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Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security. The decision left CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta as the only doctor at the hospital to get the patients through the night. CNN initially reported, based on conversations with some of the doctors, that the United Nations ordered the Belgian First Aid and Support Team to evacuate. However, Belgian Chief Coordinator Geert Gijs, a doctor who was at the hospital with 60 Belgian medical personnel, said it was his decision to pull the team out for the night. Gijs said he requested U.N. security personnel to staff the hospital overnight, but was told that peacekeepers would only be able to evacuate the team. He said it was a "tough decision" but that he accepted the U.N. offer to evacuate after a Canadian medical team, also at the hospital with Canadian security officers, left the site Friday afternoon. The Belgian team returned Saturday morning. Gijs said the United Nations has agreed to provide security for Saturday night. The team has requested the Belgian government to send its own troops for the field hospital, which Gijs expects to arrive late Sunday. Responding to the CNN report that Gupta was the only doctor left at the Port-au-Prince field hospital, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said Saturday that the world body's mission in Haiti did not order any medical team to leave. If the team left, it was at the request of their own organization, he said. Edmond Mulet, the U.N. assistant secretary general for peacekeeping operations, told reporters later that local security officers deemed the makeshift hospital unsafe. "It seems that we've heard some reports in the international media that the United Nations asked or forced some medical teams to not work any more in some clinic -- that is not true, that is completely untrue," Mulet said Saturday. CNN video from the scene Friday night shows the Belgian team packing up its supplies and leaving with an escort of blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers in marked trucks. View or add to CNN's database of missing persons in Haiti Gupta -- assisted by other CNN staffers, security personnel and at least one Haitian nurse who refused to leave -- assessed the needs of the 25 patients, but there was little they could do without supplies. More people, some in critical condition, were trickling in late Friday. "I've never been in a situation like this. This is quite ridiculous," Gupta said. With a dearth of medical facilities in Haiti's capital, ambulances had nowhere else to take patients, some of whom had suffered severe trauma -- amputations and head injuries -- under the rubble. Others had suffered a great deal of blood loss, but there were no blood supplies left at the clinic. Gupta feared that some would not survive the night. He and the others stayed with the injured all night, after the medical team had left and after the generators gave out and the tents turned pitch black. Gupta monitored patients' vital signs, administered painkillers and continued intravenous drips. He stabilized three new patients in critical condition. At 3:45 a.m., he posted a message on Twitter: "pulling all nighter at haiti field hosp. lots of work, but all patients stable. turned my crew into a crack med team tonight." Are you in Haiti and safe? Share your photos He said the Belgian doctors did not want to leave their patients behind but were ordered out by the United Nations, which sent buses to transport them. "There is concern about riots not far from here -- and this is part of the problem," Gupta said. There have been scattered reports of violence throughout the capital. "What is striking to me as a physician is that patients who just had surgery, patients who are critically ill, are essentially being left here, nobody to care for them," Gupta said. Sandra Pierre, a Haitian who has been helping at the makeshift hospital, said the medical staff took most of the supplies with them. "All the doctors, all the nurses are gone," she said. "They are expected to be back tomorrow. They had no plan on leaving tonight. It was an order that came suddenly." She told Gupta, "It's just you." A 7.0 magnitude earthquake flattened Haiti's capital city Tuesday afternoon, affecting as many as 3 million people as it fanned out across the island nation. Tens of thousands of people are feared dead. Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, lacked adequate medical resources even before the disaster and has been struggling this week to tend to huge numbers of injured. The clinic, set up under several tents, was a godsend to the few who were lucky to have been brought there. Retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who led relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said the evacuation of the clinic's medical staff was unforgivable. "Search and rescue must trump security," Honoré said. "I've never seen anything like this before in my life. They need to man up and get back in there." Honoré drew parallels between the tragedy in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in Port-au-Prince. But even in the chaos of Katrina, he said, he had never seen medical staff walk away. "I find this astonishing these doctors left," he said. "People are scared of the poor." CNN's Justine Redman, Danielle Dellorto and John Bonifield contributed to this report.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton meets voters at a campaign rally in St. Louis on Saturday. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post) Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was ahead by a slim margin in Missouri on Wednesday, but the race remained in limbo pending word on whether rival Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont would seek a recount. The delay postponed a definitive answer to whether Clinton had made a clean sweep of five big primaries on Tuesday night. Even if she does not prevail in Missouri, her other victories push her closer to the Democratic presidential nomination even as the considerably weakened Sanders vowed to press on with his insurgent campaign. Clinton won big in Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, while claiming a narrower victory in Illinois. In Missouri, with 100 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton was ahead 310,602 votes to 309,071. With a difference of less than 1 percent, state officials held off calling the race. A recount is not automatic, but Sanders could request one. Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and her rival, Bernie Sanders, spoke about the challenges going forward after primary voters took to the polls in five states on March 15. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Jeff Weaver, Sanders’s campaign manager, said the campaign has not made a final decision on whether to request a recount and is still looking at the numbers. Because delegates are awarded proportionately, it’s not clear how much a small change in the vote totals would matter, he said. “If it’s not going to make a material difference in the delegate count, we’re not going to put people through it,” he said. [A good night for Trump and a better night for Clinton] Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook issued a memo to supporters and the media Wednesday that claimed a decisive advantage. He also took Sanders to task for turning negative. "Both campaigns agreed that the measure of success for yesterday's pivotal contests was delegates," Mook wrote. "Sanders went all out in these 5 states, pouring more than $8 million on TV in the last 5 days alone," including at least one ad Mook termed negative. "It's pretty clear this negative strategy backfired," he wrote. Addressing supporters Tuesday night, Sanders did not mention the night's outcome, a disappointment for him after hopes that he could ride momentum from an upset victory in Michigan last week to victories in other large, delegate-rich states in the Midwest. In a statement issued overnight, Sanders congratulated Clinton and pledged to continue a primary fight that he said he is confident he can still win. He did not mention Missouri or the other contests by name. "With more than half the delegates yet to be chosen and a calendar that favors us in the weeks and months to come, we remain confident that our campaign is on a path to win the nomination," Sanders said. But that path looked much more difficult, if not impossible, on Wednesday. Clinton's victories set her more than 300 delegates ahead of Sanders, and she is on track to collect a large share of the more than 1,000 delegates she still needs to lock up the contest. Sanders ended the day further behind in the delegate count — and needing to win a slew of upcoming states by improbably large margins. “We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November,” Clinton said at her victory party here Tuesday. As if to prove the point, she quickly pivoted to the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump. “Our next president has to be ready to face three big tasks," Clinton said during a speech that looked past her primary fight with Sanders and ahead to a probable matchup with Republican front-runner Donald Trump. "First, can you make positive differences in people’s lives? Second, can you keep us safe? Third, can you bring our country together again?” Clinton’s indictment of Trump’s policy positions sounded like a preview of arguments to come. “When we hear a candidate for president call for the rounding up of 12 million immigrants, banning all Muslims from entering the United States, when he embraces torture, that doesn’t make him strong, it makes him wrong,” Clinton said. Clinton has been eager to refocus her campaign to confront Trump more directly. But asked Tuesday if she was concerned that a protracted primary fight with Sanders would hobble Democrats ahead of the contest against a Republican nominee, she declined to encourage Sanders to leave the race. Her campaign emailed a fundraising pitch Tuesday evening warning of the dangers of a Trump presidency and of complacency among Democrats. “Tonight, Donald Trump could become the presumptive Republican nominee for president,” the donation request began. Too many Republicans tried to ignore him until it was too late, it said. Sanders held a rally before about 7,000 people in Phoenix on Tuesday night, a week ahead of Arizona’s primary. He said his campaign had “defied all expectations” but made no mention of the three states that had already been called in Clinton’s favor. “What excites me so much as I go around the country is to see the incredible energy of people who love this country but know we can do so much better,” Sanders said to loud screams. Some of his die-hard supporters expressed hope that he could still pull out the nomination. “I still think the revolution is coming,” said James Homan, 55, a sound engineer for rock musicians, who has homes in Illinois and Arizona. Homan expressed frustration that, as he saw it, “the fix was in” for Clinton among Democratic Party leaders, but he said he could see paths for Sanders to prevail, including the possibility of more fallout from the FBI investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. Democratic primary voters were split on the candidates’ key attributes, with Clinton seen as more electable and Sanders as more honest, according to preliminary exit polls reported by ABC News. By roughly 2 to 1, voters across Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Illinois and Missouri said Clinton had a better chance than Sanders of beating Trump in a general-election matchup. But roughly 8 in 10 said Sanders was honest and trustworthy, compared with about 6 in 10 who felt that way about Clinton. Sanders has dominated among honesty-focused voters all year, while Clinton has won by a wide margin those who care more about electability. Sanders had embarrassed Clinton last week in Michigan and saw Tuesday’s contests as a chance to pull off more come-from-behind wins in states where voters feel damaged by globalization. Repeating his playbook from Michigan, Sanders hit Clinton hard on her past support for “disastrous” trade deals, starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement when her husband was in the White House. With the lesson of Michigan in mind, her campaign moved to retool her stance on trade by strengthening her opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership and emphasizing support for manufacturing in her jobs plan. In Ohio, Clinton took specific aim at elements of the pending trade package seen as harmful to the auto and steel industries. Just over half of Ohio Democratic primary voters said free trade takes away U.S. jobs, according to the early exit polls. In Michigan, Sanders won among voters with that view by double digits. The anti-trade cohort was slightly larger in Michigan (57 percent) than in most states voting Tuesday, with less than half of Democrats in Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina saying trade costs U.S. jobs. In Youngstown, Ohio, Dave Williams, 52, cast a ballot for Sanders. “I lost my house when the stock market crashed,” said Williams, a member of the local cement finishers union. “I’m an angry voter, how ’bout that? I’m angry about the way the country is working for the blue-collar worker. Hillary gets a big, fat zero on that.” In Missouri, Sanders aides were optimistic in part because much of the state closely resembles Kansas, where the senator easily defeated Clinton in the Democratic caucuses early this month. It’s worth noting, however, that Missouri was the smallest of the Democratic delegate prizes Tuesday. Before the polls closed in Missouri, Clinton’s campaign announced that she had been endorsed by the mother of Michael Brown, the teenager whose 2014 shooting by police in Ferguson, Mo., brought more attention to officer-involved slayings of unarmed black men. In Chicago, where Clinton spent her childhood, Sanders sought to leverage support from voters disenchanted with the tenure of the city’s embattled Democratic mayor, Rahm Emanuel, a Clinton ally. Emanuel’s approval ratings have dropped to all-time lows amid controversies over a police shooting and school closings, and his popularity with African American voters has taken an especially big hit. In the closing days of the race, Sanders blasted Emanuel’s decision to close schools in predominantly black and Latino neighborhoods, and Sanders ran television ads featuring some of the mayor’s critics. And Tuesday, Sanders had breakfast with Cook County Commissioner Jesús “Chuy” García, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor against Emanuel in the Democratic primary last year. Clinton’s lead in Florida was never in doubt, and she ended up capturing almost the same number of votes as the Republican winner, Trump — perhaps a preview of how competitive the state will be in November. Florida posed several challenges for Sanders. It held a closed primary, meaning independent voters, who have propelled him to victory in other states, were not allowed to participate. The state’s voting population also includes a large number of older voters, who have sided with Clinton in previous contests. Sanders’s aides have argued that the back half of the nominating calendar is more favorable to him, with several potential victories in the West and no contests remaining in the Deep South, which has been Clinton’s strongest region by far. Sanders thinks he is well-positioned in all three states with contests next Tuesday: Arizona, Idaho and Utah. His decision to spend election night in Arizona signaled his intention to vigorously contest that state in the coming week. Scott Clement contributed to this report.

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent the views of Townhall.com. You have to give President Barack Obama credit for one thing: consistency. Nothing is ever his fault. Nothing will ever be his fault. Faulting Fox News and the American people, on the other hand, now that's a different story. Do you remember when Obama traipsed around the country and desperately pleaded with Americans to vote for Hillary Clinton because his agenda and his legacy were on the ballot? He made a similar pitch before the shellacking his party took in the 2014 congressional elections. Yet did he acknowledge after this 2014 failing that he had anything to do with it? Does he own up to his leading role in last month's presidential election? Let's rewind the tape further, to Obama's reaction to his party's stunning defeat in the 2010 congressional elections, which was largely about Obamacare. He didn't acknowledge any personal culpability for visiting that monstrosity on the American people through trickery and deceit. He simply lamented that he hadn't done a good enough job getting the message out to the American people about it, despite his 50 propaganda speeches trying to persuade us to ignore our lying eyes. Do you see the pattern here? Obama's view is that the American people -- those in the red states, anyway -- are a little slow, paranoid and bigoted and need to be brought along carefully into the 21st century, where progressivism has ushered in a new age of enlightenment. His only failing has been in inadequately re-educating the bitter clingers. Let me give you another example. Remember Obama's depiction of the Islamic State group as "a JV team"? How about his claim, the night before the terrorist massacres in Paris, that the Islamic State was "contained"? Did he ever acknowledge his errors there? No. Again, his only failing was in not having communicated sufficiently his counterterrorism strategies to the American people. He said his strategy against the Islamic State was working. (This was before, as I recall, his admission that he had no policy.) The problem was that saturated media coverage after the Paris attacks was fueling terror fears in the United States. He said: "We haven't, on a regular basis, I think, described all the work that we've been doing for more than a year now to defeat" the Islamic State. "If you've been watching television for the last month, all you've been seeing, all you've been hearing about is these guys with masks or black flags who are potentially coming to get you. And so I understand why people are concerned about it." Again, there's nothing to see here. It's not a terrorism problem but a perception problem. There's no Obamacare problem; it's just that the American people don't get it. Even liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd acknowledged, in 2012, that Obama and his wife, Michelle, are condescending and aloof. The Obamas "do believe in American exceptionalism -- their own, and they feel overassaulted and underappreciated," she wrote. The Obamas haven't disappointed Americans; "we disappointed them." Even earlier, in February 2010, Obama pledged to "listen" to Republicans at a health care summit. But, as columnist Joseph Curl wrote, "turns out he meant he'd be listening to his own voice. By the end of the televised event, Mr. Obama had spoken for 119 minutes -- nine minutes more than the 110 minutes consumed by 17 Republicans. The 21 Democratic lawmakers used 114 minutes, giving the president and his supporters a whopping 233 minutes." And why do the rubes keep misperceiving Obama's greatness? Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity. In a recently published interview with Rolling Stone, Obama denied that he and his party overlooked the "cohort of working-class white voters" that supposedly accounted for Donald Trump's victory. Absolutely not his fault. "Part of it," said Obama, "is Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country, but part of it is also Democrats not working at a grass-roots level, being in there, showing up, making arguments." The challenge Democrats have, according to Obama, is not that they've neglected these communities from a policy perspective. "What is true, though, is that whatever policy prescriptions that we've been proposing don't reach, are not heard by, the folks in these communities. And what they do hear is 'Obama or Hillary are trying to take away (your) guns' or 'they disrespect you.'" I repeat: This guy is remarkably, incorrigibly consistent. He has made no policy errors; his message just isn't getting through, partly because the conservative media are lying about it and partly because people are just too darned dense. I hate to keep bringing up the past, but his war on the conservative media is nothing new, either. I wrote about it in 2010 in my book "Crimes Against Liberty." He began snubbing Fox reporters at news conferences for insufficiently pandering. The White House blog regularly denounced Fox News and other critics. White House communications director Anita Dunn recommended a "rapid response" to counteract "Fox's blows" against the administration, calling Fox News "part of the Republican Party." Presidential adviser David Axelrod said Fox News Channel is "not really a news station." Remember when Obamacare's principal architect, Jonathan Gruber, openly admitted that the Obama administration was able to deceive the American people about Obamacare and chalked it up to "the stupidity of the American voter"? So go ahead and cry us a river about how the conservative media are mistreating you, Mr. Obama, and misleading the public. You have been trying to deceive us for eight years, and the public has been onto you for at least 6 1/2 of those years. Now voters have handed you your biggest spanking yet, and you still will not listen. You can't listen. It's not what you do. But the American people have been listening, and they do understand your policies. And it's a new day in America.

BIGBANG is one of those musical entities that transcends language. It’s one of those rare groups that both innovates and defines the direction a genre takes. Covering a sound that includes hip hop, R&B and electronic dance, BIGBANG and its solo acts (G-Dragon, T.O.P, Taeyang, Seungri and Daesung) have left a musical imprint that has affected the global music market. In fact, even Diplo, a household name in EDM, worked with G-Dragon and T.O.P for their rap album. So when the band announced its world tour to promote the release of its third full-length studio album MADE after a 3 year hiatus, fans lost their minds – including myself. In fact, tickets for each of BIGBANG’s North American legs sold out. As a result, I was lucky enough to witness this larger-than-life Korean pop group perform a couple Saturday nights ago on Oct. 10 at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. As I waited in line to enter the venue with my friends, mobs of fans raved about BIGBANG's new tracks (and surprisingly, not everyone was Asian). Leading up to this particular leg of their North American tour, BIGBANG released 2 songs every month starting from May to August, resulting in 8 freshly minted tracks. After everyone pushed their way through security, a slew of fans rushed to the merchandise table hoping to get either apparel or light up accessories they could wave around during the concert. Being the broke boy I am, my friend and I instead made our way to our seats at the front of the upper level and waited for the BANG to make its appearance. (Floor admission was anywhere from $600 - $800.) In the hour leading up to BIGBANG’s presence, a large screen played popular music videos from both the group as a whole and its solo acts. Though the pit was half full and other fans were sparsely scattered in the seated areas, fans emphatically cheered when their favorite idol appeared in a music video. Prudential Center wasn’t even a quarter full yet. As the venue slowly flooded to capacity, the group finally made its appearance. Gradually, the lights dimmed while the sound of a motor revving filled the venue. Fans energetically waved their light-up flower accessories in anticipation and stood up. Almost immediately, the instrumentals to “BANG BANG BANG” blared through the speakers, and the 5 members walked out of the splitting screen previously used to play the videos. During the song, small fireworks burst from the top of the stage and popped timely on the hook’s lyric “bang.” It was then that everyone recognized the blissful hype BIGBANG was about to deliver for the rest of the night on. As their set progressed, the band showcased their sentimental side, performing a set of slow ballads at once to drive home the theme of their first album single “LOSER,” yet also re-energized the crowd with another set of R&B and pop songs. In between, as if to both recharge their energy and quickly change into their costume-like clothes, each artist performed a song from his solo work. This break from the group’s work gave more casual fans a chance to witness how the band dedicated its time during its hiatuses. The ultimate highlight came during T.O.P’s solo “DOOM DADA.” Adorning a suit printed with Mondrian’s patented “Composition” painting, instead of rapping his line, T.O.P looked at the audience and winked. And during that moment, my jaw dropped, and I questioned my sexuality. In between a set of maybe three or four songs, the band either took the time to interact with the audience or reveal extended scenes from their Quentin Tarantino-inspired short film uploaded in April. It was when the band members spoke to the audience that these Korean idols brought themselves down to earth. Despite occasionally tripping over their rehearsed English lines, each member gave us a glimpse of his more personal side. Some had further solidified their reputations. For instance, Daesung, the goofy, go-lucky singer and drummer, introduced himself just by yelling “YEAH” to the audience at least 5 times and waited for the audience’s response between each. T.O.P re-asserted himself as the cool, collected bad boy, asserting, “Yeah… You know who I am” when it was his turn at the microphone. The others seemed to break out of fan expectations. While Seungri was the most mysterious before the concert, known more for his dancing than his singing, he ended up being the most charismatic of the group and spoke the most English. Taeyang also shed the hip hop image he tries to convey in his videos when he’s clad in Supreme. His initial interaction with the audience was inviting the fans to sing pitches with him, and later on, he would be the one to interject between the other members’ later interactions with the audience. And while G-Dragon is the eclectic leader of the group, he was surprisingly toned down compared to the chameleon style that has garnered him the attention of fashionheads everywhere. The biggest surprise, though, was the group’s capacity for profanity. In an attempt to hype up the audience for his solo “Strong Baby,” Seungri yelled at the audience to “MAKE SOME FUCKING NOISE.” For his part in “Zutter,” T.O.P repeatedly rapped “bitch” despite his line only requiring him to say it once. And at the end, G-Dragon introduced the final song as “FANTASTIC MOTHERFUCKING BABY.” Of course, there are more moments that I could cover – like how Daesung made a scene about revealing his hair-covered eyes, or how he pelvic thrusted to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” or how T.O.P still uncoordinatedly dances in the back – but these moments are boring to read and seem underwhelming on paper. If there’s one thing to take away, it’s that this concert was an electric, out-of-body experience. I had the privilege of being in the presence of some of my favorite artists, foolishly screaming and singing and dancing along to some of my favorite songs live — all without the influence of drugs and alcohol. Despite their huge break, this comeback concert only proved that BIGBANG’s presence is stronger than ever and cemented my opinion that they’re the absolute best in Korean pop. Unfortunately, as the concert concluded, the very real idea that each member would undergo required conscription loomed closer. But it didn’t matter — if this was BIGBANG’s last world tour, it ended perfectly. If there is another years from now, though, I can’t wait to be there too.

WHAT?!??! I know. That’s what you’re saying right now. “WHAT?! DISNEY HAS A DONUT SUNDAE AND I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT IT?!” How do I know you’re saying that? Because that’s exactly what I was saying when Tina (<– amazing DFB photographer who’s frigging awesome) spotted this at the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor in the Magic Kingdom this week! But it’s OK. It’s brand new — not even on the menu yet — so we didn’t miss out on too much of the Donut Sundae lifespan. And we’re hoping that lifespan is a nice, long one! The Main Street Plaza Ice Cream Parlor can be found at the intersection of Main Street USA and Tomorrowland, just before you get to Cinderella Castle. And the sundae joins a few other must-have treats on the Ice Cream Parlor’s menu, including the house-made ice cream sandwich (preferably ordered with a drizzled sauce!), the “kids’ cone” (it’s totally OK to order this as a grown-up, too) with Mickey ears, and the Plaza Ice Cream Sundae. So…I’m really not envying you the decisions you’ll have to make when you get there! ;-D After spotting the sundae on a placard, we grabbed it! It comes with a warm glazed donut, warm apple compote, vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, a cherry, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips. We found out that the donut was not house-made (it’s basically a Krispy Kreme), but it’s warmed just before serving. And with the warm donut and warm compote contrasting with the cold vanilla ice cream, there’s a LOT of amazing going on in this sundae! I’m doubting the apple compote is house-made, or even fresh (probably canned), but it still works well with the sundae. Though the combo of apple compote with peanut butter chips is a bit strange? At the moment, vanilla ice cream is the default flavor. The Cast Member we spoke to said that once this is officially on the menu, guests should be able to request whatever flavor they’d like. At press time, this costs $5.99 and is not a Disney Dining Plan snack credit option. But at $5.99, you’re still getting a bargain as far as we’re concerned! Our thoughts? This was fantastic! Donut? Good! Ice Cream? Good! Apple Pie Filling? Good! Whipped Cream? Good! It’s a winner all around. We can’t WAIT until this gets cemented onto the menu! Pin it for later! What do you think? Will you be heading to the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor for your Donut Sundae the next time you’re on Main Street USA? Let us know in the comments below!

A notorious protester convicted of wilfully promoting hatred against Muslims and criminally harassing a Muslim man and his family was sentenced Tuesday to nine months in jail. Eric Brazau handed out a flyer that “vilified Muslims and disparages their religion,” Ontario court Judge S. Ford Clements said in February, when he found Brazau guilty. Eric Brazau was convicted of willful promotion of hatred against Muslims and criminally harassing a Muslim family. ( CARLOS OSORIO / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO ) The case was far from being on the borderline between “rough and tumble debate” and hate speech, as Brazau had argued, Clements said in a College Park courtroom. Brazau handed out the flyer, which contained many offensive references to Islam and Muslims, in August and September 2012. While distributing it, Brazau sometimes yelled obscenities about Islam “in a tone of voice that suggested he was very angry and had little interest in debate,” Clements said. Brazau had argued that he did not intend to promote hate speech; instead he wanted to stimulate debate about censorship, “blasphemy laws” and Sharia law, Clements said. Article Continued Below Clements disagreed. “He knew the material would deeply wound and anger Muslims,” said Clements. The content was not humorous, ironic or satirical, he said. “Mr. Brazau is far too intelligent to believe this to be so.” The flyer also contained a somewhat blurred photograph of a Muslim family on a downtown Toronto street. The man in the photo testified that Brazau called him a “terrorist” on the day Brazau took the photo. In a second interaction a few weeks later on a sidewalk, the man, whose name is protected by a publication ban, said that Brazau approached him aggressively while photographing the family, making him “concerned and fearful.” Article Continued Below Clements found this to be criminal harassment. During sentencing submissions, Crown prosecutor Derek Ishak described Brazau as an “unrepentant hatemonger … who abused his right to freedom of speech in a planned, deliberate manner,” Clements said Tuesday in his sentencing decision. However, Clements said that while Brazau’s conduct was “despicable” and his beliefs “repugnant,” the maximum sentence of six months for a summary conviction on willfully promoting hatred was unwarranted. He also noted the defence submission that Brazau committed his offences in public, where he was easily identifiable, rather than by stealth. Instead, he gave Brazau a four-month sentence, plus two months for criminal harassment and mischief and three months for breach of probation by not keeping the peace. Brazau, who had spent nine months in pre-trial custody, was sentenced to time served. Clements declined to ban Brazau from distributing flyers, since that could impede his right to freedom of expression. Outside the court, Brazau said he will appeal his sentence. He says he is aware the flyer was “problematic” and “would offend.” But his voice won’t be silenced, Brazau added, though he will keep in mind the hate speech laws, which he says he has learned to navigate over the past few months. “Hatred is the harvest he wanted to gather,” Clements said in his conviction decision, quoting William Butler Yeats. “I find this is true of Mr. Brazau.” Last month, a small claims court found that Brazau had been wrongfully arrested and detained while protesting near Sgt. Ryan Russell’s funeral procession in 2011. However, the deputy judge also found his conduct “reprehensible” and awarded him only $1,000 in damages.

× Some Seattle businesses closed for ‘A Day Without Immigrants’, but others decided against it SEATTLE — While there is no official list of local businesses participating in this movement, “A Day Without Immigrants”, we did find some businesses that had closed their doors and posted signs up saying they were participating. In fact, one business owner says he’s doing things a little bit differently. Instead of shutting down, he says he is choosing to pay it forward. Please enable Javascript to watch this video Edward Moran moved from Mexico to the United States in 1984. He opened El Norte Lounge in Lake City about seven years ago. And instead of closing up shop along with many other immigrant small business owners across the nation, Eduardo was open for business Thursday. “I don’t believe in closing a place just to protest,” says Eduardo. Instead, he says he’s paying it forward. Eduardo is asking customers to pay in cash to avoid bank fees from credit card machines. He says he plans to donate a portion of his proceeds to a nonprofit that focuses on helping immigrants here in the Pacific Northwest. And he’s calling on other business owners to do the same. “If we do this together for one week, I want to see the impact we have on this economy at the bank,” says Eduardo. “We’re supporting him and his efforts and he's paying it forward,” says customer Kim Lawson. “I think it's important to honor those people who are here and working really hard,” says customer Jill Scollard. While there is no official list of businesses participating in this protest locally, we drove around Seattle tonight and found a few shops, including one on Capital Hill and one in White Center, with notices on the door saying they were shut down in support of “A day without immigrants”. “I did think about closing, but my heart told me and my gut instincts said you are wrong,” says Eduardo. While he knows some may criticize him for staying open, he says he’s doing what he thinks is best for his business and his employees. “In this industry everybody makes money every day; tips, you stop it’s not just your paycheck, it’s your tips. Share the wealth instead of stopping and not doing anything work hard and share the wealth,” says Eduardo.

Today, Toyota announced changes in executives’ areas of responsibility, as well as personnel changes at the sub-executive managerial level. The most important change by far is the appointment of Akio Toyoda, the company’s CEO and grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda, as President of a new ‘EV Business Planning’ department. Earlier this month, we reported–admittedly a little tongue-in-cheek–about Toyota announcing the creation of an electric vehicle division and putting only 4 engineers on the project with the goal to bring EVs to market by 2020. The move seems a lot more serious now that Akio Toyoda is leading the effort, and several other executives, managers, and engineers have been assigned new responsibilities in the electric vehicle planning department, including the chief engineer of the Prius. At the executive level, the changes will be effective today, while the managers were apparently put on the program throughout the month. You can see the full list of changes below. It appears to be a clear sign that Toyota is more serious than ever about electric vehicles and it is not simply investing in fuel cell hydrogen to comply to new fuel consumption standards. Changes to executives’ areas of responsibility (effective December 1, 2016) Name Current New Akio Toyoda ― President EV Business Planning Dept. (chief officer) Mitsuhisa Kato Executive Vice President Frontier Research Center (chief officer) Executive Vice President Frontier Research Center (chief officer) EV Business Planning Dept. (chief officer) Shigeki Terashi Executive Vice President Strategic Top Executive Meeting Office (secretary general) Corporate Strategy Div. (chief officer) Research Div. (chief officer) Executive Vice President Strategic Top Executive Meeting Office (secretary general) EV Business Planning Dept. (chief officer) Corporate Strategy Div. (chief officer) Research Div. (chief officer) Koki Konishi Managing Officer Mid-size Vehicle Company (executive vice president) Managing Officer General Administration & Human Resources Group Changes to executive general managers’ areas of responsibility (effective November 1, 2016) Name Current New Shinichi Yasui Mid-size Vehicle Company ZS (chief officer), ZV (chief officer), ZD (chief officer), ZE (chief officer), ZF (chief officer) Mid-size Vehicle Company ZS (chief officer), ZV (chief officer), ZD (chief officer), ZE (chief officer), ZF (chief officer, concurrent chief engineer) Personnel changes at the sub-executive managerial level (effective November 1, 2016) Name Current New Kouji Toyoshima MSZ, Mid-size Vehicle Company (chief engineer) MSZ, Mid-size Vehicle Company (chief engineer) EV Business Planning Dept. (preliminary organization) (general manager) (effective November 14, 2016) Name Current New Kenichi Komuro Temporary External Transfer from Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd. EV Business Planning Dept. (preliminary organization) (project general manager) (effective December 1, 2016)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. AP Images / Business Insider North Korea attempted to fire a missile Sunday, but it blew up within seconds. It happened one day after the anniversary of the country's founding. While North Korea's missile program may be the shadowiest on earth, it's possible that US cyber warriors were the reason for the failed launch. A recent New York Times report uncovered a secret operation to derail North Korea's nuclear-missile program that has been raging for at least three years. Essentially, the report attributes North Korea's high rate of failure with Russian-designed missiles to the US meddling in the country's missile software and networks. Although North Korea's missile infrastructure lacks the competence of Russia's, the Soviet-era missile on which North Korea based its missile had a 13% failure rate, and the North Korean version failed a whopping 88% of the time, according to the report. While the missile failure on Sunday could have just been due to poor workmanship, US Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland seemed to leave room for speculation about espionage, telling Fox News, "We can't talk about secret intelligence and things that might have been done, covert operations, so I really have no comment." Vice President Mike Pence on Monday visited the demilitarized zone between the Koreas, saying that "all options are on the table to achieve the objectives and ensure the stability of the people of this country," and that "the era of strategic patience" with North Korea "is over." To those in the know, the campaign against North Korea came as no surprise. Ken Geers, a cybersecurity expert for Comodo with experience in the National Security Agency, told Business Insider that cyber operations like the one against North Korea were the norm. While the US hacking another country's missile program may be shocking to some, "within military intelligence spaces, this is what they do," Geers said. "If you think that war is possible with a given state, you're going to be trying to prepare the battle space for conflict. In the internet age, that means hacking." Reuters North Korea's internal networks are fiercely insulated and not connected to the internet, however, which poses a challenge for hackers in the US. But Geers said it was "absolutely not the case" that hacking requires computers connected to the internet. A recent report in The New Yorker on Russian hacking detailed one case in which Russia gained access to a NATO computer network in 1996 by providing bugged thumb drives to shops near a NATO base in Kabul, Afghanistan. NATO operators bought the thumb drives, used them on the network, and just like that, the Russians were in. "That's where SIGINT (signals intelligence) or COMINT (communications intelligence) comes into collaboration with HUMINT (human intelligence)," Geers said. He described the present moment as the "golden age of espionage," as cyberwarfare remains nonlethal, unattributable, and almost completely unpunished. But a recent missile salvo from North Korea suggests that even a prolonged, sophisticated cyberattack can't fully derail its nuclear-missile program. "Imagine you're the president. North Korea is a human-rights abuser and an exporter of dangerous technology," Geers said. "Responsible governments really need to think about ways to handle North Korea, and one of the options is regime change." The test fire of Pukguksong-2 in February. KCNA/Handout via Reuters Further, Geers said, because of the limited number of servers and access points to North Korea's very restricted internet, "if it ever came to cyberwar between the US and North Korea, it would be an overwhelming victory for the West." "North Korea can do a Sony attack or attack the White House, but that's because that's the nature of cyberspace," Geers said. "But if war came, you'd see Cyber Command wipe out most other countries' pretty quickly."

We’ve always pictured Scandinavia as the home of grisly crime fiction, weird pop music and IKEA. But it looks like there’s a growing custom scene too. Shops like the Wrenchmonkees and Unique Custom Cycles need no introduction. But straight after last week’s Norwegian Yamaha GTS comes this radical Honda tracker from Marcus Moto Design of Sweden. It has no seat, it’s painted in a vivid Arctic White, and it’s the custom equivalent of an ice-cold shot of Aquavit. The builder is Marcus Carlsson, a 41-year-old engineer who lives just outside Stockholm. “Bikes that are unique or a bit ‘weird’ are what get me going,” he says. “Too many custom bikes look the same nowadays.” Five years ago, Marcus caused an internet meltdown with his stunning Ducati F1 Tracker. He then started work on an Aprilia SXV 550, but killed that project after deciding he didn’t like the look of the frame. (“I move slowly on my bike builds,” he admits.) That’s fair enough—he builds his bikes in a small one-car garage, and has a full time job managing a team of 15 people for Ericsson. When his wife and 7-year-old twins are asleep at night, he sneaks into the garage to build. “I go in for a couple hours, and I basically just sleep less than them,” he says. After the hiatus with the Aprilia, Marcus found a 2006-model Honda CRF450 that lived near his family’s summerhouse, out in the country. It was a much better base for his vision of the ultimate street tracker. “Ultimate in my mind means minimal bodywork, centralized weight distribution, lightweight carbon fiber and a ‘concept motorcycle’ feel,” he says. And with a modern aluminum motocross frame and a powerful four-stroke thumper engine, the CRF fitted the bill. Marcus might work slowly, but he does everything himself—even the paint. So he welded and modified the FMF exhaust, welded on the aluminum sub frame, and made the foam bases for the new bodywork. The gas tank, belly pan and remaining body panels were then hand-shaped with carbon fiber. Various other parts were designed in the CAD program NX, before being 3D printed. The weight loss program is extreme: There’s no seat. “Every surface has been questioned,” says Marcus. “Is it needed or not? Seats are for touring bikes!” Marcus has lowered the forks for road use, but the frame and swing arm are stock: Honda motocross components are top quality. But everything else has been modified or simply removed, and the aluminum subframe does double duty as the mounting point for the gas tank. The license plate is Japanese, from a Tokyo moped market. “I’ll replace it with a Swedish one to reduce interest from traffic cops,” says Marcus. “They will probably have some opinions on the bike anyway…” Indeed. We’re pretty sure the lighting will be inspected closely, for starters. At the front is an LED ring mounted on a 3D-printed bracket; further down is a tiny battery, hidden underneath the lower yoke. We’re pretty sure that’s another first in the custom world. The tiny covers on either side of the front axle are also 3D printed, and there’s a matching aluminum cover for the rear brake caliper. Both are designed to add a touch of sleekness and a ‘concept bike’ vibe. The modified FMF exhaust system has a shortened silencer, itself partially shielded from view. It’s tucked in underneath the engine, but the header length is standard to maximize power. An aftermarket radiator keeps the engine cool, hooked up with red Samco silicone hoses. To slow things down, there’s an oversized front brake—and the rear brake has been treated to a Fasst Co. spring kit for a smooth, easily modulated feel—ideal for road use. Those gorgeous wheels are one-off numbers from Warp 9, shod with Goldentyre flat track rubber. Yes, this is a barely street legal racer, right down to the battery-powered lights. It’s perfect for short stints on the curvy village roads outside Stockholm. Marcus is a MotoGP fan, and if you look closely, you’ll spot a couple of HRC logos on the bike. “In my dreams, this bike would be HRC’s version of a street tracker. Or maybe a gift to Marc Marquez, so he can hit the streets after he wins the Superprestigio in Barcelona!” We reckon the pint-sized phenomenon would have a ball on this machine. And he probably wouldn’t even miss the seat padding. Marcus Moto Design | Facebook | Instagram | Images by Simon Hamelius

Story highlights Tyka Nelson says her brother's favorite color was ... orange The late musical artist's brand has been all about the color purple (CNN) Tyka Nelson just tweaked a major part of Prince's legacy. The sister of the late superstar talked to the Evening Standard about an upcoming exhibit of Prince artifacts set to open in London and mentioned one of his beloved instruments. "The standout piece for me is his orange Cloud guitar," the publication quoted Nelson as saying. "It is strange because people always associate the color purple with Prince, but his favorite color was actually orange." Full stop. The singer, who died last year from an opioid overdose at the age of 57, was known as "The Purple One" and shot to megastardom thanks to his now-iconic 1984 film "Purple Rain." Read More

There’s measuring the drapes, and then there’s measuring the drapes on a house you haven’t bought, and may never own, but you’re so convinced you will that, hey, let’s buy drapes! And there’s hubris, Joe Miller-style. So confident is Miller that he’ll win Lisa Murkowski’s Alaska Senate seat in November, he boasted last night to his over 4,000 Twitter followers that, on his trip to DC this week, he might do some house hunting. And perhaps buy some furniture. And also commission a name plaque for the door of his future Senate office. The tweets were flagged by a source and sent my way. Check it out. The blog Mudflats and Slate reporter Dave Weigel also noticed. Today, they’re gone. In Miller’s defense, he is leading his race. TPM’s Polltracker has him ahead by just over two points in a three way race with Murkowski and Democrat Scott McAdams. But it’s probably for the best that he took those Tweets down. After all, everybody knows there are no big egos in the United States Senate.

Attention! This news was published on the old version of the website. There may be some problems with news display in specific browser versions. Thunder League Division Structure Dear players! You have become acquainted with the Thunder League and watched some of the matches by the pro division teams. Your participation in the league events and the purchasing of League “Dog tags” has made it possible to increase the prize pool of the pro division. We thank you for your support with the eSports development in the game! The time has come for our supporters to become participants - gather your teams and start to make your way to the top of the Thunder League - to the pro division! The Qualifying tournament starts on February 2016 We announce two more divisions in the league: Novice Division – a division for the novice teams. Semi Pro Division – medium division. Semi Pro Division will be established after the qualifying Novice Division tournament, where all the Squadrons may participate. Rules of the qualifiers: Tournament format: 7 vs 7. Mode: realistic with markers for both sides. A match means a single battle between two Squadrons on a random map in [Domination] mode. Two respawns are available in every match. Players in a team can choose any vehicles from those that the arbiters have authorised. The best 24 Squadrons will be able to name 9 participants for the final group qualifying tournament. You can see the tournaments regulations here. 6 qualifying groups (4 teams per group) will determine 12 teams (2 best teams per group) and thus they will form the Semi Pro Division. After the Semi Pro Division qualifiers we will run the first season. First season rules: The team that took 1st place qualifies for the Pro Division. The team that took 2nd place will have a play-off match against the team that came 9th in the Pro-Division. The teams that took 9th to 12th position, will have a play-off round against the best 4 teams in the Novice Division before the second season of the League. Once the first season is over there will be no more final qualifying tournaments. Thus we will make the structure for the Thunder League, which will have constant rotation between the divisions. Good luck in the future battles! Index. Structure of the groups to qualify for the Semi Pro Division after the Novice Division results (numbers mean place taken in the qualifier). Group A Group B Group C Group D Group E Group F 1 2 3 4 5 6 12 11 10 9 8 7 18 17 16 15 14 13 24 23 22 21 20 19 Don’t know what the Thunder League is? Check WARTHUNDER.PRO​ Join the league by purchasing “Dog Tags”!

