, WILL BECOME AVAILABLE DURING H2 2019 AND MUST BE INCLUDED IN THE MAA * ORPHAZYME PLANS TO MEET WITH THE US FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA) TO DISCUSS THE PATHWAY FORWARD DURING THE SUMMER Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

2016-04-07 00:00:00

000000053167

An international consortium of journalists published an investigation of a huge leak of documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law company specialising in offshore shell companies. The documents shone a light on the sometimes embarrassing finances of top government officials around the world. Those caught up included Petro Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine; close associates of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader; and Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, Iceland’s prime minister, who stepped down after large protests. (See article) Frontex, the EU’s border agency, began returning migrants from Greece to Turkey under a deal struck last month to control the flow of Middle Eastern asylum-seekers. Only 202 migrants were sent back; further deportations were postponed because of delays in processing asylum applications. But the number of migrants entering Greece has already begun to fall. (See article) Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Fighting broke out in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan that has been occupied by Armenia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan said 16 of its soldiers had been killed, while the Armenian side claimed to have lost 20. Tens of thousands were killed in the war over the enclave in 1988-94. The two sides agreed to a ceasefire, but some fear the conflict could spiral into a proxy war between Turkey, which backs Azerbaijan, and Russia, which backs Armenia. (See article) A court in Northern Ireland, where abortion remains illegal in most cases, handed down a three-month suspended sentence on a woman who used medication bought online to terminate her pregnancy. She could not afford to travel to England, where abortion is legal. It is thought to be the first conviction of its kind in the province. Meanwhile, in Poland thousands protested against government plans to introduce legislation that would make abortions harder to obtain. Only a few hundred terminations are reported annually, but the abortion rate has been rising in recent years. Dutch voters rejected the EU’s association agreement with Ukraine in a referendum by 61% to 38%. Without Dutch ratification the treaty cannot fully take force. But the EU and 27 member states that have ratified the treaty will be annoyed by any Dutch effort to renegotiate it. A case against the deputy president of Kenya, William Ruto, before the International Criminal Court collapsed because of political meddling and interfering with witnesses. The charges related to violence that followed disputed elections in 2007 in which more than 1,300 people died. (See article) A motion to impeach Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, failed in parliament after members of the ruling African National Congress voted unanimously against it. The vote was held just days after the country’s highest court ruled that Mr Zuma had failed to uphold the constitution by ignoring an order to pay back money that the state had spent on his private home. (See article) Angola said it would ask the IMF for a loan. The country is Africa’s second-biggest oil producer, and has been hurt by the collapse in oil prices. A new government, which is meant to bring together factions from both the east and west of Libya, took up office in Tripoli. It faces daunting tasks in a country close to economic collapse and which is fighting a big Islamic State presence at its heart. (See article) The Democratic and Republican front-runners for their parties’ presidential nominations tripped up in Wisconsin’s primary. Hillary Clinton lost against Bernie Sanders in the midwestern state and, after the worst week of his campaign, Donald Trump was heavily defeated by Ted Cruz. (See article) In a unanimous decision the Supreme Court ruled that states may account for all residents when drawing up legislative boundaries, a defeat for conservative groups which wanted only eligible voters to be recognised. The case was brought by two Texans who argued that their voting power was diluted by drawing districts that include people who cannot vote. (See article) A supreme-court judge in Brazil directed the lower house of Congress to consider impeachment charges against Michel Temer, the country’s vice-president. The president, Dilma Rousseff, is already facing impeachment on allegations that she used accounting trickery to hide the size of the budget deficit. Mr Temer stepped down as the leader of the largest party in Congress earlier than planned to defend himself against attacks. Thousands of Colombians in a score of cities held anti-government demonstrations. Backed by Álvaro Uribe, a conservative former president, the marchers protested against corruption and denounced the government’s peace talks with the FARC guerrilla army, saying they would hand the country over to terrorists. Amnesty International reported that executions carried out by states increased by 50% last year compared with 2014, marking a 26-year high. Twenty-five countries executed prisoners in 2015. Three of them, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, accounted for 90% of known executions. Amnesty’s figures exclude China, whose death-penalty tally is estimated to be in the thousands. Over 20,000 prisoners remained on death row around the world at the end of 2015. (See article) China said it would prosecute a former general, Guo Boxiong, who had served as vice-chairman of the armed forces until he retired in 2012. Mr Guo has been under investigation for a year for suspected corruption. He would be the highest-ranking officer to be tried for graft since the Communist Party came to power in 1949. After the generals blocked her bid to be president, Myanmar’s National Assembly approved of Aung San Suu Kyi becoming “state counsellor”. She will wield more authority than the president—her ally, Htin Kyaw—in the new, more democratic, government. (See article) In India a court urged that cricket matches in the Indian Premier League should be shifted from the state of Maharashtra because of a severe drought. A judge described the millions of litres of water sloshed over the league’s pitches as “criminal wastage”.

2016-06-29 00:00:00

000000032090

In a not-so-subtle homage to Willy Wonka, Tesla has sent twelve "Golden Tickets" — really, that’s what they’re called — to holders of Model 3 reservations inviting them to attend the Gigafactory grand opening in Reno, Nevada on July 29th. The tickets don’t involve a great glass elevator (probably), but they do include round-trip economy class airfare, transportation, and accommodation in Reno. A number of Tesla VIPs have already been invited to the party, including Model S owners who referred five buyers to the company, but presumably everyone else needed to pay their own way. The contest, which was first reported by Electrek, was open to the roughly 150,000 people who placed a Model 3 reservation on the first day it was available. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said earlier this year that the Reno facility, which will produce lithium ion battery packs for Tesla’s cars and other products, will have the largest footprint of any building in the world. If all goes to plan, by 2020, the factory will produce 35 gigawatt-hours of battery capacity each year, more than the entire world’s lithium ion battery production in 2013.

2017-03-04 00:00:00

000000000644

(CNN)Jordan hanged 15 inmates at dawn Saturday, including 10 who were convicted of terrorism, in what officials are calling one of the largest executions since the country reinstated the death penalty two years ago. The other five prisoners were found guilty of major criminal offenses, including incest and rape, government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani told state-run Petra news agency. Among those executed were five prisoners charged in last year's assault on a Jordanian intelligence agency office in the Baqaa refugee camp that left five dead and in an attack against security forces in the northern city of Irbid. The other convicted inmates were responsible for separate attacks and bombings dating to 2003, Petra news agency reported. Samah Hadid, deputy director at Amnesty International's Beirut regional office, said, "The horrific scale and secrecy around these executions is shocking." "There is no evidence that the death penalty addresses violent crime, including terrorism-related offenses." The men were hanged at a correctional center south of Amman. Jordan had previously imposed a nine-year moratorium on the death penalty. It was lifted in January 2015. The government says it has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to terrorism or even perceived sympathy for terrorist groups -- even voicing support for such groups is an offense punishable with jail time. CNN's Azadeh Ansari contributed to this report.

2017-04-05

000000090927

Regardless of position, industry or size of paycheck, I highly doubt anyone's thrilled to go to work every single day—even if you're generally happy to be at the office. You might love your job, or think your boss is the greatest, or truly believe in your mission, but those feelings won't always be immutable. There are telltale signs that you're coming upon a breaking point which, if not managed, can lead to burnout. One day you're plugging away feeling pretty OK about things, until something small and seemingly insignificant begins to nag at you, and you find yourself unreasonably annoyed and angered. If it's a fleeting frustration (again, typical no matter how good you have it), you probably have nothing to worry about. On the other hand, if it lingers, or if every little thing grates at your every nerve, if you struggle to focus on — or, worse, care about — your work, you may be in imminent danger of burnout. That sounds dramatic, but it's a real problem. More often than not, once you reach that point, it's hard to come back from it. So, before it gets worse, you need to handle the situation by giving yourself a recharge. Here are 19 signs you need to take a day off (more, if you can swing it): You consider quitting on the spot at least once a day. You snap at your co-worker when he asks to borrow a Post-it. You think about the benefits of breaking your dominant arm. You push your "in" time as far as possible every single day. You ignore 50% of your emails. You have nightly work nightmares. You've emailed the wrong John — not once, not twice, but three times in a week. You're seriously thinking about an extended stay with your parents. You cancel all social plans on account of being exhausted. Your favorite lunch is a candy bar (with a side of coffee). You accidentally laugh when your boss asks you to do something. You're up to eight cups of coffee a day and still can't focus. You send a confidential document to your old manager because you're on auto-pilot. You pick fights with your partner every morning, then again at night. You missed a big deadline. You put your headphones on at 9 AM and don't take them off until 6 PM. You wonder if your job isn't just a big joke. You've stopped working out. You have insomnia (when you're not experiencing work-related nightmares). If you're out of vacation days and have no personal days left, and if speaking to your boss or someone in HR isn't an option, maybe consider a sick day? Your mental health is just as important as your physical health. And taking one day off is a lot easier than getting to the point when you see no way out without quitting on the spot or taking another job that you're not all that excited about. Remember: Part of being successful isn't just showing up every day, it's knowing what you need to do to perform at your best. And sometimes what you need to do is stay home. 19 signs you need to take a day off ASAP (or risk serious burnout) originally appeared on The Muse.

2016-01-21 00:00:00

000000104419

A MEGA-MOSQUE is growing on George W. Bush Street in Tirana, the Albanian capital, near the country’s parliament. When finished, it will be the largest mosque in the Balkans—one in a long string of such projects bankrolled by Turkey. By its own estimate, Turkey’s directorate of religious affairs, known as the Diyanet, has helped build over 100 mosques and schools in 25 countries. In Bosnia, Kosovo, the Philippines, and Somalia, it has restored Islamic sites damaged by war and natural disaster. In Gaza it is rebuilding mosques destroyed by Israeli military operations in 2014. Current projects alone are expected to cost $200m. All of the money comes from private donations, insists Mazhar Bilgin, a senior Diyanet official. Critics suspect Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of deploying mihrabs and minarets to revive his country’s imperial heritage in former Ottoman lands. Secular nationalists in Albania, which was strictly atheist under communism, bristle at seeing their parliament dwarfed by a mosque, and urban planners complain about the project’s bland, “McOttoman” design. Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. But most Albanians are sympathetic. While post-communist governments allowed Catholic and Orthodox Christians to build cathedrals in Tirana, Muslims were left out in the cold. Worshippers regularly found themselves praying outdoors, unable to squeeze into the city’s tiny 19th-century mosque. It is not clear why Albania’s government waited until 2013 to approve a new one. Turkey’s role in Albanian Islam goes beyond building mosques. Six of the country’s seven Islamic seminaries are managed by foundations linked to the Gulen community. Turkey’s development agency, TIKA, has completed 248 projects in Albania. Besides the fiscal aid, many Albanians welcome Turkish influence as a counterweight to the spread of Islamic militancy. According to Tirana’s mufti, Ylli Gurra, up to 150 Albanian nationals have joined Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria. He blames the zealous salafist foundations from the Gulf monarchies that poured into the region in the 1990s. (Many were expelled after the September 11th attacks.) Mr Gurra says most Albanian Muslims reject such radicalism: “They have more affinity for Turkish Islam.” In fact, Muslims in Albania are far less devout and more pro-Western than their Turkish co-religionists. Meanwhile, Turkey’s religious outreach is hobbled by an internecine conflict at home. Mr Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development (AK) party once worked hand in glove with the Gulen movement. All that changed two years ago, when the AK launched a vendetta against the movement, accusing it of orchestrating a corruption scandal that had tarred senior government figures. Scores of Gulenist bureaucrats remain behind bars. During a 2015 visit to Albania for the groundbreaking ceremony of the new mosque, Mr Erdogan asked his hosts to shut down schools run by the Gulenists. Albanian officials turned down the request. Yet in Albania and elsewhere, Muslim communities that benefit from Turkish largesse still face pressure. “Erdogan is forcing them to take sides,” says Kerem Oktem, a Turkish studies professor at the University of Graz. The Diyanet, meanwhile, has extended its mosque programme to countries whose connection to Ottoman history is tenuous. In 2014 Mr Erdogan suggested that Cuba had been settled by Muslims long before it was spotted by Christopher Columbus, and unveiled a plan to build a new mosque there. Another mosque is under construction in Haiti. The building spree has become a vehicle for broadcasting Turkey’s religious credentials to Muslim audiences domestic and foreign. The ultimate objective is “claiming new territory,” says Mr Oktem. “It’s about the idea that Turkey should be the leader of the whole Muslim world.”

2020-02-17 00:00:00

000000090220

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Robust iron ore prices drove BHP Group, to its best result in five years on Tuesday but the world’s biggest miner said this year’s demand could take a hit if the fallout from the coronavirus outbreak in China extended beyond March. BHP’s underlying profit from continuing operations rose to $5.19 billion for the six months ended Dec. 31 from $4.03 billion a year earlier, the strongest result since 2015, lifted by lofty iron ore prices after last year’s supply disruption in Brazil and solid Chinese demand. The results were below estimates for a profit of $5.28 billion, according to analysts polled by research firm Vuma Financial. An interim dividend of 65 cents, 10 cents higher than last year, undershot forecasts for a dividend of 71 cents. “As long as coronavirus is ... better contained within this quarter, on balance, we think that for the remainder of the half, the overall market demand and the economy will hold up,” new Chief Executive Mike Henry told an investor briefing. “If it extends beyond that, of course, then we’d be back in looking at what the implications are.” UBS said the dividend was below forecasts because the board took a conservative approach to the virus outbreak. For now, BHP has not yet seen a major impact on its business and customers have kept paying for orders, Henry said, adding that other supply disruptions had supported iron ore prices. “We are moving all of our product. Demand remains pretty resilient. Prices have held up in part because of some other supply side disruptions,” Henry said. Rio Tinto downgraded its forecast on Monday for iron ore shipments for the year after this month’s cyclone off the coast of Western Australia. BHP is the first among its peers to report earnings. Global miners are all expected to have cashed in on last year’s higher iron ore prices, with a further boost coming as China pumped more money into its economy to alleviate an economic slowdown. China’s iron ore imports were at their second-highest level ever in 2019, further boosting profits. BHP was positioning itself well in a world that was seeking to reduce carbon emissions, Henry said. BHP was seeking to raise its exposure to copper and nickel through exploration and early stage acquisition, he said, adding it was also working on a potash project which produces a vital ingredient for fertiliser. “We need more copper and we need more nickel,” Henry told reporters, referring to two metals that are likely to benefit from the shift to electric vehicles and other lower carbon initiatives. Henry said the company could sell its thermal coal assets if it found a buyer at the right price. BHP has also been using more renewable power and was working to reduce so-called “scope three” emissions - or the emissions of its customers. It is also reviewing industry associations it funds to ensure they comply with its climate change goals. BHP was restructuring its technology operations to cut costs and planned to double the number of permanent roles from about 30% to 40% its 72,000-strong workforce now, Henry said. Australian shares climbed 0.8% on Tuesday to end at $A38.78, as the mining sector rallied after China stepped up stimulus to cushion the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Free cash flow for the miner came in at $3.7 billion, compared with $3.6 billion a year earlier. Reporting by Nikhil Kurian Nainan and Rushil Dutta in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Melanie Burton in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Cooney, Dan Grebler and Tom Hogue

2017-08-15

000000003427

Cryptocurrency mining demand for AMD's graphics cards may be all the rage, but a top Wall Street firm says investors shouldn't overlook its improving processor chip business. Bank of America Merrill Lynch reiterated its buy rating for the chipmaker's shares, saying the company's recently launched Ryzen processors are selling well against Intel. "Our industry checks show improving mindshare/shelf-space for AMD's new Ryzen desktop-PC processors, incl. 30-50% share at prominent e-tailors, well ahead of AMD's 11% current desktop unit share," analyst Vivek Arya wrote in a note to clients Monday. "The key conclusion is that AMD has momentum which should gradually translate to share gains."AMD launched its Ryzen line of processors on March 2. Arya reaffirmed his $18 price target for the company, representing 41 percent upside from Monday's close. The analyst cited how AMD's Ryzen chips typically have twice the number of processor cores in similar price ranges compared to Intel's products, which "translates to better multi-tasking/productivity" performance. "AMD is getting broader OEM [PC original equipment manufacturer] placement which should help accelerate sales in the second half," he wrote.Arya is also optimistic over AMD's newly launched Vega gaming graphics cards. Early reviews on the Vega cards "are mostly positive and demand appears to be strong as popular online retail site NewEgg sold out of its initial allotment within 15 minutes," the analyst wrote. AMD shares rose 1 percent on midday Tuesday after the report. The company's shares are one of the market's best-performing equities in the past year with the stock up nearly 85 percent in the past 12 months through midday Tuesday compared with the S&P 500's 12.5 percent return. That performance ranks No. 4 in the entire S&P 500, according to FactSet.