Ad blockers are often painted as the enemy of online publishers, but sometimes things are more complicated. AdBlock Plus, for example, just announced that they’re working with startup Flattr on a new product that allows readers to pay the publishers who produce the content they read, listen to and watch. As a result of the partnership, AdBlock Plus said it has also made a small investment of undisclosed size in Flattr . Together, the two companies have created a new product called Flattr Plus. Like Flattr itself, it allows users to allocate a monthly budget that they want to pay publishers. Unlike Flattr, users don’t have to click a button to “Flattr” a website — instead, it will automatically track their browsing activity and distribute the money based on their engagement. It sounds somewhat similar to the way a company like Spotify distributes subscription fees to musicians — except it’s not just for artists on a single website or app. Plus, the question of exactly how to calculate engagement is a tricky one. You probably don’t want to reward a worthless article with a dumb-but-effective clickbait headline. You might also leave an article open for hours without actually reading it. Ben Williams, who leads communication and operations at AdBlock Plus, told me that the product is still in beta testing (the plan is to do a full launch later this year) partly so the team can experiment with ways to measure engagement — it will involve some combination of factors like time spent and scroll activity. Publishers will have to sign up with Flattr Plus if they want to get paid, b ut Williams said that if they’re don’t, the money they’re due will be held for them until they join the program . (Update: Williams said that actually, AdBlock Plus won’t hold the money — it’ll just tell them how much money they could have earned.) The goal, he added, is to earn half a billion dollars in revenue for publishers next year. He doesn’t necessarily expect every AdBlock Plus user to volunteer to pay, but he predicted that many will — and when you’ve got 500 million downloads, just a small percentage of users paying a few dollars a month can add up. In fact, he said the AdBlock Plus users who opt out of seeing any advertising whatever (even if it’s part of the company’s acceptable ads program), are the ones who “have been the most vocal in asking for solutions like this.” Basically, these users have told the company they don’t like any ads, period, but they still want to support publishers and creators. Now we’ll get a chance to see if they meant it. Oh, and if you want to hear more about Flattr Plus and AdBlock Plus’ broader vision, I’ll be interviewing CEO Till Faida next week at Disrupt NY.

Get cool in-game extras with amiibo accessories! Just tap to score new characters, game modes, or other perks. One amiibo may work with multiple games. You might get new outfits, power-ups, or other fun bonuses. Link is the main character in The Legend of Zelda games. A young boy living in Hyrule, Link is often given the task of rescuing Princess Zelda and Hyrule from the Gerudo thief Ganondorf. Humble to the end, Link is known not merely as a hero but as a symbol of courage, strength and wisdom as well. Compatible Games: Write and Read: Super Smash Bros. for Wii U Read Only: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD Mario Kart 8 Hyrule Warriors Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker ACE COMBAT® Assault Horizon Legacy + Mario Party 10 amiibo tap: Nintendo's Greatest Bits Super Mario Maker Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash Yoshi's Woolly World Word Puzzles by POWGI (Nintendo3DS) Word Puzzles by POWGI (WiiU) Pokkén Tournament Hyrule Warriors Legends Metroid Prime: Federation Force Metroid Prime: Blast Ball Demo Style Savvy: Fashion Forward Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games Kirby: Planet Robobot Mini Mario & Friends amiibo Challenge (WiiU) Mini Mario & Friends amiibo Challenge (Nintendo3DS) Picross 3D Round 2 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Welcome amiibo Animal Crossing: New Leaf Mario Party Star Rush Mario Party Star Rush - Party Guest Mario Sports Superstars Miitopia Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Ready to fight back? Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and get three actions in your inbox every week. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month! Support Progressive Journalism The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. The Nation is reader supported: Chip in $10 or more to help us continue to write about the issues that matter. Fight Back! Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. You will receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You can read our Privacy Policy here. Sign up for Take Action Now and we’ll send you three meaningful actions you can take each week. Thank you for signing up. For more from The Nation, check out our latest issue Travel With The Nation Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Be the first to hear about Nation Travels destinations, and explore the world with kindred spirits. Sign up for our Wine Club today. Did you know you can support The Nation by drinking wine? Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States announces that “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Ad Policy The attorney general of the United States is a civil officer. If he has lied under oath to the Senate, that act demands impeachment. After news reports published last Wednesday made it clear that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III had deceived the Senate regarding his interactions with Russian officials, there were immediate demands that the attorney general recuse himself from investigations into issues relating to those lies and that he resign as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer. Sessions announced Thursday afternoon that he would recuse himself from any examination of Russian involvement with President Trump’s campaign. But he gave no indication that he would consider the next necessary step of removing himself as attorney general. Sessions has made his position clear. This lawless attorney general is not going to do the right thing, so Congress must consider the prospect of impeachment. The founders anticipated such circumstance. This is why they outlined an impeachment process. Here’s why: The Washington Post has revealed that during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Sessions was a close counselor and top surrogate for Donald Trump, he spoke twice with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Sessions acknowledges the meetings now. But when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee as Trump’s nominee for attorney general in January, Senator Al Franken asked how Sessions might handle revelations that individuals associated with the Trump campaign had communicated with the Russian government. Sessions replied: “I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and I did not have communications with the Russians.” This was not the only denial from Sessions. According to The Washington Post: In January, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked Sessions for answers to written questions. “Several of the President-elect’s nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?” Leahy wrote. Sessions responded with one word: “No.” We now know that was not the case. And, unless Sessions is far too absentminded to continue to serve as attorney general (a circumstance that no one seriously entertains at this point), then we have been handed evidence that this man engaged in a blatant attempt to deceive the very Senate that was charged with determining whether he would take charge of the Department of Justice. Sessions and his aides were busy making excuses Wednesday night and Thursday morning, claiming that he spoke with the ambassador in his capacity as a senator rather than as a Trump surrogate—and that the Russian ambassador was one of many foreign officials with whom he met as “a senior member of the Armed Services Committee.” So what? The issue isn’t whether Sessions spoke with the ambassador. Nor does it matter whether he did so as a senator or as a Trump surrogate. He was both. What matters is what Sessions told fellow senators when he was asked straightforward questions. He volunteered, “I did not have communications with the Russians.” He replied “no” to a direct inquiry about whether he had such communications. If these were not overt lies they were, at the very least, legalistic attempts by Sessions to deceive colleagues who were charged by the Constitution with a duty to provide advice and consent regarding his nomination to serve as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer. Of course, Sessions had to recuse himself from inquires into inquiries into allegations that the Russians meddled in the 2016 election. As New York Representative Eliot Engel, the ranking member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, explained, “[The] revelation about then-Senator Sessions’s contact with Russia’s ambassador removes all doubt that he must recuse himself from any investigation of Russia’s interference in last year’s election. He should do so without delay. The President should also appoint a special prosecutor to handle this matter whose work must complement a thorough investigation by a bipartisan commission.” Ready to Fight Back? Sign Up For Take Action Now Even Republicans who have been slow to hold the Trump administration to account were calling for recusal. House Oversight and Government Reform committee chair Jason Chaffetz tweeted: “AG Sessions should clarify his testimony and recuse himself.” The decision by Sessions to recuse himself addressed concerns about his personal involvement tainting specific investigations. But it did not address the issue of Sessions’s lying to the Senate. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi proposed a more appropriate response to the revelations regarding Sessions; declaring that “after lying under oath to Congress about his own communications with the Russians, the Attorney General must resign. Sessions is not fit to serve as the top law enforcement officer of our country and must resign. There must be an independent, bipartisan, outside commission to investigate the Trump political, personal and financial connections to the Russians.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer agreed. So did Senator Elizabeth Warren, who said: “We need a special prosecutor totally independent of the AG. We need a real, bipartisan, transparent Congressional investigation into Russia. And we need Attorney General Jeff Sessions—who should have never been confirmed in the first place—to resign. We need it now.” True enough. But Sessions is not about to resign. And his record does not offer any indication that he intends to start telling the truth. The founders anticipated such circumstances, which is why they wrote a constitution that outlined an impeachment process. The catch-all phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” was intended to give guardians of the republic leeway for holding presidents, vice presidents, and cabinet members to account. An impeached official is not charged by a prosecutor and tried in the courts; nor is he or she jailed or fined if found guilty. An impeached official is charged by the House of Representatives, tried by the Senate, and removed from office if convicted. The signers of the Constitution did not intend that this tool would be used only by the opposition party; the intent was that all members of the House and Senate might rise above partisanship and ideology when it came time to defend the American experiment. And, while no one is naive about the level of partisanship in today’s Washington, no one should make excuses for House members or senators who fail to rise above it. Jeff Sessions disrespected the basic premises of that experiment and disregarded the Constitution. He did so in pursuit of a position: that of attorney general of the United States. He obtained that position under false pretenses. It is now time to relieve him of his responsibilities as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer. The tool, impeachment, is at the ready. It should be employed by all members of Congress who believe that constitutionally defined oaths must be upheld.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia’s postal service was hit by Wannacry ransomware last week and some of its computers are still down, three employees in Moscow said, the latest sign of weaknesses that have made the country a major victim of the global extortion campaign. A man walks out of a branch of Russian Post in Moscow, Russia, May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov Wannacry compromised the post office’s automated queue management system, infecting touch-screen terminals which run on the outdated Windows XP operating system, one of the workers said. Terminals were still blank in some parts of Moscow this week but it was not clear exactly how many branches had been affected. A spokesman for Russian Post, a state-owned monopoly, said no computers were infected, but some terminals were temporarily switched off as a precaution. “The virus attack did not touch Russian Post, all systems are working and stable,” he said. Other institutions in Russia have said they were infected by the virus, highlighting Moscow’s readiness to show it too is a frequent victim of cyber crime in the face of allegations from the United States and Europe of state-sponsored hacking. The Interior Ministry, mobile operator MegaFon (MFON.MM) and state rail monopoly Russian Railways all reported infections, with employees locked out of their computers and the creators of the virus demanding ransoms of $300 to $600. The Russian central bank said on Friday the virus had also compromised some Russian banks in isolated cases. That the infected post office terminals ran on Windows XP - which Microsoft stopped supporting in 2014 - points to the widespread use of outdated software in Russia, which experts say left the country disproportionately vulnerable to the attack. Of 300,000 computers infected worldwide, 20 percent were in Russia, according to an initial estimate by cybersecurity researchers last week. Globally, few ransoms have been paid after many victims found they could restore their systems from backups. The post office outages also illustrate what investigators say is a common misconception about Wannacry: infected computers are more likely to be part of antiquated systems not deemed important enough to update with the latest security patches, rather than machines integral to the company’s core business. “Many companies in Russia use outdated unpatched systems and older anti-malware solutions,” said Nikolay Grebennikov, vice president for R&D at data protection company Acronis. “In big companies upgrades are hard to perform and avoided because of budget and scale.” SCRUTINY Russia’s relationship to cyber crime is under intense scrutiny after U.S. intelligence officials alleged that Russian hackers had tried to help Republican Donald Trump win the U.S. presidency by hacking Democratic Party servers. Moscow has denied the allegations. Investigators are yet to track down Wannacry’s criminal authors, saying they likely used a hacking tool built by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and leaked online in April. It has not previously been reported that the Russian postal service, which employs more than 350,000 people, had been hit by the virus. “The head guys rang on Thursday and said we had to turn off the terminals immediately. They said this extortion virus had infected them,” a worker at a branch in northwest Moscow said, declining to be identified discussing internal company matters. “They rang again yesterday and said we could turn them back on. We did that, but you can see they still don’t work.” Employees at a second post office confirmed the electronic queuing system was broken but said they did not know why. Two sources at Russian Railways said the company had suffered a “huge” cyber attack and a small number of computers were infected without damaging any important files. The extent of the damage had been limited, one of the sources said, because a lot of computers were turned off at the end of the working week. “We were lucky it was a Friday night,” he said. Megafon, which is Russia’s second biggest mobile operator, declined to comment on how the virus had got into its system. It said the virus had caused a temporary outage of its customer support services. “Our sales points suffered worst of all because Windows, which had the exploited vulnerability, is more widely used in retail,” a company statement said. COMPUTER PIRACY The frequent use of pirated software in Russia also helped spread the Wannacry infection, investigators said, as unlicensed products do not receive security updates. Reuters has found no evidence any of Russian companies infected with the Wannacry virus were using unlicensed software. But computer piracy is a long-standing issue for technology companies in Russia, one which has as become increasingly acute as the country’s economic slump and falling earnings make licensed products prohibitively expensive. A woman walks past a branch of Russian Post in Moscow, Russia, May 24, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov Data compiled by the BSA Software Alliance trade group shows 64 percent of software products in Russia were pirated in 2015 - a black market industry worth $1.3 billion - compared to a global average of 39 percent. “Piracy is still wide spread in Russia, especially if we are talking about home users,” Grebennikov said. “This is because of poverty. If an operating system costs say 500 rubles, people would buy it.” Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system currently costs around 8,000 rubles ($140.92) in Russia, around a fifth of the average monthly wage of 39,000 rubles. Online, the same product can be illegally downloaded for free.

Stanley “Boom” Williams decided to enter the 2017 NFL Draft after a productive three year career at Kentucky. Williams rushed for 1,170-yards and seven touchdowns in the 2016 season. He boasted an impressive 6.8 yards per carry and posed a threat to hit a home run every time he touched the ball. Now, he’s joining the Bengals as an undrafted free agent after going undrafted this weekend. Williams could be an effective back in the league if he’s able to stay healthy. At 5’7”, 190 pounds, Williams has always had issues with durability. His small stature also presents issues when pass-blocking and running between the tackles. However, Williams’ athleticism and ability to break off the big run makes him deserving of a chance to make the roster in Cincinnati. The Bengals selection of Joe Mixon was a big addition, but there’s still uncertainty in regards to when Giovanni Bernard will return from his ACL injury. On top of that, Jeremy Hill’s production has dropped off since his rookie season. Therefore, there is a legitimate opportunity for Williams sneak his way into a roster spot. If Williams can prove to be durable, he has the ability to be a productive change of pace back for the Bengals.

About This Game Casino Blackjack 21 with a TWIST!! Cheat and Play against Cheaters to Win Cash. Cheaters Blackjack updates the Classic Casino Gambling Game with Cheating, Wild West Type Showdowns, 6 Game Modes and Worldwide Internet Scoring Leaderboards. CHEATERS BLACKJACK 21 adds the 'Cheating' twist to the classic game. Cheating steals the next card in the deck and swaps it with the worst card in your hand *IF* it improves your hand (Improve Hand/Avoid Busting). Play against Cheating CPU opponents to win match play and compare your scores to other player Worldwide!! CATCH CPU players to prevent them from cheating to gain advantage. CHEAT to Improve your hand and chances of winning BUT if the CPU players catch you cheating it could spell trouble since they can challenge you in a Old West type showdown for Cash. Win hands to increase your Cheat Percent. Use Cheat Percent to CATCH Cheaters or CHEAT to improve your hand. Get ready to play the classic game like you've never seen it before. You know the rules, You've played the classic game, now try it with this exciting New Twist - Blackjack 21, Cheating and Wild West Showdowns - Whats not to Like? Compare your scores to players around the Globe. Good Luck!! ★ CHEAT to Steal/Swap Next Card if Better ★ CATCH CPU Players to Stop them from Cheating. ★ PLAY Multiple Seats to CHEAT Faster. (Each Win Improves Your Odds) ★ DISABLE Cheating for Normal Blackjack Play ★ Colorful HD Player/CPU/Table Graphics ★ WILD WEST Type Caught! CHEATER Showdowns ★ COMPARE Scores against Players Worldwide ★ 6 Exciting Game Modes - 6 Web LeaderBoards ★ Play Alone or with up to 4 CPU Opponents. ★ Perfect for a Quick Game or Extended Match. ★ EASY to Learn. Use Strategy to Win!! Cheaters Blackjack 21 plays a 100% fair gambling game. There is NO computer peeking or cheating to gain advantage over the player. Each 6 deck shuffle is randomized to maintain fairness. Players also can easily DISABLE cheating mode to practice proper Blackjack gambling strategy in a simulation quality mode. Steam Notes: Hi fellow Steamers!! Cheaters Blackjack is a program I created because I LOVE Blackjack. Its a reboot of a PC/Pocket PC app I created years ago. I made the game to play on multiple platforms (so I could enjoy it everywhere!!). All versions compete using the same scoreboards since no platform has an advantage. It can be played on PC (MAC, Linux coming soon), Mobile, Tablets and TV against the top scores of people on the other platforms. I tried to create a GUI that works equally well on all devices and think that CB21 has basically achieved the goal. Programmed by BlackOpzFX Labs.

F ancy cars have always been an important element in rap music. You can find many articles online talking about what cars rappers love the most, but they all lack the research, running their mouth with no backing evidence. Is rappers’ preferred ride Cadillac, Mercedes, Bentley, or Ferrari? Let’s turn to data science to settle this debate once and for all. By analyzing all lyrics on Rap Genius , we’ll see which rides have been celebrated the most. Check the results... Digging deeper to look at songs released throughout the years, the following is a time series analysis to see which makes have gained popularity and which have lost favor. An interesting correlation here is a dip for some of the most frequently mentioned luxury car makes around 2008, 2009 financial crisis. Shout out to Johnny McNulty at Someecards who have some interesting analysis around the trend’s correlation with economy here . As seen from the chart, the most frequently mentioned car make is Mercedes Benz. Rappers love to rap about their benzes, but they rarely mention what models. If we get down to the specific model that’s most frequently mentioned, there’s no debate — it’s the Chevy Impala, most specifically the ’64 year model. The chart above is an overall view. We’ll break it into several categories in the following: Top 3 Makes There were more mentions of Cadillac relative to Chevrolet between 1997 to 2006, but the trend inverted since 2007. Benz managed to stay on top most of the time, except between 2004 and 2007 where it was briefly surpassed by Cadillac. Makes Gaining Popularity Over Time The following are makes that have been on an upward trend over the years. Worth noting that Porsche, Ferrari, Maybach, and Bugatti peaked around 2012/2013 but have declined since. Makes Losing Popularity Over Time The following are makes that have declined or maintain the same level of mentions in rap songs over time. Due to the increase in rap songs released over the years, these are makes that are losing popularity amongst the artists. Jeep and Hummer serve similar functions and have very similar levels of mentions across time. Lexus was extremely popular around 1998, but has since lost steam. Endorsements Some major car companies benefit from rappers as endorsers, a task the rappers often take on voluntarily. But who is doing the best job as pitchman? Seeing song mentions as a form of endorsement, the following is an analysis of the top endorsers. Turns out The Game dominates the car endorsement game. The Compton artist wins the category hands down for seven of the major car makes, having logged more automobile mentions than any other rapper. The following are The Game’s most-endorsed cars, in order of frequency: Chevrolet Impala Chevrolet Impala Chevy mentioned in 93 of The Game’s songs, 82 of them mention Impala. His love for Impala is expressed in his song “In My 64.”

Refined mansion tax proposal being fed into debate on abolishing 50p tax rate for those earning more than £150,000 The Liberal Democrats are pushing for the eventual disbanding of the 50p rate of tax to see the implementation of a new land tax levied on properties above £1m. In a refinement of their controversial mansion tax policy launched at their party conference two years ago, the Lib Dems now believe there is an argument for levying capital gains tax on any money made from the sale of a property after the first £1m. The Lib Dem idea is being fed into the debate surrounding how to bring down the 50p rate for those earning more than £150,000. A review into the rate is expected to confirm suspicions it does not bring in much revenue but serves to deter international business from locating in the UK at a time when the chancellor is seeking to encourage inward investment and spur growth. Over the weekend, George Osborne gave his clearest sign that the top rate would come down. Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Osborne said there was "not much point" in having a tax that raised scant funds but that served to drive businesses out of Britain. Osborne said: "I've said with the 50p rate I don't see that as a lasting tax rate for Britain because it's very uncompetitive internationally, and people frankly can move. What is it actually raising? It's only been in operation for a year, this tax, put in place by the last government." Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Treasury chief secretary, has said supporters of abolishing the 50p rate are living in "cloud cuckoo land". Vince Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, has said if it goes it must be replaced by another imposition on the wealthy – possibly a mansion tax which would hit owners of the highest-value properties.

CHICAGO (STMW) — Three people were killed and at least 13 others wounded in shootings across the city between Friday evening and Monday morning. The latest fatal shooting happened Sunday morning in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side. About 11:25 a.m., officers responding to a call of a person on the ground in the 6500 block of South Fairfield found 18-year-old Dennis Bradford III unresponsive with gunshot wounds to the head and wrist, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Bradford, of the the 6200 block of South Mozart, was pronounced dead at the scene at 11:43 a.m., authorities said. Earlier Sunday, a 28-year-old man died after being dropped off at a Far South Side hospital with a gunshot wound to the hip, police said. He showed up at Roseland Community Hospital, 45 W. 111th St., shortly before 5 a.m. and later was pronounced dead, police said. His name has not been released. Authorities are trying to determine where the shooting happened. Area South detectives are handling the homicide investigation. The weekend’s first fatal shooting happened Friday evening in West Elsdon on the Southwest Side. Lauren Membreno, 23, was in the front seat of a vehicle parked in the 5500 block of South Karlov about 7 p.m. when another vehicle pulled up and someone inside opened fire, authorities said. Membreno — who wasn’t the intended target — was shot in the head and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 5:37 p.m. Saturday. She lived in the 5300 block of South Spaulding, authorities said. A police source said her boyfriend, who was sitting in the driver seat, was thought to have been the target. The most recent nonfatal shooting happened early Monday in the West Side Austin neighborhood. A 25-year-old man was a passenger in a vehicle going westbound in the 5300 block of West Chicago about 12:30 a.m. when he heard gunfire and realized he’d been shot in the right foot. He was driven to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, where his condition was stabilized, police said. Four people were wounded during a two-hour spate of gunfire Sunday night. About 10 p.m., a 14-year-old boy was shot in the hand in the Belmont Central neighborhood on the Northwest Side. He and two other people were walking in the 5700 block of West Belden when a gunman opened fire. The boy was taken to West Suburban Medical Center and transferred to Lurie Children’s Hospital, where his condition was stabilized, police said. Detectives were questioning a person of interest in the shooting Monday morning. Twenty minutes earlier, a 25-year-old man was outside in Austin’s 4800 block of West Monroe about 9:40 p.m. when a gray car drove by and someone inside fired shots, striking the man in the right arm. He took himself to West Suburban Medical Center, where his condition was stabilized, police said. About an hour earlier, a 43-year-old man was shot in both legs and the hand in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side. The shooting happened at 8:50 p.m. in the 9200 block of South Cottage Grove and he was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where his condition was stabilized, police said. The circumstances of the shooting were unknown. At 8:05 p.m., a bullet grazed the right shoulder of a man who heard shots while walking in the 8300 block of South Houston in the South Chicago neighborhood. He declined medical treatment. At least eight more people were wounded in separate shootings between 8:30 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Monday. (Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2016. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

SAN FRANCISCO – A new edition of an international space exploration planning document to be released early next year will offer an updated plan for human missions to the moon and Mars, emphasizing the role that NASA’s proposed Deep Space Gateway could play. In January, NASA and 14 international space agencies plan to publish their common goals for exploration, including an extended presence in low Earth orbit, a cislunar habitat, moon missions and eventual excursions to Mars, in an updated Global Exploration Roadmap being drafted by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG). Since NASA’s first flight of its heavy-lift Space Launch System with an Orion capsule is scheduled for as soon as late 2019, it’s time to decide “what we are going to do with these vehicles,” Kathy Laurini, NASA senior adviser for exploration and space operations, said during a Global Exploration Roadmap community workshop at the NASA Ames Research Center Nov. 29. “We’ve been engaged with our international partners on how we’ll use these to explore together.” ISECG, a voluntary organization whose members share non-binding plans and objectives, published its last Global Exploration Roadmap in 2013. ISECG members will use the new Roadmap to show domestic policymakers and funding agencies how specific programs will contribute to global endeavors, said Laurini, who also serves as ISECG chair. NASA, for example, will point to the roadmap as it seeks funding and authorization for future SLS and Orion missions. NASA officials acknowledged, though, that the agency is waiting for confirmation of a new administrator and direction from the National Space Council. Future exploration plans will become clearer when the Trump Administration and Congress weigh in on the agency’s budget, said Mark Geyer, acting deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Human Explorations and Operations Mission Directorate. NASA also is seeking domestic and international support for its conceptual Deep Space Gateway. “We see an orbital platform as playing a vital and synergistic role with anything you do on the surface,” said John Guidi, NASA advanced exploration systems deputy director. For instance, reusable landers could move astronauts to the Deep Space Gateway, which could also serve as a jumping off point for exploration of near Earth asteroids and Mars. “Cislunar orbit is the sweet spot. It’s close enough to Earth and the moon but out of the gravity wells,” Guidi said. In the new Roadmap, ISECG will emphasize a shared commitment in the next 10 to 15 years to continue operations in low Earth orbit, where space agencies can conduct microgravity research and test life support systems for future exploration missions. Some of that work, though, may occur in new public or private space stations rather than the International Space Station. The ISS partners have agreed to keep funding the space station through 2024. To date, NASA and its international partners have been able to maintain the aging space station with spare parts. However, older components, including the solar arrays, will need to be replaced by the end of the 2020s, said Robyn Gatens, deputy director of NASA’s ISS Division. Even if the ISS partners do not make commitments to support it beyond 2024, the transition from space station to another platform should be gradual, Gatens added. The new Roadmap lays out a three-phase plan. The starting point, Phase 0, is ongoing research and testing on ISS. During Phase 1 in the 2020s, international agencies would explore the lunar vicinity. In that timeframe, NASA would work with partners to construct the Deep Space Gateway, a crewed outpost with less than 10 percent of the habitable volume of ISS, and agencies would send robotic missions to the lunar surface and prepare for human lunar exploration. By Phase 2 in the 2030s, agencies would send exploration missions to orbit Mars. Under current budget projections, NASA could launch one crewed SLS/Orion flight per year, with each Orion spending approximately 40 days at the Deep Space Gateway, Guidi said. Four SLS missions in the 2020s could assemble elements of the Deep Space Gateway, including its power and propulsion bus, habitat, logistics module and airlock, Guidi said. ISECG shared its draft Roadmap to encourage companies, government agencies and academic organizations to offer comments. “The Deep Space Gateway is a concept for government-led exploration endeavors,” Laurini said. “It is a commitment to being there. And because we are there, it will offer opportunities for commercial entities.” Those commercial opportunities, ISECG partners believe, include playing key roles in delivering cargo to the Deep Space Gateway, relaying communications from the lunar surface, sending instruments to the surface of the moon to support government investigations of volatile organic compounds and transporting cargo to the moon to support crews spending time there.

Introduction On Feb. 1, 2017, the United States led Coalition was accused by local activists and journalists that it had bombed the headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) located in the Carlton Hotel in the city of Idlib, Syria. Photos and videos allegedly showing the bombed headquarters quickly emerged online. This open source investigation aims to verify the various claims made surrounding this incident. Content Summary Claims Methodology Open Sources Findings Summary Based on open source research, it can be confirmed that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) utilised the Carlton Hotel in Idlib city as a headquarters. It can also be confirmed that the Carlton Hotel was recently severely damaged. The US-led Coalition was accused of conducting an airstrike on the building in the early morning of Feb. 1, killing one SARC member, but the Coalition denies any involvement. Neither the exact date of the attack nor the perpetrator can be established based on open sources. What can be observed, however, is that a bomb appears to have pierced at least four floors before detonating. Claims The following claims are circulating on social media: One or more airstrikes conducted by the US-led Coalition destroyed a part of the Carlton Hotel in Idlib city. The Carlton Hotel was used by the SARC as headquarters. This open source investigation aims to verify those claims by answering the following questions: Is there a Carlton Hotel in Idlib city? Was the Carlton Hotel in Idlib was used by the SARC as headquarters? Was the Carlton Hotel in Idlib was bombed? If so, was it bombed by the US(-led Coalition)? Methodology The investigation uses only openly available sources on the Internet. In addition, a request to comment on this incident and the accusation was sent to the Coalition’s public affairs office. Sources were found by, for example, searches on social media using certain keywords of internet. One can think of a search on ‘Red Crescent Idlib’ in Arabic: “الهلال الأحمرادلب‎‎”. These social media include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram. After the exact location of the incident was found, the coordinates have been used to conduct location-based searches in a 2-km radius on those same social networks. Reference photos have been found via geotagged pictures on Panoramio. All YouTube videos have been checked for the date and potential other, earlier uploads using Amnesty International’s YouTube Data Viewer, and images Google’s reverse image search has been used to see if the photos were not posted before the date of the attack. Bellingcat has published several how-to guides to for beginning or advanced open source investigations. All sources but one has geolocated. Open Sources These are the main open sources found and used outside of the use of freely available mapping data and satellite imagery via Wikimapia, Google Earth, Google Maps, and Bing Maps. Pro-opposition media, local activists and organisations have shared videos and photos showing the same severely damaged building, and large number of them accuse the Coalition for conducting the airstrikes: Al-Baladi News also published a video showing SARC employees in a ravaged building [link/archived], and Al Jazeera Arabic also sent a reporter to the scene who said it is not clear who conducted the airstrike [link/archived]. Findings 1. Is there a Carlton Hotel in Idlib city? Yes, based on open sources it can be confirmed that there is a Carlton Hotel in Idlib city. First of all, the hotel (Arabic: فندق كارلتون) is listed as a four-star hotel on hotel booking websites (for example, hotelscombined.com [archived]) and Google Maps [archived]. The hotel is located in southern part of Idlib city, at the coordinates 35.9206001, 36.634748 (Wikimapia). Secondly, the hotel is referred to in media, for example by esyria.net [archived] and dp-news.com [archived]. The articles are an interview with the hotel director and a news report that the hotel closed its restaurant in 2011, respectively. Thirdly, photos that are geotagged on Panoramio, or that can be geolocated to the area, indeed show a building which bears a sign ‘Carlton Hotel’, including a logo and four stars. 2. Was the Carlton Hotel in Idlib was used by the SARC as a headquarters? Yes, based on open sources it can be confirmed that the SARC used the Carlton Hotel in Idlib as a headquarters. First of all, nearly forty SARC members of the Idlib branch posed with four ambulances in front of the Carlton Hotel in a picture uploaded to their Facebook page on Jan. 17, 2017. The same Facebook page also reported the attack which destroyed ‘most of [their] administrative offices but didn’t injure humans’ [link/archived]. Photos posted in Feb. 2016 shows that the Carlton Hotel was already used by SARC at that time [photo 1: link/archived; photo 2: link/archived; photo 3: link/archived; photo 4: link/archived]. Members of the SARC team declared to the Website for the Syrian Revolution that the building does not contain any headquarters of military factions. Secondly, the official Twitter account of the delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria condemned the bombing, “a clear violation of [international humanitarian law”, hours after the attacked reportedly happened. This tweet thus suggests that the ICRC Syria is aware that there is an aid branch operating in the destroyed location, which brings us to the next point: Was the Carlton Hotel in Idlib indeed bombed? 3. Was the Carlton Hotel in Idlib was bombed? If so, was it bombed by the US-led Coalition? Based on open sources, it can be established that the west wing of the Carlton Hotel has been severely damaged. Below are photos and screengrabs from videos showing that damage. All footage taken outside of the building can be geolocated to the immediate surrounding of the Carlton Hotel. The map below shows all locations from where photos or videos of the ravaged hotel were taken. In a news report [archived], MICRO SYRIA claims that the Carlton Hotel, which houses the Red Crescent, was targeted by unknown aircraft at three ‘o clock at night of February 1, 2017. A reconnaissance aircraft was seen in the sky an hour before the airstrike happened, media activist Ammar al-Adalba told Website for the Syrian Revolution. He said that it was most likely an airplane from the Coalition that struck the SARC headquarters, resulting in destruction and fire inside the building. As there is no (open or commercial) satellite imagery available around the date of the alleged strike, the exact date of the destruction cannot be confirmed. There are no obvious visual indicators, like weapon remnants, that could identify the perpetrator of the attack, or the cause of the damage. There is, however, footage of an object that appears to have pierced at least four floors of the building. A rescue worker interviewed by Step News Agency claims that “a missile went from the roof down to the first floor.” Some have suggested the damage at the Carlton Hotel may be due to a delay-action bomb, which is designed to explode some time after impact (think of a bunker buster, for example). Building upon that claim, it has been suggested that it must have been either the Coalition or the Russian Air Force that conducted the bombing; the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) is believed to be incapable of delivering such bombs during night time. However, as Tom Cooper detailed in this War Is Boring piece, may well have the capacity to operate at night. There is currently no visual evidence to confirm the use of a delay-action bomb, so the above remains speculation. In reply to a request of information, the Coalition’s public affairs office e-mailed Bellingcat that “the Coalition did not conduct airstrikes in Idlib on Feb. 1, 2017.” With regards to injuries and casualties, the estimates by the local sources range from nine to eleven individuals that were injured. At least one ambulance has also been severely damaged in the incident, photos and videos show. Update: In a previous version, the article stated that an e-mail was sent to US Central Command. This is not correct, the e-mail was sent to the US-led Coalition. The reply came from the Coalition’s press desk, which is was an e-mail-address associated with the US military. Update: An earlier version of this hotel incorrectly mentioned that the Ghreir family was killed in this incident. That is not correct, the Ghreir family was indeed confirmed by SARC as being killed in Idlib, but in a separate incident.

Winter isn't done with us yet. Ottawa can expect another 10 to 15 centimetres of snow Wednesday as a storm system moves through the United States today. Watch CBC Ottawa Go to Ian Black's weather page and follow his forecasts on TV on CBC News Ottawa starting at 5. Environment Canada has issued a special weather statement for much of Ontario, as a mixture of rain and snow is expected along Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and snow is expected further north and east. The advisory comes as a low pressure system passed over Arkansas this morning and moved northeast to Illinois this afternoon. The system is expected to move to northern Ohio by Wednesday morning. As much as 10 to 15 cm of snow is possible Wednesday for Ottawa and eastern Ontario, the weather agency estimated. School bus cancellations Will your bus be running Wednesday morning? Go to our school bus page for the latest updates. "Driving conditions are expected to deteriorate and may become hazardous due to rapidly accumulating snow on untreated roads and low visibility in heavy snow," the weather agency said. The snow is more likely to cause problems for commuters later in the day Wednesday, according to CBC Ottawa climatologist Ian Black. "Your morning commute will be better than your drive home," said Black. "It is also going to be snowing into a good portion of Thursday, but the worst tomorrow will be later in the day." The weather agency said it will issue snowfall warnings should estimates change and more than 15 cm is expected in a 12-hour period.

“It is something I have got used to since 9/11. From being called Osama Bin Laden to Paki-terrorist I have heard it all,” Zab Mustefa, a British Muslim journalist, who specialises in women's rights and culture, tells me. Since the terrorist attacks on New York City that brought down the twin towers, it seems life has not been the same for Muslims that live in the western world. Suddenly there was a spotlight shone on Islam when most non-Muslims had barely given it a second thought before. “Either you’re with us. Or you’re with the terrorists,” announced the then president of the USA George W Bush in a sombre tone at a press conference following the attacks. And many people decided that all Muslims were against 'us'. Everything was under scrutiny. Their style of dress, their beliefs, their way of life. People that had never even read the Qu’ran believed they had more knowledge than Islamic scholars. “Look at the way they treat their women!” is a statement that I often hear. “Forcing them to cover up. Not allowing them to go out alone and controlling everything that they do.” “What about Saudi Arabia? They don’t even let women drive!” But it's a false perception. I am not denying that there are countries where the predominant religion is Islam where women are treated badly. But patriarchy is the problem, not Islam. In Islam, the rights of women were recognised much earlier than they were in the West. In any case, we in the UK don’t come up smelling of roses when we examine the inequality between the sexes either. A UN human rights inspector recently declared the sexism in the UK to be more ‘pervasive’ and ‘in your face’ than any country she has ever visited and that included some Muslim countries. What I find totally abhorrent is the fact that since concern for Muslim women is so often cited, how come they are the targets of so much abuse in today’s society? 'Anti-Muslim hate' A report from the University of Birmingham, 'Maybe we are hated: The experience and impact of anti-Muslim hate on British Muslim women', says Muslim women are repeated victims of anit-Muslim hate. It cites verified figures from Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks), which show attacks on Muslim women account for 58 per cent of all incidents reported to it. Of those, 80 per cent were visually identifiable (wearing hijab, niqab, or other clothing associated with Islam). I have witnessed some of it first hand. It ranges from petty microaggressions to full blown physical attacks. I was told of a pregnant Muslim woman who was pushed down and stomped on last week. She was too scared to go to the police. “Racist rhetoric from the likes of the EDL and Ukip is definitely making things worse,” Zab continues. “I am definitely feeling more hatred towards Muslims as a result. I went to the police but they failed to investigate, let alone take any action. This was the point, that an EDL supporter was threatening to come and ‘teach’ me a lesson simply because I am a Muslim woman. I have been called many things such as hummus eating, camel shagging, Paki Muslim slut. No joke.” One lady that preferred to remain anonymous told me: “I was in London, and on the Tube and a group of three well dressed white men were sitting opposite me. One was looking at me singing 'Kill them all. Kill them.' His friend pointed out that I could hear him. The guy singing said ‘I don't give a f**k.’ "On the same day a man in a business suit told me to ‘f**k off’. I was with a white male friend at the time. We both stopped in our tracks and the white guy who swore turned around, pointed at me and said, ‘yeah you!’ "I feel unsafe, my husband told me not to go into London, both of us were worried that I may be attacked or have my hijab pulled etc. He was also really angry with me when I didn't tell the police, as he said they ought to know that Muslim women are being harassed. I was just shocked because it wasn't the expected type that you see on EDL marches. It was ‘educated’ people.” Akeela lives in North West London but when she lived in Hull she often felt that she had to remove her hijab for her own safety. A lot of women have had their hijabs pulled off. She said that she has suffered a full range of abuse from the ‘v sign’ to being called a ‘Muslim bastard’. She also receives a steady stream of Islamophobic tweets. What's going on? Henna suggests a reason for these attacks: “It seems to me this flavour of violence is almost accepted as a 'cruel to be kind' compliment to integration to the British way of life, like bullying fat people to help them get healthier. I'm a South Asian looking woman, not obviously Muslim, I don't wear a hijab or any symbols. I'd consider myself culturally Islamicate or a secular Muslim. The fact that I get Islamophobic street harassment seems in itself a testament to the magnitude of the problem and degree of perpetrators' ignorance. "In my experience it has been constant since 9/11 - at school I had my white friends rounding on me asking me why, by being a Muslim I supported OBL [Osama bin Laden]. To which I had to provide some self-denying murmuring excuse in order to quell their fears even though I was barely conscious of Islam beyond using fasting as an excuse to avoid PE. "I've had a man pull up his Transit van in the street to scream ‘Afghan terrorist’. In Trafalgar Square, I had a guy walk in front of me to obstruct my path and then follow me down the street asking why ‘my people’ wanted to destroy the West and telling me I needed to go home. No one in the crowded square felt compelled to intervene. "It’s the constant and wearing rhetoric that is most difficult. Always having to be on the backfoot - apologetic - because otherwise you're on Team Evil. And that's now prevalent in even progressive circles, certainly with people I know as friends.” Her friend Annabel agrees, saying: “My Muslim identity would be defined very similarly to Henna's, except non-Muslim people rarely assume I'm a Muslim. This puts them in a supposedly safe space for making bigoted comments [like:] 'And obviously when I got on the plane I checked no-one looked like a terrorist.’ ‘They could have anything under those veils. I'm not gonna get killed in the name of political correctness.’ "A guy I know wrote as his Facebook status that he changed Tube carriage when a bearded man was reading a book written in Arabic script and speaking under his voice. "I should stress that it's not even solely white British people who make these comments - it's also fellow ethnic minorities, though from my experience the really angry rhetoric has come from white British people. Islamophobia is rampant - I must deal with multiple comments every week. It now exists as a social norm that provides a clear context for verbal or physical attacks on Muslims because racists create safe spaces for themselves to validate their own racism - which I see on a near daily basis.” Sadly with so much Islamophobic rhetoric being used, in some cases by politicians looking to score points by feeding people’s fears, this problem may get even worse. We should be ashamed to live in a society that treats people this way on a daily basis.