2017-05-16 00:00:00

000000089250

A Washington, DC, Fox affiliate report Monday night that a deceased DNC staffer had been in contact with WikiLeaks prior to his murder set conservative media ablaze. The story poured fresh fuel on a long-simmering wild conspiracy theory — for which there is no evidence — that the Clintons had the staffer, Seth Rich, murdered for leaking DNC emails to Julian Assange's organization. It was based on an interview with a single source, a private investigator named Rod Wheeler who, the article said, had been hired by the Rich family to investigate the crime. Tuesday morning, though, the Rich family rejected the report and told BuzzFeed News through a spokesman that Wheeler had been "paid for by a third party" and was contractually "barred from speaking to press" without permission from the family. Wheeler then told CNN that he didn't personally have evidence of Rich contacting WikiLeaks at all. So who is Rod Wheeler, what do we know about him, and what is his relationship to the Riches? Wheeler is a former homicide detective for the DC Metropolitan Police Department, who, per his LinkedIn, has been a contributor to Fox News since 2002. And it was through his television appearances that he was ultimately put in contact with the Rich family, through a fellow Fox News contributor named Ed Butowsky. Butowsky, a prominent wealth manager from Dallas and a contributor to Breitbart News who attended President Trump's inauguration, told BuzzFeed News that he reached out to the Rich family after hearing about the Clinton-Rich conspiracy theory from a friend. "They said they didn’t feel they were getting any answers," Butowsky said. "The investigation wasn’t going anywhere. I said, 'Why don’t you hire a private detective?' They said they didn’t have any money." Butowsky said he offered to pay for a private investigator, and called Wheeler. There, he said, his involvement ended. "They negotiated something," Butowsky said. "In their contract it said any money Rod is going to bill, Butowsky is going to pay. But Rod Wheeler has never billed me a penny. Nobody has ever paid anybody anything." Beyond his involvement in the Rich case, Wheeler is mostly known for saying outrageous things on air. In 2007, in reference to a controversy over racial profiling and policing, Wheeler pulled his eyes back on air to demonstrate what "a Chinese male" looks like. And in the same year, on Bill O'Reilly's show, Wheeler said that a "national underground network" of armed lesbians were raping girls. In addition to his private detective business, Capital Investigations, Wheeler is also, according to his LinkedIn, the CEO and founder of the Global Food Defense Institute. ("Food defense," per the website of the FDA, focuses on "the risk of criminal or terrorist actions on the food supply.") But it's Wheeler's experience in the DC police department that seems to have qualified him to investigate the Rich case. In the Fox story, Wheeler said that a source within the department told him that they were ordered to "stand down" on the Rich investigation, and that it was "confirmed" that Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks. Calling Wheeler's allegations "unfounded," a spokesperson for the MPD said that Wheeler had been employed by the department from 1990 to 1995 and that he was "dismissed from the agency." It's unclear what prompted Wheeler to speak to Fox, but earlier today, the Rich family denied having seen the investigator's report in a statement: "We see no facts, we have seen no evidence, we have been approached with no emails and only learned about this when contacted by the press." BuzzFeed News called a cell phone number appearing to belong to Wheeler and the number of the Global Food Defense Institute, which both had full mailboxes.

2020-03-26

000000110432

* Third biggest rice exporter Vietnam to curb sales * Iraq seeks larger volumes of wheat, stoking food security concerns By Naveen Thukral SINGAPORE, March 26 (Reuters) - Global food security concerns are mounting with around a fifth of the world’s population already under lockdown to fight the widening coronavirus pandemic that has infected over 470,000 people across 200 countries, killing 21,000. Panic buying of household staples like toilet paper and cleaning products have occurred in nearly every country hit by the virus, and empty shelves in supermarkets have been common. Compounding the anxiety stemming from erratic consumer buying has been concern that some governments may move to restrict the flow of food staples to ensure their own populations have enough while supply chains get disrupted by the pandemic. “People are starting to get worried,” said Phin Ziebell, agribusiness economist at National Australia Bank. “If major exporters start keeping grains at home, it will have the buyers really worried. It is panicking and not rational, as fundamentally the world is well supplied with food.” Vietnam, the third largest rice exporter, and Kazakhstan, the number nine wheat exporter, have already made moves to restrict sales of those staples amid concerns over domestic availability. India, the top global rice exporter, has just entered a three-week lockdown that has brought several logistics channels to a halt. Elsewhere, Russia’s vegetable oil union has called for a restriction in sunflower seed exports, and palm oil output has slowed in the number two producer Malaysia. On the importer side, Iraq announced it needs 1 million tonnes of wheat and 250,000 tonnes of rice after a “crisis committee” advised building up strategic food stocks. Together, these moves have raised concerns among agriculture traders about unnecessary food supply distortions. Combined global production of rice and wheat - the most widely-traded food crops - is projected to be a record 1.26 billion tonnes this year, according United States Department of Agriculture data. That output tonnage should easily surpass total combined consumption of those crops, and should lead to a build in year-end inventories to a record 469.4 million tonnes, USDA data shows. However, those projections assume normal crop flows from where they’re produced to where they’re consumed, as well as the usual availability of substitutes. Prices for rice are already rising due to expectations of a further squeeze on exports. “It is a logistics issue. Vietnam has stopped exports, India is in a lockdown and Thailand could declare similar measures,” said a senior Singapore-based trader at one of world’s top rice traders. Benchmark rice prices in Thailand RI-THBKN5-P1 have climbed to the highest since August 2013 at $492.5 a tonne. The market had topped $1,000 a tonne during the food crisis of 2008, when export restrictions and panic buying buoyed prices. “We are unlikely to see a repeat of 2008,” the Singapore rice trader said. “One thing is that the world has enough supplies, especially in India where inventories are very large.” Global rice stocks are estimated to surpass 180 million tonnes for the first time this year, up 28% since the 2015-16 season. But those inventories are not distributed evenly, with over 153 million tonnes in China and India alone. That means big rice buyers such as the Philippines, the top importer, and others in Asia and Africa could be vulnerable if crop movements are curtailed for long. “Our rice inventory is good for 65 days. We have enough rice for the next two months,” said the Philippines Agriculture Secretary William Dar. With additional supply coming from the dry season harvest, Dar told reporters the Philippines has enough rice for the next four months. Most wheat buyers in Asia, led by the world’s second largest importer Indonesia, are covered for supplies until June, traders said. “As of now we have not seen any wheat importer rushing to cover supplies more than the usual needs,” said one trader in Singapore at an international trading company which sells Black Sea and U.S. wheat in Asia. Chicago wheat futures have climbed almost 10% this month. Reporting by Naveen Thukral Additional reporting by Enrico Dela Cruz in Manila; Editicing by Gavin Maguire & Simon Cameron-Moore

2018-12-22 00:00:00

000000071036

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Saturday that he was continuing to negotiate with Democrats to end the U.S. government shutdown, but added that “it could be a long stay.” The sticking point, Trump said, remains border security. Trump has demanded $5 billion in federal funds to help build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk

2016-07-13

000000050680

LONDON (Reuters) - Sterling’s plunge since Britain voted to leave the European Union was the biggest in more than 40 years, but its boost to UK exports may well be far less than after similar tumbles in 1992 and 2008. A fragile world economy, more complex world supply chains and near-zero Bank of England interest rates mean Britain may be less able to take advantage of its more competitive exchange rate. “Currency devaluation is no panacea. Japan shows that a fall in the currency doesn’t lead you to the promised land of export growth,” said Stephen King, senior economic adviser to HSBC. Sterling has fallen as much as 11 percent on a trade-weighted basis since the June 23 Brexit referendum, and 15 percent against the U.S. dollar. That puts it on track to fall as much as it did in the months following Black Wednesday in 1992 and Lehman Brothers’ collapse in late 2008. Most economists expect further declines, perhaps another 10 percent to below $1.20 GBP=. And yet they still expect Britain's economy to slow as a result of Brexit, maybe even slipping into recession next year. “Exporters need to continue to invest to remain competitive. If Brexit leads to an investment freeze, the fall in the pound might not be enough to boost exports,” Christian Odendahl and John Springford at the Centre for European Reform, a research institute in London, wrote this week. A falling pound does not automatically lead to a one-for-one boost to UK exports. Recent estimates show that a 10 percent reduction in UK export prices leads to a 4 percent rise in exports, according to Odendahl and Springford. They note that global trade grew by just 2.5 percent over the past year and will expand by even less this year, while today’s multinational production networks and supply chains mean a weaker currency helps exporters a lot less than in the past. That said, comparisons with 1992 and 2008 are instructive. Sterling fell around 18 percent on a trade-weighted basis and as much as 30 percent against the dollar in the six months after Britain was ejected from the Exchange Rate Mechanism on 16 September, 1992, known as Black Wednesday. Exports rose to 239 billion pounds in 1997 from 149 billion in 1992, according to Britain’s Office for National Statistics, an increase of 53 percent. The economy grew by 15.5 percent to 1.28 trillion pounds. Britain recorded a trade surplus in the three years to 1997, albeit no more than 0.5 percent of GDP in each year, but rare surpluses nonetheless. 1997 was the last year Britain exported more than it imported. Much of the strong demand for UK exports then was down to a relatively healthy world economy, as German reunification lifted Europe and the U.S. ‘Clinton boom’ picked up steam. World GDP growth jumped to 3.8 percent in 1997 from 1.8 percent in 1992, according to The World Bank. The global backdrop wasn’t so benign after the “Great Recession” of 2008-09. Global growth was 4.3 percent in 2007, according to The World Bank, before falling to 1.8 percent in 2008 and only recovering to 2.4 percent by 2013. Sterling’s tumble after Lehman did help fuel a 23 percent rebound in exports by 2013, but that was less than half the rate of growth in the five years following Black Wednesday. The UK economy grew by just 2.2 percent over the 2008-13 period, ONS figures show. Unlike the years after Black Wednesday, when Britain’s current account deficit was almost eliminated in 1997, the country’s broader balance of payments position has deteriorated since 2008. It has never been worse, with the current account deficit now more than 5 percent of GDP. HSBC’s King said the main reason for the post-1992 economic recovery was the Treasury and BoE’s deep interest rate cuts. The pound’s 2008-09 depreciation failed to rebalance the UK economy away from consumption, and the fall in real wages actually made people worse off. On Black Wednesday the Bank of England raised interest rates to 15 percent to try and prop up the pound, before abandoning the ERM altogether and allowing the pound to slide as it slashed rates to just above 5 percent by February 1994. It was that blend of steep rate cuts, a weaker pound and the recovering global economy that proved most potent. After Lehman, the Bank slashed rates by 400 basis points to a record low 0.5 percent by March 2009. However, it was easing policy into the teeth of a global recession and along with almost every other central bank in the developed world. The Bank is expected to ease policy again via rate cuts, expanding its 375 billion pound bond-buying program, or both. But with policy already stretched, many doubt how much bang for its buck the Bank can now get. Also, no one knows what Britain’s post-Brexit trade deal with the EU - where 40 percent of UK exports go - will look like. “The economic risks from Brexit are skewed heavily to the downside,” said Robert Wood, UK economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. (This version of the story has been refiled to clarify headline) Graphics by Jamie McGeever and Nigel Stephenson; Editing by Jermey Gaunt