The Ice Light is “a portable, dimmable, daylight balanced, continuous LED light source with a built in battery” that costs $450. In this post I will show you how I made a DIY version for less than $30. Parts Used You’ll only need to pick up 6 things to build a DIY ice light: Defiant 700 lumen focusing LED flashlight ($19.88 from Home Depot. Model #: HD14Q406) 24″ PVC pipe, 1.5″ diameter (~$2) 1.5″ PVC coupler (~$1) 1.5″ PVC cap (~$1) 48″ Fluorescent bulb shield (~$2. This slides over a fluorescent bulb to prevent it from shattering) Small piece of aluminum foil. (Had it in the house, because we’re civilized) The Steps I redesigned the PVC pipe and made it about 5″ shorter. It was too long and unwieldy. I took a little more care in marking off the space to cut out. The blue tape worked perfect to keep a straight line. Cut the opening in the PVC pipe. This can be whatever width you want. Mine is a little less than halfway through. Cut the flourescent shield to the same length as the pipe. Then use a utility knife to cut it longways. Sand the inside and outside of the fluorescent shield to create a “smoked glass” look and set aside. This shows how I got the fluorescent shield to stay large enough to snugly fit into the pipe. Just a simple slit on one side and the other side slides in. Also you can see how the once clear plastic looks after sanding it: Remove the “crown” off of the bulb end of the flashlight. You will still have the reflector cone and clear focuser inside the light. This takes a bit of sanding for adjustment but the 1.5″ coupler almost threads perfectly onto the end of the flashlight. Sand as needed and test fit. Push 24″ PVC into the unsanded coupler end. PVC Cement can be used if desired. I shoved a wrinkled disc of foil in the end cap to reflect light back. Don’t make it too thick or the PVC pipe wont go in all the way. Cut a piece of aluminum foil slightly bigger than then end of the PVC pipe, shiny side toward the flashlight. Fit it over the pipe and slide the PVC Cap about half way on. If there’s any foil sticking out, trim with utility knife. Then press Cap on fully. This step is optional: Using the leftover flourescent shield, insert it into the PVC pipe. This will be the paint shield so black paint won’t get on the inside of the light pipe. Place hose clamp around end of PVC coupler and snug tight. (this is only for paint purposes so it will be in place for paint and won’t scratch if you try to put it on after painting. I used Krylon matte black spraypaint that was specific for plastics. It bonds well and only takes about 15 minutes to dry. Several thin coats will work better than one thick coat. This is after a couple coats of paint (the paint shield keeps the inside clean and white): After its dried, its time to fit it onto the flashlight. Replace the painted fluorescent shield with the sanded white shield. For the Coupler I used, I had to cut a small (2 cm) piece of PVC pipe to fill in the gap on the flashlight side of the coupler. The clear plastic for focusing the flashlight falls out if there’s nothing there. This is a trial and error step. It will take some trimming to get a good fit. Once the coupler is fit and the focuser is in place, tighten the hose clamp. That’s it. The focuser on the flashlight acts as a dimmer for the light. When its set to wide beam it is dimmer since less light is reflecting off the foil at the end. This light also has two brightness settings so it dims down pretty well. Here’s a photo showing how dispersed the light from the DIY Ice Light is: Here’s an unedited photo of my unimpressed wife at 1am: Finally, here’s a video in which I demonstrate how this DIY Ice Light works: About the author: Justin Barr is a professional photographer based in Florissant, Missouri and serving the St. Louis area. You can visit his website here.

A Wall Street sign is displayed in front of the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones industrial average hit a new all-time intraday of 18,873.6, and closed more than 200 points higher Thursday, as Wall Street fears related to Donald Trump's election win gave way to hopes that the president-elect's policies could boost the economy, CNBC reported. The S&P 500 gyrated between gains and losses, holding about 0.4 percent higher, with financials rising 4 percent to lead advancers. The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency's performance against a basket of currencies, rose 0.29 percent Thursday, with the euro near $1.089 percent. The safe-haven yen fell more than 1 percent versus the greenback, trading around 106.80. It marked the second day of what investors have dubbed the "Trump Bounce."

As President Barack Obama begins his second term, democratically returned to office by a majority of Americans who seem to buy what he is selling, it would profit us to pause a moment and examine the discrepancies between the vision he expounded in his inaugural address and the economic reality that surrounds us. This leads to a pivotal question: What, exactly, is the underlying purpose of Obamanomics, and how would we know? Logic offers two choices. We can take the president at his word, and then ask why the promised economic recovery, growth, prosperity, and equality, haven’t arrived yet. Or we can ascribe darker motives to the policies that have brought our country to the brink of ruin. That raises the horrifying possibility—unlikely as it might sound—that precipitating an existential crisis in order to bring about radical change has been Obama’s underlying agenda all along. If we take the high road and accept Obama at his word, as most Americans have, we are led to three alternatives. The first is that the Keynesian nostrums applied to goose the economy—bailouts, stimulus spending, money printing, artificial suppression of interest rates, government “investments” in all manner of money-losing schemes, and a rapid expansion of the welfare state, all with the goal of increasing “aggregate demand”—are working fine. All we need is to give Washington a bit more time, a little more spending leeway, and a few more tax dollars extracted from those who can most afford it, and all will be well. The second possibility is that the president’s macroeconomic policies are not working because they are too modest. Therefore, we must let Washington double down and play an even larger role in the economy, or all will be lost. Notables such as The New York Times’ Paul Krugman imply that this is the only way to restore prosperity, and that the one thing holding us back is stingy Republican recalcitrance. The third possibility is that, noble intentions aside, the Keynesian plan is not working, cannot work, never has worked, and never will work. This implies we need to change course if we want to revive our struggling economy and restore our government to solvency. The political battle being fought in Washington ranges largely across these three possibilities. But suppose none of them represent reality. Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the series of deeper and deeper crises the nation is experiencing are not unintended consequences of failed policies but were the primary goal all along. Yes, this requires taking a trip into the right-wing fever swamps occupied by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. But these days, it seems that only in such decidedly unfashionable neighborhoods are government policies measured not by their stated intentions but by results. Examining the dismal results of the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression through such jaundiced eyes, we come to two alternatives. The first is that our government is controlled by a group of self-serving, hopeless incompetents locked in mortal gridlock with a rival political party also comprised of self-serving, hopeless incompetents. This is the easiest hypothesis to defend, and the most likely, which makes it safe ground for critics and pundits. But suppose, just for a moment, that Obama is as brilliant as his supporters say he is. Suppose he knows exactly what he is doing and is not the least bit surprised by the outcome. Suppose he is methodically executing the infamous Cloward-Piven strategy—which, if it is not succeeding in its objective of totally remaking America, you sure couldn’t tell by looking at the results. Yes, I know, much ink has been spilled over this theory, the best being an American Thinker article from 2008, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. It’s worth revisiting, now that we have had a whole term to watch Obama in action. The idea that a new age of social justice and redistributive equality can be brought about by overloading government systems until they collapse, precipitating a populist demand for a wholesale rejection of free market capitalism, was first espoused by two Columbia University professors in the 1960s. The idea gained currency in radical circles that included a diverse cast of characters, many of whom make cameo appearance in the life and education of our president and read like a who’s who of the American radical left, including Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Frank Marshall Davis, George Wiley, Saul Alinsky, Wade Rathke, ACORN, and George Soros, among others. Yes, it is possible that Barack Obama has rejected all the radical ideas he marinated in as a young man, just as he claims to have rejected the vitriolic anti-Americanism of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, in whose pews he sat for years and whose sermons inspired Obama’s memoir, The Audacity of Hope. Yes, of course, it is possible that all of the formative influences that made our president who he is are irrelevant to the policies he is enacting now, just as it possible that we are living through a bad dream and that in the morning we will awaken refreshed in a country that is not in the process of destroying itself. Bill Frezza is a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a Boston-based venture capitalist. You can find all of his columns, TV, and radio interviews here. If you would like to have his columns delivered to you by email, click here or follow him on Twitter @BillFrezza. The cartoon is courtesy of TobyToons.

Ghazala Khan, the mother of a fallen U.S. soldier of Muslim faith, is responding to Donald Trump’s speculation that she didn’t speak at last week’s Democratic convention due to her religion. “I can say that my religion or my family or my culture never stopped me saying whatever I want to say,” Khan said in an interview with CNN’s “New Day.” “And my husband is very supportive of me in these things that I have all the rights as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter.” After Khan and her husband, Khizr, took the stage at the Democratic National Convention last week to deliver an emotional speech denouncing Trump’s proposed Muslim immigration ban, the GOP presidential candidate suggested that Mrs. Khan wasn’t allowed to speak because of her Islamic religion. Also Read: 'The Simpsons' Derides Donald Trump, Theorizes Dog Toupée (Video) “If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me,” Trump said. The Republican candidate received backlash for his comments, notably from Mrs. Khan. “I have done very well saying my mind out, but that time was different. And anybody can see it was different that time when I was standing there in front of America,” Khan said. Also Read: Ann Coulter Hammered by Conservatives for Smearing US War Hero's Dad as 'Angry Muslim' The Khans’ son, Army Capt. Humayun, had served in Iraq and died during a suicide car bombing. They said Trump’s ban would have prevented their son from serving his country.

And yet no one knows whether women will show up for Ms. Sandberg’s revolution, a top-down affair propelled by a fortune worth hundreds of millions on paper, or whether the social media executive can form a women’s network of her own. Only a single test “Lean In Circle” exists. With less than three weeks until launch — which will include a spread in Time magazine and splashy events like a book party at the foundation offices of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — organizers cannot say how many more groups may sprout up. Even her advisers acknowledge the awkwardness of a woman with double Harvard degrees, dual stock riches (from Facebook and Google, where she also worked), a 9,000-square-foot house and a small army of household help urging less fortunate women to look inward and work harder. Will more earthbound women, struggling with cash flow and child care, embrace the advice of a Silicon Valley executive whose book acknowledgments include thanks to her wealth adviser andOprah Winfrey? “I don’t think anyone has ever tried to do this from anywhere even close to her perch,” said Debora L. Spar, president of Barnard College, who invited Ms. Sandberg to deliver a May 2011 commencement address about gender in the workplace that caught fire online. (Ms. Sandberg, who will grant her first book interview to the CBS program “60 Minutes,” declined to comment for this article.) Despite decades of efforts, and some visible exceptions, the number of top women leaders in many fields remains stubbornly low: for example, 21 of the current Fortune 500 chief executives are women. In her book, to be published by Knopf, Ms. Sandberg argues that is because women face invisible, even subconscious, barriers in the workplace, and not just from bosses. In her view, women are also sabotaging themselves. “We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in,” she writes, and the result is that “men still run the world.” Ms. Sandberg wants to take women through a collective self-awareness exercise. In her book, she urges them to absorb the social science showing they are judged more harshly and paid less than men; resist slowing down in mere anticipation of having children; insist that their husbands split housework equally; draft short- and long-term career plans; and join a “Lean In Circle,” which is half business school and half book club.

Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. Dec. 22, 2016, 2:19 PM GMT / Updated Dec. 22, 2016, 5:08 PM GMT By Carrie Dann and Andrea Mitchell Donald Trump is calling on the Obama administration to veto a now-delayed U.N. resolution regarding Israeli settlements, weighing in on one of the most significant pressure points in U.S. foreign policy just weeks before President Barack Obama leaves office. The draft resolution, circulated by Egypt on Wednesday night and originally slated for a vote Thursday, demands that Israel cease all settlement building in the West Bank, and it declares that existing settlements have "no legal validity." But the vote, originally scheduled for 3pm ET today, has been delayed under intense pressure from Israel. In a statement on Twitter and Facebook early Thursday, Trump called on Obama to veto the measure, saying the resolution "puts Israel in a very poor negotiating position and is extremely unfair to all Israelis." "As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations," he said. Trump's statement comes hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also urged the U.S. to veto the resolution, calling it "anti-Israel." The resolution would need nine affirmative votes and no vetoes by the United States or any of the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council in order to be adopted. But several diplomatic sources tell NBC NEWS that the outgoing Obama administration was planning to abstain - going against both Netanyahu and Trump. The White House has been trying to lay down markers against Trump on the Middle East - especially since the president-elect nominated hardliner and pro-settlement advocate David Friedman to be his Ambassador to Israel. Friedman and Ivanka Trump's father in law - Charles Kushner - co-founded the Bet El foundation, which supports the most radical of the settlers. At a DC conference two weeks ago, Friedman compared members of "J Street," prominent American Jewish leaders who support a two-state solution, to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis in concentration camps. Friedman's nomination requires confirmation by the Senate.

New York Red Bulls Homegrown midfielder Tyler Adams earned a start for the United States Under-18 National Team yesterday in a 4-0 win over a youth side from Chivas Guadalajara. Adams joined the U.S. U-18s over the weekend for camp in Guadalajara, Mexico. The U.S. U-18s will face two other club sides based in Guadalajara, Club Universidad and Atlas Futbol Club, over the next week. Adams, a native of Wappinger’s Falls, N.Y., joined the Red Bulls youth system through the Regional Development School program, and then advanced through the academy system before signing his first professional contract with New York Red Bulls II in 2015. Adams joined the New York Red Bulls first team on an MLS Homegrown contract prior to the 2016 season. The midfielder made his MLS debut in April against San Jose. Adams has represented the United States at a number of youth international levels, including time with the U.S. U-17 residency program, and as part of the 2015 FIFA Under-17 World Cup roster. ​ SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEW YORK RED BULLS EMAIL NEWSLETTER

The eight World Cup second round matches are spread over the course of four days. Here’s previews for the first half… Uruguay v South Korea Uruguay have been one of the most impressive teams so far – playing for and achieving a draw against France, destroying South Africa and recording a solid 1-0 victory over Mexico. They started the competition with a 3-5-2 shape, which became more like a 5-3-2 when the wing-backs had to contain France’s wingers. They’ve since switched to a 4-3-1-2 with Diego Forlan playing behind the main two forwards, and they’ll surely play the same formation after their two wins. South Korea’s first XI is fairly predictable. The only changes they’ve made so far have been at right-back, bringing in Oh Bum-Suk against Argentina – but he was the worst player on the pitch, so Cha Du-Ri has regained his place. The formation will probably be 4-2-3-1. Playing Park Ji-Sung on the left-hand side might be useful to track the forward runs of Maxi Pereira, although he was fielded in the centre of the three against Argentina. Picking up Forlan is the obvious task – with two holding midfielders, Korea will have a man tracking him, but must worry this will concede the midfield ground to Uruguay. Korea should look to play down their left-hand-side, because Uruguay’s shape tends to be slightly lopsided. Alvaro Pereira, generally a left wing-back, is playing a more central role but tends to drift back out wide, sometimes meaning Uruguay look like two banks of four minus a right-sided midfielder. USA v Ghana The US start as favourites, but this one might suit Ghana tactically; they will be content to sit back and soak up pressure, before hitting the US on the counter-attack. The American full-backs have appeared a little slow in recovering their position after forays forward so far in the tournament, which will be perfect for the pacey Ghana wingers. The best course of action for the US is to put the Ghana centre-backs under as much pressure as possible early on. Ghana will probably have a 3 v 2 advantage in the centre of midfield, so more direct balls towards the strikers (with Clint Dempsey and Landon Donovan supporting very close by, something they did particularly well against England) might be a better approach than playing through midfield. In particular, 20-year-old Jonathan Mensah has looked slightly nervy so far, and Jozy Altidore should be able to get at him. The midfield battle will probably be quite reserved. Both central midfields generally sit deep rather than look to make penetrative runs, so they may play in front of each other, and create a slightly static contest. The US will dominate possession and territory – but finding a way past Ghana’s good defence won’t be easy. This one calls for all of Bob Bradley’s tactical ability – so far he’s generally got his team playing better after half-time, but below-par first halves won’t be acceptable in the knockout stages. Germany v England If the two sides perform to the standard as they have so far in the competition, then England are in for a thrashing. First and foremost, their ball retention must be far better. As with all 4-2-3-1 v 4-4-2 battles, the main task for Fabio Capello is to work out how to deal with Mesut Ozil – the match-winner for Germany against Australia and Ghana. Those two teams both allowed him far too much space between the lines, and it’s likely that Gareth Barry will have the task of tracking him, something he did well against Algeria. This would mean a numerical disadvantage further forward in midfield, where Frank Lampard would be forced to pick up the runs of both Sami Khedira and Bastian Schweinsteiger, so it’s likely one of England’s two strikers will be given more defensive responsibility when out of possession. The natural man to do this is Wayne Rooney, who has consistently shown his defensive awareness throughout his career, particularly when playing on the wing for Manchester United. However, Jermain Defoe has done well in recent months in this respect. Capello won’t want Rooney to become overburdened defensively, nor will he want Defoe playing a permanently withdrawn role and negating the threat of his pace in behind the German defence – so it’s likely they’ll take it in turns to pick up the Germans’ deepest holding midfielder – most likely Schweinsteiger, if fit. Germany’s most important player in a defensive sense could be Thomas Muller, on the right-hand side. He’s impressed at Bayern Munich for his discipline, and he’ll be up against Ashley Cole, possibly England’s best performer so far. With Steven Gerrard always likely to drift in from the left, stopping Cole is vital because it gives England no natural left-sided option, and with them struggling to keep the ball in the centre of the pitch, makes their attacking threat rather basic. German pressing will also be key – the distribution from England’s centre-backs so far has been appalling, and putting them under pressure early on will expose this even further. This all assumes that Fabio Capello will stick with 4-4-2 – but he shows no sign of ditching the system. Argentina v Mexico A fascinating contest, that Mexico might be reasonably well set up for with their fluid defensive system. 2 v 1 at the back against Gonzalo Higuain, Rafael Marquez marking Lionel Messi, the two Mexican full-backs picking up the Argentina wingers – Mexico might be able to blunt Argentina’s attack. That’s easier said than done, of course, and the all-Barcelona Marquez v Messi contest might decide things. Pace is the key in getting past the Argentina defence, who have maintained a surprisingly high line so far. Getting the ball towards Giovani dos Santos as early as possible will surely be Mexico’s main route of attack. The probable return of Efrain Juarez (after suspension) in the centre of midfield will offer the other driving threat from midfield, and he could get the better of Javier Mascherano, who often becomes isolated in front of his defence. In the one game Mexico have won so far, their biggest outlet has been Carlos Salcido, in the left wing-back position. Against France he constantly stormed forward, stretched the play and swung crosses in – but against Uruguay, he was muted because of the presence of either Edinson Cavani or Luis Suarez. Diego Maradona and Carlos Bilardo will look to occupy him, which means Carlos Tevez could revert to the right-sided role he played against Nigeria, rather than the left-sided one he played against South Korea. Related articles on Zonal Marking:

One family says the ratings-grabbing reality show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" turned their personal tragedy into a practical nightmare, leaving them with virtually nothing but a lawsuit. The Higgins family, five kids between the ages of 14 to 21-years-old, lived in a two-bedroom apartment in California, orphaned by the deaths of their parents. Their story grabbed headlines. Producers at the reality show took notice. The family's church first raised money to help them out. Then, “Extreme Makeover" contacted the church to arrange an interview with the young adults. Maybe they could be the next “deserving family.” Fellow church members, the Leomiti family, offered to take the Higgins family into their home. The lawsuit claims the family's motivation wasn't to save the kids from a life of despair. It was to get a newly built nine-bedroom house, mortgage paid, a weeklong vacation and other gifts like computers, stereos and cars. According to the suit against the Leomitis, ABC and the producers of “Extreme Makeover,” around the time the episode aired, the Higgins' moved out one-by-one as a result of a “orchestrated campaign” by the Leomiti family to get rid of them. Mrs. Leomiti called the lawsuit “bogus” in an interview with the Abrams Report over the phone. Charles Higgins, the oldest of the five Higgins children, and the Higgins' family attorney, Patrick Mesisca, explain their case to "The Abrams Report" DAN ABRAMS, 'ABRAMS REPORT’ HOST: Charles, first let me start with you. Tell me first of all what happened here. CHARLES HIGGINS, SUING 'EXTREME MAKEOVER': What happened was we were supposed to be promised a house that was to be built for everybody. My brothers and sisters were supposed to have a place to stay and now we‘re practically homeless. We‘re not together —we‘re not living together in one home. We‘re living in separate homes with each of our friends and it really hurts because I‘m 22. I‘m trying to pull an extra load. I‘ve got a lot on my shoulders here. I‘m trying to be a good role model but it's hard when you don't really have a place to stay or a place for your younger brothers and siblings to call home, so they can wake up in the morning and they don‘t have to worry about where they are going to live or what they're going to do. It really hurts, it hurts me to see the look on their face every day because I know they worry. ABRAMS: Patrick, were you literally thrown out of the house or is it basically that you felt that you weren‘t wanted there anymore? HIGGINS: I'm not really going to comment on that right now because all of that is in the lawsuit. But practically what I‘m going to say is my brothers were done wrong by the show, by ABC. ABC promised that we were going to have a home and that we were going to be together. And basically what happened was, we're not in a home. The thing is they keep airing our show almost like every other weekend and so that show, every time it gets aired, it makes money. They‘re practically making money off of us, and it's telling a story that's not really true. It's telling a story that we‘re all in a house together, we‘re happy, we're a loving family, we’re happier than we ever could be in our lives, but it's really not true. ABRAMS: Mr. Higgins look, I'm sorry. Charles' family‘' story is obviously a heartbreaking one. It's one the led them, ABC, to act and to try and build this home to accommodate them. But I don‘t get how the program is responsible for what sounds like a family versus family squabble. PATRICK MESISCA, HIGGINS‘ FAMILY ATTORNEY: The program, or, if you will, corporate entities that make up the program made a promise to the Higgins' family and told them that they were going to provide a home for them. The only home that was provided was an expansion of the residence in which the Leomitis live, and when all was said and done and the broadcast aired, the only benefit that the Higgins‘ children received was the right to be visitors in that home. ABRAMS: But everyone knew that. I mean that clearly happened. By the end of the show, there was this big house built and they were all in the house. I mean you would think that if you were going to sue, that would be the time to sue as opposed to now, when it appears for some reason that you won‘t discuss, there was some sort of family versus family problem. MESISCA: Well you have to realize that all this of has taken place since March 27 of this year. On March 27, that's when the program aired and here we are in August, a period of about four or five months and in that period of time, the Higgins children, all of them have left the Leomiti's home. ABRAMS: But why is that ABC‘s fault? That's what I do not understand. If they want to sue the family and say, look, this was the deal. You knew what the deal was. You effectively suckered ABC into coming in here because our family was the one that made a great story. I get that. What I don‘t get is how ABC or the production company is responsible for these problems. MESISCA: I can approach this on a number of levels. First, the Higgins have experienced a nightmare. This has been a very difficult time for them, loosing both of their parents last year. The home would have never been provided for the Leomitis in the absence of circumstances that the Higgins were involved... ABRAMS: So you sue the Leomitis. MESISCA: It was the Higgins who were told that a home would be provided for them, that a place would be constructed for them to live in. I think what happened was ABC and the production companies involved steered this into a joint enterprise, if you will, between the Leomitis and the Higgins', instead of just going forward and providing the Higgins with a place for them to live. There was never a disclosure made to the Higgins concerning the fact. ABRAMS: Why is ABC obligated to build houses? I mean, they get to choose who they want to build a home for and the Higgins have this very compelling story and they're very deserving of it. But again, it seems to me that you're focusing on the wrong defendant. MESISCA: We could argue this all day long. In California, and I think most jurisdictions, if a person responds to a need, a person is drowning in the middle of a river and you send a lifeboat out to get them, you can't turn the lifeboat around and not pick them up once you've reached the destination or worse, you can‘t just travel right past them and let them drown. ABC undertook here to provide a residence for the Higgins family. I believe that the way this was done, the failure to give proper advice to the Higgins, as to what options were available to them, how their interest might most properly be protected. ABRAMS: Very quickly, I got to read ABC‘s statement, “We‘re extremely proud of ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ and the positive impact the show has had on people‘s lives. While we don‘t comment on litigation, it's important to note the episode is about the rebuilding of the Leomiti family's existing home to accommodate the inclusion of the five Higgins siblings, whom the Leomitis had invited into their lives following the death of their parents.” It sounds to me like you‘re going to have a real lawsuit against the Leomitis here. I predict that the lawsuit against ABC and the production company will be thrown out, but I am wrong in the past and more importantly, Mr. Higgins, look it sounds like you‘re a guy with a good head on his shoulders and I wish you the best of luck. You don‘t deserve any of this regardless of how the lawsuit comes out, so good luck to you. Watch the 'Abrams Report' for more analysis and interviews on the top legal stories each weeknight at 6 p.m. ET on MSNBC TV.

US-led coalition air strikes on a jail run by the Islamic State group in eastern Syria killed at least 57 people, monitors said on Tuesday. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the air strike took place on Monday at dawn, hitting a building in the town of Mayadin, south of Raqqa, that was being used as a prison. "The strikes hit an IS jail in Mayadin at dawn on Monday, killing 42 prisoners and 15 jihadists," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. Many of the dead are thought to be civilians, as well as captured rebel fighters from the Free Syrian Army. If the toll is confirmed, it would make it one of the deadliest single incidents since the US intervened in the Syrian war in 2014. Islamic State is believed to have moved most of its leaders to Mayadin in Syria's Euphrates Valley, southeast of the group's besieged capital Raqqa, two U.S. intelligence officials have said. Among the operations moved to Mayadin, about 50 miles west of the Iraqi border, were its online propaganda operation and its limited command and control of attacks in Europe and elsewhere, they said. "The Coalition conducted strikes on known ISIS command and control facilities and other ISIS infrastructure in (Mayadin), Syria, June 25 and 26," Colonel Joe Scrocca, coalition director of public affairs, said in an email.

Whenever something momentous happens in superhero comics history, mysterious figures always seem to appear and observe proceedings. In the Marvel Universe, it's the Watcher (we still have no idea why he was at the Black Panther/Storm wedding. I'm betting it was for the hors d'oeuvres). In the DC Comics Universe of the 1980s, the Monitor observed the actions of heroes and villains. In the new DC Universe ushered in by the publisher's New 52 initiative, the latest arcane observer -- and the record holder for the most appearances of a single comic book character within one month ( 53 to be precise) -- goes to the enigmatic and sensational character find of 2011, The Woman in the Red Hood. We don't know her true name or powers yet, which definitely cuts down on her potential to become a DC Direct action figure, but she does give the attentive comics reader a seek-and-find game in the style of Where's Waldo? I've read the New 52 comics and found the Woman in the Red Hood hidden in each and every comic, with varying degrees of difficulty. To paraphrase those Scrubbing Bubbles: I found her, so you don't have to. Red-Hooded Woman appears at the end of Flash's odyssey in Flashpoint #5 in the double-page spread on page 24-25 (all page references in this article are based on the story pages, not comic pages) and tells Barry Allen he's instrumental to weaving three earths together. Barry's able to put his universe back into place...but not quite . Fittingly for the first hero of the Silver Age, Barry's created this new DC Universe, a home of heroes and villains we're still exploring. But, with Barry's usual luck, he's not only created a world in which his mother was fated to die, but in which he hasn't (yet?) become romantically involved with wife Iris. Good job, Flash...and tough breaks. The Woman in the Red Hood won't speak again throughout the first month of the New 52, but she appears in one panel in each of DC's 52 relaunch comics , from Justice League to Voodoo . New 52, Week Zero - Justice League : She's in the bleachers at the Ford Titans football game starring Vic Stone (page 18, panel 2). No word on whether she was at the pre-game tailgate party. Why here rather than at the historic Batman/Green Lantern/Superman meeting? We'll find she doesn't always show up at what we think are the most "important events." New 52, Week One: Action Comics : She's the only calm passenger on the crashing Metropolis train (page 23, bottom panel) turned into a bullet targeting Superman. And, could this be her in the crowd at the bottom of page 17? If so, it's the only double appearance in a single book that I've spotted in the 52 books. Animal Man : She's present at the San Diego hospital where Animal Man defuses a hostage crisis, watching as Buddy's eyes start bleeding (page 12, bottom panel). He gets better, but that's gotta hurt. Batgirl : Speaking of hospital rooms, she's reflected in the window as Batgirl fights Mirror (page 19, bottom panel). Is she standing on a window ledge outside? Or floating ? Needless to say, everybody's a little too busy to notice her. Batwing : Standing alongside Batwing's Tinasha police car (page 17, panel 1). He gets into the car in the next panel and doesn't notice her. Is she invisible to those around her, or has she vanished quickly? And also, that's a rotten parking job. How's that red truck going to get out? Detective Comics : The Woman in the Red Hood is outside Roscoe's Pharmacy when the Joker's bomb explodes (page 15, bottom left panel). Batman spies a figure with a purple overcoat and umbrella entering an elevated rail station, but he doesn't seem to notice her , at the front of the crowd. Is she beyond the perception of the World's Greatest Detective? Green Arrow : While Oliver Queen quotes David Byrne, she's present in the crowd on a leisure boat cruising the Seine in Paris (page 8, first panel). She's a little overdressed for a high society party. Hawk & Dove : She's alongside the Capitol Reflecting Pool in the Washington, D.C. National Mall (page 19, first panel). Perhaps not unusually for a comic drawn by Rob Liefeld, we don't see her feet. Justice League International : Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice...she's glowing among the protestors behind Booster Gold (page 7, panel 1). Men of War : The Red-Hooded Woman is in the crowd as Rock's company fights a destructive superhuman (page 17, bottom panel) in an unnamed foreign country. You know, when armed men and jeeps with mounted guns are storming right in front of you, it's time to get out of the way. OMAC : She's present in the crowd of employees evacuated from Cadmus Industries during OMAC's attack (page 6, lower left panel). Appropriately for a comic created by Jack Kirby, she's surrounded by a subtle red Kirby Krackle energy signature. Static Shock : Peeping Woman in the Red Hood! She's outside the Hawkins home in New York City, looking in as Virgil talks to his Dad (page 15, top panel)... Stormwatch : ...and she's spying on Apollo in a Moscow alley (page 15, panel 1). Swamp Thing : The Woman in the Red Hood is unseen by Dr. Alec Holland and friend Paul on a construction site in Louisiana (page 5, panel 3). At this point it's worth noticing that she appears at what seem to be random moments of widely varying importance. She's at a vital emergency which will result in Superman's capture, and she's at a football game watching a future hero score touchdowns. She's present at a major explosion in Gotham City, but she's also hanging about a parking lot. Are these seminal or random moments to her? They aren't by any means the most vital and significant incidents in the story. Further, we can now tell she can either travel through time or has been appearing for many years. The Red-Hooded Woman is present prior to the formation of the Justice League, and during the early career of Superman. Both events occur before the current "now" time of most of the New DC 52 books. New 52, Week Two: Batman and Robin : The second week of the New DC begins and she's really getting around: she's standing alongside the pool Batman uses to extinguish a fire at Gotham University's Miller Building (page 17, panel 4). Why they built a swimming pool above an atomic research reactor, no one can say. Did you design this building, Frank Miller? Batwoman : Look for her in crowd behind Commissioner Gordon, in the upper right-hand corner of page 17, one of J.H. Williams' impressive double-page spreads. Since Batwoman was scheduled nearly a year ago and then postponed for the September launch of the New 52, it's probable this figure was added to the artwork well after the page was created. Deathstroke : Right on page one, third panel: observing an assault team facing off against Slade Wilson in Moscow. She's behind and to the right of the assault team; when you're facing Deathstroke the Terminator, you really don't want to be anywhere near his enemies. She's behind a concrete plinth, or maybe she can't be harmed by bullets, even the extra-special mega-deadly ones Deathstroke shoots. Demon Knights : Time traveling again? She's in the Dark Ages among the marching, conquering army heading for Alba Sarum (page 7). It's a splash page so here's a closer view of her, in her familiar red buttoned cloak. Hiding behind the giant "n." Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. : She appears smack-dab in the middle of a two-page spread of Frank battling monsters in Bone Lake, Washington (pages 17-18). She does not choose calm places to visit, does she? Also present: a "foom" sound effect, presumably on loan from Marvel. Green Lantern : ...and then she appears in the Coast City crowd as Hal Jordan has a conversation with Carol Ferris (page 12, panel 4). Nothing world-changing or dramatic here, if you don't count Hal asking Carol out for a date in the next panel. Grifter : Grifter five-finger-discounts a hat and scarf from a New Orleans costume shop (page 14, lower left panel) and Red-Hooded Woman is there! Wait a minute...red coat...knows when you're naughty and nice...I think we're on the right track here. She's Ms. Santa Claus! Eh, possibly not. Legion Lost : Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, in an atypical setting for the Legion of Super-Heroes: the 21st century! 31st century escaped criminal Alastor is tearing up the town (page 10, top panel). How bad is his rampage of destruction? He has totaled Van Halen's car. Mister Terrific : In London, the World's Third Smartest Man is too busy chasing battle-suited CEO Miles Dalton across London to notice the Woman in the Red Hood in the crowd (page 4, panel 2). Red Lanterns : Page 16, top panel: In Small Ockdon (a UK fictionopolis in the DC Universe), the Red-Hooded Woman watches as the grandsons of a murdered mugging victim address their blood-spitting rage. Is this the origin of a new Red Lantern? Ehhhhhhh...might be! Resurrection Man : She might not be immediately obvious, so I've highlighted her appearance here to save you many minutes searching (page 15, panel 1), while Mitch Shelley flees the scene of the plane crash that killed him (Spoiler: He got better). Suicide Squad : Nobody notices Red-Hooded Woman in the ultra-secret torture room (page 4, panel 2) holding Deadshot captive. It's a strong argument towards the theory that no one can see her. Except us. We are the most powerful beings in the DC Universe! Superboy : Zaniel Templar arrives at N.O.W.H.E.R.E. to order the release of Superboy from the virtual reality world (page 19, panel 1), and Dr. Caitlin Fairchild isn't happy about it. And the RHW is there...not to see Superboy released, but the landing of Templar's helicopter. Superboy narrates "There is someone else, too. No. Some...thing." Is he detecting Templar...or our mysterious woman? We're now halfway through the New 52 and a few more patterns begin to emerge. Although we have seen her travel to or exist in other time periods, we have not yet seen the Red-Hooded Woman off of Planet Earth. There are extensive off-planet scenes in Green Lantern and Red Lanterns, but her appearances in those books take place on Earth. Nor does she appear in Superboy's virtual reality or the Ant Hill, S.H.A.D.E.'s microversal headquarters in Frankenstein . We also see her in a cloak of different shades of red, violet, and sometimes even grey, with subtle design differences from appearance to next. I'm going to chalk that up to different artists rather than an in-story shape-changing ability. Week Three: Batman : At the bottom of the first panel on page one, the Red-Hooded Woman stands near, but not with, Gotham City homeless warming themselves around a burning garbage can. Her glowing eyes give her the look of a Jawa, but I think we can discount that theory. Unless she later says "utini," I'm not counting that as a possibility. Birds of Prey : In the Gotham City of "two weeks ago," she stands in a doorway as Black Canary is tailed to a meeting with Barbara Gordon (page 8, panel 3). She doesn't notice the woman in a red hood in the next doorway. Blue Beetle : El Paso, Texas: She watches as Jaime Reyes flees the pursuing Venom (page 17, bottom panel). No, sorry, not Venom, but an assassin sent to capture the beetle scarab from the Brotherhood of Evil. Captain Atom : She's in a crowd of onlookers in New York as Captain Atom battles radioactive meteors from a nuclear plant hit by a volcano (page 18, panel 1). Busy day for Cap there. Catwoman : If we weren't all so busy watch Batman and Catwoman boink in that last book, we might have spotted her on Catwoman 's page 8: in the large first panel, a hedonistic party of a Gotham City criminal mob is infiltrated by Catwoman and the Red-Hooded Woman. Catwoman's serving drinks, RHW's just watching. As we've learned by now, "she likes to watch." DC Universe Presents: Deadm an : Page 2, panel 3: the Woman in the Red Hood stands behind clowns at Deadman's circus. Nobody likes to look at clowns. She is clearly, as Monty Python taught, a master of not being seen. Green Lantern Corps : Another comic book with outer space action and still she only appears on Earth -- in, as we're reminded, Space Sector 2814 (page 9, panel 2). She's standing directly between construction workers -- some facing her directly -- and John Stewart's power ring-created architecture plans. AT this point it's clear she's invisible to human (Kryptonian, Martian) senses and technology (CCTV and Lantern rings), and most important, invisible to Batman . And he sees everything (as we saw in Catwoman ). Legion of Super-Heroes : At last! Concrete proof she can travel off-world, to the planet Panoptes in the 31st Century (page 7, first panel). She's watching Chameleon infiltrate a base on the border of Dominator space, but still, she's there at one of the quietest moments of the book. She's either not looking for specifically important periods in time, or these relatively peaceful moments are later to be of great importance. My cynical guess/theory: The DC New 52 creators were told to toss a cameo in each issue and like many things in analyzing superhero comic books, I may be overthinking specific appearances. That said, I bet she can keep track of all forty-seven thousand six hundred twelve active members of the Legion, and their civilian names and home planets. Nightwing : In Gotham City, Red-Hooded Woman is in the stands at Haly's Circus when Dick Grayson returns (page 12, panel 2). That's the second time she's been to the circus in one month. I hope she's getting her circus frequent guest card punched. Red Hood and the Outlaws : Let's get this out of the way first: she's not on this page: So you can stop staring at that page for hours at a time. In fact, she doesn't even pop in on the heroes -- she's outside a Chicago slaughterhouse (page 16, panel 1) for the "B" plot of someone discovering via internet that Starfire's on Earth. R.H.W.'s very clearly hovering in this panel, but her cloak appears white. Artistic license, probably? More important, what's she here for? What's she looking at? A truck full of sausages? Supergirl : With her new-found super-hearing, Supergirl's overwhelmed by deafening random noises and sounds from around the globe (bottom of page 14) including quotes we've seen spoken in Nightwing, Aquaman , and Birds of Prey . Nightwing is set in Gotham under night-dark skies, and there's storm lightning in the sky. Aquaman is in a Boston seafood restaurant at sunset. It's a rainy night in Gotham City when Starling quips about being damned in Birds of Prey . It's dawn in Russia, as the rising sun fuels Kara's superpowers. That scene in Gotham City (long set in DC history as located on the East Coast) can't be pure night at the same time it's sunset in Boston, but it could be a very dark dusk exaggerated by the pouring rain on the Birds of Prey's side of town and the fast-approaching storm around Nightwing. If this is the case, then whether by intent or design, this timing is all absolutely accurate . Many timezones encompass Siberia including twelve hours after East Coast time. In other words, dusk on the US's east coast equals dawn in parts of Siberia. That's the kind of cool synchronicity that makes me love shared-universe fiction, whether the creators planned this or not. (And oh, yes, the Red-Hooded Woman is there, too.) Wonder Woman : The Woman in the Red Hood is watching from the woods as Diana and Zola face off against murderous centaurs in Virginia (page 17, panel 4). I don't care how expert Wonder Woman is, that's definitely not a proper dressage mount there. After examining the first three weeks of the New 52, we can start to put together a rough timeline of some of the stories: The beginning of Birds of Prey #1 and the end of Nightwing #1 take place simultaneously with the appearance of Supergirl on Earth in Supergirl #1. The Red-Hooded Woman makes appearances (although likely not in this chronological order) two weeks before the events at the beginning of Birds of Prey . On the morning of the day BoP begins, she appears at Haly's Circus to watch Dick Grayson arrive; that evening she appears in Boston to watch Aquaman order but not eat a seafood dinner, then almost instantly to watch Kara Zor-El being attacked in Siberia. Instantly... or simultaneously ? Is the Red-Hooded Woman cross-crossing her own personal history by traveling in time? How much of a master of time is she, anyway? (And do we know any other red/purple hooded masters of time?) New 52 Week Four: All Star Western : Back in Gotham City of the 1880s, the Red-Hooded Woman is more difficult to spot than Waldo in a sea of cowboys, frontiersman, saloon girls, guns for hire, and stuffed animal heads (page 10, panel top panel). She's wisely gone by the time Jonah Hex starts a barroom brawl a few minutes later. Let's hope she paid up her tab before leaving. Aquaman : Here's the scene that happens concurrently with three other key moments in the DCNu (page 12, panel 4). A few seconds and two panels later Aquaman says "I don't talk to fish," but she's looking in completely the opposite direction. One of the themes of the new series is the perception the general public has of Aquaman. Is she watching the reactions of the civilians rather than Aquaman? Is that an important moment? Did she order the unlimited crab legs for $17.99? Batman: The Dark Knight marks yet another trip to Gotham City -- she's been here many more times than any place on Earth-DC, including Metropolis. You'll find her standing just inside the gates... the open gates of Arkham Asylum (page 14, top panel). Is it any wonder there's an Arkham break-out twice in four Batman #1 books? Geez, guys, invest in some Master Locks. Blackhawks : Red-Hooded Woman looks right at us...or more probably, the man taking a photo of the departing Blackhawks (page 8, panel 5). She probably doesn't show up on the iPhone anyway (or the LexPhone or WaynePhone either). Flash : Blink and you'll miss her: in Central City, watching Barry Allen's girlfriend (and co-worker... bad idea, Barry) Patty Spivot shepherd Barry away from the flirtations of Iris Allen (page 12, final panel). It occurs to me: if there's no Barry/Iris romance and marriage, then where did Kid Flash in Teen Titans come from? The Fury of Firestorm, The Nuclear Men gives us not only the longest title in today's DC publishing plan but multiple Firestorms. R.H.W. is there at a critical and historical moment: the birth of Firestorms Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch (page 18, panel 2). Now that's the way to please fans of both iterations of the character. (Psst, DC: Batgirl, Inc . Everybody's happy. Call me!) Oh, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the name of Walton Mills High's football team: The Wikings. Green Lanterns: New Guardians : Kyle Rayner: PWNED! I bet even R.H.W. is giggling at that (page 15, middle bottom panel). And here's another book with substantial scenes taking place in outer space, but she appears on Earth, leaving her sole journey off planet in Legion of Super-Heroes . Even time travelers don't like to go that many time zones away, what with the spaceship lag. I would also point out that this comic book is the first time I've ever seen men line up for the restroom. Consider this: Kyle Rayner became Green Lantern because he stepped out into an alley to pee. I bet he doesn't want that in his Secret Origins issue. Insert your own "powerless against the color yellow" joke here. The Savage Hawkman : Carter Hall is on the wing; his Hawkman battle armor reappears in time for him to do some serious damage to a morphing alien warrior (page 16). The Woman in the Red Hood watches in the background. Is this comic saying that the best view of Hawkman is from the rear? In a line of comics featuring half-dressed Catwoman, naked-in-bed Wonder Woman and bikinied Starfire, why not? The DCU needs beefcake, too. Superman : AIIEEEEE! Red-Hooded Woman is nine feet tall! She's blown out of proportion at the dinner for the demolition of the old Daily Planet building and the opening of the new one (page 3, panel 2). You woulda thought Lex Luthor would have taken the old Planet globe and made a Kryptonite-lined Hamster Ball of Death out of it, wouldn't you? Teen Titans : Fake police cop is heavily caffeinated as he pulls over Cassie "Don't Call Me Wonder Girl" Sandsmark, while White -Hooded Woman lurks yet again in the woods (page 12, panel 1). I'm guessing this is just a coloring mistake, or a lighting effect, or maybe that's latter-day Raven and I'm completely mistaken. Another oddity: Who's this ultra-tall, top-hatted black-clad man in the background at the beginning of Teen Titans? That's just too distinct a figure to be just set dressing. Is it the Shade from Starman ? The Phantom Stranger with a new chapeau? A cross-dressing Zatanna? A goth version of the Mad Mod? Voodoo : Finally, and thankfully, RHW is not masquerading as a stripper at the Voodoo Lounge. You'll find her outside watching the aftermath of Fallon's fistfight with a bunch of young thugs (page 8, panel 6). There's other hooded women in the new DCU; don't mistake them for the one we've been looking at. Below: Rama from Deadman (top), Batgirl's enemy Mirror (bottom left), and the Brotherhood of Evil's Phobia in Blue Beetle (bottom right). Accept no substitutes for the real Red-Hooded Woman. Most of what we know is speculation and guesswork. We know she's watching the DC Universe. She watches in the past, watches in the future, and watches right now. She watches, mostly on Earth, but off-world as well. She can almost certainly travel in time and is undetectable to humans and tech. She needed Barry Allen's power to help her knit the DC, Vertigo superhero, and Wildstorm universes together, and now she's keeping watch over the result. But who is she? Could she be the Time Trapper, longtime nemesis of the Legion of Super-Heroes? Is she a new Harbinger, foretelling a brand-new Crisis on 52 Earths? Could she be the Marvel Universe's new Crimson Cowl, heralding a return to the great DC/Marvel crossover events? Maybe she's Red Riding Hood from Vertigo's popular Fables , leading up to the first team-up of Batman and Jack of Fables? (A: No.) The New DC Universe is still uncharted territory. Things we've taken for granted in a fictional universe that's almost 74 years old ( Wonder Woman's origin , Superman's pal, Flash's wife) have been changed dramatically. We've seen this multiverse break apart and change through several crises, reboots both hard and soft, and the too-soon abandoned concept of Hypertime. Maybe the clue is in that "almost 74 years." 2013 will mark the 75th anniversary of Superman's debut in 1938, and I bet DC has a big crossover event planned for that. But whenever and wherever the Red-Hooded Woman's story is told, I'm eager to be along for the ride. We're all pioneers in the New DCU, and the thrill is in the ride of discovery on the way.