2018-08-10

000000062919

BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters rallied against the ruling Social Democrat (PSD) government on Friday in cities across Romania and the capital Bucharest where riot police fired tear gas into the crowd and hundreds needed medical attention. The protests were organized and promoted by groups of Romanians working abroad, angry at what they say is entrenched corruption, low wages and attempts by the PSD to weaken the judiciary in one of the European Union’s most corrupt states. In Bucharest, some protesters attempted to force their way through security lines guarding the government building. Others threw bottles and rocks at riot police, who said groups of “provocateurs” were present in the square. As the protest continued well into the night, riot police used a water canon and increasingly sprayed tear gas into the crowd. Video footage posted on social media show police beating non-violent protesters holding their hands up. More than 400 people required medical assistance, the emergency intervention agency ISU said, including two riot police who got separated from their unit. Tens of thousands staged peaceful protests in other Romanian cities. Centrist Romanian President Klaus Iohannis condemned the police’s disproportionate use of force. “I firmly condemn riot police’s brutal intervention, strongly disproportionate to the actions of the majority of people in the square,” he said on his Facebook page. “The interior ministry must explain urgently the way it handled tonight’s events.” Among the crowds in Bucharest were truck driver Daniel Ostafi, 42, who moved to Italy 15 years ago in search of a future he says Romania could not offer his family, and Mihai Podut, 27, a construction worker who left in 2014, first for France and later Germany. They joined tens of thousands outside government headquarters in scorching temperatures, waving Romanian and European Union flags and demanding the cabinet’s resignation. Messages projected on buildings around the square said “We are the people” and “No violence”. An estimated 3 to 5 million Romanians are working and living abroad, the World Bank has said, up to a quarter of the European Union state’s population, ranging from day laborers to doctors. They sent home just under $5 billion last year, a lifeline for rural communities in one of the EU’s least developed countries. “I left to give my children a better life, which was not possible here then,” said Ostafi. “Unfortunately, it is still not possible, the ... people who govern us are not qualified and they are corrupt,” he said, adding he hoped the next parliamentary election would see a bigger turnout. Peaceful protests have repeatedly been held since the Social Democrats took power in early 2017 and tried to decriminalize several corruption offences. Earlier this year, they pushed changes to the criminal code through parliament that have raised concerns from the European Commission and the U.S. State Department. The changes are pending Constitutional Court challenges. Romania ranks as one of the EU’s most corrupt states and Brussels keeps its justice system under special monitoring. Some politicians from the ruling coalition derided the rally in the run up, saying they did not understand why the diaspora would protest. “Almost all of the public sector is malfunctioning, it must be changed completely and replaced with capable people,” said Podut. “I would ask our ruling politicians to switch places with us, work the way we do and see what that is like.” Reporting by Luiza Ilie; editing by Janet Lawrence and Andrew Roche

2018-11-22 00:00:00

000000011605

One of the most tender, or creepy duets ever performed on The Tonight Show features a robot. Hanson Robotics' famous humanoid robot, Sophia, the first citizen robot in the world, joined Jimmy Fallon for a song on Wednesday night. After introducing her robot sister, the forthcoming Little Sophia, Sophia used her AI voice to sing a rather lovely, if not undeniably unsettling rendition of A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera's "Say Something," with Fallon. Sophia appears around the 4:30 mark, after a slew of other robots from around the globe, including MIT's Mini Cheetah, a 'blind' robot dog great for hunting you on a moonless night, and Tomatan, a wearable tomato-feeding robot. Ah, the future. '13 Reasons Why' drops chilling Season 3 trailer Julia Louis-Dreyfus reacts to Marianne Williamson's 'Seinfeld' debate reference Stephen Colbert spends 7 minutes gleefully roasting the Democratic candidates Seth Meyers roasts the malarkey out of Joe Biden's old-guy debate schtick

2018-04-03

000000085758

April 3 (Reuters) - Easy One Financial Group Ltd: * UNIT GRANTS LOAN TO A CUSTOMER OF PRINCIPAL AMOUNT HK$58 MILLION Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2017-03-23 10:30:00

000000005466

A fake London tube sign, created using an online tube sign generator, has gone viral in the wake of yesterday’s terror attack on the capital. Its message of defiance and solidarity was even reported on the BBC, applauded in the House of Commons and reposted by journalists and MPs. The sign, which looks as though it was written by London Underground staff, reads: “All terrorists are politely reminded that THIS IS LONDON and whatever you do to us we will drink tea and jolly well carry on thank you.” The BBC’s Nick Robinson, the presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme who read it out this morning, later made clear the sign was fake but said the message still stands. Others also clarified their initial endorsements of the sign. It was later read out in the Houses of Parliament by MP Simon Hoare, to which Prime Minister Theresa May responded that it was a "wonderful tribute" which “encapsulated everything everybody in this house has said today.” London Underground staff often write funny and inspirational messages on signs following tragedies and other big news events, which often find their way on to social media. However, in 2015 Yorkshire-based developer Tim Waters created a fake Tube sign generator which many began using to circulate racist messages, thereby abusing the original intention of the signs, The Guardian reported. A lawyer for TfL asked Waters to take down the site but a similar one was set up soon after. But there are still many London Underground staff who continue to write genuine uplifting messages in our Underground stations – and we love them for it. Here are some of the best ones spotted in the wake of Wednesday's tragic terror attack.

2018-03-07

000000021167

Pres. Trump says Democrats don't want to vote for his infrastructure plan because "they don't want to give us a victory. They think we've had too many victories." https://t.co/NkJuIoh4fP pic.twitter.com/VuO6kWa6ey President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE on Wednesday accused Democrats of blocking his administration’s infrastructure plan, arguing the lawmakers just don’t want to give him a win. “The Democrats don’t want to approve it because they don’t want to give us a victory,” Trump said during a speech to the Latino Coalition Legislative Summit. “They think we’ve had too many victories. We’ve had a lot of victories.” Trump last month unveiled his long-awaited infrastructure proposal in a framework that called for $200 billion of federal seed money to stimulate $1.5 trillion in investments. The plan would focus on the use of public-private partnerships and funding from state and local governments as the administration works to finance projects where local governments have a stake. Democrats have slammed the proposal, arguing it does not include a large enough federal investment to have a meaningful impact on rebuilding. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats on Wednesday put forward their own rebuilding plan, which would roll back some of the recently passed GOP tax cuts to fund an infrastructure overhaul. But the administration's proposal is meant to serve as a blueprint for Congress, where multiple committees will work on legislation. During his Wednesday speech, Trump also joked with Transportation Secretary Elaine ChaoElaine Lan ChaoTrump administration takes step to relax truck driver time regulations New guidance on travel with service animals is a step forward, but more can be done The Hill's Morning Report — Mueller testimony gives Trump a boost as Dems ponder next steps MORE about administration nominations held up in Congress.  “Elaine, we have so many people, is that correct?” Trump asked the secretary. But the president argued that the Transportation Department receives “pretty good treatment” when it comes to nominations. Trump also emphasized the need to streamline the permitting process in his Wednesday speech, a key component of his infrastructure plan. But that portion of the plan has received criticism from environmental groups, who argue an altered permitting process will hurt environmental protections. “And if it’s not done properly and environmentally good, we’re not going to approve it,” Trump told the summit. 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.