Executive summary This paper reviews the empirical literature on the employment effects of increases in the minimum wage. It organizes the most prominent studies in this literature by their use of two different empirical approaches: studies that match labor markets experiencing a minimum-wage increase with an appropriate comparison labor market, and studies that do not. A review of this literature suggests that: The studies that compare labor markets experiencing a minimum-wage increase with a carefully chosen comparison labor market tend to find that minimum-wage increases have little or no effect on employment. The studies that do not match labor markets experiencing a minimum-wage increase with a comparison labor market tend to find that minimum-wage increases reduce employment. A better understanding of which approach is more rigorous is required to make reliable inferences about the effects of the minimum wage. This paper argues that: Labor market policy analysts strongly prefer studies that match “treatment” with “comparison” cases in a defensible way over studies that simply include controls and fixed effects in a regression model. The studies using the most rigorous research designs generally find that minimum-wage increases have little or no effect on employment. Application of these findings to any particular minimum-wage proposal requires careful consideration of whether the proposal is similar to other minimum-wage policies that have been studied. If a proposal occurs under dramatically different circumstances, the empirical literature on the minimum wage should be invoked with caution. Introduction President Harry Truman famously joked that he wanted to hire a one-armed economist because all of his staff economists would resort to “on the one hand… but on the other hand…” formulations when giving policy advice. Truman just wanted a straight answer. Today, policymakers and the public also seem to want a one-armed economist in discussions of the minimum wage. Minimum-wage policy in the United States is made at the federal, state, and local level. The federal government imposes a minimum wage nationally (currently $7.25 an hour for most workers) that Congress can raise. Many states and even local governments set minimum wages that are higher than the federal minimum. One group of well-regarded economists contends that increases in the minimum wage reduce employment by raising labor costs, while another group insists the evidence shows that minimum-wage increases do not reduce employment, likely due to factors such as reduced turnover, increased productivity, and small price increases. Responsible economists understandably mention both strands of the literature. Nevertheless, it would be helpful if there were some way to determine which side has the more persuasive case, something a little closer to Truman’s one-armed economist. There are many criteria that could be used to make sense of the empirical literature on the employment effects of the minimum wage. This report focuses on the distinction between studies that use what I will refer to as “matched comparison groups” to estimate these effects, and those that do not. The term “matching” is used here in a relatively broad way, to describe a family of methods that identify a comparison group as an appropriate match for a treatment group, thus mimicking a randomized experiment. A matching design is strongly preferred by economists working on a variety of applications because it is often the closest study design to randomized experiments available. Whether or not a study uses matching is a broad criterion, but an important one for discriminating between studies and clarifying who provides more persuasive evidence in the minimum-wage debate. The first section of this report reviews the two major approaches to studying the minimum wage—studies with and without matched comparison cases—and compares the major findings from these two approaches. The second section makes an argument for preferring studies that use matching over studies that do not. The report concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research for policy. Two approaches to studying the minimum wage The empirical literature on the impact of the minimum wage is large, but much of it (and all important recent studies) can be classified into one of two categories: one, studies that match and compare cases involving an increase in the minimum wage with a similar control group, and two, studies that do not match cases of a minimum-wage increase to a similar control group. This distinction is only one of many possible ways of thinking about the empirical literature, but it is critical for answering the question of who is right about the employment effects of the minimum wage. Matching studies Analyses of the minimum wage that use matching first received wide attention with David Card and Alan Krueger’s 1994 paper on an increase in New Jersey’s state minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.05. Card and Krueger were concerned with distinguishing changes in employment at fast food restaurants that would have happened anyway from changes occurring in response to the minimum-wage increase. Their solution was to use comparable restaurants in Pennsylvania immediately across the border from New Jersey as a control group of establishments operating in a similar environment, but not subject to the minimum-wage increase. These Pennsylvania establishments provided a baseline for determining what would have happened in New Jersey if the minimum wage had remained constant. Deviation from that baseline in the New Jersey restaurants could thus be safely attributed to the minimum wage. A true experimental design would have randomly assigned increases in the minimum wage in order to control for alternative influences, but in the absence of random assignment the authors identified the next best alternative: a close match. The Card and Krueger study concluded that there was no evidence that the minimum-wage increase in New Jersey reduced employment in that state relative to the comparison group of Pennsylvania restaurants. Criticisms of the quality of the study’s phone survey data were raised at the time, which led the authors to analyze more reliable administrative payroll data from New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Card and Krueger (2000) confirmed the original finding that the minimum-wage increase in New Jersey had no discernable employment effect. The matching approach pioneered by Card and Krueger has been applied with increasing sophistication and stronger data sources than the initial phone survey data in the 20 years since the New Jersey analysis. The most notable advance in matching has been in the work of Arindrajit Dube with several coauthors, which uses counties that neighbor each other across state borders as control cases. Rather than a restricted analysis of one state’s minimum-wage increase, Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010) compare every pair of neighboring counties along every state border in the country (similar study designs are used in other papers by Dube and his colleagues). By exploiting variation in the minimum wage across the country and over the course of 16 years, this research estimates minimum-wage effects from a larger sample than earlier matching studies, and produces estimates that are more representative of the typical response to a minimum-wage increase and not the special circumstances of a particular local labor market. Dube and his colleagues consistently find no evidence for reduced employment as a result of regular increases in the minimum wage using the county pair match. In fact, even before using county pairs, as Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010) add increasingly more precise geographic matching into their models, the negative impact of the minimum-wage increase identified in the nonmatching literature (discussed in more detail below) gradually evaporates. Table 1 reports Dube, Lester, and Reich’s (2010) estimates of the percentage change in employment resulting from a percentage change in earnings as a result of an increase in the minimum wage. The authors analyze two different samples of employment data: one that includes all counties (the first column), and one that includes pairs of neighboring counties (the second column), with county pair matching performed on the latter sample. Table 1 Percentage change in employment for each percentage change in earnings due to a change in the minimum wage All county sample County pair sample No matching -0.784* -0.482** No matching, control for Census division differences -0.114 — No matching, control for state differences 0.183 — No matching, control for MSA differences 0.211 — County-level matching — 0.079 * Statistically significant at the 10 percent level. ** Statistically significant at the 5 percent level. Source: Estimates drawn from Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010), Table 2 (this is not a reproduction of their Table 2) Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image The first row in Table 1, which presents results when no matching is done, is representative of most study designs before Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010), and many since. When no matching is done, the minimum-wage increase is estimated to have a negative effect. However, as the comparison is increasingly narrowed to more similar counties, first in the same Census division, then the same state, then the same metropolitan statistical area (MSA), the statistically significant negative effect of the minimum-wage increase is eliminated. In the analysis that uses actual pair-matching of bordering counties to construct a comparison group (the last row), the higher minimum wage has an estimated positive effect on employment. However, because this result is statistically insignificant it cannot be statistically distinguished from a finding that the minimum wage has no effect on employment. In any case, the stronger designs that use matching strategies clearly contradict the theory that minimum-wage increases reduce employment. Other examples of this approach include Addison, Blackburn, and Cotti (2009; 2012), which have conclusions that are similar to Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010) and other matching studies. One possible critique is that by over-parameterizing (i.e., adding too many controls to) their models, Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010) are mistakenly attributing true employment-discouraging effects of minimum-wage increases to other variables in their model, or that statistical significance is lost due to the difficulty of estimating such a complex model. However, the authors point out that these fears can be easily dismissed by comparing estimates of the impact of the minimum wage on employment with estimates of the impact on earnings. Only the estimate of the impact on employment becomes positive—and loses statistical significance—as more rigorous matching strategies are introduced. The effect of the minimum wage on earnings stays consistent across these models. Since the same statistical model with the same risks of over-parameterization is being used regardless of the dependent variable (earnings in one case, employment in the other), the case that specification problems are driving the result is harder to justify. There are many different explanations for the lack of substantial disemployment effects in matching studies. One suggestion is that employers exercise “monopsony power,” or bargaining power associated with being one of a small population of buyers in a market (an analog to the monopoly power exercised by sellers). Just as a monopoly will not reduce its output in response to an imposed price reduction, a monopsonist can absorb a price increase (such as a minimum-wage increase) without reducing demand for workers. Although such theoretical explanations are possible, a more straightforward argument is that an increase in the minimum wage does not have a disemployment effect because the increased labor costs are easily distributed over small price or productivity increases, or because fringe benefits are cut instead of employment levels. Less work has been done on the impact of the minimum wage on these outcomes than on the employment impact. Alternatively, disemployment effects might be avoided due to reduced fixed hiring costs as a result of lower turnover. The most comprehensive and best known matching studies find that a higher minimum wage does not have a negative impact on employment, but this finding is not unanimous. Some matching studies do find disemployment effects. For example, Sabia, Burkhauser, and Hansen (2012) find negative effects on employment when they compare New York state with several comparison states, and Hoffman and Trace (2009) find that a minimum-wage increase in Pennsylvania reduced the employment prospects of “at-risk” workers relative to comparable workers in New Jersey. Perhaps the best quality study using matching methods that identifies a disemployment effect is that of Singell and Terborg (2007), who find negative effects associated with much larger increases in the minimum wage in Oregon and Washington. Finally, Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (2013) use a “synthetic control method” and find negative minimum-wage effects. This important contribution to the matching literature is discussed in more detail below. Each of these studies is open to criticism. Hoffman (2014) shows that rectifying questionable data choices eliminates Sabia, Burkhauser, and Hansen’s (2012) negative result. Finally, all of these analyses use state-wide data, which arguably provide a weaker match than Card and Krueger (1994), Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010), and other studies that match neighboring counties rather than states. Even if these negative results are taken at face value, the strongest studies investigating the widest range of minimum-wage increases by Dube and his colleagues find that on average, minimum-wage increases have little or no effect on employment. Studies without matching The alternative to a matching approach is to run a model using state-level or individual-level panel data (i.e., data collected over time) on employment levels to estimate how employment changes after states enact a higher minimum wage. These models have a number of valuable features, most notably their ability to control for idiosyncratic differences between states or individuals that do not change over time. These stable differences are called “fixed effects,” and the models are therefore referred to as fixed-effects models. Regardless of whether fixed-effect models use state or individual-level data, they rely on variations in the minimum wage among states to determine the effect of the policy. Notably absent from the fixed-effects models is any matching of comparison cases to treatment cases. While Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010) used counties immediately across a state border as comparison cases, the fixed-effects models implicitly treat every state not experiencing a minimum-wage increase as a coequal comparison case to every state that does have a minimum-wage increase. This potentially introduces “selection bias” into the results. Minimum-wage laws are not imposed under experimental conditions. This means that states that “select into” higher minimum wages by enacting increases may be systematically different from states that do not. Fixed-effects models can handle this problem if the researcher has data on the factors that are associated with the differential adoption of minimum-wage laws or if these factors do not change over time (in that case, the inclusion of fixed effects controls for the nonrandomness that is introduced due to the lack of a true experiment). However, if factors correlated with the adoption of minimum-wage laws vary over time and across states, fixed-effects models will produce biased estimates of the effect of the minimum wage. This sort of bias is very plausible in practice. Many states in the South and Central United States are experiencing rapid population and economic growth. In contrast, communities in the Midwest and Northeast are already densely populated and in many cases undergoing a structural transition associated with the decline of manufacturing. None of these changes are the result of the minimum-wage policy, but all are correlated with the minimum wage, which tends to be lower in the South and Central United States and higher in the Midwest and Northeast. Other trends specific to states or counties rather than regions are also conceivable. Some of these trends may be controlled for in certain studies, but fixed-effects models are not structured to capture the more comprehensive set of state-specific trends that matching studies can account for. State-specific time trends that are not accounted for will move a fixed-effects model further away from results that would have been estimated by a randomized experiment. The economists most closely associated with the fixed-effects model approach to studying the minimum wage are David Neumark and William Wascher. In 2007, Neumark and Wascher conducted a thorough review of 102 minimum-wage studies, covering policies implemented both inside and outside the United States, and at the federal and state level. They identified a subset of studies that they deemed “credible,” most of which fall into the category of state and individual-level fixed-effects models. This subset of studies, selected for special mention by the most prolific authors who use the fixed-effects method, is therefore an excellent vantage point for understanding the consensus of this literature. Most of the studies mentioned below come from this list. Neumark and Wascher’s most recent minimum-wage study with J.M. Salas is not a standard fixed-effects model. This is discussed in more detail in the next section. A typical state-level fixed-effects approach is offered by Neumark and Wascher (1992), published two years before the great disruption of the Card and Krueger (1994) study. This research estimated that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduced teenage employment by 1 to 2 percent and young adult employment by 1.5 to 2 percent. These findings were notable because they were comparable to earlier estimates from the time series literature, which relied on variation over time rather than across states to estimate employment effects. Neumark and Wascher (1996), Neumark (2001), and others soon extended the fixed-effects modeling framework to individual-level data to understand the impact of the minimum wage on specific vulnerable groups. The authors find in both cases that increases in the minimum wage reduce employment for the population of interest (typically teenagers or low-skill workers). These studies use the same design as the state-level studies, relying on variation among states and over time to estimate how changes in the minimum wage affect employment. As such, they are vulnerable to the same criticisms outlined above. Individuals in a high-minimum-wage state may experience lower employment rates, but it is difficult to determine whether that is the result of fundamentally different local labor market conditions that are unrelated to the minimum wage. The most comprehensive exploration of the sensitivity of the fixed-effects model results to their ability to control for differences among states is by Allegretto, Dube, and Reich (2011). This study uses Neumark and Wascher’s preferred fixed-effects modeling framework, but includes controls for Census division and state-specific labor market trends that Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010) suggest might be driving the strong negative employment effects in most fixed-effects analyses. After controlling for these trends, the standard disemployment effects become statistically indistinguishable from zero effects. What is notable about Allegretto, Dube, and Reich’s (2011) contribution is that the result of little or no disemployment effects of the minimum wage is not generated from models related to the matching studies described in the previous section. Instead, the study uses the methods that are usually employed by Neumark and Wascher. The method has also been extended beyond standard employment outcomes for the United States. Couch and Wittenburg (2001) use a fixed-effects model to assess the impact of the minimum wage on hours worked, while Neumark and Wascher (2004) use these techniques to understand how labor market institutions are relevant for international differences in the effect of the minimum wage. Both studies find the traditional negative impact. Meer and West (2013) use state fixed-effects models and numerical examples to argue that matching studies that include location-specific time trends (discussed in more detail in the next section) may provide inappropriate employment estimates if the principal impact of changes in the minimum wage is on employment growth rates. Which approach makes more sense? Matching cases of minimum-wage increases to a control group is essential because it is often the closest social scientists can get to the gold standard of an experiment using random assignment. Although the minimum-wage literature as a whole is divided on the question of the impact of minimum-wage increases, the strongest studies that use matching strategies find little or no evidence that such increases have a negative impact on employment. It is difficult to overstate how uncontroversial it is in the field of labor market policy evaluation to assert the superiority of matching methods to the nonmatching approaches described above. The seminal evaluations of the effects of job training programs, work-sharing arrangements, employment tax credits, educational interventions, and housing vouchers all use at least some sort of matching method, if not an actual randomized experiment. In their widely cited survey article on non-experimental evaluation, Blundell and Costa Dias (2000) do not even mention state-level fixed-effects models when they list the five major categories of evaluation methods. In a similar article, Imbens and Wooldridge (2009) do mention fixed-effects models as a tool for policy evaluation, but clarify that these were used before more advanced methods were developed, noting that the modern use of fixed-effects models is typically in combination with other more sophisticated techniques. For example, Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010) also use a fixed-effects model, but more importantly it is a fixed-effects model that utilizes rigorous matching strategy to identify the effect of the minimum wage. Sometimes fixed-effects models are the best available option if no natural experiment or other matching opportunity emerges to provide a more rigorous approach. Well specified fixed-effects models can still be informative. But faced with the choice between a well matched comparison group and a fixed-effects model, the former is unambiguously the stronger study design. Given the unanimity of the evaluation literature on the importance of these methods, how is it possible that so many minimum-wage studies use only state-level fixed-effects models? One possible answer is that unlike many of the programs studied in the evaluation literature, everyone is subject to the minimum wage. The minimum wage is not like a training program or a tax credit where some people receive it (are treated) and others do not. It is instead just one of many “rules of the game” in the labor market. As such, economists may not think of the minimum wage in the context of the evaluation literature and the methods of that literature. Potential signs of progress In the immediate aftermath of the Card and Krueger (1994) study, many critics simply dismissed the finding as an abandonment of sound economic theory. Fortunately, today these reactions are less common (though still not unheard of), and the major voices in the discussion seem to be developing a mutual appreciation for the importance of hammering out credible study designs. An excellent example is the recent exchange between Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (2013) and Allegretto et al. (2013). Instead of advancing new work in the tradition of a state-level fixed-effects model, Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (2013) raise criticisms of the county matching approach of Dube and his colleagues, and then go on to offer an alternative matching approach that they feel to be more appropriate. They suggest that a better method is the “synthetic control” approach of Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003), which generates weights for a number of comparison cases that together provide a good match to the treatment case. After running models using the synthetic control method, Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (2013) find evidence for negative effects of a higher minimum wage on employment, consistent with their work with state-level fixed-effects models. Allegretto et al. (2013) responded by defending their county-pair approach and further developing the synthetic control method, including rectifying problems in Neumark, Salas, and Wascher’s (2013) work. In a separate paper, Dube and Zipperer (2013) argue that Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (2013) fail to properly implement the synthetic control method, using an approach that is quite different from the earlier literature in that tradition and much less defensible. Allegretto et al. (2013) and Dube and Zipperer (2013) conclude that across both methods (their contiguous county approach and a properly executed synthetic control method), the minimum wage does not have substantial disemployment effects. The most important development in this recent work is not that it has resulted in agreement on the impact of the minimum wage. Numerous econometric disagreements remain, and of course Neumark, Wascher, and others continue to defend fixed-effects studies on the grounds that the biases in these analyses are not substantial. The critical advance has been that Neumark, Salas, and Wascher (2013) appear to concede that some sort of modern matching approaches are essential for evaluating the effect of minimum-wage increases in the absence of a randomized experiment. The authors continue to disagree on the best way to implement such a study, but the more recent focus on credible non-experimental designs is a step forward. What do we need to keep in mind in applying research to policy? Study design offers a means of arbitrating between studies in the often conflicting minimum-wage literature. The strongest designs seem to consistently find little or no evidence of disemployment effects associated with increases in the minimum wage. However, when applying this research to policymaking, these findings do come with caveats. First, we can only make inferences about the impact of a minimum-wage increase if it is relatively similar to the sorts of minimum-wage increases that have been studied. Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010, 962) caution that their “conclusion is limited by the scope of the actual variation in policy; our results cannot be extrapolated to predict the impact of a minimum-wage increase that is much larger than what we have experienced over the period under study.” The recent bill introduced by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 represents a 39.3 percent increase above the current federal minimum wage of $7.25, to be implemented over the course of three years. The typical increase in the legal minimum wage associated with the proposed change to $10.10 is of course lower than 39.3 percent because some states affected by the change at the federal level already have state minimum wages exceeding $7.25. States without a higher minimum than $7.25 would experience the full increase. Table 2 provides context for this increase by comparing it to prior federal minimum-wage increases. Table 2 Proposed and past federal minimum-wage increases Nominal minimum-wage increase Harkin-Miller proposal 39.3% in three steps 2007–2009 40.8% in three steps 1996–1997 21.2% in two steps 1990–1991 26.9% in two steps 1978–1981 45.7% in four steps 1974–1976 43.8% in three steps 1967–1968 28.0% in two steps Source: EPI analysis of Fair Labor Standards Act and amendments and the proposed Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image The increase in Harkin and Miller’s proposed Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 is typical of the federal minimum-wage increases since the late 1960s. The largest increases during this period (i.e., 1974–1976 and 1978–1981) came at a time of considerable inflation, so their magnitude to a large extent reflects an effort to keep up with consumer prices. However, the 40.8 percent increase between 2007 and 2009 is also larger than the Harkin-Miller proposal, despite the fact that it occurred in an environment of dramatically subdued inflation. Figure A presents the distribution of all percentage changes in effective minimum wages for all states from 1980 to 2011 using data from the University of Kentucky’s Center for Poverty Research. The “effective” minimum wage is defined here as the highest of either the federal or state minimum wage in a given state. Almost all increases were lower than 15 percent. The minimum-wage increase in New Jersey studied by Card and Krueger, at 18.8 percent in one year, was much larger than the average one-year increase during this period. Despite the magnitude of this increase, Card and Krueger found no notable disemployment effects. The proposed federal increase to $10.10 comes in three stages: a 13.1 percent nominal increase, followed by an 11.6 percent increase in the first year and a 10.4 percent increase in the second year after the initial increase. These increases are in the upper half of the distribution of changes in the effective minimum wage presented in Figure A, but well within the historical ranges studied by the empirical literature on the minimum wage. Figure A “Effective” one-year minimum-wage increases for all states, by percent change, 1980–2011 One-year increases 0-5% 85 5-10% 153 10-15% 219 15-20% 14 20-25% 5 25-30% 4 30-35% 5 35%+ 0 Chart Data Download data The data below can be saved or copied directly into Excel. The data underlying the figure. Note: The “effective” minimum wage is defined here as the highest of either the federal or state minimum wage in a given state. Periods with zero percent changes are excluded from Figure A. Source: Author’s calculations from the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research’s (2012) state-level data of economic, political, and transfer-program information for 1980–2011 Share on Facebook Tweet this chart Embed Copy the code below to embed this chart on your website. Download image The relative size of any proposed increase does not necessarily imply that the results from the matching literature are irrelevant, but these findings should be invoked with caution in cases that depart from historical norms. Ultimately, what matters is not the absolute increase in the minimum wage, but whether or not the minimum wage is in excess of the value of workers’ production to employers. Finally, policymakers need to remember that even the best national studies, such as Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010) or Allegretto et al. (2013), provide only average effects of the minimum wage across a wide sampling of counties. The effect of a federal minimum-wage increase in any given local labor market is likely to vary with local conditions. This point is made emphatically in Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010, 957); the authors show the variation in minimum-wage effects across different local labor markets in their sample. These estimates are all heavily concentrated around zero, consistent with their finding of negligible disemployment effects. However, the local labor estimates also show a nontrivial probability of having a considerably more positive or negative employment effect. This suggests that while on average the minimum wage does not have disemployment effects, some localities may exhibit these effects. Dube, Lester, and Reich’s (2010) estimates suggest that other localities may experience positive effects from the minimum wage, providing motivation for state or local minimum or living wages in excess of the federal minimum wage. Ultimately, even skeptics of the matching literature reviewed here need to consider total effects of the minimum wage, and not simply whether or not a disemployment effect can be identified. The disemployment effects identified in the weaker empirical strategies are still small, and the earnings gains for minimum-wage workers keeping their jobs are substantial. The net effect of a minimum-wage increase is therefore likely to be quite positive, even if concerns remain about a small population hurt by the minimum wage and in need of other assistance. Studies with the strongest study designs of course suggest that this population is extremely small if it exists at all. Conclusion Thinking about the designs of the major studies in the minimum-wage literature helps to approach Truman’s ideal of a one-armed economist. The best evidence we have comes from studies that try to match treatment cases with appropriate control cases. This research suggests that historically typical minimum-wage increases have no impact on employment, on average. This is valuable information for thinking about policy. It suggests that raising the minimum wage would not have the negative effects attributed to it by critics, but would increase the earnings of low-income families. Policymakers and the public should demand empirical rigor in research impacting the lives of low-income working families. Minimum-wage research should be conducted with the best feasible study designs, just as federal agencies demand the best designs when they seek out evaluations of other labor market policies. About the author Daniel Kuehn is a doctoral student in American University’s Department of Economics with field specializations in labor economics and gender economics. Before coming to American University he was a research associate at the Urban Institute’s Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population. He has a master’s degree in public policy, specializing in labor market policy, from George Washington University. Acknowledgements The paper benefited from comments and review by Josh Bivens, David Cooper, J. Bradford DeLong, Arindrajit Dube, Doug Hall, Robert Murphy, Ryan Murphy, Michael Reich, Heidi Shierholz, and David Wynn. Endnotes Within this family of methods, there is an approach to policy evaluation called “propensity score matching” that literally establishes a match between one treatment case and one or several comparison cases using an estimate of the probability of receiving a treatment. This paper, which is targeted to a broader audience, does not use “matching” to refer specifically to propensity scores, and instead uses it to describe any study design that consciously constructs comparison groups for treatment cases (here, cases experiencing an increase in the minimum wage). These include difference in difference models, regression discontinuities, synthetic control models, and other “natural experiments.” David Card published a study two years earlier, in 1992, examining the impact of a minimum-wage increase in California. This paper also used a matching strategy, even before the celebrated 1994 paper. However, the match in this paper was between California and a set of comparison states that roughly reproduced the demographic and labor market characteristics of California. This is not as clear of a match as the cross-border match in Card and Krueger (1994) nor does it set the same kind of precedent for future work by Arindrajit Dube and his colleagues, but Card (1992) should also be counted as an early example of the matching literature on the minimum wage. The author found no evidence of a decline in teenage employment or employment in retail. See Card and Krueger (2000). In their reanalysis of administrative payroll data, Card and Krueger (2000) also provide evidence of selection bias problems associated with data on New Jersey and Pennsylvania restaurants provided to Neumark and Wascher (2000) by Richard Berman, a public affairs executive who advocates on behalf of the food and beverage industry. Neumark and Wascher’s (2000) analysis of the Berman dataset finds that the minimum-wage increase reduced employment in New Jersey, although this finding is not consistent with the administrative payroll data. A detailed discussion of all of Dube’s work on the minimum wage is excluded in the interest of briefly outlining the differences between matching and nonmatching studies. Another critical contribution of Dube and his colleagues, Allegretto et al. (2013), is discussed below. Also of note are Dube (2013), which looks at minimum-wage effects by industry; and Dube, Naidu, and Reich (2007), which looks specifically at San Francisco. Recent work by Giuliano (2013) controls for unobserved heterogeneity by restricting the analysis to stores within a single firm. Giuliano also finds no evidence of disemployment effects from the minimum wage. This elasticity is estimated as the ratio of the minimum-wage coefficients in the employment and earnings regressions in Dube, Lester, and Reich (2010). In models that match counties that straddle a state border, additional “fixed effect” variables must be added indicating that a given county in the dataset is a member of a county pair. The inclusion of these fixed effects dramatically increases the size of the model that must be estimated. Notably, the standard errors of the estimates of the minimum-wage effect increase more substantially from the baseline model for the earnings regressions than they do for the employment regressions. The source of the difference between the earnings and employment regressions is thus driven by the change in the point estimates themselves, and not the precision of the estimates. For example, by using the entire state of Pennsylvania, Hoffman and Trace (2009) are comparing employment outcomes in Pittsburgh and rural western Pennsylvania with those in New Jersey. These communities are quite different and they are experiencing different types of economic change. In contrast, the original Card and Krueger (1994) study, which focused on border establishments, and Dube’s work with border counties compare far more similar local labor markets. Recall once again that “matching methods” is used here to describe a range of quasi-experimental methods that try to construct a comparison group that is a good match to the treatment group. See for example Leonard’s (2000) discussion of the reaction to Card and Krueger (1994). A particularly questionable and combative example is the case of the late Nobel laureate James Buchanan, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal in 1996, “Just as no physicist would claim that ‘water runs uphill,’ no self-respecting economist would claim that increases in the minimum wage increase employment. Such a claim, if seriously advanced, becomes equivalent to a denial that there is even minimal scientific content in economics, and that, in consequence, economists can do nothing but write as advocates for ideological interests. Fortunately, only a handful of economists are willing to throw over the teaching of two centuries; we have not yet become a bevy of camp-following whores.” The University of Kentucky dataset begins in 1980, in the middle of a three stage increase in the federal minimum wage. The first two stages, which are not in the data, were larger than the third. Some localities have implemented “living wages” that are higher than minimum wages and therefore may be associated with greater percentage changes in the minimum wage at the time of their implementation. These are not considered here, nor are they studied in the minimum-wage literature discussed above. See Holzer (2008) for a review of the literature on living wage laws. References Abadie, A., and J. Gardeazabal. 2003. “The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country.” American Economic Review, 93(1), 113–132. Addison, J., M. Blackburn, and C. Cotti. 2009. “Do Minimum Wages Raise Employment? Evidence from the U.S. Retail-Trade Sector.” Labour Economics, 16, 397–408. Addison, J., M. Blackburn, and C. Cotti. 2012. “The Effect of Minimum Wages on Labour Market Outcomes: County-Level Estimates from the Restaurant-and-Bar Sector.” British Journal of Industrial Relations, 50(3), 412–435. Allegretto, S., A. Dube, and M. Reich. 2011.“Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment? Accounting for Heterogeneity and Selectivity in State Panel Data.” Industrial Relations, 50(2), 205–240. Allegretto, S., A. Dube, M. Reich, and B. Zipperer. 2013.“Credible Research Designs for Minimum Wage Studies.” Unpublished manuscript, available at: http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/148-13.pdf. Blundell, R., and M. Costa Dias. 2000. “Evaluation Methods for Non‐Experimental Data.” Fiscal Studies, 21(4), 427–468. Buchanan, J. 1996. “Commentary on the Minimum Wage.” Wall Street Journal, April 25, A20. Card, D. 1992. “Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 46(1), 22–37. Card, D., and A.B. Krueger. 1994. “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.” American Economic Review, 84(4), 772–793. Card, D., and A.B. Krueger. 2000. “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Reply.” American Economic Review, 90(5), 1,397–1,420. Couch, K. A., and D.C. Wittenburg. 2001. “The Response of Hours of Work to Increases in the Minimum Wage.” Southern Economic Journal, 171–177. Dube, A. 2013. “Minimum Wages and Aggregate Job Growth: Causal Effect or Statistical Artifact?” IZA Discussion Paper No. 7674. Dube, A., S. Naidu, and M. Reich. 2007. “The Economic Effects of a Citywide Minimum Wage.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 60(4). Dube, A., T.W. Lester, and M. Reich. 2010. “Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties.” The Review of Economics and Statistics, 92(4), 945–964. Dube, A., and B. Zipperer. 2013. “Pooled Synthetic Control Estimates for Recurring Treatments: An Application to Minimum Wage Case Studies.” Unpublished manuscript, available at http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/events/spring14/zipperer/dubezipperer_pooledsyntheticcontrol.pdf Giuliano, L. 2013. “Minimum Wage Effects on Employment, Substitution, and the Teenage Labor Supply: Evidence from Personnel Data.” Journal of Labor Economics, 31(1), 155–194. Hoffman, S. D. 2014. “Are the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Always Small? A Re-Analysis of Sabia, Burkhauser, and Hansen.” Submitted to Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Hoffman, S. D., and D.M. Trace. 2009. “NJ and PA Once Again: What Happened to Employment When the PA–NJ Minimum Wage Differential Disappeared?” Eastern Economic Journal, 35(1), 115–128. Holzer, Harry. 2008. “Living Wage Laws: How Much Do (Can) They Matter?” Paper prepared for the 2008 Brookings-George Washington University-Urban Institute Conference on Urban and Regional Policy and Its Effects. Imbens, G., and J. Wooldridge. 2009. “Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation.” Journal of Economic Literature. 47(1), 5–86. Leonard, T. C. 2000. “The Very Idea of Applying Economics: The Modern Minimum-Wage Controversy and Its Antecedents.” History of Political Economy, 32, 117–146. Meer, J., and J. West. 2013. Effects of the Minimum Wage on Employment Dynamics. NBER Working Paper No. 19262. Neumark, D. 2001. “Evidence on Employment Effects of Recent Minimum Wage Increases from a Pre-Specified Research Design.” Industrial Relations. p. 121–144. Neumark, D., J.M. Salas, and W. Wascher. 2013. Revisiting the Minimum Wage-Employment Debate: Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater? National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. w18681. Neumark, D., and W. Wascher. 1992. “Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages: Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 46(1), 55–81. Neumark, D., and W. Wascher. 1996. “The Effects of Minimum Wages on Teenage Employment and Enrollment: Estimates from Matched CPS Data.” Research in Labor Economics, 25–64. Neumark, D., and W. Wascher. 2000. “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Comment.” American Economic Review, 1,362–1,396. Neumark, D., and W. Wascher. 2004. “Minimum Wages, Labor Market Institutions, and Youth Employment: A Cross-National Analysis.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 57(2), 223–248. Neumark, D., and W. Wascher. 2007. “Minimum Wages and Employment.” Foundations and Trends in Microeconomics, 1–182. Sabia, J. J., R.V. Burkhauser, and B. Hansen. 2012. “Are the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Always Small? New Evidence from a Case Study of New York State.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 65(2). Singell, L.D., and J.R. Terborg. 2007. “Employment Effects of Two Northwest Minimum Wage Initiatives.” Economic Inquiry. 45(1), 40–55. University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research. 2012. State-Level Data of Economic, Political, and Transfer-Program Information for 1980–2011. http://www.ukcpr.org/AvailableData.aspx.

Martin Sheen says he’s “disgusted” by President Trump in a new Democratic fundraising pitch. The “West Wing” actor, who played fictional President Josiah Bartlet on the long-running NBC political drama, slams the GOP in a Wednesday email from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). “My time playing the president on ‘The West Wing’ taught me what Washington should be like,” Sheen says in the fundraising email paid for by the DCCC. “And right now, with the Republicans in control, it’s far from what we, as Americans, deserve,” writes the 76-year-old actor, who appeared in an anti-Trump, get-out-the-vote ad in 2016. ADVERTISEMENT Sheen says he’s “disgusted” not only by Trump, but also by “the Republicans kowtowing to their rich special interests instead of representing the American people.” And, he’s “most disgusted by the Republican effort to gut health care and social programs for Americans in need.” The email comes the day after Senate Republicans postponed a procedural vote on their bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare. The bill had seen shrinking support after a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report found it could leave tens of millions without healthcare. It’s not the first time Sheen has slammed Trump. During last year’s White House race, Sheen dubbed the real estate mogul an “empty-headed moron,” telling The Hollywood Reporter, “he has absolutely nothing to offer us.” Sheen has also lent his name to DCCC fundraising efforts before. In a March pitch, he said people always ask him how President Bartlet would handle Trump. “He would tell America to stand up for what’s right, and fight back with everything it’s got,” Sheen wrote.

The driver of a bus that struck and killed a cyclist just outside the Olympic Park in Stratford while ferrying journalists between venues has been bailed until August, police have said. The 28-year-old man was knocked down by the doubledecker in Ruckholt Road, at the junction with the A12, at about 7.40pm on Wednesday. An air ambulance doctor pronounced him dead at the scene. A Metropolitan police spokesman said a man in his mid-60s had been arrested just outside the Olympic Park at 9.28pm on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. The victim is expected to be formally identified later on Thursday. A date for a postmortem examination is yet to be fixed. After the fatal incident, Bradley Wiggins, who by winning a gold medal on Wednesday became Britain's most decorated Olympian, warned of the perils of cycling in the capital. "It's dangerous and London is a busy city and [there is] a lot of traffic. I think we have to help ourselves sometimes," he said. "I haven't lived in London for 10 to 15 years now and it's got a lot busier since I was riding a bike as a kid round here, and I got knocked off several times. "But I think things are improving to a degree. There are organisations out there who are attempting to make the roads safer for both parties. But at the end of the day we've all got to co-exist on the roads. "Cyclists are not ever going to go away as much as drivers moan, and as much as cyclists maybe moan about certain drivers they are never going to go away, so there's got to be a bit of give and take." Wiggins said he would like to see the introduction of a law making it compulsory to wear cycling helmets. He later clarified his comments on twitter. "Just to confirm I haven't called for helmets to be made the law as reports suggest." "I suggested it may be the way to go to give cyclists more protection legally if involved in an accident. "I wasn't on me soap box CALLING, was asked what I thought." Responding to his comments, Chris Peck, the policy coordinator for the UK's national cycling organisation the CTC said that making helmets compulsory would be counter-productive. He told Radio 5 live. "Making cycle helmets compulsory would be likely to have an overall damaging effect on public health, since the health benefits of cycling massively outweigh the risks and we know that where enforced, helmet laws tend to lead to an immediate reduction in cycling." The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said he was "hugely saddened" by the death. A spokesman for the mayor said: "Any road death is a tragedy and the mayor's thoughts are with the cyclist's family. As this is now under police investigation it would be inappropriate to say anything else." Johnson cycled into Whitehall for this morning's ministerial Olympics meeting at the Cabinet Office wearing a bike helmet. But he appeared to be opposed to mandatory wearing of protective headwear by cyclists, as advocated by Wiggins. "I think they should do if they want to," Johnson said. A London 2012 spokesman said: "We can confirm that a cyclist tragically died as a result of a collision with a bus carrying media from the Olympic Park this evening. "The police are investigating the accident and our thoughts are with the cyclist's family." The Metropolitan police's road death investigation unit is looking into the collision.