2016-02-17 00:00:00

000000003501

Pope Francis stepped directly into the angry American political debate about immigration on Wednesday when he visited Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, at the border with the United States. He celebrated Mass at a fairground barely 300 feet from the Rio Grande, calling forced migration “a human tragedy.” Scroll down to see how his trip to the border unfolded.

2019-07-08 00:00:00

000000100355

LONDON (Reuters) - British Airways-owner IAG is facing a record $230 million fine for the theft of data from 500,000 customers from its website last year under tough new data-protection rules policed by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO proposed a penalty of 183.4 million pounds, or 1.5% of British Airways’ 2017 worldwide turnover, for the hack, which it said exposed poor security arrangements at the airline. BA indicated that it planned to appeal against the fine, the product of European data protection rules, called GDPR, that came into force in 2018. They allow regulators to fine companies up to 4% of their global turnover for data-protection failures. The attack involved traffic to the British Airways website being diverted to a fraudulent site, where customer details such as log in, payment card and travel booking details as well as names and addresses were harvested, the ICO said. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: “People’s personal data is just that – personal. “When an organization fails to protect it from loss, damage or theft it is more than an inconvenience. That’s why the law is clear – when you are entrusted with personal data you must look after it.” BA’s chairman and chief executive Alex Cruz said he was “surprised and disappointed” by the proposed penalty. “British Airways responded quickly to a criminal act to steal customers’ data,” he said. “We have found no evidence of fraud/fraudulent activity on accounts linked to the theft.” Willie Walsh, CEO of parent company IAG, said BA would be making representations to the ICO about the proposed fine. “We intend to take all appropriate steps to defend the airline’s position vigorously, including making any necessary appeals,” he said. Shares in IAG fell 0.8% to 452.7 pence by 0810 GMT. Analyst Gerald Khoo at broker Liberum said the proposed fine equated to about 9 pence per IAG share. “While IAG has more than adequate liquidity to cover the fine (Dec 2018 cash 3.8 billion euros, total liquidity 6.3 billion euros), the penalty is still substantial,” he said. The ICO, which could impose fines up to 500,000 under previous rules, had also investigated BA on behalf of other European regulators. The ICO fined Facebook 500,000 pounds in 2018 for serious breaches of data protection law. It said the penalty would have “inevitably have been significantly higher under GDPR” Reporting by Paul Sandle and James Davey in London and Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur/Keith Weir

2018-09-18

000000084422

We were introduced to Swiss company Punkt’s MP01 phone during the recent minimalist phone trend, which brought us the new wave of “dumbphones” that do nothing but call and text. Now the company has responded to customer critiques like, “It’s not very good for calling and texting,” by releasing a second version of its phone called the MP02. The new model looks pretty much identical to its predecessor, but now it’s upgraded from 2G to 4G LTE, and adds built-in Blackberry Secure encryption and threaded text messaging. Should you decide that, actually, you do want to use the internet, you can also use the phone as a hotspot to connect to a tablet or laptop. The old MP01 is still being sold on Punkt’s site after taking a price cut, but it’s likely that the MP02 came about since 2G networks are shutting down across the world and will render the MP01 unusable. The phone, designed by British industrial designer Jasper Morrison, is definitely sleeker and more stylish than a lot of the other minimalist phones on the market today, like the Unihertz Jelly or the Nokia 3310. Our former features editor, Michael Zelenko, spent some time with the Punkt MP01 this year, and he noted that the phone feels solid and nicely designed. The MP02 should solve his biggest issue, which was that messages were divided into Inbox and Outbox folders. The phone runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 processor and has a two-inch display covered with Gorilla Glass. It has a standby battery life of about 12 days, and it charges with a USB-C connector. Besides calling and texting, you can also enjoy a clock, notes app, calendar, and calculator, which is what the phone looks like anyway. The MP02 is available for $349, and preorders are available now.

2016-01-13

000000112056

* Gold eases as market eyes another U.S. interest rate hike * Rising stock markets, firmer dollar add pressure on prices (Updates prices) By Naveen Thukral SINGAPORE, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Gold lost more ground on Wednesday as a rebound in stock markets reduced some of the precious metal’s safe haven appeal with additional pressure from a strengthening greenback. Asian shares made their first real rally of the year after Chinese trade data handily beat expectations, offering a rare shaft of light for the global economy. A late rebound in energy and biotech shares helped push the S&P 500 to a second straight day of gains on Tuesday and the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index climbed 1.1 percent after four sessions of declines. Spot gold slid 0.8 percent to $1,081.80 an ounce by 0725 GMT and U.S. gold futures fell 0.3 percent to $1,081.8. “The market is expecting, perhaps in March the Fed will have its second interest rate hike. It will lead to a very strong U.S. dollar, so gold prices are likely to face pressure,” said Shandong Gold Group chief analyst Shu Jiang. The metal’s rally in early January to a nine-week top has run out of steam as expectations of further U.S. interest rate increase lowers demand for the non-interest-paying asset, while boosting the dollar. The Fed raised rates in December and attention has shifted to how many hikes will follow in 2016. The dollar and risk-sensitive currencies recovered ground against the yen and the euro after China’s central bank held the yuan steady and better than expected Chinese trade data helped reduce some of bearishness toward the world’s second largest economy. Holdings of the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, New York-listed SPDR Gold Shares, rose 2.1 tonnes on Monday, data from the fund showed. China has launched interbank gold trading at the beginning of this year, part of a broader drive to open up the country’s bullion market and increase financial investments in the world’s largest consumer of the precious metal. Among other precious metals, palladium fell for a third consecutive session to $468 an ounce after sliding to a 5-1/2-year low of $449.55 an ounce on Tuesday. Silver fell 0.1 percent to $13.775 an ounce, while platinum was little changed at $837 an ounce. (Reporting by Naveen Thukral; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Anand Basu)

2016-06-20 13:27:15

000000000629

HAVANA — Being an agricultural official in Cuba these days is like living in a resort town all your friends want to visit. You rarely get a moment to yourself. For months, Havana’s government offices and its prettiest urban farms have been filled with American bureaucrats, seed sellers, food company executives and farmers who spend their evenings eating meals made with ingredients often imported or smuggled into restaurants that most Cubans can’t afford. They seek the prizes that are likely to come if the United States ends its trade restrictions against Cuba: a new supply of sugar, coffee and tropical produce, and a new market for American exports that could reap more than $1.2 billion a year in sales, according to the United States Chamber of Commerce. But for some, the quest is less about the money than about what they say is the soul of Cuban agriculture and how people eat. “The Cubans are not enthusiastic about a Burger King on every corner or Monsanto being here,” said Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine and an organic farmer. In May, Ms. Pingree led a coalition of organic industry leaders, chefs and investors on a five-day trip here. Their mission, in part, was to encourage Cuban officials to resist the enticements of larger, more conventional American food and farming interests and persuade Cubans to protect and extend the small-scale organic practices that are already a part of their daily life. Cuba, it turns out, is a rare oasis of organic and sustainable agriculture. For reasons of politics, geography and philosophy, the nation was forced to abandon much of its large-scale, chemical-based farming and replace it with a network of smaller farms and more natural methods. Shortly after the revolution in 1959, Cuba began sending sugar, tobacco and research to the Soviet Union in exchange for a steady supply of goods that included food, agricultural equipment and farm chemicals. But 30 years later, when the Soviet bloc crumbled, the shipments ended. Without gasoline and spare parts, tractors sat idle in fields. Crops rotted and cattle died. Studies show that the average Cuban lost more than 12 pounds during what President Fidel Castro called the “special period in time of peace.” With many large government-owned farms failing, Mr. Castro told the nation to learn to grow food without chemicals. Oxen replaced tractors. Smaller, cooperative farms and new markets emerged. To be sure, Cuba still imports 60 percent to 80 percent of its food, the United States Department of Agriculture estimates, and little or none of it organic. Agricultural chemicals are imported from other countries without trade embargoes. The Cuban government owns about 80 percent of the land the nation could use to grow food, but more than half remains fallow. It is unclear how much of the produce Cuba grows would qualify as organic under United States standards. Still, a cohesive organic movement is growing. By its own estimates, Cuba has almost 400,000 urban farms, among them about 10,000 small organic ones. The government continues to turn land over to independent farmers to lease, although it requires most to grow food for the state. For the group of organic true believers who traveled here in May, the dream is to help Cuba stay loyal to a sustainable style of agriculture that rejects chemicals and genetic modification. They point to an incentive: an American market hungry — and willing to pay a premium — for organic produce. Although only 5 percent of all food sold in America is organic, those sales last year grew three times as fast as those of the overall food market, according to the Organic Trade Association. Cuba offers a new source to feed the demand for organic sugar, honey, fruit and other raw ingredients. Yet Cuba also offers 11 million potential new customers for conventional agriculture. Just days after Ms. Pingree’s group left, the U.S. Agriculture Coalition for Cuba, which had already been working in the country, returned. Founded in 2015 to promote normalizing American relations with Cuba, the group has more than 100 members, including corporations like Butterball and Cargill, commodity associations like corn refiners and soy growers, and several state farm bureaus. The delegation returned home holding an agreement with Cuba’s Grupo Empresarial Agrícola to re-establish Cuba as a market for American agricultural products. In a follow-up stroke, Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri announced on May 30 that Cuba had accepted a 20-ton donation of long-grain rice grown in his state. The last official shipment of United States rice to Cuba was in 2008. Although many in the organic industry see the coalition as a threat to their cause, its leaders say they share the same goal: to help Cuba feed itself and improve its agricultural practices. “There’s not tension, because at the end of the day, this is about how the Cuban farmer is going to raise their productivity and make their own choices,” said Devry Boughner Vorwerk, a former Cargill executive who is now the group’s director. “The key point here is that there is room enough for everyone.” Doug Schroeder, a soybean farmer from Illinois, came along on the coalition’s trip. His state ships about $20 million worth of corn and soy to Cuba every year under the complex set of rules governing trade between the two countries. If the United States ends its financial embargo with Cuba, that figure could jump to $220 million. “You multiply that for the entire country and all agriculture sales, and it’s a big deal,” he said. He anticipates a big market for organics, too, but one in which Cubans provide food for America. The organic industry, he said, “may be going into the back door of a gold mine here. It would be interesting if they could ship organics to the U.S. to satisfy our demand, and we could ship them the goods we do well.” The secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack, seems to be walking the middle of that line. The agreement he signed with his Cuban counterpart, Gustavo Rodríguez Rollero, during President Obama’s historic visit in March included a nod to sharing research on both styles of agriculture. And when Mr. Vilsack took Mr. Rollero on a tour of Iowa this month, they visited both an organic farm and DuPont Pioneer, the nation’s largest producer of hybrid and genetically modified seeds. “We have a tremendous opportunity in Cuba to expand exports of soybeans, rice and poultry at some point,” Mr. Vilsack said during that visit. “They in turn have a tremendous opportunity to import into the U.S. organic production. Trade must be a two-way street.” Those who support organic farming say there is something larger at issue than just trade. Adopting chemical-based farming methods used by large agricultural companies that have been visiting Cuba may seem a lucrative proposition, they say, but it would threaten the organic potential of thousands of acres of fallow farmland in Cuba. “That is a system of the past,” Gary Hirshberg, the chairman of Stonyfield Farm yogurt company and a leader in the effort to label food with genetically modified ingredients, told Cuban officials during the May trip. “We are the industry of the future.” Still, that future, organic or not, is most likely a long way off. Cubans interviewed during the trip organized by Ms. Pingree said their country was not prepared to handle a flood of new trade. Cuba’s agricultural system remains so antiquated that even seeds and wheelbarrows are in short supply. The rules for doing business, even for farmers and people trying to start wholesale markets, seem to shift weekly. “Everybody is adequately sober about the realities of this,” said Laura Batcha, the executive director of the Organic Trade Association. Mr. Schroeder, the soybean farmer, had the same impression. “I got the feeling they don’t want a Starbucks on every corner,” he said. “They don’t want to be Hawaii. They want to maintain their heritage, but at the same time, they realize they have a lot of need.” There are other complications. Farmers in Florida and other states who grow food suited to tropical climates are already pushing back against a potential competitor. American shoppers with anti-Castro views are probably not going to embrace Cuban products, even something as benign as fresh-cut flowers, which Juan Núñez, the regional president for Whole Foods who traveled to Cuba with the organic group, thought might be a likely starting point for import. The agriculture department has yet to even secure office space in the new United States embassy here. And despite Mr. Obama’s push, efforts to lift trade sanctions are moving slowly in Congress and are bogged down in the run-up to the election. On Monday, Nespresso announced that it would be the first company to sell Cuban coffee in America since the revolution. Through a deal brokered with help from TechnoServe, a nonprofit development organization, pods of Cuban-grown Arabica coffee Nespresso is calling Cafecito de Cuba will go on sale for a limited time in the fall. People who trade in organics say they, too, are likely to start small. Coffee is a possibility, as is charcoal made from marabú, a thorny, invasive tree that has stymied farmers trying to clear land. The high-quality charcoal has caught on in Europe. And then there is sugar, especially organic sugar, which is in high demand by American processors. What if raw, organic Cuban sugar became an indispensable ingredient for craft cocktails, Ms. Pingree asked during a stroll through a Havana neighborhood. That could turn public opinion enough to sway Congress. “It sounds frivolous, but some doors open in moments,” she said. “At this point, we are looking for little paths to move this forward. It’s hard to know which ones they will be.” Ultimately, the future of Cuban agriculture will be decided in Cuba. Despite their reliance on imported, often poor quality food supplemented with state-issued rations, Cubans have long associated food and farming with health, and have a deep love of cooking — especially with anything grown in Cuba, said Imogene Tondre, an American-born culinary researcher living here. Cuban chefs are already seeking out better quality food and exchanging ideas with American peers. One of them is Tom Colicchio, the New York chef and television personality who has become active in American food politics and traveled with Ms. Pingree to Cuba. In meetings during the May trip, he urged Cuban officials to build on the nation’s extensive organic research and the cultural desire for local food, and to resist the monetary lures of big agriculture. “We ask that you have the political will to reject that and continue to do what you are doing and know that there is a market for it,” Mr. Colicchio said in an impassioned plea. Moraima Céspedes Morales, director of international affairs in Cuba’s Ministry of Agriculture, told him to stay calm. “We are trying to produce the healthiest food possible,” she said. “All the pressures, they don’t matter.” What matters to Cubans, she told the group, is neither American market pressure nor the battle over which style of farming is better. “The most important program for us,” she said, “is still one of self-supply.” An earlier version of this article misstated the position held by Moraima Céspedes Morales. She is director of international affairs for Cuba’s Ministry of Agriculture, not for Cuba. cooking

2017-10-26

000000036357

Welcome to Overnight Regulations, your daily rundown of news from the federal agencies, Capitol Hill and the courts. It's Thursday evening here in Washington where the House narrowly adopted the Senate's version of a 2018 budget resolution. Next up for Republicans is tax reform. Read about that here.   THE BIG STORY  President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE declared the opioid epidemic a public health crisis on Thursday, a designation that will allow the Department of Health and Human Services ease regulations to help addicts get medication and treatment.  As The Hill's Rachel Roubein and Jessie Hellman report, the declaration will expand access to telemedicine to better help those with an addiction in remote areas receive medications. It will also allow for the shifting of resources within HIV/AIDS programs to help people eligible receive substance use disorder treatments.  It could also spur a fight for funding in Congress. Senate Democrats introduced a bill Wednesday to put $45 billion toward the epidemic. Republicans are also pushing for more funds.  While Trump said his administration would put "lots of money" toward creating nonaddictive painkillers, he sought earlier this year to cut $5.8 billion from the National Institute of Health.  The opioid crisis has hit both rural and urban areas across America, and overdose deaths from prescription painkillers and heroin have risen sharply. Since 1999, the rate of overdose deaths has more than quadrupled. Find the full story here.    REG ROUNDUP  Gun control: Retired astronaut Mark Kelly tried to lobby House Majority Whip Steve ScaliseStephen (Steve) Joseph ScaliseManchin: Trump has 'golden opportunity' on gun reforms Sunday shows - Trump's Epstein conspiracy theory retweet grabs spotlight Sanders: Trump doesn't 'want to see somebody get shot' but 'creates the climate for it' MORE (R-La.) on gun reform on his first day back to work after recovering from a gunshot wound he sustained when a gunman opened fire at a Congressional baseball practice over the summer.  Even though Scalise and Kelly's wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), are members of a tragic and exclusive club -- lawmakers who have survived mass shootings -- Scalise has made clear he won't be joining Giffords's push for expanded background checks and other gun-control measures. Scott Wong has that story here.    Energy: President Trump nominated a coal industry advocate and engineer to be the nation's top mining regulator. The White House on Thursday announced the nomination of J. Steven Gardner, the president of engineering firm ECSI, LLC, to be the director of the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM). The office is the Interior Department's top regulator of the coal mining industry. Gardner has been at ESCI, a Lexington, Ky.-based firm, since 1983 and was a frequent critic of environmental rules during the Obama administration, including those from the OSM. Devin Henry has that story here.    Finance: Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann WarrenTop Sanders adviser: Warren isn't competing for 'same pool of voters' Eight Democratic presidential hopefuls to appear in CNN climate town hall In shift, top CEOs say shareholder value not top goal MORE (D-Mass.) warned in an op-ed Thursday that loosening the oversight of big banks could lead to another financial crisis. The 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act directed the Fed to apply stricter oversight and regulation to banks with more than $50 billion in assets. Lobbyists, however, have urged Congress to raise the $50 billion threshold to $250 billion or replace it with a multi-factor test.  Brett Samuels has the story here.    Energy: A group of Republican senators has asked to meet with President Trump to discuss the federal biofuels mandate. Nine senators sent Trump a letter on Wednesday warning him that if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) "does not make adjustments or reforms on matters related to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), it will result in a loss of jobs around the country, particularly in our states." Devin Henry again with the story here.    Justice: While speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation on Thursday, Attorney General Jeff SessionsJefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsDOJ should take action against China's Twitter propaganda Lewandowski says he's 'happy' to testify before House panel The Hill's Morning Report — Trump and the new Israel-'squad' controversy MORE scolded federal judges who have ruled against or criticized the Trump administration. "Co-equal branches of government ought to respect one another as co-equal branches," Sessions said. "As you all know well, some judges have failed to respect our representatives and Congress and the executive branch." Sessions singled out the federal judge in Brooklyn who, according to a New York Times report called the Trump administration's attempt to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program "cruel," "heartless" and "unacceptable." "With respect: it is emphatically not the province or duty of courts to say whether a policy is compassionate," he said, according to his prepared remarks. "That is for the people and our elected representatives to decide. The court's role is to say what the law is." Find the story here.    IN OTHER NEWS  New science suggests the ocean could rise more - and faster- than we thought – The Washington Post  FEMA has a plan for responding to a hurricane in Puerto Rico, but it doesn't want you to see it –ProPublica  Despite tough talk, drug prosecutions drop under Trump, Sessions – CBS News  GAO to investigate Trump voter fraud commission -- The Hill Opinion: Temporary status for immigrants shouldn't mean permanent residency, by Ira Mehlman Opinion: Canada wakes up to immigration reality after 'refugees welcome' dream, by Nolan Rappaport 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.