We have some bad news for ATI fans, AMD has announced that it will be killing the ATI brand in favor of its Fusion project which aims to build hybrid CPU and GPU chips. The Radeon and FirePro branding will be remaining intact, but ATI Eyefinity will now be known as AMD Eyefinity and the first set of graphic cards to be shipped with the new branding strategy will be released later this year. The company also claimed that this is the perfect time AMD could possibly consolidate the ATI brand, because Radeon products are performing well in terms of sales, and there’s high market penetration of AMD’s graphics products. Finally, AMD revealed the new brand logos that are nearly identical to the present ATI logos, of course, minus the “ATI”.

One of King of the Cage's champions is currently in a dispute with the promotion, with Lowen Tynanes saying he is currently stuck in a 3-year deal contract he did not sign. Although not specifically named by the talented prospect, KOTC representative Bobby Burguland did state Tynanes' former coach, Kai Kamaka, as the person who signed the deal for him. Shortly after the report ran on this site, Kamaka has decided to release an official statement. He maintains that while he did sign the dotted line, it was done with Tynanes' consent. "I asked if he was able was able to email back the contract to KOTC and he replied "No, because I don’t have a scanner". I asked him if he wanted me to sign for him and email it back for him and he replied, "If can coach", meaning yes," Kamaka tells Bloody Elbow as part of his statement, "I told Lowen that I would do it since I had a scanner." Kamaka also disputes that this was all done without his fighter's knowledge, alleging that Tynanes' contract with KOTC was discussed with him on numerous occasions. As for motivation for bringing up this forgery issue, Kamaka speculates that Tynanes may simply be looking to "capitalize on the moment" after breaking out as an MMA star. "I would like to see Lowen in the cage as well. I believe he has the potential to be the next BJ Penn for Hawaii and I have said this time and time again. I honestly believe things just moved a lot faster then he expected and now that it has, he is trying to capitalize on the moment." "If it were not for KOTC opening up opportunities for Lowen, he would still be fighting in small amateur shows. KOTC kick started his career by giving him the URCC fight and the ONEFC contract to represent KOTC. With that being said, I wish Lowen all the best for his future." More details from Kamaka are available on full statement below where he airs his side of things: There is a lot of missing pieces to this story. The only part being exposed is that Mr. Lowen Tynanes is the victim and had no knowledge of the contract and so forth. I want to clarify that Terry Tribelcock and I are very close and our relationship is not only based on fights, though it started that way. It is through my relationship with Terry that all my fighters get to fight across the US and abroad. So our relationship was well known to my fighters, including Lowen; as far back as when Lowen competed as an amateur for KOTC. I want to take you back to square one from where this all started. Terry called me with a URCC fight opportunity in the Philippines against Eduard Folayang. Terry asked if I had a 155 lber that could take the match. Terry asked me to take a look at the fighter’s profile and to let him know what I thought, and if I could give him a name of whomever I chose to take this fight. I initially offered Ray "Bradda" Cooper, my nephew, as he is THE best 155 lber I know in Hawaii. After discussions with Ray, it seemed that he was going in another direction. I then called Lowen to offer him the fight as this opponent was perfect for Lowen’s style and the opponent had a name that would boost Lowen’s career if he fought him. I went on to tell Lowen that URCC was offering $2000 to show, and an additional $2000 to win, including flight and hotel. His response was "Shoots coach, let’s do it". Lowen wins this fight and his fight purse totaled $4000. The day after the URCC fight, Terry took both Lowen and I to the other side of the Philippines to do some shopping. Terry checked us in to a fully paid 5-Star hotel suite that included room charges, and then headed to eat lunch. During lunch, Terry informed Lowen and I that there was another fight opportunity, but Lowen needed to be "on the team" and if he didn’t want to, it would still be "cool". Basically, Terry wanted a fighter that would represent KOTC well in this organization. At the same time, Terry told Lowen and I the terms of the KOTC contract in full detail, the plans and steps we would take to make Lowen a MMA star and what was expected from KOTC. After beating Eduard Folayang like we knew he would, Lowen became an instant STAR in Asia. Then Terry continued to tell Lowen and I that we got an offer from One FC but didn’t have the full details at the moment but they really wanted Lowen to fight for their circuit. Lowen’s response was "I’m down for whatever, I just like fight". Back in Hawaii, Terry emails me the KOTC contract which I forwarded to Lowen. Couples of weeks go by and Lowen still has not returned the contract. During this time, an interview form from a MMA website was sent with the contract. I received an email from KOTC regarding the status of Lowen’s contract. It stated that we couldn’t move forward until this is done. I called Lowen regarding the interview form and Lowen tells me that his girlfriend, Logan, was finishing the up the interview. He then asked if I could finish filling up the rest of the interview because he didn’t know how to respond to some of the other questions. I told Lowen that I could finish up his interview for him. I asked if he was able was able to email back the contract to KOTC and he replied "No, because I don’t have a scanner". I asked him if he wanted me to sign for him and email it back for him and he replied, "If can coach", meaning yes. I told Lowen that I would do it since I had a scanner. Next was the OneFC contract, which Lowen initials and signs during practice, which was about 9 days later after sending the KOTC contract. In the contract, there was a section KOTC put in there that stated that OneFC contract will not conflict with the KOTC contract which I explained to him in detail. While we went over EVERY PAGE, he initialed that section and continued through the rest of the ONEFC pages. Since we were at our training facility (Powerhouse Gym Aiea) I e-faxed it from the gym office. Lowen was given a copy of that contract and took it home. Then the bout agreement for the Colossa fight came in (which was Lowen’s FIRST OneFC fight). Lowen signed it, we emailed it back. Lowen wins the $2000 to show, $2000 to win, and an additional $1000 finish bonus. Victor Cui was so impressed with his performance; they sent Lowen an additional $1000 " locker room" bonus when he got home. This was a total of $6000 in his 3rd pro fight. During this time I referred him to a manager, Jason Karpel, of Elite Management. I told Lowen that he would need a manager because "I know you will blow up and these guys can help you get more sponsorship money and into the big shows". At this point, Lowen is going into his 2nd OneFC fight against Felipe Enomoto making $2500 to show, $2500 to win, with a finish bonus of a $1250 and a 20% increase off the whole sum for every win. Lowen wins and purse totals $6250. I told Lowen that I have taken him as far as I could and at the next level he would need a manager. So Jason Karpel talks with Lowen and his father, Myles, and begins to work on Lowen’s behalf in good faith that Lowen will sign with Jason Karpel. Karpel then went on to get Lowen sponsored by Jaco Clothing and some other main sponsors. I was able to land him a local sponsor (Pound 4 Pound), which paid for Lowen’s gym membership as well as travel money when he fought. Lowen VERBALLY agreed to sign with Karpel. He ended up NOT signing with Karpel after he already received sponsorship and gear for his first OneFC fight. It was 9 months later and well into both contracts that Lowen finally signs with Karpel. Meanwhile, during this time Karpel is still working on behalf of Lowen with only a verbal agreement. Lowen then fights in California for the KOTC World Title; again signing a contract IN FRONT of the California Commission at weigh-ins acknowledging his commitment and fulfillment of his KOTC contract. Lowen wins the title, his KOTC purse is $1000 to show, $1000 to win (after California commission taxes and licensing, he walks away with $1600). We all go out to dinner with Terry Trebilcock. There is about 8-10 of us on the dinner table (Kai Kamaka, Lowen Tynanes, Logan Garcia, Kaleo Kwan, Nathan Thorell, Ian Dela Cuesta, Myles "Boonie" Tynanes, Hawaii Promoter Jay Bolos). Terry once again is explaining the plan for Lowen and the rest of the team for their KOTC fights. This is when we learn about Lowen’s next fight, which was setup for OneFC versus Felipe Enomoto. So, as you can see there were numerous occasions when Lowen and Terry had discussions about his contract. So the next morning we were driving from LA to Las Vegas for Ian Dela Cuesta’s tryout for the 135lb Ultimate Fighter. On our way to Las Vegas, Terry calls and informs me that he arranged and paid for our group have 3 rooms paid by him for 3 days so we could all be comfortable and have fun. Two months later, we head to back to Manila for the Enomoto fight. Next fight was scheduled for July 5, 2013 in KOTC in Manila, which Lowen unexpectedly pulled out due supposedly to a nose injury and needed surgery. This info was given to my by his teammate at the time, Ian Dela Cuesta. LOWEN DID NOT TELL ME AT ANY TIME that he did not want to fight for KOTC. On Saturday, 6-22-13, Lowen’s father contacted me to say that Lowen didn’t want to fight for KOTC because "KOTC is cheap". I immediately scrambled to find him a replacement and did with Kaleo Kwan, another teammate at the time. Since that day Lowen has not trained with the 808 Fight Factory. All Tynanes brothers are great athletes and very humble kids. I would like to see Lowen in the cage as well. I believe he has the potential to be the next BJ Penn for Hawaii and I have said this time and time again. I honestly believe things just moved a lot faster then he expected and now that it has, he is trying to capitalize on the moment. In conclusion, if it were not for KOTC opening up opportunities for Lowen, he would still be fighting in small amateur shows. KOTC kick started his career by giving him the URCC fight and the ONEFC contract to represent KOTC. With that being said, I wish Lowen all the best for his future.

Image caption Waking up too early and having problems settling back to sleep may have a negative impact on the heart, a study shows People who have trouble drifting off to sleep may be at increased risk of heart failure, researchers say. The study, published in the European Heart Journal, followed more than 50,000 people for 11 years. Scientists found those who suffered several nights of poor sleep were more likely to develop the condition, in which the heart fails to pump properly. Experts say further research is needed to see if a lack of sleep causes heart failure or the link is more complex. "Luckily many of the things that reduce the chance of heart failure also reduce insomnia; good diet, exercise, weight loss and not smoking Dr Tim Chico, Univeristy of Sheffield Scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology looked at more than 50,000 people aged between 20 and 89. At the beginning of the study, none of them were known to have heart failure. In this condition the muscles of the heart are often too out of shape to do their job properly - they may be too weak or too stiff to pump blood around the body at the right pressure. More than 750,000 people in the UK have heart failure and for the majority there is no cure. People with the disorder may feel increasingly breathless and exhausted. And as heart failure worsens, it can be difficult to get a full night's rest - but the Norwegian study is one of few to investigate whether poor sleepers without the condition are at risk of getting it in later life. 'Stress hormones' During the research, the participants were asked whether they had any difficulties getting to sleep or staying asleep and whether they felt fully restored after a night's slumber. People who had trouble falling asleep and remaining asleep each night were three times more likely to develop heart failure than those who reported no trouble sleeping. Those who experienced substandard sleep that failed to leave them fully refreshed were also at risk. And this link between a bad night's sleep and heart failure remained true despite researchers taking smoking, obesity and other well known triggers of insomnia and heart problems into account. The researchers say it is unclear exactly why poor sleep and heart failure are associated in this way. Dr Laugsand, lead author of the study, said: "We don't know whether insomnia truly causes heart failure. But if it does, the good thing is it is a potentially treatable condition. "So evaluating sleep problems might provide additional information in the prevention of heart failure." He suggests the lack of sleep may provoke harmful responses in the body. Heart Failure In this condition the heart fails to pump blood around the body effectively. Most commonly this is due to damage to the muscles of the heart because of: Heart attacks High blood pressure Excessive alcohol Cardiomyopathies - a group of diseases that affect heart muscle Some people are born with heart failure British Heart Foundation "When you have insomnia your body releases stress hormones which in turn may effect the heart in a negative way," he said.. The same team of researchers have previously reported a link between people prone to insomnia and heart attacks. 'Unpleasant condition' And diabetes, depression and poor brain function have all been linked to missing restful hours in bed. Dr Tim Chico, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Sheffield said: "This is an association study - it links insomnia to heart failure, but does not prove that insomnia causes heart failure or vice versa. Studies like this raise interesting suggestions that need further work to examine. "Insomnia is a very unpleasant condition, but there are effective lifestyle changes that can reduce it, such as weight loss and exercise. "Luckily many of the things that reduce the chance of heart failure also reduce insomnia - good diet, exercise, weight loss and not smoking." June Davison, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "This research shows a link between insomnia and your heart, but this doesn't mean sleepless nights cause heart failure. "It's well known that getting enough sleep is vital for your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. "Trouble drifting off can be helped by taking a warm bath to relax, or avoiding caffeine and heavy meals too close to the end of the day. "If lack of sleep is becoming a problem and affecting your daily life, have a chat with your GP."

Chanting “Long live the Intifada,” University of Texas at Austin activists recently stormed a class to protest and disrupt a talk by a guest lecturer. Waving Palestinian flags and shouting anti-Israel epithets, twelve members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) entered the public event, sponsored by Institute for Israeli Studies Professor Ami Pedahzur and hosting Stanford University military historian Dr. Gil-Li Vardi. Throughout the incident — during which Pedahzur insisted that the invasive students either “sit down and learn something” or leave — the PSC activists filmed everything on their cellphone cameras. Since that episode, which took place on Friday, November 13, mere hours before Paris was brutally attacked by ISIS terrorists, Pedahzur, professor of government and founding director of the Institute for Israel Studies, has become the focus of a PSC intimidation campaign. This includes a petition circulated by the PSC and claims that Pedahzur was violent. “We were met with physical force and intimidation,” the PSC said in a statement. A UT Austin professor as well as an attendee escalated what was supposed to be a reading of a prepared two-minute statement, culminating in professor Ami Pedahzur physically pressing his body against a PSC member, nose-to-nose in a move to physically intimidate the student. Pedahzur had to be restrained by 3 people. Watching the video of the episode, which was uploaded to YouTube by PSC members immediately after they crashed the event, one gets a sense of the menacing nature of the demonstration — on the part of the students, not those trying to subdue them. In an exclusive interview with The Algemeiner on Tuesday, Pedahzur described the incident, the first of its kind he says he has experienced in his career — as professor of government, the Arnold S. Chaplik Professor in Israel and Diaspora Studies and founding director of the Institute for Israel Studies — and the ongoing nightmare he is now living as a result of it. Wearing a disguise on campus and fearing for the safety of his family and students says it in a nutshell. “Along with the PSC petition smearing my name and accusing me of inappropriate behavior, I’ve received death threats,” Pedhazur said. “But no one at the university has offered to protect me or my students. That is why I went to the police last Monday to request protection for my class — titled ‘Suicide Terror’ — which is in a basement, so in an emergency situation, it would be very hard to evacuate 95 students. I couldn’t take the chance that because of my name, someone would try to do away with a ‘Zionist professor.’” The first course of action Pedhazur took was to vacate the offices at the Israeli Studies Institute, and, he said, “Police gave us recommendations on how to secure the facility, so as not to put anybody at risk.” What the university did in the immediate aftermath of the incident was to instruct Pedahzur to defer all requests from journalists to its public affairs department. Pedahzur’s silence “gave the groups the opportunity to smear me. The whole field was open to them.” In addition, he said, “I read press releases about the intention of these students to press charges against me. So I hired a lawyer.” (It was his attorney’s permission that enabled this interview.) It was not until 10 days after the event that the university offered an official response. On November 23, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Randy Diehl issued the following statement, which was also sent to The Algemeiner, following a request to speak to Pedahzur: Amidst the current controversy concerning the disruption of an academic lecture sponsored by the Institute for Israel Studies, I want to reiterate my deep admiration for the work of Professor Ami Pedahzur and the Institute for Israel Studies in conducting courses and public programming that represent the highest standard of academic discourse and dispassionate reasoning and research on a controversial subject of enormous importance. Students and faculty of every background, including Palestinians and Israelis alike, have enthusiastically received Prof. Pedahzur’s courses and his supervision of undergraduate and graduate research. Although reviews are still ongoing, I wish to emphasize that there are places on campus for responsibly discussing disagreements. Disruption of a visiting scholar’s invited academic lecture violates principles of academic freedom and free speech that are crucial to our mission as a great university. Asked why this particular lecture, open to the public and titled, “The Origin of a Species: The Birth of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Military Culture,” sparked particular outrage, Pedahzur said that it was “completely orchestrated” anger and part of a nationwide campaign. “It was a targeted opportunity; it was entrapment,” Pedahzur said. “We at the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies have never had a single problem since we started the program in 2007. But last week’s episode, based on what I’ve heard, was an attempt by different groups to attach themselves to a larger movement that has been afflicting campuses, such as Mizzou [University of Missouri].” Pedahzur, an Israeli who has been in the US for 12 years, pointed to the fact, for example, that the PSC students “didn’t say a word about the news from Paris that same night. These rioters said nothing on Facebook nor condemned the attacks. They call themselves ‘Palestinian,’ but most of them don’t even speak Arabic, other than what they’ve learned in language classes at the university. Most of them are not even Muslims; they’re American kids that don’t have anything to do with Islam.” But, he added, “I am going to do whatever I can as a researcher to find out who is behind this group,” whose leader has openly called on people to rally behind Hamas, Islamic jihad and other groups against the Palestinian Authority, which he views as ‘collaborators’ with Israel. Pedahzur also laughed bitterly at the notion that the students in question, while defaming his character, are claiming to be the ones who are living in fear. “Really? Who, exactly, are they afraid of? Kids at Hillel House?”

This is a tale of New Jersey politics. So it is only fitting that it begins — as it will end — in a courtroom. It is the spring of 1978, and a boy wants to sue the government. Charles A. Poekel Jr., a suburban attorney, is staring across his desk at his client, a Livingston High School junior who’s trying to run for a minor office but has been disqualified because he can’t vote. The 16-year-old sits next to his parents, but he does most of the talking. He knows the names of all the county bosses and town committeemen. Poekel understands impatient ambition — he ran for Congress himself at the age of 28. But he’s never met anyone like this boy, David Wildstein. “It is very unusual that someone of that age would be that all-consumed with politics,” Poekel recalls many years later. “It was like having a child prodigy as a musician, but he was a child prodigy as a politician. I would call him a political Mozart.” Wildstein takes his case to court. He makes the local TV news, the Times, and the front page of the Livingston weekly paper, the West Essex Tribune, which has been covering his activities since middle school. (It straightforwardly reported his defection from the Democrats to the Republicans at the age of 12.) When the judge rejects his request, the boy remains defiant. “I am in no way over the hill,” he declares, “and can assure the voters of Livingston that they have only just begun to see the name of David Wildstein.” Video: A Brief History of “Bridgegate” Back at Livingston High, Wildstein is considered an oddball. He is chubby, with glasses, and a strident conservative. Wildstein doesn’t fit into any of the school’s cliques, but he hangs around the margins of the baseball team. He is a baseball nerd — loves the strategy, the way the game can be broken down into numbers — and acts as team statistician. Livingston is a championship contender, and the players are popular. Everyone loves the catcher, who is the president of the class a year behind Wildstein’s, a beefy jock with a shaggy haircut named Chris Christie. That May, as Wildstein is trying to run for office, Christie makes the paper for socking a home run into a neighboring swimming pool. Christie’s middle-class family lives in a modest brick home on the other side of town from the Wildsteins, who own a successful manufacturing business and live across the street from the estate of Tom Kean, soon to be New Jersey’s governor. But Wildstein and Christie do cross paths, working together as volunteers on one of Kean’s campaigns and taking a road trip to a rally in Trenton. They are friendly, but then Christie is that way with everyone. He wears his ambition as amiably as a varsity jacket. Wildstein’s ambition fits him awkwardly, like a grown-up suit a few sizes too large. When he’s a senior, he runs a write-in campaign for the school board on a platform of cracking down on drug use and vandalism. He submits endorsement letters to the local paper from fellow students and his social-studies teacher. The teacher promptly accuses Wildstein of “political manipulation,” claiming he was tricked into signing a letter he hadn’t written. Though they later issue a joint statement, saying the matter was “basically a misunderstanding,” Wildstein still finishes with just 37 votes. Christopher Christie, class of 1980. Photo: Courtesy of the Livingston Public Library, NJ So now it’s 1984. Ronald Reagan is running for reelection, “Born in the USA” is piping out of every radio, and Christie is graduating from the University of Delaware, where he ran the student government and met his future wife, Mary Pat Foster. Wildstein has returned home from Washington, D.C., where he attended college and worked as a congressional aide. He has been managing campaigns for Jersey politicians, including a state senator named Louis Bassano. In an era before ubiquitous computers, Wildstein pores over reams of precinct-level voting results, looking for angles. (“He would spend hours and hours and hours,” Bassano recalls. “I would walk into the office and there he is, looking over the figures, making notes, making notes.”) Wildstein has an obsession with New Jersey political lore, loves the old stories of clubhouse skulduggery. When Wildstein says he plans to run for office himself, Bassano thinks it’s a bad idea — the kid has got tactical talent but a backroom personality. Wildstein proves him wrong, winning a seat on Livingston’s town council. Two years later, amid a racially tinged uproar over affordable housing, the Republicans win a majority on the council and elect Wildstein to the rotating position of mayor. He is just 25. “He was quite a phenom,” says Chuck Hardwick, the Speaker of the New Jersey state assembly at the time, for whom Wildstein worked as an adviser. “The talk then was that he was going to be the first Jewish president of the United States.” But Wildstein is preoccupied with being king of Livingston. “We used to call him the Wild Man,” says his former high-school classmate Leonard Sorge. “He had some wild ideas.” The post of mayor is a part-time position with little power, but he is always at town hall, meddling with the bureaucrats. He shows up early to monitor what time they come to work. Teachers at the high school think he visits an inordinate amount, chumming around with the kids in Key Club, for which he is an adviser. “He was into everything, he wanted to know everything, and he had something to say about everything,” says Pat Sebold, a longtime Democratic officeholder from Livingston. “He was a major disaster.” Visiting the high school, Wildstein allegedly tells a group of students that a certain township policeman is “a bad apple.” The cop sues him for defamation. The mayor verbally attacks a municipal judge, claiming that he “continues to take the side of criminals” because he released a pair of shoplifting suspects from Brooklyn. The judge’s admirers are outraged. “I look forward to the time when Livingston will again have a mayor who puts the township first and his own political ambitions second,” Todd ­Christie — Chris’s younger brother — writes to the Tribune. Toward the end of his term, Wildstein organizes a coup against the Republican councilman who is supposed to rotate into the mayor’s office next. The councilman accuses him of “terror politics” and trickery. “David’s ploy must be criticized on two counts,” he tells the public. “Most importantly, it was wrong. Secondly, the scheme was doomed to backfire from the start.” That September, facing dim prospects, Wildstein announces that he is dropping his bid for reelection. Democrats retake the Livingston council, which remains in their control to this day. “A lot of people say that it stays Democrat because of David,” Bassano says. “He would probably have done the party a lot more justice if he had stuck to electing other people.” Meanwhile, elsewhere in New Jersey, Chris Christie goes through a debacle of his own: a term on the Morris County Board of Chosen Freeholders full of mudslinging, infighting, and litigation, culminating in an ignominious last-place finish in his reelection bid. By the end of the 1990s, both Christie and Wildstein appear to be finished in electoral politics. Christie, an attorney, is back in private practice, working as a lobbyist. Wildstein is running his family’s company, Apache Mills, a leading manufacturer of doormats. Christie and Wildstein share a laugh, during the third day of Fort Lee’s traffic gridlock. On February 1, 2000, a crudely designed website appears on the internet, run by a person who goes by the name Wally Edge. The real Edge was a newspaper publisher, two-time Jersey governor, and tool of the Atlantic City machine of Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, the inspiration of the Prohibition-era series Boardwalk Empire. The pseudonymous Edge is a purveyor of political gossip. It is actually Wildstein, hiding behind a characteristically obscure historical reference. The same personal attributes that were liabilities to him as a politician — his obsessiveness, his lack of tact, his fascination with personal conflict — prove to be well suited to the internet. The word blogging doesn’t yet exist, but that is what he aims to do, offering readers a mix of score-settling rumors, lobbyist chatter, trial balloons, and arcane trivia. For the next decade, the true identity of Wally Edge is the subject of much speculation in political circles, but few guess it’s David Wildstein. He’s gotten married and moved to the town of Montville, where he lives in a brick McMansion on two wooded acres. He has been selling floor coverings and doing a little political consulting on the side. One of the politicians he has stayed in contact with is Bob Franks, who represented Livingston in the state assembly during Wildstein’s mayoral tenure. Franks is a brilliant strategist who mentored many operatives. By 2000, Franks is a congressman running a long-shot campaign for the U.S. Senate. In its early days, Wildstein’s site, PoliticsNJ, seems to exist, at least partly, to promote Franks’s candidacy. His regular column, “The Inside Edge,” defends Franks from his primary rivals’ attacks, suggesting they worked out a corrupt bargain to coordinate against him. Wildstein’s agenda, though, proves to be larger than advancing any one candidate. In a posted mission statement, he says the site “means to inject our views into the political arena.” His biases, he admits, are personal: “We have favorites just like you, and there are some New Jersey pols we really dislike.” Wally Edge’s favorites include three operatives from the Franks campaign: Mike DuHaime, Bill Stepien, and Bill Baroni. All three will go on to become major players in New Jersey politics and key figures in the Chris Christie administration. Wally Edge is not overtly partisan, though. As they say in baseball, he is a fan of the game. He disdains those he deems phonies and appreciates operators. (“Among those of us who pay inordinate attention to politics in New Jersey, Wally Edge had an unusual seat at the table,” says Robert Torricelli, the Democratic power broker known as “the Torch,” who was a U.S. senator at the time. “I always liked him because I was always one of his favorites.”) Wildstein would sometimes describe his audience as “people who get the joke.” The joke is that, beneath all the theatrics of ideology, politics is about people competing for status. In that sense — and in many others — our institutions of government are not so different from high school. Chris Christie has found a new calling, too. He spends the 2000 campaign raising money and working as a lawyer for George W. Bush, drawing Wally Edge’s ire when he appears to be cooperating with one of Franks’s primary opponents. But then Bush appoints Christie to be a U.S. Attorney, and he begins to arrest public officeholders for corruption. In New Jersey, criminal investigations are considered to be politics by other means — that’s another part of the joke — and Wildstein is quick to appreciate how cannily Christie is positioning himself. In 2002, the website names him its “Politician of the Year.” It constantly touts his prospects for higher office, attaching “corruption-busting” before every mention of his name. And there is so much corruption to bust! Christie obtains an indictment for Essex County executive James Treffinger, one of Franks’s old GOP-primary opponents, and has him handcuffed in front of his family home. Politics­NJ is credited with the scoop and revels in Treffinger’s downfall. After he pleads guilty, the site publishes a Photoshopped picture of the politician in prison stripes. Christie later arrests developer Charles Kushner, a major Democratic contributor, who ultimately pleads guilty to making illegal campaign contributions and retaliating against a witness, his brother-in-law, by luring him into a videotaped encounter with a prostitute. (PoliticsNJ refers to him as a “budding filmmaker.”) Whenever Wally Edge finds out that Christie is investigating someone — as he frequently does, somehow — he writes that the target is “hearing the cellos,” a reference to the Jaws theme. In 2004, Governor Jim McGreevey, a Democrat, starts hearing the cellos. An FBI informant has caught him on tape uttering “Machiavelli,” which is allegedly a code word signaling his complicity in an illegal fund-raising scheme. The governor hastily resigns, explaining that he is a “gay American” and has been carrying on an affair with a former aide. (PoliticsNJ has been dropping hints about the aide and his “unique skill set” for years.) Republican leaders then try to draft Christie to run for governor, and Edge has an authoritative description of Christie’s thinking as he considers, and then rejects, the opportunity. Christie will always deny leaking, but he definitely appreciates the site’s influence. Long after Wildstein has stopped blogging, Christie still calls him “Wally.” Wally Edge has more power than David Wildstein ever did. Communicating almost exclusively by AOL Instant Messenger, Wildstein maintains a web of informants inside both parties. Over the years, PoliticsNJ evolves into a real news organization. The site hires a small staff of professional reporters, none of whom know their boss’s true identity. Wildstein turns out to be a good judge of talent. One of the website’s first hires is Steve Kornacki, who goes on to become a political analyst on MSNBC. Wildstein has dreams of expanding his model into every state, but the site can never generate much revenue from its few ads. In 2007, he decides to sell the site to someone who can invest. An unlikely buyer materializes: Jared Kushner, Charles’s 26-year-old son. Wally Edge announces the sale with his own invocation of Machiavelli: “Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.” Wildstein’s email presented during hearings on the lane closures. Photo: Mel Evans/AP Photo The Kushner family is also from Livingston. Charles’s reputation may be tarnished, but Jared has a plan to expand their influence by buying media properties, first in New York (he already owns the New York Observer) and now back home in New Jersey. Wildstein agrees to sell on two conditions: He wants to remain anonymous, and he wants to keep possession of Wally Edge’s AOL email account, which contains much information that might interest the Kushners. (“The repository of secrets that David collected is like nothing I’d ever seen,” says Jordan Lieberman, who managed the business side of PoliticsNJ for years.) Kushner agrees. He tells his employees at the Observer that they could learn something about digital media from Wally Edge, whom he admiringly calls “a wild man.” Wildstein swoons for Kushner, decides he is another prodigy. He ends up attending Kushner’s wedding to Ivanka Trump. Kushner puts Wildstein in charge of building a national network, and they hire staff in 17 states. But it turns out statehouse gossip is hard to produce at scale. After the 2008 election and the real-estate crash, Kushner decides to abandon the project and lays off most of the staff. Wildstein goes back to running the New Jersey site. The 2009 governor’s race is coming up, and Kushner has a very personal interest in that, because Christie is on the ballot. Kushner harbors a deep antipathy toward the prosecutor who locked up his father, and Wildstein knows how his new boss wants the race to be covered. “In 2009,” says a former Observer employee, “the site exists to destroy Chris Christie.” When Christie wins, though, the governor is forgiving: He has a job for Wally Edge. He needs an agent at the Port Authority. When Wildstein defects, sources say, the Kushners are furious. Someone leaks Edge’s true identity to the Newark Star-Ledger. The near-universal reaction among the insiders he covered is: David who? But Wildstein is known to people who matter, especially Mike DuHaime, now Christie’s chief political strategist. Wildstein’s new post, at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, comes with a huge salary, by government standards, and the specially created title of director of interstate capital projects. It quickly becomes evident that Wildstein is not there to build bridges. “Wildstein has been waiting his whole life to get into a massive government bureaucracy,” says a former colleague, “with all kinds of nooks and crannies and levers.” Why would Christie want to turn David Wildstein into a power broker? The Port Authority may look like a boring bureaucracy, but it’s really a self-propelled patronage machine. Every time you cross the Hudson River, or land at one of the region’s airports, or swipe a MetroCard at the World Trade Center transit hub, a coin rings in the Port Authority’s coffers. It has a 1,700-member police force, an army of engineers and lawyers, and the capacity to spend billions of dollars on construction projects. The governors of New York and New Jersey jointly control the authority, and the two sides clash eternally. The New Jersey faction is convinced that it is being cheated out of its fair share of the budget. Wildstein’s direct boss at the authority is Baroni, his close friend from the Franks campaign, but Wildstein is seen as Christie’s inside man. (“He came directly — like a missile — out of the governor’s office,” says a former Port Authority executive.) Wildstein meets frequently with Christie’s advisers, DuHaime and the other Franks-campaign veteran Stepien, and more occasionally with the governor himself. “When David Wildstein walked into a room, it was clear that Chris Christie was represented,” says Torricelli, who dealt with the Port Authority as an attorney for an auto-importing facility that had a lease dispute with the agency. “I thought they had rather direct communication.” Wildstein can imagine many creative ways to put the machinery of the Port Authority to use. (Stepien will later allegedly tell the governor that Wildstein came up with “50 crazy ideas a week.”) And because the Port Authority is an independent agency, Christie can maintain a deniable distance. When the Port Authority needs to raise tolls, Wildstein and Baroni come up with an elaborate ruse to make it look like Christie is heroically fighting the bureaucracy. When the city of Bayonne is about to go bankrupt, they orchestrate a land deal that bails it out, removing the burden from Christie. Inside the authority, Wildstein makes it plain that he is watching out for the governor’s interests. The civil servants who work at the authority are accustomed to some political interference, but Wildstein’s conduct shocks them. (“It was extreme,” says a former port official. “Full intimidation: ‘I’m Christie’s guy. I rule.’ ”) Co-workers report that Wildstein is seen poking around the office before dawn. He shows up at meetings he isn’t invited to and begins tapping notes on his tablet. In an email to an aide, Scott Rechler, a powerful board member from New York, references the widespread concern that Wildstein may be eavesdropping on phone conversations. Wildstein clashes with the authority’s professional department heads and conspires to purge low-level employees, replacing them with his own people, who are assumed to be spies. His powers reach into every area: port operations, the airports, the police. There is a rumor that he uses an emergency-access lane to cut the line every morning at the Lincoln Tunnel. One day, during a routine tour of the George Washington Bridge, he notices a set of orange cones are blocking off three toll lanes, offering direct access to drivers approaching the bridge from neighboring Fort Lee. He is annoyed and wants to know why the town appears to have its own entryway. The bridge’s manager tells him there is a long-standing deal with the mayor. Wildstein apparently files the observation away. By 2013, everyone in Christie’s orbit is working toward one objective: the White House. He is going to run, for sure, and the only question is whether Republicans are ready for a blunt-spoken, sometimes rude northeastern populist with a flair for social media. Christie first has to get past his reelection campaign in New Jersey, but that’s just a formality. He’s so popular that the Democrats only put up a token opponent. In order to demonstrate his centrist appeal, though, Christie’s strategists want to run up the score by winning endorsements from as many Democratic officeholders as possible. The endorsement push is coordinated by Stepien, Christie’s campaign manager, and Bridget Kelly, a state official who runs the governor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. (The two are also quietly dating.) The governor’s allies at the Port Authority are key players in their strategy. Drawing on a list of targeted mayors, Baroni raids a JFK hangar filled with debris from the Twin Towers and distributes pieces of steel to towns around New Jersey for use in memorials. He and Wildstein conduct so many VIP tours of ground zero that they demand — and receive — a new entry gate for their convenience. The courtship is not subtle: Mark Sokolich, the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, later recounts that when Wildstein offered his family a tour, he repeatedly referred to Sokolich as “the one I was told to be nice to.” But after hemming and hawing, the mayor eventually makes it clear to Kelly’s office that he’s not going to back the governor. Soon after, in what prosecutors will describe as an act of political reprisal, Wildstein and Kelly start discussing a scheme. On August 12, 2013, Kelly checks with her staff one final time to make sure they won’t win Sokolich over. Early the next morning, she sends Wildstein a terse email. “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” “Got it,” Wildstein replies. A month later, on the first day of school in Fort Lee, Wildstein arrives at the bridge at dawn to supervise the implementation of his plan, which he calls a “traffic study.” All the Port Authority employees involved know something strange and colossally stupid is afoot, but no one says anything, because they are all terrified of Wildstein. The cones are reconfigured so that Fort Lee’s access is cut to a single lane. Inside the bridge’s command center, via a live video feed, Wildstein watches as the rush-hour traffic begins to build. Soon, Fort Lee is totally gridlocked: Buses can’t get children to school. “Is it wrong that I’m smiling?” Kelly, a divorced mother of four, later texts Wildstein. “I feel badly about the kids … I guess.” He responds that they are the children of Democrats. A Port Authority policeman named Chip Michaels texts Wildstein a report from the streets: “Its fkd up here.” Michaels is another guy from Livingston. He and his brother, a Republican lobbyist, have known both Wildstein and Christie for years. Michaels picks up Wildstein and takes him on a drive to observe the traffic. Then they go to a diner, where they have breakfast and discuss Christie’s presidential hopes. The first day of the traffic pileup. All right, so now it’s September 11, the most solemn day of the whole political calendar, and Chris Christie — the candidate who never neglects to mention he was appointed U.S. Attorney the day before the terrorist attacks — is yukking it up with Wildstein at the World Trade Center site. They’re there for the annual memorial service, but it’s also the third day of the closures, and Wildstein has been monitoring the traffic, along with Mayor Sokolich’s increasingly desperate messages to Baroni. (“Radio silence,” Wildstein orders.) Photos of the event show Wildstein standing next to the governor, checking his phone, and sharing a hearty laugh with Christie, Baroni, and others. No one knows what’s so funny, but Wildstein will later allege that they discussed the bridge. It is the last time he and the governor will see each other in person, at least publicly. By the next day, Sokolich and others in Fort Lee are screaming about public safety and political payback. The “Road Warrior” columnist for the Bergen Record contacts the Port Authority about the mysterious gridlock, and Wildstein forwards the message to Kelly, who is heading down the shore with the governor, responding to a major fire on the Seaside boardwalk. No one knows what she tells Christie, but the lane closures continue. The Record column draws the attention of the Port Authority’s executive director, Pat Foye, a New York appointee. This is the first he’s heard of a “traffic study,” and he freaks out. He orders the lanes reopened, saying the “hasty and ill-advised” closure is both dangerous and illegal. A couple of weeks later, the email from Foye makes its way to reporter Ted Mann at The Wall Street Journal. Wildstein presumes Foye is waging factional warfare, rather than worrying about ambulances and school buses stuck in traffic. “Holy shit, who does he think he is, Capt. America?” Stepien texts Wildstein. “Bad guy,” Wildstein says. “Welcome to our world.” The Christie administration brushes aside accusations of its involvement in causing the gridlock as an absurd conspiracy theory, but the Journal continues to pursue the story, and other outlets follow. Legislative hearings are called, subpoenas are issued, and the governor and his aides hold crisis-management meetings. As late as December 2, Christie is still trying to laugh off suggestions of retaliation. “I worked the cones, actually,” he says sarcastically at a press conference. “Unbeknownst to everybody, I was actually the guy out there in overalls and a hat.” One day, Wildstein disappears from his office at the Port Authority headquarters, never to return. He can hear the cellos. In early December, the dormant Wikipedia account Montclair0055 — whose sparse prior contributions include creating a page for the state senator who gave Wildstein his first paying job at age 12 and laudatory additions to the entries for Baroni and DuHaime — stirs to life. As the clamor of the investigation intensifies, ­Montclair0055 writes late into the night on subjects that mirror Wildstein’s obsessions, adding a critical entry for an obscure Democratic Party hack who was one of Wally Edge’s favorite targets and another about “the Curse of the 38th,” a phrase (used exclusively on PoliticsNJ) to describe the voting history of a Bergen County legislative district. The editor revises the page of Steve Kornacki to note that he got his start at PoliticsNJ. Montclair0055 seems determined to ensure that the picaresque characters and episodes that so enthralled Wildstein are preserved for posterity. Many of the contributions are later deleted by other Wikipedia editors on the grounds of insignificance. The night of December 4, Wildstein has dinner in New Brunswick with his friend Mike Drewniak, the governor’s spokesman, and tells him that Christie was aware of the lane closings as they were happening. The message is implicit: He won’t go down alone. The governor’s chief counsel calls Wildstein and tells him his resignation is required immediately. Wildstein’s subpoena from the state legislative committee arrives on December 12, and he hires a criminal-defense attorney. They could fight to quash it, but instead he hands over 900 pages of emails, texts, and documents. One of those emails is the fateful one from Kelly: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Those eight words are all it takes to ruin several lives. You can imagine Christie, the former prosecutor, wondering: Why didn’t she just use the goddamn phone? His reputation as an incorruptible truth-teller is rendered ridiculous. Even his hero Bruce Springsteen, in a hilarious knife-twisting gesture, duets with Jimmy Fallon on Late Night in a song about the traffic jam set to the tune of “Born to Run.”* Christie holds a two-hour press conference, in which he says he was “blindsided” and “humiliated” by the actions of his staff. “Let me just clear something up, okay, about my childhood friend David Wildstein,” he says scornfully. “We didn’t travel in the same circles in high school. You know, I was the class president and athlete. I don’t know what David was doing during that period of time.” Christie’s office later circulates a memo to supporters that describes Wildstein as untrustworthy, citing, among other things, the high-school dispute with his social-studies teacher and his odd habit of registering web addresses for the names of his enemies. In January 2015, Wildstein reaches a deal to plead guilty and testify. Baroni and Kelly are indicted four months later. Christie decides to run for president anyway. He announces his candidacy at Livingston High School. Inside a sweltering gym bedecked with championship banners, the governor is received by a boisterous contingent of his old friends from the class of 1980. “Lots of people have asked me over the course of last week, why here?” he says. “Why here? Because everything started here for me. The confidence. The education. The friends. The family. And the love that I’ve always felt for and from this community.” Outside the gym, protesters picket the speech, waving signs that read BULLY. On the campaign trail, he keeps getting incredulous questions about the juvenile traffic-jam prank. He drops out after a poor finish in New Hampshire and endorses Donald Trump. This puts him in the awkward company of the nominee’s son-in-law and strategic adviser, Jared Kushner. Kushner finally bests his father’s accuser, crushing Christie’s hopes of the vice-presidential nomination, but Christie still retains an important place in Trump’s small circle of loyalists. If Trump wins, you can assume there will be a place for him in the administration, perhaps as attorney general. That prospect must make Wildstein extremely nervous. After the scandal, he moves to Florida, sells the house in Montville, and loses a precipitous amount of weight. When he arrives at court to enter his guilty plea, the reporters covering the case hardly recognize him. By the terms of his deal with prosecutors, he is expected to be the star witness against Kelly and Baroni, who, if convicted, would likely face two to three years in prison. It is rumored that their trial will bring significant further disclosures. Wildstein, the collector of secrets, is said to have walked out of the Port Authority with an enormous amount of documentary evidence, including the hard drive to his former friend Baroni’s computer. Looming over the trial is the question of Christie’s level of involvement in his old classmate’s crazy bridge idea. Prosecutors have filed a sealed memorandum, listing people who were aware of the scheme; it is widely presumed that Christie’s name is on it. If he is called to testify, the governor will have to tell his story under oath. At a minimum, the spectacle will be embarrassing for Christie and threatening to any future chance of a cabinet post. At worst, the trial could destroy what is left of a career he’d once thought could plausibly culminate in the presidency. Among veteran observers of New Jersey politics, there is an ongoing debate about who is most to blame for Chris Christie’s downfall. There are essentially two theories. One holds that Christie, a seemingly intelligent adult, would never be so idiotic as to authorize a retaliatory traffic jam. The other holds that Wildstein, a seemingly intelligent adult, would never be so idiotic as to go forward with his scheme without Christie’s approval. The trial is scheduled to begin on September 19. Soon we may hear the rest of the tale and, at long last, get the joke. *This article appears in the September 19, 2016, issue of New York Magazine. *This article has been corrected to reflect that Bruce Springsteen and Jimmy Fallon performed a song about the traffic closure on Late Night, not SNL or The Tonight Show.

The College Football Playoff committee released its first rankings to great fanfare. The list is sensible, with proper credit given to teams with good wins and/or acceptable losses, and there is a pretty obvious explanation for why and where these rankings differ from, say, the AP Poll or F/+ rankings. Ole Miss ranks three spots higher via the committee, thanks both to the win over Alabama and, in theory, a lower level of recency bias (the Rebels lost just last week) in the committee room. TCU ranks three spots higher than in the AP poll, potentially because it wasn't dragged down by preseason rankings. Notre Dame, lacking any sort of marquee win, ranks four spots lower than in the AP poll. We'll see how things like recency and conference leads factor moving forward. I still feel it's misguided for the committee to put out weekly updates. It serves no purpose but to open up opportunities for unexplained movement and criticism. Still, this was a pretty good start. Now let's figure out what to expect moving forward. *** Each Wednesday, I've been using the F/+ rankings and the win probabilities derived from them to peer into the future a bit. (For example, here's last week's ACC piece.) Odds change as more evidence becomes available and the rankings themselves shift, but it's a good way to look at odds, expectations and potential pratfalls. With all of the power conferences now getting updated each Wednesday at Football Study Hall, let's turn our gaze here to the national title race. We'll start with the most obvious question. Of the teams ranked in the committee's current top 25, which ones are the most likely to finish with the best records? Below are two tables, one showing you both the differences between the Playoff rankings and F/+ rankings and teams' current projected win totals, and one showing you each team's odds of finishing with a given regular-season record. Rankings and win projections Team Record CFP rank AP rank F/+ rank Projected wins Mississippi State 7-0 1 1 4 10.53 Florida State 7-0 2 2 11 10.51 Auburn 6-1 3 4 2 9.41 Ole Miss 7-1 4 7 1 10.21 Oregon 7-1 5 5 5 10.57 Alabama 7-1 6 3 3 9.92 TCU 6-1 7 10 7 10.37 Michigan State 7-1 8 8 10 10.26 Kansas State 6-1 9 11 17 8.96 Notre Dame 6-1 10 6 19 9.08 Georgia 6-1 11 9 14 9.94 Arizona 6-1 12 14 27 9.18 Baylor 6-1 13 12 20 9.58 Arizona State 6-1 14 15 18 9.82 Nebraska 7-1 15 17 13 10.42 Ohio State 6-1 16 13 8 10.18 Utah 6-1 17 18 32 7.96 Oklahoma 5-2 18 19 6 9.69 LSU 7-2 19 16 12 9.02 West Virginia 6-2 20 20 25 8.59 Clemson 6-2 21 22 9 9.58 UCLA 6-2 22 25 24 8.74 East Carolina 6-1 23 21 46 10.13 Duke 6-1 24 24 28 10.07 Louisville 6-2 25 15 8.71 Win probabilities for each ranked team With trips to Ole Miss and Alabama on the horizon, Mississippi State, No. 4 in the current F/+ rankings, doesn't have the greatest chance in the world of finishing undefeated. But there's still about a 1-in-2 chance that the Bulldogs reach the SEC title game (if they qualify) at 11-1 or better. Meanwhile, it appears Oregon and Nebraska have the best chances to reach their respective conference title games with just one overall loss. If the season ended today by Jason Kirk Here's the best guess as to how the six big New Year's bowls would look. The top four in the rankings go to the Rose and Sugar semifinals, with No. 1 getting its closer site. Conference ties determine the Orange. The top non-power-conference team is guaranteed a spot. And the committee matches up the other three games according to geography and appeal. Peach No. 8 Michigan State vs. No. 23 East Carolina Fiesta No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 7 TCU Orange No. 6 Alabama vs. No. 21 Clemson Cotton No. 9 Kansas State vs. No. 10 Notre Dame Rose No. 2 Florida State vs. No. 3 Auburn Sugar No. 1 Mississippi State vs. No. 4 Ole Miss Let's get to some obvious questions. FSU might finish 10-2? One of the most interesting parts of last week's ACC projections was the slack FSU does not get moving forward. FSU has crept back into the F/+ top 10 and is still getting slight dings for Winston missing the Clemson game and for Oklahoma State's J.W. Walsh getting injured right after the FSU game. So all of the Seminoles' win probabilities are probably slightly low because of that. [...] A lot of our assumptions, however, are premised around the helmet FSU wears. If Clemson were 7-0 with a few close wins, we wouldn't trust that the Tigers would continue to win. If Louisville or BC were in this position, we really wouldn't trust it. Because FSU won the national title last year, and because we recognize so many star-caliber names on the two-deep, we perhaps justifiably assume the 'Noles will be just fine. I know I do. With road games remaining against two good teams, the win projections weren't incredibly kind to FSU last week. And with Miami's dominant win over Virginia Tech pushing the Canes to 16th overall in the F/+ rankings, FSU's odds aren't any better this week. I don't think you'll find too many people willing to bet on FSU losing to both Louisville and Miami in the coming weeks, but the numbers are pointing out that it's at least a possibility. Nebraska and Duke? What? Nebraska has crept up to 13th in the F/+ rankings. The Huskers don't have much to offer beyond Ameer Abdullah's rushing yards, but that alone has gotten them into the top 30 of Off. F/+. Meanwhile, the defense is up to 13th thanks to a lack of true weaknesses and an occasionally great pass defense. Here's the Huskers' remaining conference slate: Purdue (64th), at Wisconsin (29th), Minnesota (42nd) and at Iowa (49th). The trip to Madison looks a lot tougher after the Badgers' total dominance of Maryland last week, but F/+ still really likes Nebraska. It also really likes Duke, though that's more a function of schedule than quality. The Blue Devils do rank a relatively healthy 28th overall, but that's not exactly the level of a national title contender. But here's their remaining schedule: at Pittsburgh (38th), at Syracuse (76th), Virginia Tech (30th), North Carolina (59th and rising) and Wake Forest (89th). Pitt is occasionally great and occasionally awful -- the proverbial crazy guy in the fight, capable of ripping off 300 rushing yards or seven fumbles in a single game -- which makes that game a bit of an unknown. Survive Pitt, however, and Duke will be favored in each remaining season game, perhaps by a decent margin. That would put them in position to potentially steal a Playoff bid with an upset of FSU. And while the Blue Devils have to leap a ton of teams for this shot, remember the "we'll place extra value in conference titles" committee proclamation. (That Duke-FSU upset obviously isn't likely. Just consider yourself warned that "Duke could make the Final Four!!!" might become a story line we actually discuss in about five weeks ... as long as the crazy guy in the fight doesn't take the Devils down this weekend, anyway.) How does the committee react going forward? This is a huge question. More intrigued by next week's @CFBPlayoff rankings than tonight's, because we'll get to see how rankings react to top-10 game. — Brian Fremeau (@bcfremeau) October 28, 2014 No.3 and No.4 play one another this weekend. No.5 is definitely better than the loser of that game. - Poll Logic. Not sure about committee. — Brian Fremeau (@bcfremeau) October 29, 2014 The first iteration of this top 25 was good about giving heft to good wins, avoiding giving extra weight to recent losses, et cetera. But does it simply end up reacting to results like a poll would moving forward? It's easy to look at those probabilities above and figure out how things might shake down overall -- Oregon nabbing a top-3 spot, TCU putting itself in excellent position for the top 4, and whatnot. But now we get to see how the committee reacts to specific wins and losses in real time. Win probabilities by week Looking at the above list, we see that the 11-1 cutoff comes roughly at No. 16 Ohio State. After that come either teams that are all but guaranteed to lose once or twice more (Utah) or teams that already have two losses. Let's look at the upcoming slate for the top 16 teams and Duke. If you're looking for where a team might trip up, here's where you should start. Feel afraid F/+ sees three teams with a very good chance of losing this week: No. 2 Florida State at No. 25 Louisville, No. 3 Auburn at No. 4 Ole Miss, and No. 12 Arizona at No. 22 UCLA. If any or all of these teams survive their tricky road trips, expect their win probabilities to jump rather dramatically next week. For Auburn, which still faces trips to Georgia in Week 12 and Alabama in Week 14, a win is imperative. One could see a 10-2 SEC West team nabbing that No. 4 spot in certain circumstances, but nobody's reaching the Playoff at 9-3. An Auburn team that beats Ole Miss and goes 1-1 against UGA and Alabama will have an interesting case. Meanwhile, at 12th, Arizona has no margin for error whatsoever. The Wildcats are taking on an incredibly volatile UCLA team, one that has proven capable of drubbing a good team on the road (ASU), then losing two straight at home. An Arizona win would give the Wildcats two lovely road wins for the résumé (they beat Oregon earlier in the year) and would clear the path for a bit of an elimination game at Arizona State in Week 14. Feel pretty nervous Three teams have win probabilities between 50 and 70 percent this week: No. 4 Ole Miss (hosting No. 3 Auburn), No. 7 TCU (traveling to No. 20 West Virginia), and No. 24 Duke (heading to Pittsburgh). All three have games they'd win two of three times, but that basically means if they roll a 5 or 6 on a die, they lose. Those aren't comfortable odds, and there's only about a 29 percent chance that all three win. Feel okay about looking ahead The other nine teams with Week 10 games are looking pretty safe. No. 14 Arizona State has a tough game against No. 17 Utah but is still given a three-in-four chance of winning. No. 5 Oregon (Stanford) and No. 10 Notre Dame (at Navy) aren't completely out of the woods, but they're relatively likely to survive. On deck Ohio State, Kansas State, Baylor, and Notre Dame all have pretty safe games this week, but Week 11 will be huge for them. The Buckeyes head to East Lansing for an enormous game against Michigan State, Kansas State goes to Fort Worth for an elimination game of sorts with TCU, Baylor plays at Oklahoma, and Notre Dame plays at Arizona State in a well-timed, interesting, non-conference (for ASU) battle. I'd say Week 11 is a big one, but they're all big now. Title games There is, of course, a missing piece in the tables above: for teams in the SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten, and ACC, there might also be a conference title game involved. It's still a bit messy to get that involved in the tables, but here are odds for what could be some of the more relevant potential championship games. SEC No. 1 Mississippi State vs. No. 11 Georgia: MSU 70 percent. No. 3 Auburn vs. No. 11 Georgia: Auburn 75 percent. No. 4 Ole Miss vs. No. 11 Georgia: Ole Miss 76 percent. No. 6 Alabama vs. No. 11 Georgia: Alabama 74 percent. Each of the West's four potential 11-1 or 12-0 champions would have about a three-in-four chance of beating a Georgia team that is improving rapidly (and could cut those odds in the coming weeks). And of course, Georgia itself could be in position to nab a Playoff bid come December 6. This could easily become a win-and-you're-in game for both teams. Pac-12 No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 12 Arizona: Oregon 81 percent. No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 14 Arizona State: Oregon 75 percent. No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 17 Utah: Oregon 86 percent. Yes, Oregon has an 81 percent chance of beating Arizona, a team to which the Ducks have already lost at home this year. Advanced stats care not for previous head-to-heads, and the Ducks have improved their standing quite a bit in the last couple of weeks. Big Ten No. 8 Michigan State vs. No. 15 Nebraska: MSU 58 percent. No. 15 Nebraska vs. No. 16 Ohio State: Ohio State 60 percent. I don't think I can call Nebraska a legitimate contender here until I see the Huskers leave Madison with a win. But from a statistical standpoint, they're a lot more legitimate than we're giving them credit for being at the moment. They have a very strong chance of winning the Big Ten right now. ACC No. 2 Florida State vs. No. 24 Duke: FSU 74 percent. No. 21 Clemson vs. No. 24 Duke: Clemson 75 percent. Basically, Duke has a 33.6 percent chance of getting to 11-1 and about an eight percent chance of getting to 12-1. *** FSU's odds are indeed probably a bit better than what you see above, once you take injuries and suspensions into account. Still, using the ratings as they exist above, you might be able to conclude that the most likely Playoff scenario at this point* might be something like this: No. 1 SEC Champion (12-1) No. 2 Oregon (12-1) No. 3 TCU (11-1) No. 4 ??? That No. 4 spot could go to a 12-1 Florida State (depending on how far the 'Noles would fall with a loss at Louisville or Miami), a 12-1 Big Ten champion (if Michigan State wins out, the Spartans are probably well-positioned for the spot, but Ohio State and Nebraska might need help), or a second SEC West team, one that is probably 10-2. We'll learn more, both about the teams themselves and the committee's reaction to big games, in the coming weeks. * Note that the "most likely" scenario isn't particularly likely. There are hundreds of scenarios still on the table.

From WikiFur, the furry encyclopedia. Foxy Flavored Cookie Author(s) Thomas Evans Website Update schedule Updates Mondays and Fridays Launch date June 6, 2010 End Date Ongoing Genre Comedy, Adventure, Romance Rating(s) Foxy Flavored Cookie is a webcomic created by Thomas Evans (alternatively known as The Baker). The series centers around Pucho, a boy who was turned into an anthromorphic culpeo fox and lost his memory. All strips are drawn using PaintTool SAI. Because of this, all strips that are drawn are of high quality, clear, and easy to read. The comic is hosted by Comic Fury. Synopsis [ edit ] Foxy Flavored Cookie centers around a boy who is bitten by a pure lycan, causing him to become two-thirds lycan, and lose his memory. He is then found by a land scout, by the name Hos (pervy) and an insect biologist named Pituka. However, Pervy forgets to ask his name, so they name him after a box of cigarettes found in his pocket- Pucho. They take Pucho to an underground city named Paws Den, where he has to adapt to his new life. Cast [ edit ] Main characters [ edit ] Pucho: a rather clumsy, but good-natured and outgoing character. He once had a life as a gypsy traveling in a caravan. He is rather talented at playing the violin, and exceptionally good at cooking. These are two skills that transfered over after he lost his memory. Every once in a while, when the need arises, he can spontainously, and impulsively, summon supernatural strength and powers. This is demonstrated in many areas, but it is implied that he has no control over this abillity. Pucho Shows romantic interest in Pituka. Pituka: Pituka is not far from a female Pucho counterpart. She is rather smart, as she is an insect biologist, however she is just as good-natured and outgoing as Pucho. Her home is filled with many kinds of insects, with her favorite being Huggie, a lycan sized spider. She shows romantic interest in Pucho. Pervy: Pervy is a lycan that fits his name. He is very risque, but can be very comical at times. His biggest romantic interest is Nelly. Pervy often tries to perve (not intended) on Nelly, but this usually doesn't end well for him. Most of the time, he ends up getting hit with a wrench, thrown out windows, and everything in between. Nelly: Nelly is a cheetah lycan who can be very harsh. She controls Paws Den's heating and cooling, and often overworks her employees. She cares very much for Pervy, mostly as a brother. Nelly is a very talented engineer. This is demonstrated when she builds a heater to heat up an entire lake. Luna: Luna is a succubus. This means that she leeches off of peoples life energy. Pucho has too much life energy, which is why he sometimes has outbursts of energy. Luna can sense people's pleasure's, and she sometime takes advantage of this. She tries (and is rather successful) to get Pucho to show interest in Pituka. Luna can also transform herself, so while she is usually seen in her original form, when around her new friends she will take on the form of a pink cat. Astrid: Astrid is a dream solider, meaning she has an oath at birth to serve the queen of paws den. After she was saved by Pituka, she changed her allegiance to Pituka. Astrid is extremely loyal to whoever she serves, and will follow any order given to her. Astrid very closely resembles an anubis. Secondary characters [ edit ] Tammy: Tammy is a crazy witch therapist who constantly tries to seduce Dr. Ulrick. She provides therapy to Pituka and Nelly. Dr.Ulrick: Ulrick is a doctor that works in Paws Den at a clinic. Because of his shy and cute personality, many of the females find him very attractive. Notes [ edit ] "Fillers" are used whenever a comic isn't avaible Updates are sometimes streamed

Four reasons the updated Uber Dubai app makes us sad By Mike Priest Double charges, secret surges… Uber, your app is bad. Late last year, ride-hailing company Uber updated its app in an effort to make it even easier for customers to book one of its cars. The update added a number of new features, including the ability to schedule rides in advance, as well as providing up-front fare estimates. However, just like the sickly sweet smell of a newly opened car air freshener, not everything was as rosy as it seemed. While the app also received a much needed facelift, some of the core functionality that users enjoyed was either buried behind a mess of design-driven decisions, or had been removed entirely. So, after months of botched bookings and frustration, we can stand it no more! Here are our top four gripes with the Uber app: 1) You can’t book an open-ended trip One of the perks of the original Uber app was the ability jump in any of its cars and venture off into the Dubai streets to wherever took your fancy. A super handy feature in a city where roads and landmarks are constantly changing, giving Google Maps a tough time at playing catch up. The app now requires that you enter a definite end-point to your journey, making it incredibly difficult in those instances when you’re trying to get to your mate’s place and all you have for directions are a vague take the third left after the second Mosque once you hit Al Wasl Rd. Similarly, if you want to hail an Uber to help you collect something and then return home in the same car it is tricky to do as you can’t specify a round-trip as a destination. 2) The surge pricing indicator is tucked away Surge prices are the scourge of the avid Uber user, always at their peak during daily prayer times, commuting rush hours or Friday brunches. Either they run the risk of doubling your fare during peak hours, or making you late as you impatiently wait for them to drop below 1.1x so you can avoid paying even a single fil over the going rate. Uber must clearly have caught on that its users aren’t fans of elevated surge pricing as it now hides away any notice of it in the tiniest font possible, only notifying you when asking you to confirm your booking. We miss the big, bold pop up that told us we were about to be ‘surged’ before we booked. A little unscrupulous if you ask us, especially for those looking to book in a hurry, or at the end of a night out. 3) Location errors can end up costing big One Uber user recounted to us a story in which they were looking to travel from their apartment building in Dubai Marina to the Al Qasr hotel in Jumeirah but had, unbeknownst to them, mistakenly set their destination as a restaurant in JBR with the same name (that was 500 metres from their house). Uber told them the fare would be Dhs30-40 when they booked (seems fair for Marina to Madinat) so they hopped in the cab and then had a confusing conversation about location, during which the driver said he knew it would be Al Qasr the hotel and not the restaurant, so the user asked the driver to take them there. In the end a 10 minute ride cost them Dhs80 (and they didn’t realise it would cost that much when they booked). While this is not entirely Uber’s fault (the app relies on Google Maps for its location information), we’ve heard multiple similar accounts to warrant it being noted as an issue. A series of checks certainly wouldn’t go amiss to ensure customers don’t wind up with a fare for the wrong location or, worse yet, end up somewhere else entirely. 4) Being charged double for a ride is no fun One of the biggest changes that Uber implemented with its app overhaul is how they handle payment. It used to be that you would book your ride and only be charged the fare (calculated based on the minimum fee and an amount per minute/kilometer) once you reached your destination. Just like a regular cab – nice and simple. Instead, the new system calculates the fare in advance (using the same maths as before) and gives you an estimated rate for how much the journey should cost. This is clearly stated in the app along with the caveat that “Uber places a temporary authorization hold on your card, which is converted to a charge for the final fare. You may receive 1 or more SMS messages from your bank notifying you of both the hold and the charge.” Frustratingly, if your journey deviates from the specified amount charged at the beginning of the trip (due to a detour to pick up a friend or, you know, traffic) you are then charged a second, final amount for what the fare actually is. Sure, the original amount is released back to your credit card, but some banks take upwards of 10 working days to process a card chargeback, meaning if you’re a regular Uber user who gets stuck in traffic often – hello, practically everyone in Dubai – then you could be potentially ponying up around double each time you ride. We reached out to Uber regarding our grievances with their app and they came back with the most diplomatic of responses: “At Uber, we are passionate about using technology to help move people around cities, and to recapture the clean and simple aesthetic of the original Uber experience, we rebuilt a faster, smarter rider app completely from the ground up. The new Uber experience is reimagined around a simple question—“Where to?”. And by starting with your destination, we can tailor the journey to you.” We will say this, Uber does continue to offer a responsive and competent level of customer support whereby, should you raise any of the above issues with your ride (and believe us, we did!), they go above and beyond in helping to resolve things. It’s just upsetting that the core app is in such a state that we experienced everything we’ve mentioned here on multiple occasions, without so much of a hint as to whether these issues are going to be addressed in the future. Let’s hope Uber gets its act together. In the meantime, it’s enough to make you want to try that other ride-hailing company’s app from across the street… – Have you experienced any issues with the Uber app that drive you nuts? Tell us about them on Facebook. Photos: Uber app

Israel Accused of Suppressing Terror Evidence to Help Out New Pal China Israel is a country desperate for friends. Isolated in the Middle East and hated in large parts of the Arab world, it struggles to make alliances. The few it has, it guards fiercely. So it should perhaps come as no surprise that for years Israel has been courting China, inking trade deals and fêting one another over champagne. But that process now finds Israel in an awkward bind, one that may lead the country to compromise on its core anti-terror policies. According to a report in Haaretz, the Israeli government is currently under enormous pressure from Beijing to suppress evidence that the Bank of China laundered money for Islamic Jihad. In 2006, a Jewish-American teenager, Daniel Wultz, was killed in a suicide bombing carried out by Islamic Jihad at a Tel Aviv shawarma restaurant. His parents have now sued for damages — at the initial encouragement of Israel — and allege that the Bank of China laundered funds for the terror group, effectively bankrolling the operation that killed their son. Prior to filing the case, according to Haaretz, Israeli officials told the parents, Yekutiel and Sheryl Wultz, that they would support their case and provide evidence implicating the Bank of China. Now, at Beijing’s urging, they’re having second thoughts. So far, Israel has declined to provide the expert testimony they promised and are currently deliberating over whether to make Uzi Shaya, a former intelligence official, available to a New York City court. That’s right, under Chinese pressure, Israel may prevent the victims of a Tel Aviv terrorist attack from extracting damages from the people who bankrolled an operation that killed their son. Chalk it up to the cost of a new friendship. If the burgeoning alliance between Israel and China sounds unlikely, bear in mind that it’s a relationship forged in political and economic calculation. Israel was one of the first countries to recognize China following its Communist revolution, and while it took over 40 years for to China establish diplomatic relations with Israel, the two countries have something off an oddball history of military cooperation. Awash in seized Soviet weapons following the Six Day War in 1967, Israel quietly worked to upgrade China’s military arsenal. That relationship continued into the 1990s when President Bill Clinton furiously vetoed the proposed sale from Israel to China of an advanced radar system. Now, the relationship between the two countries has become primarily economic, though geopolitical concerns still hover in the background. Trade between the two countries stood at $8 billion in 2012, and when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Beijing in May he was accompanied by a retinue of Israeli businessmen who hope to push that figure above $10 billion over the next five years. While there, Netanyahu signed a series of bilateral agreements and shared a champagne toast with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. And in January of last year, the two countries inked a $300 million line of credit designed to bring Israeli investments to China. Now, a free trade pact is under consideration. But even as Israel and China draw closer to one another economically, awkward geopolitical concerns threaten to poison their relationship. China habitually obstructs efforts to crack down on Iran’s nuclear program and is all too happy to undermine Western and Israeli interests in the region at times. But for this reason, Israel has little to lose — and a lot to gain — by moving closer to China. "We do hope that if we are able to improve economic ties and connections between Israel and China, it will help us also to explain our positions with regard to the Iranian nuclear threat, with regard to the events in Syria," then-Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinetz said in an interview with Bloomberg prior to signing the $300 million line of credit. Steinetz currently serves as the intelligence minister, and the calculation at play is an obvious one: Through its trade ties Israel hopes to win influence with China and alter its positions on issues critical for Israel. But that calculation runs both ways, as Israel is currently learning in a New York courtroom. In arguments last Friday, lawyers for the Bank of China tried to convince the judge that Israel’s reluctance to make its intelligence expert available signaled that the Israeli government no longer backed his conclusions about the bank’s involvement with Islamic Jihad. But the judge, Shira Sheindlin, did not buy it. "It’s hard for me to accept that assumption," she said.

A drawing shows a woman having her arm prepared for minor surgery. (Print by Abraham Bosse via National Library of Medicine) What’s the best way to treat prostate cancer? What are the benefits and risks of different rehabilitation options for survivors of stroke? Unfortunately, the answer to these and similar questions often is: Nobody knows. The United States spends $3 trillion annually on health care — much of it funded by taxpayers through programs such as Medicare — yet only a limited amount of information exists about what treatments work best for which patients. Although estimates vary, some experts think that less than half of all medical care is based on clear scientific evidence. The good news is that the federal government is now making a significant investment in health services and patient-centered outcomes research to identify waste and improve the safety, effectiveness and quality of care. The bad news is that House Republicans are trying to abolish one of the main agencies carrying out this research, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and cut the funding of another, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The puzzle is why. One possible reason is that Republicans oppose taxpayer funding of all scientific research as a matter of principle. Yet the same House Appropriations Committee draft bill that targets health services research also provides a $1.1 billion increase in the budget of the National Institutes of Health. A second possible reason is that Republicans are uninterested in evidence-based policymaking. But both Democrats and Republicans argue that better information is needed to make government more effective. For example, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) recently introduced the Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission Act of 2015 to evaluate the effectiveness of federal programs. What makes the situation even more perplexing is that evidence-based medicine has a solid Republican pedigree. Perhaps the most important advocate of an increased federal role in paying for research on the clinical effectiveness of treatments has been Gail R. Wilensky, a Republican economist who served as George H.W. Bush’s Medicare director. In 2008, former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) published an op-ed with Billy Beane, the “Moneyball“ general manager of the Oakland A’s, and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in which they lamented that “a doctor today can get more data on the starting third baseman on his fantasy baseball team than on the effectiveness of life-and-death medical procedures. Studies have shown that most health care is not based on clinical studies of what works best and what does not — be it a test, treatment, drug or technology.” Republicans have turned against government funding of evidence-based medicine research for five reasons. Federal investment in this research (although it predated the 2008 election) became closely tied to the Obama administration’s health-care reform agenda, because big funding increases were tucked into the 2009 stimulus legislation and the Affordable Care Act — two measures the GOP strongly opposed. An increased federal role in comparative effectiveness research, together with payments to physicians for voluntary counseling to Medicare patients about end-of-life options and the creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board (another agency the GOP wishes to kill) contributed to the “death panels” myth, which Republicans have used to frame health-care reform as “rationing.” As University of Maryland political scientist Frances E. Lee argues, partisan conflict over technocratic issues such as medical research is often “opportunistic and focused on electoral advantage.” As she writes, “The politics of good government, ironically, is hardball.” Although evidence-based medicine might seem likely to have bipartisan support, it has become a partisan issue among voters. In 2010, Alan Gerber, David Doherty, Conor Dowling and I conducted a national survey to gauge public support for government funding of research on the effectiveness of treatments. Among those who reported not voting in 2008, there was not a large difference in support across Democrats and Republicans, but there were significant partisan differences among voters. Republican voters were much less supportive than Democrats. During the debates over the stimulus bill and health-care reform, the two parties took opposing stands on the federal government’s role in this effort, which led to the significant partisan split among politically engaged citizens. Research on the effectiveness of different treatments is a threat to the incomes of some health industry stakeholders. In 1994, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (the precursor to AHRQ) issued a report concluding that there was little evidence to support back surgery over nonsurgical alternatives for many cases of lower-back pain. Back surgeons went ballistic, and successfully lobbied Republicans in Congress (who associated the agency with the Clinton health-care reform plan) to slash the agency’s budget and curb its authority. Although some health IT companies see the value of AHRQ and PCORI, there are powerful interest groups that wouldn’t mind if the agencies were weakened. The public is not engaged. Although patients, caregivers, and family members would benefit from better information about the effectiveness of treatments, the benefits of a stronger base of medical evidence are too diffuse to mobilize ordinary citizens. AHRQ and PCORI are public-interest agencies that lack a natural constituency. Republicans have attacked government funding of evidence-based medicine research because there is little political penalty to doing so. The penalty would be higher if Republicans feared getting on the wrong side of doctors. In our survey research, we found that when it comes to the role of evidence in patient decisions as well as in the allocation of health-care money, the public believes that “doctors know best.” The public views doctors as trusted agents of their interests; when respondents are told that doctors support government funding of evidence-based medicine research, the argument of opponents that study findings will be used as a pretext for rationing loses its sting. Clearly most doctors do believe in the need for research on evidence-based medicine (although medical societies frequently protest when studies question the efficacy of treatments used by their members). “Cutting funding to AHRQ would be a huge mistake in our mission to improve the quality & efficiency of healthcare,” tweeted one surgeon. But the physician community has not organized around the issue. There is a good chance the proposed cuts to evidence-based medicine research won’t be enacted in this appropriations cycle. Nonetheless, the episode is a reminder that information is a powerful resource in government — one that can be destroyed when people aren’t looking. Eric M. Patashnik is professor of public policy and politics and director of the Center for Health Policy at the University of Virginia. He is also nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

After each mass shooting, gun control activists, bereaved parents and lawmakers reissue a call for more restrictive gun control laws. However, eight years after the shooting at Virginia Tech University that killed 32 and two years after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary that left 27 dead, Congress has not enacted substantial legislative changes. The latest mass shooting in Oregon on Thursday again raises the issue of gun control and why efforts to pass gun law reforms have failed. A simple reason is, perhaps, money. In 2015, the gun rights lobby outspent the gun control lobby about 6 to 1. Data shows that the gun rights lobby, which includes groups like the National Rife Association and Gun Owners of America, consistently spends significantly more money in lobbying and campaign contributions than gun control groups like Everytown for Gun Safety. The Center for Responsive Politics said that in the 2008 election cycle, gun rights organizations spent 34 times more on lobbying in 2008 than gun control groups. In raw numbers, that's $3.9 million versus $115,000. While that money doesn't directly go to politicians, the money does go to lobbyists with access and who lawmakers often depend on for expert opinions and information. Thursday's shooting at the Oregon community college is the 45th mass shooting this year, if defined as an event at which four or more people were killed. If defined as an event at which four or more people were shot, it's the 294th.

NES has signed a new contract with Remontowa Shipbuilding, Gdansk for the delivery of two hybrid electric systems for two new ferries. The contract has a value of 25-30 mill NOK. The owner of the new ferries is Transport for London (TfL) and the LMG Marin 60-DEH design includes a propulsion system, which is the newest within green energy. The ferries shall be operating the link between Woolwich and North Woolwich across the River Thames. The Woolwich Ferry has been operating since 1889 and carries around 20 000 vehicles and 2.6 million passengers a year across the River Thames. Norwegian Electric Systems package consists of ultralight converters forming a DC-grid system with totally four battery packages, two on each side of the DC-bus breaker for redundancy. In addition, for the main propulsion there are used water-cooled, high efficiency permanent magnet motors and four direct driven propellers. "We have had a good and close contact with Remontowa and LMG Design during this sales process", says Fridtjof Erichsen, regional sales manager in NES. NES will, as usual, deliver a complete integrated DC-Grid system consisting of: Generators 4 complete battery packs permanent magnet motors for main propulsion DC switchboards Low loss Quadro Drive® DC/AC and AC/DC EMS and IAS Project Management Calculations/Engineering Commissioning and sea trial "We are proud to have won this contract," says Fridtjof. "It proves once again that NES is in the forefront when it comes to technology". NES has already installed one of Europe`s largest test facilities for electric propulsion systems including energy storage. The new Energy Management System will also be a great advantage for future projects. Source and top image: Norwegian Electric Systems

Five Labour grandees, who previously campaigned for Britain to Leave the EU in the 1975 referendum, have penned an open letter explaining why they’ve changed their position. Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, Margaret Beckett, Hilary Benn, David Blunkett and Jack Straw have published a letter in support of the EU in the Sunday Mirror. The four who join Kinnock in signing this letter were ministers under previous Labour governments. Benn is currently shadow Foreign Secretary and is expected to play a big role in Labour’s EU strategy. Although all five were once Eurosceptics, now they say “It’s clear Britain is stronger, safer and better off than we would or could be if pulled out of the EU.” The five explain that their previous Euroscepticism was rooted in concerns that “membership would mean a one-way loss of sovereignty and investment.” “This has proved unfounded”, they write. They praise the EU for giving Britain economic partnership with 27 other countries, three million jobs and employment rights. In a move that’s been interpreted as support for David Cameron’s attempt to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU, they write: “The conclusion of the current renegotiation will hopefully strengthen this relationship as we make the progressive case for Britain in Europe.” The Prime Minister is hoping to strike a deal at next week’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels. If this successful it would clear the way for Cameron to put the renegotiated terms of British membership to the public in a referendum in June. The letter in full: In the 1975 referendum we all campaigned against remaining in what is now the European Union. Now, and for a long time past, it has been clear Britain is stronger, safer and better off than we would or could be if we pulled out. Our concern then was that membership would mean a one-way loss of sovereignty and investment. This has proved unfounded. We are part of an economic partnership with 27 other democracies, exercising full rights to determine agreed rules in the world’s largest single market. That has brought three million jobs, it attracts large investment, promotes growth and provides for employment rights that protect British workers. We also have control of our currency, borders, security, defence, foreign affairs and justice. Britain’s voice on global matters, whether debt relief, peace-keeping or climate change, is amplified by being part of Europe. Intelligence sharing helps us fight terrorism and other crime. The conclusion of the renegotiation will hopefully strengthen this relationship as we make the progressive case for Britain in Europe. Leaving would be a huge risk to prosperity, security and the opportunities of future generations. The EU is not perfect and improvement is always worth making, but the benefits far outweigh the costs. – Neil Kinnock, Margaret Beckett, David Blunkett, Jack Straw and Hilary Benn

With no let-up in protests over sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib in Punjab, 10 companies of the Border Security Force (BSF) have been deployed in four districts of Punjab. Three companies each of the BSF have been deployed in districts of Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar, while one has been deployed in Tarn Taran. Tension has been prevailing in the state since incidents of holy book sacrilege have come to light sparking protests across the state. Meanwhile, in a fresh incident, pages of the holy book were found torn at Gurusar village in Bathinda district on Tuesday morning leading to tension in the area. As the incident came to light, villagers gathered to protest against the incident. Heavy police force has been deployed to ensure that the situation doesn’t go out of control. In Jalandhar, 10 people were rounded up by the police in connection with the clash between the shopkeepers and the Sikh protesters on Monday. The police also conducted flag march. Policemen also kept a close watch at various markets, including Mai Hera Gate and Rainik Bazar. Traffic also remained suspended on the National Highway 1, only to be cleared by noon on Tuesday. Meanwhile, protesters lifted blockade from various places in Tarn Taran, a day after two people were detained by the police. On Monday, a ‘granthi’ of a gurdwara at Nijjapura village in Amritsar district was arrested for allegedly desecrating the holy book while a baptized woman was arrested in Ludhiana in connection with the Ghawaddi village desecration case. Meanwhile, Sikh outfits continued to stage dharnas at several places in Punjab against incidents of sacrilege and to press for arrest of police officials involved in firing at Behbal Kalan village in which two persons were killed. First Published: Oct 20, 2015 13:41 IST

SHARE Gov. Scott Walker Friday named Waukesha attorney Daniel Kelly to the state Supreme Court, replacing retiring Justice David Prosser. By of the Madison — Gov. Scott Walker on Friday named a little-known Waukesha lawyer with no judicial experience to the state Supreme Court, putting Daniel Kelly on the bench and keeping in place the high court's 5-2 conservative majority. Kelly — who in his application called affirmative action and slavery the same morally — will replace retiring Justice David Prosser on Aug. 1, the start of the court's new term. Kelly, 52, initially applied for the appointment in secret, but his name became public in June, when Walker's team narrowed the field of candidates from 11 to five. Kelly took just one question from reporters after Walker announced the appointment in the state Capitol, but he declined to discuss his writings opposing affirmative action and gay marriage. "The primary and only job of a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice is to apply the law as it is written and the oath that I will take will guarantee to you that my personal political beliefs and political philosophy will have no impact on that whatsoever," Kelly said. "Those things simply have no place inside the courtroom." In his application, Kelly included a 2014 book chapter in which he wrote same-sex marriage would rob marriage of any meaning and likened affirmative action to slavery. "Affirmative action and slavery differ, obviously, in significant ways," Kelly wrote. "But it's more a question of degree than principle, for they both spring from the same taproot. Neither can exist without the foundational principle that it is acceptable to force someone into an unwanted economic relationship. Morally, and as a matter of law, they are the same." Asked to discuss what he meant, Kelly remained in the background and Walker answered on his behalf, saying Kelly would not inject his personal beliefs into his work for the court. Walker declined to yield the podium to Kelly when reporters asked him to specifically answer their questions. Kelly also did not say whether he would run for a full 10-year term in 2020, but Walker said he expected that he would. Walker said he had not asked him that question when he interviewed him for the job. In his prepared remarks, Kelly said he's had a lifelong love of the law and was humbled by the appointment. "To this day, I cannot walk into a courtroom without my heart skipping a beat," he said. "I trust that will never change. I trust that I will always stand humbly before the law." Chief Justice Patience Roggensack appeared with Walker and Kelly and said she had known Kelly for a long time and was impressed with his scholarship. "I am very, very pleased with the governor's appointment," she said. Kelly was with the large Milwaukee law firm Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren for 15 years, but left it in 2013. He spent a year as the vice president and general counsel for the Kern Family Foundation, which was established by the founders of Generac Power Systems. In 2014, Kelly formed a small law firm in Waukesha with attorney Rod Rogahn. Kelly has been closely involved with conservative legal groups. The president of the Milwaukee chapter of the Federalist Society, he also sits on an advisory panel to the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. Throughout his application, he praised two of the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative justices — Antonin Scalia, who died in February, and Clarence Thomas. Kelly was an adviser to state Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley's campaign this year and served as an attorney on Prosser's campaign during a recount after he narrowly won re-election in 2011. He also was on the legal team that defended legislative and congressional maps that Republican lawmakers redrew in 2011. In that litigation, a panel of federal judges made changes to the districts for two Assembly districts on Milwaukee's south side after it found those maps violated the voting rights of Latinos. The other maps — which greatly favor Republicans — were left in place. (A separate challenge to the maps is pending in federal court in Madison; Kelly is not involved in that litigation.) The appointment to the Supreme Court is the second one Walker has made since he was first elected in 2011. Last year, the GOP governor put Bradley on the bench, six months before she was elected to a full 10-year term. Walker has the sole say on the appointment. Kelly does not need the confirmation of the state Senate or any other body. The governor acknowledged Kelly did not have judicial experience, but noted two other members of the high court — Prosser and Justice Shirley Abrahamson — had not served as a judge before they became justices. To get on the Supreme Court, Kelly beat out 10 others. He was the only applicant who kept his name secret in the early going, but his name was released once he made the first cut. The field was later cut from five to three and Kelly beat out the other two finalists, Appeals Court Judges Mark Gundrum and Thomas Hruz. Gundrum, who served alongside Walker in the Assembly, was the early favorite among observers. Walker appointed Gundrum to the District 2 Court of Appeals in Waukesha in 2011 — passing over Kelly for that spot. Under state law, appointees to the state Supreme Court stand for election at the first year in which a Supreme Court election isn't already scheduled, and in this case contests are already planned for 2017, '18 and '19. That means that — should he choose to run — Kelly would be on the ballot in 2020.