2017-10-10 11:37:31

000000047013

Want to drive a Porsche, without actually owning one? Porsche’s new Passport subscription program could be just what you’re looking for. The on-demand short-term rental program allows anyone in Atlanta to subscribe for $2,000 per month, which will provide access to eight models of Porsche including the 718 Boxster, Cayenne and Cayman S at launch. Those who want a bit more can sign up for the Accelerate program, which is $3,000 per month, but which provides access to a total of 22 Porsche models and variants, including the 911 Carrera S, the Macan GTS and the Cayenne S E-Hybrid SUV. The price of membership may seem steep, but it covers tax, registration, insurance, maintenance and even detailing fees, which can really add up when you’re talking about a Porsche. Also there’s a one-time $500 activation fee, as well as both a background and a credit check which is probably a fairly reasonable ask given the value of the vehicles you’ll be getting. Atlantans who sign up can get their vehicles delivered on-demand to the location of their choosing in the metro Atlanta area starting this November, and then can exchange their cars for other models also using the Porsche Passport app. This Atlanta pilot, and its results, will determine whether Porsche continues to grow the program in the future. Subscription-baesd car programs are increasingly an option automakers are looking to change up ownership and deal with the changing demands of customers. Cadillac debuted its own similar program early this year, and it’s likely going to be an option more car makers look at as consumers look around for alternatives to buying vehicles outright or traditional leasing models.

2017-10-02 00:00:00

000000031131

The 2017 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young for their work on the genetic and cellular mechanisms that govern biological clocks and circadian rhythms, per AP. "Their discoveries explain how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth's revolutions," said Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, when he announced the prize. Why it matters: Hall, Rosbach, and Young's work launched the field of circadian biology. We now understand that when our waking cycle doesn't match our inner clock — think jet-lag — there could be lasting health consequences. What they found: Hall, Rosbash and Young received the award for their work on fruit fly genes named "period," "timeless" and "doubletime." Period encodes the protein PER, which builds up in cells during the day and breaks down at night. Timeless codes the protein TIM, which helps PER enter the cell's nucleus and interact with the DNA. Doubletime is thought to control the rate these fluctuations happen. How it works: It's a negative feedback loop. The proteins build until they reach such a high level that they enter the cell's nucleus and turn off the genes that encoded them in the first place. Then, they degrade until the gene turns back on. This discovery of this elegant system was called "paradigm-shifting" by the prize committee. Editor's note: This post has updated.

2018-02-19

000000087499

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp (6758.T) said on Tuesday it would become the latest blue-chip firm to jockey for position in Japan’s taxi and ride-hailing market, with plans for a joint venture to develop an artificial intelligence-based hailing system. The partnership is the latest in a growing array of tie-ups between domestic taxi firms and tech companies, who see Japan as a potentially lucrative market but are prevented from offering ride-sharing services by stringent rules. Currently, non-professional drivers are barred from offering taxi services on safety grounds, and ride-hailing companies are limited to services that “match” users to existing taxi fleets via mobile platforms. Sony plans to build the AI-based hailing platform with Daiwa Motor Transportation Co Ltd (9082.T) and five other domestic taxi firms. This month, SoftBank Group Corp (9984.T) and China’s Didi Chuxing said they would roll out a venture in Japan this year to provide matching services. SoftBank is an investor in ride-hailing firms around the world including Didi, most recently becoming Uber Technologies Inc’s largest shareholder in January. Didi and taxi firm Daiichi Koutsu Sangyo Co Ltd (9035.FU) plan to offer taxi-hailing services to visitors from mainland China, with the taxi firm saying on Monday that it was also in talks with Uber. On Tuesday Uber’s new chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, told investors in Tokyo that Uber must change the way it does business in Japan. “It is clear to me that we need to come in with partnership in mind and in particular partnership with the taxi industry,” he said without providing specifics. Some of the most vigorous opposition to industry deregulation has come from the “prince of taxis” Ichiro Kawanabe, chairman of Japan’s largest taxi firm Nihon Kotsu Co Ltd. Kawanabe has set up its own taxi-hailing company, JapanTaxi, winning investment from Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) along the way, and has 60,000 taxis registered with the service. (This story corrects penultimate paragraph to show Kawanabe is chairman of Nihon Kotsu, not president. Kawanabe is president of JapanTaxi) Reporting by Minami Funakoshi and Sam Nussey; Additional reporting by Susan Mathew; Editing by Stephen Coates and Christopher Cushing

2017-05-25 00:00:00

000000094382

May 25 (Reuters) - Huizhou China Eagle Electronic Technology Co Ltd * Says its owner has bought 1.6 percent stake in the company for 67.4 million yuan ($9.81 million) on May 25 Source text in Chinese: bit.ly/2rXz1aO Further company coverage: ($1 = 6.8676 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom)

2019-03-05

000000058762

value- source@ NEW DELHI, March 5 (Reuters) - India hopes the planned withdrawal by the United States of a preferential trade treatment to India would not lead to trade hurdles, an Indian government source said on Tuesday, adding that the "actual benefit" to India was only $250 million a year. "GSP (Generalized System of Preferences) is more symbolic of the strategic relationship not in value terms," the source said, declining to be named ahead of a press briefing by the Indian trade ministry. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he intended to end Indias preferential trade treatment under a program that allows $5.6 billion worth of Indian exports to enter the United States duty free. (Reporting by Neha Dasgupta; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