Protesters take to the street in Chicago after recent grand jury decisions in police-involved deaths in New York, Cleveland and Ferguson, Mo. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images) Congress reauthorized legislation this week that will require states to report the number of people killed during an arrest or while in police custody. "You can't begin to improve the situation unless you know what the situation is," Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), one of the bill's sponsors, said in an interview with the Washington Post. "We will now have the data." The Death in Custody Reporting Act was originally passed in 2000, but expired in 2006. Scott has attempted to reauthorize the bill unsuccessfully four times since then. The first time the bill was passed, it took years for data to start coming in, and it expired shortly thereafter, Scott said. "It's the way government works," he said. "You're trying to get local governments to make periodic reports. It just takes some time for this to become routine." The lack of reliable information about how many people are killed by police annually has come into focus following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. In place of government-provided data, crowd-sourced efforts like Fatal Encounters and one by the Gawker Media-owned sports Web site Deadspin have been created that rely on local media reports and volunteers who input information. Fatal Encounters, founded in 2012 by Reno News & Review editor and publisher Brian Burghart, has recorded 3,010 deaths, with another 9,000 in its "development queue" where various leads from places like Wikipedia and FBI data are available for users to research. The site sees an increase in traffic whenever a death captures the public attention, and since Sunday, Burghart said, there's been about 600 new records submitted. But despite the reauthorization of the Death in Custody Reporting Act, Burghart said he'll continue collecting data and keep the site up. "I don't know that anything changed," he said of the first time the law was passed. But if its second iteration produces meaningful data this time around, he said, then he might consider shuttering the project. "I hope [the law] really means something," he said. Lawmakers are confident it does. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a sponsor, said the law "will give the information needed to strengthen trust at every level." "Alarmingly, on an issue this profoundly important and potentially explosive, there is no reliable data on the overall scope of the problem," he said in a statement. "The stark, staggering fact is that the nation has no reliable idea how many Americans die during arrests or police custody each year. This legislation will fix that unacceptable factual gap." The law requires the head of every federal law enforcement agency to report to the attorney general certain information about individuals who die while detained, under arrest or incarcerated. Among the information that must be reported are the deceased individual's name, age, gender, race, and ethnicity, the date, time, and location of their death, and a brief description of the circumstances involving their death. Under the bill, the Justice Department has the authority to withhold federal funds from states that don’t comply in sending the information to federal agencies. The funds total $500 million a year and are divvied up among states based on a formula that includes factors such as population and violent crime. The attorney general would then have two years to determine if the data could be used to reduce deaths and submit a report to Congress. Scott "wasn't satisfied" with how the information was used when the law was first passed, but is hopeful things will be different now. "I think providing the data should not be a hardship," he said. "You really can't have an intelligent discussion without good information."

The moose on the now eight-hour loose in Markham is believed to be taking a nap, although Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry staff and police tracking the animal don’t know for sure. But the trackers, themselves, have turned in for the night. The York Regional police and MNRF staff have been following the lost animal by way of drone since around 10:30 a.m. on Friday, with the hopes of tranquilizing it and returning it to the wild. The moose put in a guest appearance in many surprising places. But as day turned to night, officials decided to call it a day because they felt attempting to tranquilize the moose in the dark was not a good idea. “It’s too dangerous,” said Jolanta Kowalski, with the MNRF. “We haven’t seen the moose for several hours. I think the last time anyone saw (it) moving was around 3 p.m.” Attempts to locate the moose depend on any sightings through the night, said Kowalski. “In the event that someone sees it running around, we can go in and begin our search again.” Article Continued Below Kowalski added that she hopes the creature has just fallen asleep, or even better “has found its way back from where it came.” The moose was last seen in the area of Kennedy Rd. and 16th Ave. Since its appearance in the morning, the animal could be seen on CP24 TV as filmed by the station’s helicopter which followed it close above, as the beast barreled over suburban backyards and front lawns. The moose even ventured onto major roadways. Perhaps seeking refuge, the animal made its way to the Rouge River area, said Sgt. Kerry Schmidt of the Ontario Provincial police at around 11:30 a.m. Both the ministry and police asked the public to keep their distance. “We need people to back off. Let us know if they see it — but stop chasing it,” said Sgt. Scott Hunter at the time. Kowalski said the ministry asked CP24 to stop hovering near the moose with its helicopter because the noise was likely agitating it. Article Continued Below “It needs the space to calm down and relax.” No injuries were reported, but Hunter said the moose’s run had caused several car accidents, broken windows and smashed fences over the course of the day. Moose can run at speeds of 50 km/h. “It needs to rest or it’s going to die,” Hunter said. Read more about:

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Cindy Sui speaks to Taiwanese students holding a rally to demonstrate their support for the protests in Hong Kong In January, 13 groups from Hong Kong and Taiwan gathered in Taipei for a weekend conference. The meeting attracted little attention, but it marked the first time democracy advocates, including representatives from Hong Kong's political parties and students from both sides, had met in an organised fashion. Despite their proximity, the two sides previously worked little together. Taiwan has enjoyed full universal suffrage since 1996; but a year later, Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule. It seemed they had different fates. Growing worries about Beijing have drawn the two sides closer, however, culminating in mutual support for the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong and an Occupy Parliament movement in Taipei earlier this year. "Taiwan's democracy and Hong Kong's democracy have the same threat - the Beijing government," said Lai Chung-chiang, a Taipei-based lawyer and long-time activist. Image copyright AFP Image caption Students present John Leung, director of Hong Kong Trade Office in Taipei, with a protest letter on 29 Sep Now the two sides feel they share similar goals and they are working together more closely, something that will surely worry Beijing. Hong Kong supported us and now we're supporting them Karen Cheng, Taiwanese activist After all, Taiwan could be seen as a bad influence - it's had decades, and some would say more than a century, of experience fighting for democracy. Some of its people are deeply anti-China and want independence, and its protesters have been bolder and more defiant than Hong Kong's. Many believe the success of Taiwan's movement greatly encouraged Hong Kong activists. Two months after the January meeting, Taiwanese students occupied parliament for 24 days and didn't leave until the legislature agreed to pass a law allowing stringent public supervision of agreements signed with China. "Because Taiwan's occupy movement was successful, Hong Kong people felt it was also possible for them," said Mr Lai. Many Hong Kong students came here then to learn, including how to disseminate information online in timely manner and co-ordinate supplies and donations. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Student activists organised a protest at the Hong Kong office in Taipei on Monday 'Support each other' In recent days, Taiwanese activists have flown to Hong Kong to lend support. One of them, Karen Cheng, has just returned. "We strongly care about Hong Kong because we really cherish our freedom and democracy," said Ms Cheng. "We're worried that today's Hong Kong will be tomorrow's Taiwan (if it one day reunifies with the mainland)." Beijing should have foreseen these fears as it worked in recent years to woo Taiwan - the next on a list of territories China feels were unfairly taken away when it was weak and wants to take back, to unify the "motherland". Beijing had hoped that allowing Hong Kong to prosper economically after the 1997 handover would convince Taiwan to reunify. But whether or not it grants Hong Kong democracy will directly affect whether the Taiwanese trust China, much less want to reunify. Image copyright EPA Image caption The protests in Hong Kong have seen thousands of people take to the streets Image copyright Reuters Image caption Some protesters slept on the streets overnight to enforce a blockade of key areas Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent statements that Taiwan should accept the same "One Country, Two Systems" formula under which Beijing rules Hong Kong, following his refusal to allow Hong Kong people to directly elect their leader, indicate he may be clueless about what Taiwanese people care about the most - self rule. Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou has rejected Mr Xi's suggestion, saying: "We fully understand and support Hong Kong's demand for universal suffrage." Giving Hong Kong people the right to choose their own leader would be a "win-win" situation for Hong Kong and China, he added. But he's limited in how much more he can say. Mr Ma hopes to meet Mr Xi at the Apec leaders' summit in Beijing in November and he doesn't want to jeopardise future negotiations with China. For Beijing, it now has to reckon with two issues it dealt with separately being linked, said Arthur Ding Shu-fan, a research fellow at National Cheng-chi University's Institute of International Relations. "They will have to figure out how to reassure Taiwan to not to support Hong Kong," said Mr Ding. It will also likely build a long blacklist of Taiwanese activists to keep out of Hong Kong. Already, student leaders Lin Fei-fan and Chen Wei-ting have been denied entry. But besides them, there are many more people who now feel connected to Hong Kong - no longer seen as just a place for flight transfers or shopping. "They supported us (back in March and April) and now we're supporting them," said Ms Cheng. "Supporting each other will help both sides."

This morning Salesforce Tower had its ceremonial topping off, which included a press conference with the mayor, several supervisors, the developer, and CEO Marc Benioff, and the hoisting of the "final" steel beam — signed by the construction crew and whoever else wanted to — up to the top story. Local media was given their first opportunity to ride to the top floor on a hardhat tour, and yes, the views do not suck. At 1,070 feet, the building is still being touted as the tallest office building west of Chicago — which is true, however the title of tallest building west of Chicago now belongs to Los Angeles' Wilshire Grand, which kind of cheated for the title with a spire that brings its height to 1,099 feet. Benioff announced today that the 61st floor of the building, the highest glass-walled floor of the structure beneath the translucent screened "cap," will not in fact be his personal office suite, but will instead be a gathering space they're calling the Ohana Floor — Benioff is fond of Hawaiian culture, and the word "ohana," which means family, is used at the company to represent the "family" of employees. During the day, the floor will be used as conference and event space for Salesforce employees and customers, and at night and presumably some weekends, the space will be opened up for use by community partners, non-profits, and others, free of charge. “I am deeply grateful to everyone working on Salesforce Tower as we celebrate this incredible milestone," said Benioff. "My hope for this building is that its meaning goes beyond its beautiful glass and steel structure. May the meaning of Salesforce Tower be the people within it who are deeply committed to making this city a better place for all of its citizens." Supervisor Jane Kim, in whose district the tower has been rising over the last several years, says that back when she took office in 2011 all she heard from other developers about the project was "it's too big," and she joked, "It was the only time ever that you had developers saying something should be smaller." But after securing Salesforce as an anchor tenant in 2014 — the company will be occupying the bottom 30 floors (3 through 30) along with floors 60 and 61 — the project was on much more solid financial footing. Architect Fred Clarke, senior principal of Pelli Clarke Pelli who are also responsible for the Transbay Terminal next door, spoke at the news conference declaring that "Building tall buildings is fundamentally an aspirational act, and an act of optimism," and that this tower that will now dominate the San Francisco skyline for many years to come should be seen as a gesture of faith in the future of the city's economy. And as they started doing last summer, developer Boston Properties and their partner Hines had reps throwing some shade in the direction of nearby Millennium Tower and its sinking problem, proclaiming "Bedrock, baby," and repeatedly boasting about Salesforce Tower's foundation reaching 300 feet down to solid bedrock. Glass glazing panels have already reached part of the top floor, but the site remains abuzz with some 700 workers in the building trades. The building is expected to be completed later this year, with the first Salesforce employees moving in by late 2017 or early 2018. Other major tenants now include Bain & Co., Accenture, and CB Richard Ellis, who is also the building's leasing agent. Previously: Salesforce Tower Throws Shade At Millennium Tower

By Riot Jynx Check out the winners of the League-o'-Lantern Halloween contest! Community-voted Winners: xcapriccino miisyou Sumino Kairosmith SneakyStyL Heirophant prinnybat Bamfxo Mitko Aseity Honorable Mentions: Kolab FuzzyLlamas IRamessesl DedRed7 IMB0reD Randomly-selected Winners: AngelicDragon Butters372 Suyuri A Wave o Babies Eosdrake StruckbyThunda A Heath Bar ohn5mindu Ashira Jaganshi Alyaska toxicpot Tero681 Bleufromage Slitheile13 RohesiaCrow Heisman1 Rosencruez Aqua Jet Gengaarr Dark Deception Halloween is fast approaching, so double up on your Doran’s Blades and celebrate with our pumpkin carving challenge! We're looking for your most creative, spooky, or adorable League-o’-Lanterns. Send them our way for a shot at a ghastly amount of RP! How do I enter the contest? Carve a pumpkin with a League of Legends-related image or theme Don’t forget to include your summoner name in the design (it should be visible in the picture, so photograph it from as many angles as necessary) Your entry must be made by you, submitted by you, and made for this contest Light a candle inside so we can see it glow! Finally, submit your masterpiece here Prizes: 10,000 RP - 10 winners chosen by the community 6,000 RP - 5 honorable mentions selected by Riot 2,000 RP - 20 randomly selected entries The contest submission period starts on October 14th and ends October 31st at 11:59 PM PDT. The following week, we’ll update this page with a link to where you can vote for your favorite entry. On November 7th, we’ll announce the winners! For more info, check out the official rules and our FAQ. Happy Halloween!

FILE - In this Dec. 17, 2015, file photo, Martin Shkreli, center, the former hedge fund manager under fire for buying a pharmaceutical company and ratcheting up the price of a life-saving drug, is escorted by law enforcement agents in New York after being taken into custody following a securities probe. Jurors heard testimony from the government's last witness on Tuesday, July 25, 2017, a day after Shkreli's lawyer told the court his client won't take the witness stand during his securities fraud trial. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File) NEW YORK (AP) — Wealthy investors say former biotech CEO Martin Shkreli told them he was managing tens of millions of dollars’ worth of investments, that they were making double-digit returns and they could withdraw their money at any time. Prosecutors in closing arguments Thursday at Shkreli’s securities fraud trial said it was all a brazen con. The defense countered that no one should feel sorry for the alleged victims because they were high-rollers who ended up doubling or tripling their money. Shkreli, 34, is best known for jacking up the price of a life-saving drug and trolling his critics on social media, but his trial in Brooklyn has focused on his time running a pair of hedge funds. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alixandra Smith told jurors Shkreli “lied to investors to get their money into the funds and then lied to them so they wouldn’t take it out.” The prosecutor recounted testimony by investors who told jurors that Shkreli claimed to be managing up to $40 million in one of his firms at a time when its brokerage account held only a few hundred dollars. When one investor asked for his money back, Shkreli stalled for months until he used a Ponzi-like scheme to secretly raid a second fund to return a portion of the funds, she said. “The defendant was lying not only about the ability to get a redemption, but also about where that money was coming from,” she said. As Shkreli was “blowing up” his hedge funds with bad stock picks, he continued to recruit new investors by portraying himself as a Wall Street whiz who graduated from Columbia University, Smith said. He really attended a lesser-known public university, Baruch College. Claims “that he was some sort of genius in the investing industry were completely untrue,” she said. The defense has sought to portray the impish Shkreli as a misunderstood eccentric who slept on the floor of his office in a sleeping bag for two years while starting a successful drug company that allowed him to enrich his alleged victims. “Who does that if you’re committing a fraud and you have millions of dollars in people’s money?” said his attorney, Ben Brafman. “He has no life. He’s the hermit scientist.” Shkreli is “not a Ponzi guy who’s taking money and buying a Cadillac or a yacht,” the lawyer added at another point. The lawyer agreed Shkreli could be annoying, saying, “In terms of people skills, he’s impossible.” But he claimed the clients who appeared as government witnesses were still eager to bet on him. Investors “found him strange. They found him weird. And they gave him money. Why? Because they recognized genius,” Brafman said. Shkreli didn’t testify, but throughout the trial he has used Facebook to bash prosecutors and news organizations covering his case, despite his lawyer’s efforts to shut him up. In one recent post, he wrote, “This was a bogus case from day one.” The trial is in its fifth week. Jury deliberations could begin on Friday.

If you're waiting for someone who has to drive in San Francisco, especially around the Moscone Center area, take a deep breath and get comfortable. A giant tech conference is in town and it's causing all sorts of detours and delays. Scott Budman reports. (Published Monday, Nov. 6, 2017) Codie the bear, Cloudy the ram, Appy and friends — despite the cute, fuzzy animal emojis adorning the giant blue Salesforce sign smack in the middle of Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, Dreamforce is, for the uninitiated, serious business (aka the world’s largest software conference). The annual tech event by cloud giant Salesforce typically brings in more than 100,000 people to San Francisco every year — 170,000 people are expected to show up this year from all over the world over the course of the next three days shutting down streets, filling up hotels, and injecting millions of dollars into the local economy. One of the only negatives, especially for residents, is traffic. So if you’re driving, bring extra patience. Eighteen years ago, Salesforce started in a small apartment in San Francisco. Today it is leasing the tallest, most expensive building in the city — the Salesforce Tower, a 1,070-ft-high skyscraper, the tallest on the West Coast. Salesforce also made news after it decided to close the pay gap for employees. The company’s CEO, billionaire philanthropist Marc Benioff, spent $6 million to close the gender gap, and has promised to evaluate salaries on a regular basis. On Saturday, Benioff shared a video of a mountain lion walking outside his house in the Presidio. The timing of the mountain lion sighting presents an intriguing coincidence given that one of the designated "Dreamojis," or emoji for Dreamforce, just so happens to be an apparent lynx or other member of the cat family known as "Appy." Benioff used the hashtag #AppyDF while sharing his mountain lion encounter on social media. Every year, Salesforce brings in influential speakers — including women like Patricia Arquette and Jessica Alba — to reinforce the importance of women in the workplace. This year, former first lady, Michelle Obama, will be taking the stage Tuesday. However the event has requested no publicity or cameras from the media. On Monday, actor and venture capitalist Ashton Kutcher or @aplusk was part of the keynote which focused on “tech innovations as a force for good.” Other keynote speakers included Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Girl Scouts CEO Sylvia Acevedo, and Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted. The company announced a new cloud partnership with Google which industry experts say could pose a direct challenge to Microsoft. It’s not all work at Dreamforce — Tuesday's lineup brings with it a concert at AT&T Park featuring Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz which will benefit UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, and on Thursday night, there’s a benefit concert, “Band Together Bay Area,” to help North Bay wildfire victims and evacuees. And if this star-studded lineup wasn’t enough, Puerto Rican singer and philanthropist Luis Fonsi will be performing his #1 hit “Despacito” on Wednesday to help raise $1 million toward hurricane relief in Puerto Rico. If you’re visiting from out-of-town, Dreamforce has put together a list of places to check out in San Francisco, a little R&R for when you’re not busy with keynotes, sessions, networking or just generally being a "trailbrazer" at the Dreamforce Campground. There's also the PartyForce app, which guides you through more than 150 parties taking place throughout the city from Nov. 6 to Nov. 9.

Two days ago we observed the latest disclosure in the seemingly endless Snowden treasure trove of leaked NSA files, when Spiegel released the broad details of the NSA's Access Network Technology (ANT) catalog explaining how virtually every hardware architecture in the world has been hacked by the US superspies. We followed up with a close up of "Dropout Jeep" - the NSA's project codename for backdoor entry into every iPhone ever handed out to the Apple Borg collective (because it makes you look cool). Today, we step back from Apple and release the full ANT catalog showcasing the blueprints of how the NSA managed to insert a backdoor into virtually every piece of hardware known under the sun. And so, without further ado, here is the complete slidebook of how the NSA hacked, well, everything.

This video has been removed. This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. The television presenter Keith Chegwin, who made his name presenting the popular children’s shows Cheggers Plays Pop and Saturday Superstore, has died aged 60. He had a progressive lung condition and died at home surrounded by his family. The family said in a statement: “We are heartbroken to share the news that Keith Chegwin sadly passed away following a long-term battle with a progressive lung condition, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which rapidly worsened towards the end of this year.” Chegwin spent his final weeks at Severn Hospice, in Shrewsbury, and his family thanked the staff for their “kindness, support and care”. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Keith Chegwin (centre) with Debby Cumming and Gordon Astley on Cheggers Plays Pop in 1979. Photograph: Ronald Grant Born in Liverpool, Chegwin began his acting career at the age of 10 and had roles in Roman Polanski’s 1971 film version of Macbeth, the 1973 movie The Optimists of Nine Elms, alongside Peter Sellers, and the pilot of the TV sitcom Open All Hours. In the 1970s and 1980s he hosted shows including Cheggers Plays Pop, in which teams of children from rivals schools competed against each other; Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, one of the first TV shows to use phone-ins; and Saturday Superstore, which featured a children’s talent contest. On Monday, fellow presenters and comedians expressed their sadness at his death. The DJ Tony Blackburn said he was “absolutely devastated” to hear the news. “He was one of the nicest people I have ever known and over the years we did shows together and became great friends.” The former heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno tweeted: “Saddened to hear this, what a great guy. I worked with him a lot over the years, a great entertainer, you will be missed. RIP Keith Chegwin.” Keith Chegwin obituary Read more Chegwin took a break from broadcasting in the late 1980s to deal with an alcohol problem, which he first spoke about publicly in 1992 in a tearful interview with Richard and Judy on ITV’s This Morning. He returned to TV with the Big Breakfast, It’s a Knockout and Channel 5’s divisive gameshow Naked Jungle, which Chegwin presented naked and wearing a hat. He later regretted doing the show. “It’s the worst career move I made in my entire life. If I could turn the clock back, I would,” he said in 2008. “When they phoned up and said they were doing this programme to celebrate naturism – everyone’s forgotten that bit – I thought it would be a laugh.” In more recent projects, Chegwin often made fun of himself, appearing as himself in Ricky Gervais’s Extras and in the comedy horror film Kill Keith, in which both he and his fellow TV presenter Vanessa Feltz meet a grisly end. He also appeared on Celebrity Big Brother and for seven years ran his own bingo website, cheggersbingo.com. Chegwin’s ex-wife Maggie Philbin said she had seen him two months ago when, despite being on portable oxygen to help him breathe, “he was still attempting to be life and soul of the party”. “It is incredibly sad,” she said. “Keith was a one-off – full of life, generous and with a focus on things that mattered – his family.” About 6,000 people a year are diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). Around 85% of those diagnosed are over 70, and men are more at risk.

November 15, 2012 12:58 IST J ust one week after United States President Barack Obama's convincing re-election, his faithful Vice President Joseph Biden led the White House celebration of Diwali, reflecting on the significance of festival of lights, and also acknowledging the presence of Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu American elected to the US Congress, and also Ambassador Nirupama Rao, who like Gabbard, seemed to have that gravitational pull in terms of the guests wanting to pose for pictures with them. Also present at the celebration that was closed to the press, were Dr Ami Bera, on the brink of becoming the first Indian American physician elected to the US Congress from the 7th District in California, and Kumar Barve, the majority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates, and the most senior Indian American legislator who was elected to the State Assembly nearly two decades ago. The nearly two-hour celebration, held on November 13 at the Old Executive Office Building -- which lies adjacent to the White House and houses the administrative offices of the White House -- after which the guests moved to the Indian Treaty Room for the reception, was attended by a select cross-section of about 200 members of the Indian American community from across the country, senior Indian American staffers in the administration like Dr Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the US Agency for International Development, and also erstwhile officials, including Aneesh Chopra, the first chief technology officer in the White House and now making a run for lieutenant governor of Virginia, several US lawmakers and one of the priests from the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham, Maryland, Ramesh Babu, who recited a shloka and assisted Biden in the lighting of the diya and then wrapped the ceremonial shawl on the vice president. After greeting the guests with a Happy Diwali and Saal Mubarak, Biden began with a quip that had the audience in peals of laughter as he said Diwali was all about light over darkness, "and that's what we are all about -- trying to shed some light." But then getting serious, he said, "It's a very special time for all of us here today and a time which means a great deal to me personally, and it means a lot to see so many good friends as I look out on this audience." Biden then greeted Rao and also the deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Washington, Ambassador Arun Kumar Singh, and said he had joked with Singh earlier that "if I had his hair, I could have been important." And, then to sustained applause and raucous whoops, Biden recognised Gabbard, who stood up and greeted the guests with a namaste. Biden said, "There is a distinction that you come to the Congress as the first Hindu to be elected to the legislature and I am looking forward to working with you," and then reverting to his humorous side, quipped, "As (Congressman) Rush Holt (who was among half-a-dozen lawmakers present) can tell you, that could be a blessing or a curse." He then reiterated that even though "it's a strange thing to say to this audience that Diwali is the festival of lights and that on this day, we celebrate light over darkness, and equally is important, compassion over hatred and there's such an overwhelming need to have in our world today." Biden said, "Every year, Diwali reminds us of the fundamental human bonds that unite us, which are much more powerful than those things that divide us. Right now, people of four major faiths are celebrating Diwali -- millions of Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists in India and here in America are lighting lamps in their homes -- and are reflecting on a year gone by and are trying as we all are here for a good year to come." "But even as we celebrate here today, we also remember the work that is still ahead as we strive together to build a better world," he said, and exhorted everyone "to commit ourselves to bring light to any place that is still facing darkness. And, as we all know, there are tens of millions of people that are still facing darkness around the world." Biden, then referring to the horrific massacre of Sikh worshippers in the Wisconsin gurdwara on August 5, said, "Earlier this year, we faced that stark reminder of evil that still exists when a gunman walked into a holy place in Oak Creek in Wisconsin and opened fire. It was another shock to the system." "But as my mother would say -- she always said -- 'Joe we have something terrible, and now good will happen, if you fight these evil forces, the fact is that it did in a way bring various communities together that I don't know that one anticipated would happen and the way in which it would happen." Biden asserted, "We saw the resilience of a community that refused to consider itself as victims and instead they drew strength from their faith and people across this country of all faiths offered compassion and their support." "We saw that compassion in the kindness of neighbours and the heroic actions of the first responders on that tragic day," he said. Earlier, in his Diwali message, President Obama had also referred to the Wisconsin gurdwara tragedy, recalling that "earlier, this year, we were reminded of the evil that exists in the world when a gunman walked into the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and opened fire. (But) In the wake of that horrible tragedy, we saw the resilience of a community that drew strength from their faith and a sense of solidarity with their neighbours, Sikh and non-Sikh alike." "We also saw compassion and love, in the heroic actions of the first responders and the outpouring of support from people across the country. Out of a day of sadness, we were reminded that the beauty of America remains our diversity, and our right to religious freedom," he said. Biden in his remarks observed, "Folks, one thing that Diwali reminds us of is that there is a light within all of us -- it's a light of knowledge and compassion, a light that empowers us to do good. To, as Abraham Lincoln said, respond to our better angels." "And that light that we have to keep, in each of our hearts and we have to spread that faith. So, as I have the great privilege of lighting and illuminating this lamp, I wish you all peace and prosperity and the promise of a new and happy new year." Biden declared, "May Diwali illuminate your dreams and fresh hopes for all of us and may the light guide us safely home. We have much, much work to do, but I can think of no community I'd rather embark on that journey with than all of you assembled here today." Barve told rediff.com that "it was such a great honour and pleasure to be at the White House for this particular Diwali, especially since the first Hindu member of Congress was present." Shalini 'Shelly' Kapoor Collins, founder and chief executive officer, Enscient Corporation, who served on the platform committee at the Democratic National Committee, and raised millions of dollars for Obama's re-election, said, "It was truly a lovely event with senior White House administration personnel explaining Diwali, and talking about the White House's Faith Engagement, a program which was not in place until our president took office." She told rediff.com, "President Obama's vision of inclusion and respect for all was truly reflected in the Diwali program. It was the perfect coming together of both of my worlds -- Indian and American--and I felt incredibly proud to support this president, for were it not for his efforts, this event would not take place." Collins said, "I personally was honoured to be included in this event where folks were asking for invitations but only a limited number were distributed. I was fortunate enough to take my mom and dad to the event and flew in from San Francisco. Others flew in from Los Angeles and Chicago to be part of this auspicious kickoff to the new year." Also present was Arunachala 'Raj' Nagarajan, who came to the US from India by boat on a 22-day journey in September 1962, and earlier in the day to celebrate his 50th anniversary in the US and for his significant contributions to the social fabric of the US through Indian culture and his professional career at IBM, was honoured and felicitated by Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas, who created a certificate acknowledging his contributions and the flag flown over the US Capitol on September 9, 2012, was presented to him. Nagarajan attended his wife, Janaki, son Kamesh and daughter-in-law Dr Ami Shah, and was also greeted and congratulated by Biden. Also present were Obama's old college roommate and the US Ambassador to Belize, Vinai Thummalapally, Indian American officials at the White House and Department of Labour Nicholas Rathod and Parag Mehta, former principal deputy solicitor general Neal Katyal, Kiran Ahuja, executive director of the White House Initiative for Asian American and Pacific Islanders, ex-Kansas legislator Rajiv Goyle, air force officer Ravi Chaudhary, Gautam Raghavan, associate director, White House Office of Public Engagement, and Democratic activist Reshma Saujani. There were also speeches about Diwali and community service from Ahuja, Raghavan, Joshua DeBois, Director of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and the only Hindu on its advisory council, Anju Bhargave, and entertainment by a fusion and playing three pieces of Carnatic music. In her remarks, Bhargave, the founder of Hindu American Seva Charities, said, "In this changing American landscape, we have seen a paradigm shift of inclusion occurring. The faith glass ceiling has cracked in America and is resounding around the globe. The doors for the people of eastern traditions, not only the Hindus but the entire the Dharmic Americans have opened. And we have demonstrated how we strengthen this country we love and call home." She said, "During the last four years together with the White House we have laid a strategic road map to bring the values of transformative seva, of social justice and karmic empathy to the forefront and connected the community with the federal agencies. We have succeeded in creating a national Dharmic voice where there was none." Bhargave said, "We are identifying ways to reduce poverty across the country and spur economic development. We appointed our first Hindu American chaplain and honored the Dharmic military. Together we are promoting the values and benefits of yoga, nutrition and Ayurveda." In November 2009, President Obama created history by becoming the first US President to light a diya and host several Indian Americans at the Diwali celebration in the White House East Room. The tradition of the White House hosting an annual Diwali celebration was started in the final year of the George W Bush administration and continued throughout the four years of his second term. But President Bush never attended any of the events nor did Vice President Richard Cheney, and it was always a senior aide who did the honors with the first Diwali the White House hosted being graced by Bush's chief political adviser Karl Rove. None of the Diwali celebrations the Bush White House hosted were held in the White House proper, but were always in the Old Executive Office Building. Image: US Vice President Biden lights a diya as priest Ramesh Babu recites shlokas during Diwali celebrations in White House

0 It’s finally happening. The long-awaited, oft speculated, seemingly impossible ‘Evil Dead 4’ is actually happening – it’s just coming in the form of a TV series. In the picturesque town of Auckland, New Zealand director Sam Raimi, producer Rob Tapert and star Bruce Campbell are rolling cameras on Ash Vs. Evil Dead, the Starz TV series that has allowed the creative trio to further the demonic misadventures of their cult hero, Ash Williams. Hail to the king, baby. Yesterday afternoon, I jumped on the phone for a conference call with Raimi, Tapert and Campbell to chat about diving back in to their beloved franchise and get some details on what fans can expect from this new incarnation of the Evil Dead universe. They shared a ton of great info, but before we get into that, check out this first look image at the guys reuinited with ‘The Classic’ – the 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Ash drove in the Evil Dead films (and which has appeared in almost all of Raimi’s films to date). Without further ado, here are the 23 things you should know about Ash Vs. Evil Dead: The series takes place in an alternate universe that exists after Evil Dead 2. In Raimi’s words, “ It doesn’t really exist in the exact same universe. It’s a slightly altered universe. It takes place somewhere in an alternate universe after Evil Dead 2.” In Raimi’s words, “ So does that mean Army of Darkness is stricken from the timeline? Not exactly. Raimi explained (kind of), “ Army of Darkness, does it exist? Well, certainly Ash went through that experience. W e’re not referencing specifics from that, but he certainly has that in his memory.” Raimi explained (kind of), “ Ash Vs. Evil Dead will feature new Deadite designs, and entirely new entities altogether. According to Tapert, “We certainly will play to what we once did with D eadites , even through the remake, but we’re trying to expand the universe…We will encounter Deadites , which are very different from other forces of nature out there, and then we expose the audience to new entities that were not yet presented in the Evil Dead universe. According to Tapert, The action takes place in the modern day. Raimi said, “It takes place in the here and now with Ash thirty years later; what he’s become and what he’s going to have to face.” There’s no time travel…yet. But Tapert says it’s always a possibility, “[Time travel] certainly was an element of the Necronomicon that some of the [spells] not only called for demons, but portals in time and space. Perhaps by the end of this season, because we haven’t really discussed episodes 9 and 10 so much. Or the second season, if the story took us there. We know it’s part of the Evil Dead universe. So it’s always a possibility, but right now it’s not in the work that we’re doing. But Tapert says it’s always a possibility, “[Time travel] certainly was an element of the Necronomicon that some of the [spells] not only called for demons, but portals in time and space. Perhaps by the end of this season, because we haven’t really discussed episodes 9 and 10 so much. Or the second season, if the story took us there. We know it’s part of the Evil Dead universe. So it’s always a possibility, but right now it’s not in the work that we’re doing. Ash Vs. Evil Dead picks up when the Deadites return from a decades-long period of dormancy. Raimi described the setup, “The Deadites have been fairly dormant over the last 20-30 years and Ash has been living a low life, hiding out. Our story really begins when they come back and someone is needed to stand up against them.” Is it Ash’s fault that they come back? “Of course.” Tonally, the series is a mix of the visceral horror of Evil Dead and the slapstick comedy of Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness. Raimi described, “ We have elements of the Evil Dead films, which have always had very hard-edged, intense horror really designed to frighten the audience, and no holds barred there…B ut also, there is a comedic element that is alive in this… . I think what we tried to do is go back to the horror of the first and second Evil Dead, but with the character that Bruce created over the second and third Evil Dead. We’re really a combination; something we haven’t quite seen before.” Raimi described, “ Ash is a basketcase. He’s traumatized by the horrors he survived in the first three films. Campbell explained, “He is a basketcase. We’re going to find Ash is potentially damaged goods and, god forbid, this is our hero.” Tapert continued, “He’s not a nobler or saner character than when we last saw him. In fact, I think if anything, he’s digressed. He’s kind of sunk to his lowest instincts, and that’s where we find him.” In the series, a team forms around him. Raimi described the new gang, “ In this incarnation, Ash has a team that forms around him. Pablo (Ray Santiago), a young immigrant who wants to be part of the American fabric, forget his roots, and through his encounters with Ash and the Evil Dead, discovers what’s really important to him. Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo), Pablo’s love interest who first doesn’t believe in Ash and wants nothing to do with him, but becomes a part of the team as they realize there is something greater at play than a series of Evil Dead-like attacks. And some new enemies too. Raimi continued, “Amanda Fisher ( Jill Marie Jones ) is a police officer who sees something that she doesn’t believe and it causes her great problems in her profession, and she’s on the trail to hunt down Ash because she believes he’s responsible for this series of bodies. Eventually, she teams up with Ruby ( Lucy Lawless ) who knows something about the Evil Dead, and she’s also on the hunt for Ash. That is the core team over the first season. “ Lucy Lawless’ character, Ruby, is on a justified mission against Ash. Tapert explained, “S he’s a woman of mystery, and we don’t want to reveal too much about her real agenda or why she so desperately wants to track Ash down, but she’s had an unpleasant experience that Ash was involved with…she’s completely justified in her actions and she’s going to become a formidable person to have on Ash’s tail.” Tapert explained, “S Ash is going to give you some sugar, baby. The series will explore romance, but it’s secondary. Campbell spoke to Ash’s ill-fated love life, “There is a bit of arrested development there, so he’s going to have some struggles. Because there are bigger issues! We’re talking life and death. There are some romantic aspects…Ash doesn’t usually have a lot of time for that. There’s usually creatures breaking down his door, trying to tear his head off.” Tapert interjected, “Bruce, give ’em some sugar, baby.” “I will give some sugar. There’s going to be some sugar to give.” The chainsaw arm will definitely make an appearance, no word on the boomstick though. Tapert confirmed, “ He’s been living in fear of a resurgence of the Evil Dead, of the Deadites , so that old rusted hulk of his, that’s the one thing he’s kept oiled up and in tip-top shape just in case. So I think we will see that sweet baby come back, come roaring to life, slicing and dicing on the D eadites .” The effects are designed to continue the Evil Dead tradition. Tapert said, “We’re working with a great makeup effects artist down in New Zealand, Roger Murray , we’ve worked with him on various things over the years. That’s one of the expectations from the franchise; makeup effects, gore effects. So absolutely we plan to have those and continue with what the audience expects from the franchise in a new and different way.” Campell agreed, “ This is not going to be a watered down version of Evil Dead. The very first Evil Dead has no rating. The second Evil Dead has no rating. Only Army of Darkness was ever rated. Thankfully by partnering with Starz, the gloves are off and we have no restrictions, almost literally…[The fans] want the hardcore stuff, and they’re going to get it. Tapert said, Joseph LoDuca will compose the soundtrack. Raimi explained the new approach they’re taking to the music, “We’re also working with something we really haven’t done on the Evil Dead. We’re working with some older classic rock music from the 70s and early 80s, because of course Ash became stunted due to the developments in his life at that time and has never gone past those moments.” Tapert added, “We’ll be taking old sounds, old music and re-bending it and shaping it in a new fashion.” Sam Raimi will only direct the pilot. They’ve already got their other directors lined up, including Michael Bassett (Silent Hill: Revelation), Michael Hurst (Bitch Slap), and Luke Jacobs . They’ve already got their other directors lined up, including (Silent Hill: Revelation), (Bitch Slap), and . However, he has and will continue to heavily influence the creative direction of the show. Tapert said, “ Sam and his brother Ivan have been involved in the [writer’s] room every spare second until Sam got down here to start prepping… and we continue to talk through each of the episodes. We’re exactly where we should be at the start of shooting. We’ve got six scripts. We’re all very much involved in the creative process.” Campbell spoke to how Raimi will remain a part of that process, “ I’m going to be in touch with Sam even on the episodes he’s not directing, because I’ve never been directed by anyone else as this character. Thank god he’s doing this pilot so we can get reacquainted with the approach to this character. Because when he’s off doing post on this pilot, we’re going to grope in the dark without him but he will be consulted quite heavily.” Tapert said, “ They opted for the half-hour format to match the “breakneck” pace of the films. Tapert explained, “One of the reasons we decided we wanted to do a half hour was that we thought that this was – the breakneck pace that the movies often had, that really was the right format in the world of television for this particular project.” Raimi continued, “ I really appreciate that Starz let us keep this half-hour idea. That’s what makes it really cool to me, that we can really fire on all cylinders, and be outrageous and fast paced and non-stop without a lot of secondary character exposition that sometimes you find in these hour shows.” Tapert explained, “One of the reasons we decided we wanted to do a half hour was that we thought that this was – the breakneck pace that the movies often had, that really was the right format in the world of television for this particular project.” Raimi continued, “ Ash Vs. Evil Dead expands the Evil Dead universe to a bigger story. Campbell said, “Because you’re doing a TV show now and not a feature film, you actually have to structure everything differently. You have to structure the storytelling differently and you have to create a much larger world, because the demands of the audience are much – it’s every week that you’re entertaining them, so you have to have a multiplicity of stories and angles and tangents. It’s going to be a much bigger story.” The series doesn’t preclude the possibility of a sequel to the Evil Dead remake. In fact, they’re definitely still interested in making one. Raimi said, “I love the Evil Dead remake. I think Fede Alvarez did a brilliant job…I love that movie, and I hope there will be a sequel. After we had made his movie, as much as the fans loved it, they also seemed to want to see Bruce again in this series. So we thought, this is our time. If we’re ever going to do it, we have to set aside that crowd. Now is a good time. And television seems like an interesting format to take it forward in. So we chose to make Bruce’s story right now. I hope we can get Fede back to continue the new Evil Dead series once we’ve established Bruce’s story. In fact, they’re definitely still interested in making one. Raimi said, “I love the Evil Dead remake. I think Fede Alvarez did a brilliant job…I love that movie, and I hope there will be a sequel. After we had made his movie, as much as the fans loved it, they also seemed to want to see Bruce again in this series. So we thought, this is our time. If we’re ever going to do it, we have to set aside that crowd. Now is a good time. And television seems like an interesting format to take it forward in. So we chose to make Bruce’s story right now. I hope we can get Fede back to continue the new Evil Dead series once we’ve established Bruce’s story. Don’t count out another Ash-centric Evil Dead film either, even if the show doesn’t take off. “ It’s a possibility no matter what happens, because I think we always want to keep that ability in the back of our minds to tell a story on the big ol ‘ screen. Nothing will preclude anything, regardless of what happens.” “ They’re all willing to come back for a second season. Campbell stated emphatically, “ I’m not going anywhere. This is the sh ow I’m going to devote basically every ounce of my aging energy into. This is something that you don’t take lightly. This was a long road to get here, starting back in ’79.” Tapert seconded, “I t would be a joyless process that the mantle would be passed to anyone else. I just don’t see that as a possible outcome in this. Raimi confirmed, “ I feel the same way. I think we’re really doing this to work together again as a team.” The series is basically happening because Evil Dead fans are the most devoted, persistent people in the world. Raimi recalled, “Ivan, my brother, and myself, when I would be on promotion for any other movie, the reporters I’d be speaking with would feign interest in that picture I was working on and then they’d say, ‘But when’s the next Evil Dead coming out?'” Campbell had the same experience, “ I go to conventions a lot and I’m driven insane by the fans at conventions. I’ve been doing conventions since 1988 and I hear it at every convention I go to, same as Sam. We were tortured for years, and guess what? Now they’re going to get it.” See that, folks. Never give up on your dreams. Ash Vs. Evil Dead is set to premiere on Starz this Fall.