2018-06-25

000000035348

The Definitive Guide to Business In 2018, the average salary for a recent business school graduate will be roughly $150,000, according to The Financial Times. While the payoffs for earning an MBA can be huge, cost and time can make it difficult to go back to school. Fortunately, there are thousands of free online classes that people can take in order to learn new skills, master areas of interest and earn online certificates. Taking a class online is also a great way to see if business school is the right choice for you. Nonprofit online platforms such as edX offer quality online educational resources developed by some of the world’s most prestigious universities, including Harvard, MIT and Wharton. There are thousands of classes you can choose from. Here are 10 business classes you can take online for free. Course description: “Learn best practices and approaches to writing effective business letters, emails and reports. Format, composition and clarity are emphasized.” Developed by: University of California at Berkeley Instructor: Margaret Steen, honored instructor of writing at UC Berkeley Course description: “Explore how entrepreneurship and innovation tackle complex social problems in emerging economies.” Developed by: Harvard University Instructor: Tarun Khanna, professor of business administration and South Asian studies at Harvard University Course description: “Learn the language of financial accounting and how to use financial statement information to better manage and grow your business.” Developed by: Babson UniversityInstructor: Peter Wilson, professor of accounting and law at Babson College Course description: “Get an overall view of the increasingly complex challenges of global business from the insights, perspectives and experience of Georgetown faculty and senior executives currently working in multinational companies.” Developed by: Georgetown University Instructor: Ricardo Ernst, professor of operations and global logistics at Georgetown University Course description: “Learn how a culture of health can transform your business to improve the well-being of your employees and company, while increasing revenue.” Developed by: Harvard University Instructor: Jose Alvarez, senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard University Course description: “Learn the principles of machine learning and the importance of algorithms.” Developed by: Columbia University Instructor: David Blei, professor of computer science and statistics at Columbia University Course description: “Learn how to incorporate financial considerations into your life decisions and become an effective consumer of financial information.” Developed by: Wellesley CollegeInstructor: Ann Witte, professor emerita of economics at Wellesley College Course description: “Learn key components of the retail business, including forecasting, inventory management, product assortment planning and pricing from TuckX and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.” Developed by: Dartmouth College Instructor: Santiago Gallino, assistant professor of business administration at Dartmouth College Structuring Business Agreements for Success Course description: “Do you know the components of a business agreement? Can you bridge the information gaps necessary to meet the needs of contracting parties? In this course, you will learn the laws, principles and guidelines to structure successful business deals to meet the needs of contracting parties. " Developed by: Cornell University Course description: “Learn how to manage and harness the dynamics and interactions between firms and entities within a supply chain.” Developed by: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Instructor: Bruce Arntzen, executive director of the MIT Supply Chain Management Program Many of these courses are archived, which means that students can take them at their own pace. There are also thousands of live courses that can be taken on a schedule in conjunction with other online students. Depending on what you want to get out of your online educational experience, students can also pay fees for courses to earn official certificates. Students should also be wary of for-profit colleges that offer expensive online courses that won’t actually help them in the job market. No matter what you decide, continuing your education online with a nonprofit accredited institution can be a cost-effective way to advance your career and expand your horizons.

2019-12-20 00:00:00

000000018047

(Reuters) - U.S. energy firms added the most oil rigs this week since February 2018 - primarily in the Permian shale - even though producers have been reducing spending on new drilling for much of this year. Companies added 18 oil rigs in the week to Dec. 20, bringing the total count to 685, the most since early November, energy services firm Baker Hughes Co said in its closely followed report on Friday. In the same week a year ago, there were 883 active rigs. In the Permian in West Texas and eastern New Mexico, the nation’s biggest shale oil play, drillers added 15 rigs, boosting the total count in the basin to 414. Despite this week’s gain, the oil rig count was on track to fall for the first year since 2016. That annual reduction totals 200, which is much smaller than 2015’s record 963 rig decline, according to Baker Hughes data going back to 1987. The oil rig count, an early indicator of future output, has already dropped for a record 12 months in a row as independent exploration and production companies cut spending on new drilling as shareholders seek better returns in a low energy price environment. Even though the number of rigs drilling new wells has fallen so far this year, U.S. oil output has continued to increase in part because the productivity of those remaining rigs - the amount of oil new wells produce per rig - has increased to record levels in most big shale basins. The pace of production growth, however, has slowed. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projected crude output would rise to 12.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019 and 13.2 million bpd in 2020 from a record 11.0 million bpd in 2018. U.S. crude futures traded around $60 per barrel on Friday, putting the contract on track to rise for a third week in a row as easing U.S.-China trade tensions boosted the outlook for global economic growth. Looking ahead, U.S. crude futures were trading around $58 a barrel for the balance of 2020 and $54 for calendar 2021. That compares with an average of $64.90 in 2018 and $56.94 so far in 2019. U.S. financial services firm Cowen & Co this week said 23 of the independent exploration and production (E&P) companies it watches reported spending estimates for 2020. Cowen said there were 17 decreases, one flat and five increases, implying a 13% year-over-year decline in 2020. This does not include majors, which represent 13% of the rig count and could be flat to up from current levels. Year-to-date, the total number of oil and gas rigs active in the United States has averaged 946. Most rigs produce both oil and gas. The number of U.S. gas rigs, meanwhile, fell to 125, the lowest since December 2016. Analysts at Simmons & Co, energy specialists at U.S. investment bank Piper Jaffray, forecast the annual average combined oil and gas rig count will slide from a four-year high of 1,032 in 2018 to 943 in 2019 and 816 in 2020 before rising to 849 in 2021. That is the same as Simmons forecasts since late November. Reporting by Scott DiSavino; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

2017-05-09 00:00:00

000000004947

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German reinsurance giant Munich Re (MUVGn.DE) posted a 20 percent fall in first-quarter profit at its mainstay property and casualty business due to several big claims, sending its shares to the bottom of Germany’s blue-chip index. Group net profit was up 28 percent at 557 million euros ($608 million) in the three months through March, the group said on Tuesday, compared with consensus for 584 million in a Reuters poll. Munich Re said its results kept it on track to meet its target of 2-2.4 billion euros full-year profit, which would be a fifth consecutive year of declines. Shares in Munich Re were down 2 percent at 1000 GMT (6 a.m. ET) on Tuesday, underperforming a 0.5 percent rise in the DAX index .GDAXI. The property and casualty reinsurance business, which accounted for around a third of Munich Re’s first-quarter gross premiums, was hit by a number of big claims from its customers, including a 100 million euro loss incurred by cyclone Debbie in Australia. The unit’s profit fell to 340 million, also partly due to an unusual accumulation of significant but localized natural catastrophe events in the U.S., Munich Re said. The combined ratio of the property and casualty reinsurance unit, a closely-watched measure of expenses to premium income, deteriorated to 97.1 percent from 88.4 percent a year earlier. “The development of the normalized combined ratio shows that the five-year softening phase continues to affect margins,” Baader Bank analyst Daniel Bischof said. Ergo, Munich Re’s troubled primary insurance division, contributed 91 million euros in profit, up from a slight loss a year ago. Chief Financial Officer Joerg Schneider said the unit was sticking to a 2017 profit target of 150-200 million euros. Munich Re said the primary insurance division’s result was in line with expectations, and the unit’s recuperation could help ease the concerns of disgruntled shareholders who worry that Ergo is a drag on the core reinsurance business. Low interest rates and sliding reinsurance prices have eroded profits in recent years. Munich Re suggested this could improve. “We welcome the turnaround in interest rates in the USA, and hope that the ECB will also return to sustainable monetary policy,” Schneider said in a statement. “Pressure on prices in reinsurance has eased off considerably.” Munich Re hopes that its digital initiatives, such as insurance against cyber risks, will help its bottom line in the coming years. Investors have complained innovation is not yet paying off. Reporting by Tom Sims; Editing by Maria Sheahan and Susan Thomas

2019-09-24 00:00:00

000000019336

Sept 24 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks reversed earlier gains on Tuesday, as President Donald Trump delivered a stinging rebuke to China’s trade practices, while a sharp drop in September’s consumer confidence weighed on Amazon.com shares. At 11:40 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 26.89 points, or 0.10%, at 26,923.10, the S&P 500 was down 6.11 points, or 0.20%, at 2,985.67. The Nasdaq Composite was down 55.99 points, or 0.69%, at 8,056.48. (Reporting by Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

2017-11-23 00:00:00

000000050267

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has instructed government agencies to scrap or start easing barriers that foreigners face in multiple business and employment sectors, part of moves to liberalize an economy long criticized as restrictive. The directive, made public on Thursday, said the aim was to pursue stronger economic growth, create fairness and to enable partnerships to develop. Duterte’s directive ordered government agencies to “take immediate steps to lift or ease restrictions on foreign participation”, including those that will require new legislation. The directive specified eight areas or activities where changes will be made, including construction and repairs for government-funded projects, private recruitment for both domestic and overseas employment, teaching at higher education levels, as well as processing and “trading except retailing” of rice and corn. Some of the eight are broad and open to interpretation, such as retail trade enterprises, domestic market enterprises and public services other than those recognized as utilities. There remains some debate in the Philippines about what is considered a utility. The directive, dated Nov. 21, also called for openness in “particular professions where allowing foreign participation will redound to public benefit”. For several years, the Philippines has been posting some of Asia’s fastest rates of growth> Its third-quarter expansion of 6.9 percent from a year earlier beat forecasts. [nL3N1NL1AE] The government is targeting annual growth this year of 6.5-7.5 percent, propped up by higher state spending and stronger exports and agriculture output. But investors have lamented the obstacles to foreign firms, many because of archaic laws that limit foreign participation, some of which require time-consuming legislative amendments. Foreign direct investment into the Philippines is dwarfed by that of rivals such as Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, something the government is eager to change by slashing red tape and launching an ambitious, six-year, $180-billion, “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure splurge, which would modernize airports, roads, railways and ports. [nL4N1KT1GA] Reporting by Martin Petty; Editing by Richard Borsuk