As Ann Cabiness stood in the Communion line at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church on Sunday morning, two things were on her mind: connecting with God and getting out of the humid sanctuary before someone mentioned her skimpy tank top and tight, knee-length running pants. “I know I’m inappropriate, but I’m trying to save time. I know I’m in the wrong. My mother would not approve,” the 30-year-old said sheepishly as she made a beeline from Mass at the Bethesda church to the gym. “But would it be better that I not come?” Summer in our sweltering region forces a theological question: How does God feel about exposed shoulders in a house of worship? Or toes? Or some glimpse of thigh? With temperatures in the 80s by 7:30 a.m. services, this is the season for church bulletin items like the one in Our Lady’s: “Dignity & Decorum: Please try not to wear beach shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Thank you.” In general, casual has pummeled formal everywhere in America, from airplanes to offices. But places of worship — where debates on modesty are not confined to the summer months — may be the final frontier for questions about what constitutes overly risque. And those questions have recently sprung to new life. A popular campaign aimed at young evangelical women called “Modest is Hottest” has triggered backlash by devout younger women who see the slogan as sexist. When the Bible calls for “modesty,” they argue, it refers to displays of things like wealth and is describing the depth of one’s spirit, not their neckline.Teaching women that their value rises if they have more clothes on is objectifying, a torrent of essays have argued. “A woman’s breasts and buttocks and thighs all proclaim the glory of the Lord,” said Sharon Hodde Miller, a doctoral student at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School whose critique of “modest is hottest” in the online evangelical magazine Christianity Today was one of the best-read of recent years. “Modesty is an orientation of the heart, first and foremost. It begins with putting God first. To look at an outfit and say if it’s modest or immodest, I’m not sure you can do that.” Some critics say the drive for looser, longer fabric has political tones, a “modesty nostalgia” for a happier, more fully clothed America that some feel never was. But advocates for less skin in the sanctuary see modest attire as transformational — part of the process of moving into a spiritual head space. Particularly today as institutional religion bleeds members, many churches — even some theologically conservative ones — advertise that dress is “come as you are.” “We don’t want clothes to ever be a barrier. That’s one reason we don’t talk about it,” said the Rev. Don Davidson of First Baptist Church of Alexandria. Some even argue that informal clothing signals not a new lack of respect for institutional religion but a new genuineness and familiarity. Grass-roots pew patrolling, on the other hand, is as alive as ever. Charisma Wooten, a singer and actor, had been a parishioner and lay leader at Refreshing Spring Church of God in Christ in Riverdale for more than 30 years when she was told moments before taking the pulpit for a Scripture reading one baking July Sunday a couple of years ago that she couldn’t because she didn’t have on pantyhose. Wooten said she was wearing a dress that nearly hit the floor, but Church of God in Christ is a formal denomination where ushers wear gloves and the handbook says that “dressing in a sensually provocative manner produces inclinations to evil desires.” Another summer Sunday, Wooten was wearing a sleeveless black-and-white polka-dot dress and “my little matching shoes and hat,” when the pastor’s wife said sweetly: “Honey, aren’t you cold?” It took Wooten three days to realize she was likely being politely asked to cover her shoulders. Wooten says she generally brushes it off when she’s been scolded for her church clothes, but the pantyhose incident led her to send a mass e-mail decrying the misplaced focus on rules and dogma. “You can follow all these rules men set up and be on your way to hell,” she said. Concepts of appropriate dress are, of course, a mix of denominational, regional, racial and ethnic components, and they are sometimes specific in unpredictable ways. Black churches are generally known for formal, modest and elaborate style, even in summer. Catholics stereotypically are dressed simply for Mass — full suits and hats are less common, as are plunging necklines. Rainey Ray Segars, 26, grew up with a Southern Baptist pastor-father in Tennessee, where shorts were common around church but strapless dresses were not. At 24, she moved with her new youth-pastor-husband to Illinois and found out on the first warm week since their move that jeans and Packers jerseys were fine at church activities but shorts were not. After coming to a choir practice in shorts, a congregant “sent by a group of offended people” told Segars that she had caused someone to be lustfully distracted — “That it was my fault,” Segars remembered. “I said, ‘I’m interested to know if that person will seek out help for themselves,’ ’’ Segars said. “I don’t agree that a woman is to blame for lust someone feels towards her. My thought was to start a dialogue.” Did she? “It was like: ‘Yeah, that’s all fine, but please don’t wear shorts,’ ” she remembered. The congregation she’s part of now, Segars said, includes a huge range of dress and cover. “I think it shows a loveliness and a comfort: ‘I came just as I am, just looking to be known.’ It communicates a safety I think is really beautiful,” she said. Conversations (and condemnations) on the issue of modest clothing and summer worship seem to focus on women. Monsignor Ed Filardi said he put the notice in the bulletin at Our Lady of Lourdes at the request of women reacting to the clothing of other women. Personally, he said, he doesn’t see a real problem, though after services Sunday morning one usher engaged the priest on the topic. “You’re coming to see the Lord,” said Len Thompson, 65, recently retired from the Navy, and one of two men out of about 80 wearing a jacket at Mass. “What if I was going to see the Obamas? It seems skewed.” Foundry United Methodist Church in Dupont has many gay men as members, and last Sunday many men present wore dress shorts and polo shirts. “I’m not sure if my shins are distracting anyone in here,” one 39-year-old man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said with a smile. Discussions about possible sins of immodesty inevitably lead to discussions about another sin: judging. “Jesus is most strong when he speaks about judging people,” said Johnnie Moore, youth pastor at the evangelical Liberty University, noting students have come to his services in pajamas. That said, he feels religious and secular Americans are joining forces over concern about an oversexualized youth culture. “Generally speaking, you shouldn’t come to church as you would to a club,” he said. Northwest Washington image consultant Ketura Persellin has written about appropriate clothing for worship, down to the size of bag, jangly jewelry and skirt length. This is a woman who cares about clothes. But as her preteen children are getting older, Persellin finds herself less tolerant of clothing chatter at her synagogue, Adas Israel. “I don’t want people talking about my kids like that,” she said. “I’ve definitely been trying to get down from my high horse.”

No. 1 - Retired for Billy Martin Earle Combs 1929-1935 George Selkirk 1934 Roy Johnson 1936 Frank Crosetti 1937-1944 Tuck Stainback 1944 George Stirnweiss 1945-1950 BILLY MARTIN 1951-1957 Bobby Richardson 1958-1966 Bobby Murcer 1969-1974 No. 2 Mark Koenig 1929-1930 Yats Yuestling 1930 Joe Sewell 1931 Lyn Lary 1931-1934 Red Rolfe 1931, 1934-1942 George Stirnweiss 1943-1944 Frank Crosetti 1945-1966 Jerry Kenny 1969-1972 Matty Alou 1973 Sandy Alomar 1974-1976 Paul Blair 1977-1979 Darryl Jones 1979 Bobby Murcer 1979-1983 Tim Foli 1984 Dale Berra 1985 Wayne Tolleson 1986-1990 Mike Gallego 1992-1994 Derek Jeter 1995-2003 No. 3 - Retired For Babe Ruth BABE RUTH 1920-1934 George Selkirk 1935-1942 Bud Methany 1943-1946 Roy Weatherly 1946 Hal Peck** 1946 Eddie Bockman 1946 Joe Medwick** 1947 Frank Colman 1947 Allie Clark 1947 Cliff Mapes 1948 *With the Yankees for 10 days, never appeared in a game. Obtained 6/20/46 **Only appeared in Spring Training games. Released 4/29/47 No. 4 - Retired For Lou Gehrig LOU GEHRIG 1923-1939 No. 5 - Retired For Joe DiMaggio Bob Meusel 1929 Tony Lazzeri 1930-1931 Frank Crosetti 1932-1936 Nolan Richardson 1935 JOE DI MAGGIO 1937-1942, 1946-1951 Nick Etten 1943-1945 No. 6 Tony Lazzeri 1929, 1934-1937 Dusty Cooke 1930-1931 Ben Chapman 1932-1933 Joe Gordon 1938-1943, 1946 Don Savage 1944-1945 Dr. Bobby Brown 1947-1952 Mickey Mantle 1951 Andy Carey 1953-1960 Deron Johnson 1961 Clete Boyer 1961-1966 Charlie Smith 1967-1968 Roy White 1969-1979 Ken Griffey Sr. 1982 Mike Pagliarulo 1985 Rick Cerone 1987 Jack Clark 1988 Steve Sax 1989-1991 Tony Fernandez 1995 Joe Torre 1996-2007

In May 1997, 8-year-old Kirsten Hatfield disappeared from her bedroom one night, sparking a national search by local police and the FBI. But the case quickly went cold and she was never found. On Monday, Oklahoma police made a decisive break in the long-dormant case, arresting a man who lives two doors down and was initially identified as a suspect in the case, but is now linked by DNA evidence to the girl’s disappearance. Police arrested Joseph Palma, a neighbor who had previously told investigators he was at home that night, charging him with first-degree murder and kidnapping after a DNA test linked him to items found in the girl’s bedroom on the night of her disappearance. Police said that they feared she had been killed just after she was abducted, but family members welcomed Mr. Palma’s arrest as providing some relief in a case that had gone cold more than 18 years ago. “Oh my goodness,” the victim's mother, Shannon Hazen, told The Oklahoman after first learning of the arrest from the paper on Monday. “Yes! Yes! Yes!,” she said, then began sobbing. Palma was identified as a suspect in the case after examining blood found on the windowsill of the girl’s bedroom and on her clothing, which was found in the house’s backyard. In June, he agreed to give a DNA sample after investigators began re-examining the case, but maintained that he had been at home during the night of May 13, 1997. The blood on the windowsill was identified as his after DNA testing, with police saying the match was one in 293 sextillion, The Oklahoman reported. “It is likely that Palma has been motivated to stay in the same home to conceal evidence of the crime and/or the location of Kirsten's body,” wrote Midwest City Police Detective Darrell Miller in a request for an arrest warrant. Palma’s story also differed slightly from the account he gave in 1997 to two different investigators, Reuters reports, noting that there is no indication that police searched his home during the original investigation. Investigators began searching Palma’s home on Monday and will continue searching on Tuesday, local police said. A longtime groundskeeper, Palma reportedly works for the Lake Thunderbird State Park, The Oklahoman reported, saying that it was unclear if he had an attorney. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy “This is a huge case.... It's one of those cases you want to solve before you retire," Midwest City Police Chief Brandon Clabes, who has been police chief for 16 years, told The Oklahoman. This report contains material from Reuters.

And so, we stagger into an even more uncertain future Emotions ran high as Hong Kong legislators opened debate on a controversial electoral reform package on Wednesday. Supporters and opponents made last-ditch efforts after extensive campaigns to influence public opinion. (In the end, the measure was roundly rejected, with 28 votes against eight in favor of the bill after most of its supporters walked out.) As if these were not enough drama, police smashed a bomb plot on Monday that recalls conspiracies such as the Gunpowder Treason Plot, a failed assassination attempt on England’s King James in 1605, or the Reichstag Fire, an arson attack on the German parliament building in Berlin in 1933. One can’t help feeling that worse things are about to happen. Prosperous metropolis The British colonial authorities didn’t bother with so-called “desinicization” of Hong Kong. Rather, they gave way to local customs and did not force people to spurn Chinese history, culture, religion and the like. Under the British, Hong Kong earned a place on the global map as a prosperous metropolis unequalled in any Chinese society. China’s rapid rise as a global power and its growing ambitions have had a negative effect on local politicians and the business elite. They have become Beijing’s lackeys to promote its political agenda in Hong Kong including a controversial roadmap to the 2017 chief executive election. Young Hong Kong people see such moves by Beijing as a bad omen, especially after it issued a white paper last year in which it asserted full control and authority over Hong Kong in contravention of “one country, two systems”. Their concerns, dismissed as unrealistic and doomed, remain unanswered by Beijing and their own government. What’s worse, they are increasingly alienated by a government that is not above questionable tactics. Their disaffection has been used as an excuse by so-called “localists” to push separatism. That used to be a pipe dream. Now, the notion of Hong Kong independence has entered the real world. Secessionists are a minority but in a time of globalization and social networking, their message may be catching on. Although it might take a long time before they hit world headlines and begin to rattle China, it cannot be completely ignored. Three-year spiral It has only been three years into Leung Chun-ying’s administration and we’re already seeing a precipitous decline in social cohesion. Leung’s style of governance has led to increased public grievances and exacerbated political and social tensions. And continued bickering over constitutional reform has overshadowed the historic significance of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty. The government’s response has been to exaggerate issues and stir up disputes, resulting in a crippling polarization of society. When it became clear in public opinion polls that more people were opposed to the election reform proposal, the government discredited the surveys, saying they had been manipulated. I wonder if Beijing also thinks that way, so that it simply ignores public sentiment as long as it has a loyalist at the helm. We have already seen that in Leung. Irrelevant The result of the voting on the election bill is no longer relevant to the future of Hong Kong’s democracy. If it is passed, we will all have our shameful share of the big swindle. If it’s voted down, it merely reaffirms what we’ve been saying all along — we prefer nothing to something fake. Rejection of the bill won’t lead us back to the right track either, and the Hong Kong government will simply continue with its naked lies about freedom, democracy and universal suffrage. Life will go on but the years to come may not be the kind of future we want. The odds of seeing a truly democratic Hong Kong are tremendous. And we may be seeing the last of Hong Kong as we know it — stable and prosperous — as we stagger into an even more uncertain future. This article appeared in the Hong Kong Economic Journal on June 17. It was written before the Legco vote on the election bill. Translation by Frank Chen [Chinese version 中文版] – Contact us at [email protected] RA

The Vancouver Canucks, who bombed out at 28th overall and got wrecked by the draft lottery, are now in a position to fight for playoffs. With a game in hand over the eighth-place Calgary Flames and only one point back, all the critics who portrayed the Canucks as a directionless failure are being proved wrong: the Canucks are not a failure. USA Today projected the team would hit 65 points, while EA predicted even worse with 63 points in their season simulation. If the Canucks were to be truly that bad, they would have the lowest team points since Edmonton and Buffalo in 2014-15. But no – the Canucks started off the year 4-0-0, and are one of a few teams that have seven players with ten or more goals – Bo Horvat, who in his third season leads the team, has broken out into the next star, with 14 goals and 31 points in 48 games and an All Star Game Selection. Brandon Sutter, who was injured for the majority of last year, has 12, Henrik Sedin (congratulations on 1000 points!) has 11 along with brother Daniel, Sven Baertschi, and Markus Granlund (whose trade from Calgary for Hunter Shinkaruk drew heavy criticism). Summer free agent acquisition Loui Eriksson has 10 after a very slow start to the season. Alex Burrows, who was considered to be an overpaid buyout candidate, has worked himself onto a spot in the top 9 with Horvat and Baertschi and has seven goals. Ryan Miller has shown why he was signed to his contract. While he’s got a middling-but-decent 2.50 GAA and .919 sv%, he’s played well, stuck up for his team, and been a source of leadership in the dressing room. Troy Stecher, who played on the North Dakota team with Canuck prospect numero uno Brock Boeser, has shown incredible skill as a rookie defenseman coming straight out of college. His moves have left fans’ jaws agape and his work ethic has fans and management alike falling in love with him. Nikita Tryamkin, brought over from Russia at the end of the season in 2016, has not looked out of place, despite being held out of games early for being reportedly out of shape. He is constantly a source of physicality and solid puck movement (except when he ices the puck). Even Luca Sbisa has looked good this year – which is much-needed, given first pairing Alex Edler and Chris Tanev’s injuries. You’d think that injuries would stop the Canucks. It didn’t. Of course, there lies just under half a season left to play, and anything can happen. But despite injuries, doubting fans, and faithless media, they’ve managed to pull through pretty well and will find a way if their efforts toward playoffs are hampered. Advertisements

2 Journalists Killed During Live Broadcast In Virginia; Suspect Has Died Enlarge this image toggle caption DAVID MANNING/Reuters /Landov DAVID MANNING/Reuters /Landov (This post was last updated at 3:43 p.m. ET.) Two journalists for Virginia TV news station WDBJ were killed by a gunman Wednesday morning while they were broadcasting live at a waterfront shopping center about an hour southeast of Roanoke, Va. Reporter Alison Parker and photojournalist Adam Ward were doing a live report from Bridgewater Plaza in Moneta when a gunman opened fire, killing Parker and Ward and injuring Vicki Gardner, the head of a local Chamber of Commerce who was being interviewed. Gardner is now in stable condition, hospital officials say. A suspect in the shooting was quickly identified — in part because of video taken at the scene — as Vester Lee Flanagan, 41, a former reporter for the station who was also known as Bryce Williams. toggle caption Twitter Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton says Flanagan has died. He had suffered a gunshot wound when he was taken into custody by Virginia State Police after a car chase that came hours after the shooting; authorities earlier said Flanagan was in critical condition. At a 2:15 p.m. news conference, Overton said that less than an hour earlier, Flanagan had "died at Fairfax Inova Hospital in Northern Virginia, as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound." In an earlier statement, Virginia State Police described how the shooting suspect had fled and eventually reached Interstate 66, with police in pursuit. The suspect refused to stop, ran off the road and crashed. When police approached the vehicle, they found he had suffered a "gunshot wound." The man, police said, was taken to a hospital with "life-threatening injuries." In an interview with CNN, Jeffrey A. Marks, WDBJ-TV's general manager, said Flanagan was hired as a reporter, but about two years ago he was fired. During a separate broadcast on his network, Marks said Flanagan had filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after he was fired. The station reports: "This happened during a live broadcast around 6:45 a.m. ... "Adam was 27-years-old. Alison just turned 24. "Both were from the WDBJ7 viewing area." Video shows the camera panning to Parker in the middle of an interview as the gunman opens fire. Parker can be heard screaming. The final image in the video shows the camera falling down and the feet of the presumed gunman walking out of the frame. Hours after the shooting, a video from the gunman's perspective was posted to Twitter and Facebook under the name Bryce Williams. It shows a gunman quietly walking up on the live broadcast, looking toward the photographer (whose back was turned) and then pointing his gun at Parker before opening fire. A man claiming to be Flanagan also sent a 23-page fax to ABC News, in which he said he had "been a human powder keg for a while" and took action after the Charleston, S.C., church shootings in June. In addition to the Franklin County Sheriff's Office, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have sent personnel from Roanoke. Update at 2:25 p.m. ET: Updates From News Conference Former WDBJ employee Vester Lee Flanagan was taken into police custody after his car crashed into the median on I-66 in Virginia. Franklin County Sheriff Bill Overton says Flanagan had switched cars, leaving his Ford Mustang at a Roanoke airport and driving away in a Chevrolet Sonic that he had rented before the attack. But the authorities tracked him as he drove up Interstate 81 and then onto I-66, and a police officer trailed him before activating her cruiser's emergency lights upon the arrival of backup. Overton says Flanagan died at 1:30 p.m. ET, after being taken to the hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Update at 1:34 p.m. ET. A 'Senseless Tragedy': In a written statement, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe said that he was "heartbroken over this morning's senseless tragedy." He said that as the state reflects on the shootings, residents should also begin thinking about how to prevent these kinds of things from happening. "Keeping guns out of the hands of people who would use them to harm our family, friends and loved ones is not a political issue; it is a matter of ensuring that more people can come home safely at the end of the day," McAuliffe said. "We cannot rest until we have done whatever it takes to rid our society of preventable gun violence that results in tragedies like the one we are enduring today." During his regular press briefing at the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this was yet another example of gun violence that has become prevalent. There are things that Congress can do, he said, to have a "tangible impact." Update at 12:12 p.m. ET. Suspect Injured?: Earlier today, WDBJ-TV, citing law enforcement officials, said the suspect had killed himself on Interstate 66 in Fauquier County. The station later retracted that report, saying Flanagan was injured but still alive and in critical condition. Update at 12:07 p.m. ET. Suspect Filed EEOC Complaint: On the same Twitter account that posted video of the shooting, Flanagan also made it clear that he was angry at the reporter and the photographer. He said he had filed a report with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Jeffrey A. Marks, WDBJ-TV's general manager, confirmed that Flanagan had filed that EEOC complaint. Citing confidentiality provisions, the EEOC said it could not comment. Update at 11:20 a.m. ET. Presumed Suspect Posts Video: The presumed suspect in the shooting of the two WDBJ journalists posted a video of the attack filmed from his vantage point to Twitter and Facebook. The video, which has since been taken down, shows the gunman walk up behind cameraman Adam Ward. Ward does not appear to be aware the gunman is there. As the cameraman pans to the left and the camera is pointed at reporter Alison Parker, the gunman raises a handgun and aims it at Parker,who also did not seem aware of the shooter's presence. The gunman fires at least six rounds. Parker runs out of the frame before the video goes black. The Twitter account has also been suspended. Update at 10:39 a.m. ET. Authorities Identify Suspect: CNN is reporting law enforcement authorities know the identity of the presumed gunman. And the network is reporting that the woman being interviewed in the video survived. "The woman being interviewed, Vicki Gardner, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce, was shot in the back and is in surgery, said Barb Nocera, the chamber's special projects manager." The Stauton, Va., area News Leader is reporting:

He was a few blocks from home, waiting for a bus in the cold, checking emails on his phone, when Coun. Matthew Green was stopped and questioned for several minutes by a Hamilton Police officer who seemed not to realize who he was. "What are you doing there?" was the first thing Green said he heard the officer say, just after 3 p.m. on Tuesday. You don't forget being stopped. - Desmond Cole, writer and activist He felt like a suspect in his own neighbourhood, he said. He felt intimidated, frustrated and angry. Green's story brings up the emotional and psychological impact that police activity in a diverse city can have on people on the receiving end of that activity. Activist and journalist Desmond Cole wrote a Toronto Life article about the dozens of times he’s been stopped by police. (CBC) Being asked random questions by police when you're minding your own business – and having it happen more than once – sticks with a person. That's an impact that people who oppose carding and street checks have cited as a reason for reform. "After years of being stopped by police, I've started to internalize their scrutiny," wrote Desmond Cole, a writer and activist whose story of being stopped and questioned dozens of times by Ontario police officers was published last year in Toronto. "I've doubted myself, wondered if I've actually done something to provoke them." Green had to stay to wait for the bus, but even the idea of walking away from the officer didn't cross his mind. "In theory my Charter rights allow me to walk away," he said. "I know in that particular situation it was somewhat of a psychological detainment." The officer was "obviously in control enough" of the situation that he was content holding up a handful of cars to have the conversation, Green said. "As an elected official, you know, I wanted to try to cooperate with him and answer the questions as fully as I possibly could, and I think walking away at that time would've escalated the situation," Green said. Incidents like these may be something an officer quickly forgets as part of his or her day, Cole said in an address to the Ontario Bar Association. But the person who was questioned? "You don't forget being stopped," Cole said. 'What would it have been if I was younger?' Green, who has thousands of Twitter followers and a public platform as an elected official, can talk publicly about what happened, get it off his chest, hope for change or at least increased awareness. Coun. Matthew Green of Ward 3 and Julia Horton, equity vice president of CUPE Local 5167, listen to a police services board discussion about street checks. (Samantha Craggs/CBC) But he wonders what would've happened if an officer had found another black man leaning against the wall on Tuesday afternoon, maybe one who's not as used to talking with police for his job. "What would it have been if I was younger? I'm not sure how I would've responded to that as a younger man," Green said in an interview on Bill Kelly's CHML talk show. "It's a dehumanizing process when you have to justify yourself to somebody for being where you are." 'Even if you're innocent' Raheem Aman is a 23-year-old McMaster student who plans to be a lawyer and ran for the Green Party on the Mountain in last year's federal election. When he was about 17, he and his two brothers and their father were playing basketball down the street from their home in Brampton. On their walk home, a police car rolled up and stopped them and asked them where they were going and what they were doing, despite how obvious the answer was, Aman said. Raheem Aman, 23, ran for the Green Party on the Mountain in the last federal election. They were still sweating from their game on the walk down the street, Aman said. "In basketball clothes. Nothing even in our pockets," he said. "My dad was angry about the situation – to be disrespected in front of his children," Aman said. In the heated exchange that followed, the officer drew his gun and threatened his dad, Aman said. Now, Aman gets nervous every time he sees a police officer. "Sometimes even if you're innocent you can still get a little nervous based on previous experiences especially if they were negative," he said. "I'll never be the same again." 'Living in Ancaster, water my garden every morning' Aman said the people who've reacted to what happened to Green with "why didn't he just politely comply with the cops?" missed the point. "They're talking from a position who've never been asked by the police random questions," he said. "[Police are] trying to incriminate you." "If I was 45 years old, say, a European woman who's never been asked random questions by police, living in Ancaster, water my garden every morning, it's a totally different context," he said. "To any … black man especially, it's tough." The incident with Green, whom Aman knows and considers a "brother," angered him, he said. "Matthew Green, who pours his heart and blood into Hamilton -- he's still treated like any one of us," he said. "It's not as simple as 'Just answer the questions.'" [email protected] | @kellyrbennett

The view from Mount Sunflower, Kansas’s highest elevation. (Image: CC0) Geographer Jerry Dobson had barely started his new job at the University of Kansas when a realization hit. Whenever he told friends and colleagues about his gig, people would smile, congratulate him, the works. But then, almost inevitably, they’d make some crack about his new home state: specifically, how flat it was. Over his years-long tenure, this did not change. “Everytime you meet someone, they say it—and it’s not true,” he says. “I always looked around and saw hills.” But Dobson is a geographer, able to translate this frustration into motivation. A few years ago, he and his colleague Joshua Campbell—a born and raised Kansan—undertook a project. They set out to measure the flatness of every state in the union, using an algorithm designed to calculate how flat each one looks from different points in its interior—what Campbell calls “that feeling of total flatness.” When they got the results back, Kansas was in a respectable seventh, behind Delaware, North Dakota, and the clear winner, Florida. Since then, Dobson and Campbell have toured their results around, using them to argue against the flat-Kansas mythology. Bluff along the Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. #gyphills Photo by @flinthillsboy Use #kansasaintflat to be featured A photo posted by Kansas (@kansasaintflat) on May 31, 2016 at 7:25pm PDT So how did Kansas get this reputation? Andy Stuhl, a musician who recently moved there by car, bets it comes from East Coast road-trippers, who spill out onto the plain after miles and miles of woods. Sam Huneke, a historian who grew up in Lawrence, points to a lack of particularly large hills, but insists that “the day-to-day experience is not one of flatness.” What is clear is that, like Dobson, they don’t much like it. “Of course it affects our reputation,” says Kelli Hilliard of the Kansas Tourism Board, pointing towards efforts to change that, like a set of scenic, rolling byways, and an Instagram account called “kansasaintflat.” But Branden Rishel, a Washington-based cartographer, has a different, more radical idea: If everyone already thinks Kansas is flat, why not lean in? Why not just make it flat—totally, completely flat? Rishel is very familiar with the Kansas flatness question. He was a student of Mark Fonstad, a Texas State geographer who, in 2003, set out with some colleagues and a laser microscope to determine which was flatter: Kansas or an IHOP pancake. The resulting study, titled “Kansas Is Flatter Than a Pancake,” likely added to the public misconceptions that rankle Dobson and Campbell. (They also point out that, if you use the particular mathematical approach of Fonstad et al, “there is no place on Earth that is not flatter than a pancake.”) Despite his academic parentage, Rishel doesn’t disagree with Dobson and Campbell—“if Kansas is a sloped and hummocky lawn, Florida is a parking lot,” he says. He also agrees that perceived flatness is probably bad for the state’s reputation. He just thinks the best solution involves less fact-checking and more literal digging. “Kansans should reclaim and celebrate flatness,” Rishel says. “Kansas should become more flat than flat.” Kansas, in Rishel’s ideal future. (Image: Branden Rishel) About a year ago, Rishel posted a mocked-up map of Totally Flat Kansas on his blog, Cartographers Without Borders, along with a skeleton of his plan. The image, in which a smooth, sleek Kansas sits embedded in the bumpy continent like a tooth in a gum, is immediately appealing. It gives the sense of a state that has taken charge of its own destiny and has ended up several thousand years ahead of the rest of us, in a state of David Bowie-esque aesthetic precision. It makes Kansas look cool. The plan, which he elaborated for me, goes as follows: Start in the middle of the state and dig west, towards Colorado. Send that excavated dirt due east, and lay it out as you go, filling in all possible nooks, crannies, valleys, etc. By the end, you will have moved 5,501 cubic miles of soil—over 9 billion Olympic swimming pools’ worth, Rishel points out. To even begin to do this, you’d need a whole lot of technology that hasn’t been invented yet (moveable pipelines, huge nuclear-powered mining machines, all that jazz). But the state would end up flat enough to test a level on, separated from its neighbors by enormous cliffs. Rishel is a great evangelist for this plan. Besides the obvious recreational benefits—interstate cliff diving, endless ice skating in wet winters—total flatness would make Kansas a geographically fascinating spot, he says. There would be new plant life under the giant cliffs, which wouldn’t see the sun until noon. The Arkansas River would plunge down from Colorado, free-falling into the western edge of the state. “Tourists could take an elevator into Kansas and play bocce,” Rishel imagines, his enthusiasm palpable. “The region would turn into a giant puddle after storms… Visitors would discover that flat is never boring.” A northeast view of Lawrence from the top of Mt. Oread. (Image: New York Public Library/Public Domain) I’m sold. But I’m not from Kansas—and, like so many aspirational developers, neither is Rishel. Even if flattening is the sincerest form of flattery, Dobson, Campbell, and the other real Kansans I talked to would be sad to lose their hills, which help them take advantage of the good parts of being on the level. From the top of Lawrence’s Mount Oread, for example, “the view reaches far enough to fade away,” says Stuhl. “It’s awe-inspiring to stand on top of one of our hills and see a squall line moving in,” adds Sam Huneke, a history student who grew up in the state. That is, until the mining machines roll by, bringing the future with them. Then, you’ll just want to get out of the way.

President Trump with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in the Oval Office. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP) Attorneys general from 15 states and the District of Columbia filed a motion Thursday to intervene in a long-running lawsuit over a core part of the Affordable Care Act. In their legal filing, the attorneys general say they can't trust the Trump administration to defend their interests, because health insurance for millions of Americans has become “little more than political bargaining chips” for the White House. The lawsuit is challenging how billions of dollars of federal payments were made to health insurers. Those payments are critical to the stability of the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, which are designed to help individuals buy government-subsidized health coverage. The attorneys general want to step in to defend the payments, saying there is a “sharp divide” between the administration's goals and those of states. For months, health insurance companies have been trying to get a solid answer from Congress and President Trump's White House on the future of the payments, called cost-sharing reductions, that help lower-income Americans afford their deductibles and co-payments. Their calls for certainty have grown increasingly urgent as they face deadlines to decide whether to offer plans in states and how much to charge. The lawsuit over the payments was originally brought by House Republicans against the Obama administration. House Republicans won the lawsuit, which was appealed. Now, it has been inherited by the Trump administration, which has been unclear about whether it will defend the payments. A status update on the case is due on Monday. Trump and Congress have sent mixed signals about whether the payments will continue on an almost weekly basis. [Health insurers asked the Trump administration for reassurance on Obamacare. They didn’t get it.] The repercussions of discontinuing the payments have been made clear by insurance executives, who warn that if the funding disappears, insurers could leave markets altogether or raise their premiums significantly. CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield, the largest insurer in the Mid-Atlantic, requested rate increases of more than 50 percent in Maryland's marketplaces, and chief executive Chet Burrell warned earlier this month that if cost-sharing reduction payments were to end, rates could increase by another 10 to 15 percentage points. Anthem chief executive Joseph Swedish said in an April earnings call that the company was filing its preliminary rates with states under the assumption the cost-sharing reductions would be made. If there isn't a commitment to make the payments, Swedish said the company would change its plans. “Such adjustments could include reducing service area participation, requesting additional rate increases, eliminating certain product offerings or exiting certain individual ACA-compliant market altogether,” Swedish said. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners sent a letter this week to senators and to White House budget director Mick Mulvaney stressing the importance of the payments. “This is not a theoretical argument — carriers have already left the individual market in several states, and too many counties have only one carrier remaining,” the association wrote to Mulvaney. “The one concern carriers consistently raise as they consider whether to participate and how much to charge in 2018 is the uncertainty surrounding the federal cost-sharing reduction payments.” The motion to intervene was filed by the attorneys general of New York and California, and was joined by Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia. “The President has increasingly made clear that he views decisions about providing access to health insurance for millions of Americans — including the decision whether to continue defending this appeal — as little more than political bargaining chips,” the attorneys general wrote in their motion to intervene in the case, saying they could not depend on the White House to represent states' interests. “The number of uninsured Americans would go back up, hurting vulnerable individuals and directly burdening the States,” they wrote. “The wrong decision could trigger the very systemwide 'death spirals' that central ACA features, such as stable financing, were designed to avoid.” Read More: The future of Obamacare will be written by insurers like this one Iowa Obamacare program on verge of collapse as congressional uncertainty takes its toll Free-standing ERs offer care without the wait. But patients can still pay $6,800 to treat a cut.

Less than three months ago, Facebook Live experienced its first verifiable viral hit when more than 800,000 people tuned in to watch two BuzzFeed employees burst a watermelon using only rubber bands. But explosive fruit was just the beginning. Now, Facebook has reportedly inked well over 100 deals with a wide array of partners ranging from digital publishing outfits to celebrities, 17 of which come with million-dollar price tags. Facebook Live, the live-video service that began rolling out to users in the fall of last year, is the centerpiece of C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the future of Facebook. (Earlier this month, Facebook executive Nicola Mendelsohn predicted that within five years, the social network could be “all video.”) And paying high-profile content-creators to make video that people actually want to watch is the crux of that plan. According to a document obtained by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook will pay almost 140 parties to create live video for the burgeoning service. The list of partners includes a number of media companies, including CNN, The New York Times, Vox, Tastemade, Mashable, and The Huffington Post. (Condé Nast, Vanity Fair‘s parent company, has ongoing partnerships with Facebook that include a number of different business and revenue models.) Kevin Hart, Gordon Ramsay, Deepak Chopra, and Russell Wilson are among the celebrities that have signed on, the Journal reports. While the total price tag for the deals tops $50 million, the partnerships differ widely in value. Buzzfeed, which saw early success with its watermelon-exploding video, landed the biggest contract among its publishing competitors with a $3.05 million contract to create live video between March 2016 and March 2017. The New York Times nabbed second place, with a $3.03 million 12-month contract, and CNN rounded out the podium players with a $2.5 million deal, the Journal reports. The outlet did not report how much individual celebrities will pocket by partnering with Facebook for the initiative. Zuckerberg and friends are reportedly still figuring out how to monetize Facebook Live—pre-roll ads, presumably, are in our future—but by landing high-profile names to create its content, Facebook is undoubtedly one step closer to a sustainable live-video revenue model. During a Facebook town hall at the end of February, Zuckerberg said that live video was one of the things he was “most excited about.” This newest report makes it clear he sees it as a moneymaker, too.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel sentenced an Arab citizen to 30 months’ imprisonment on Monday for endangering national security by briefly joining Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Hikmat Massarwa (R), a member of Israel's Arab minority, attends a remand hearing at the Central District Court in Lod, near Tel Aviv April 25, 2013. REUTERS/Baz Ratner Hikmat Massarwa’s case was unprecedented, and the relatively light penalty handed down to him as part of a plea bargain reflected Israel’s indecision about who - if anyone - to back in its northern neighbor’s civil war. Massarwa was arrested on March 19 upon returning via Turkey from Syria, where he had spent a week at a rebel base. Israeli prosecutors accused him of undergoing small-arms training by radical Islamists there who asked him to carry out a suicide attack in Israel - although, by all accounts, he declined. Those charges carried a maximum 15-year jail term. But prosecutors appeared unable, from the outset, to throw the book at Massarwa because of Israeli haziness about the Syria crisis. “There’s no legal guidance regarding the rebel groups fighting in Syria,” Judge Avraham Yaakov said at a session of the trial at Lod district court, south of Tel Aviv, in May. Massarwa, a 29-year-old baker, at first denied wrongdoing, saying he had gone to Syria to seek a brother missing since joining the insurgency. He also argued that the Western-backed anti-Assad rebels should not be regarded as a danger to Israel. But, changing tack on Monday, Massarwa confessed to unlawfully travelling to a hostile state and meeting what prosecutors designated a “foreign agent”. In turn, they dropped the count against him of illicitly receiving military training. Under the plea bargain, Massarwa acknowledged his actions “had potential to threaten the security of the state of Israel”. Technically at war with Syria, Israel enjoyed decades of stable ceasefire while the Assad family ruled unchallenged in Syria. It fears that, if Damascus falls to the Islamist-dominated rebels, jihadis among them will have a Syrian springboard for striking at the Jewish state. Such concern has been stoked in recent months by Syrian gunfire and shelling into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, incidents in which Israel has routinely shot back. Israel took the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war. Arabs, most of them Muslim, make up around 20 percent of Israel’s population. They seldom take up arms with its enemies. Yet some Israeli officials privately described Massarwa’s trial as a bid to deter other Arab citizens from going to Syria and possibly acquiring the Islamist agenda and fighting savvy that could drive them to turn to violence once back home. “The prosecution were definitely looking for a deterrent effect here, and they got it, even though they scaled down the penalty,” Massarwa’s lawyer, Helal Jaber, told Reuters. But he added that Israeli Arab volunteerism for the Syrian civil war was “hardly a phenomenon. We are talking about two or three people - bad apples. The overwhelming majority of the community are loyal to the state of Israel”. (This story is refiled to add dropped letter in penultimate paragraph quote)

This article is over 7 years old Major rights holders claim search engines make it 'difficult' for people to find legal music and films online Google and Bing accused of directing users to illegal copies of music Google and other search engines "overwhelmingly" direct music fans to illegal copies of copyrighted tracks online, a coalition of entertainment industry groups has told the government. In a confidential document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, lobbying groups for the major rights holders claimed Google and Microsoft's Bing are making it "much more difficult" for people to find legal music and films online. The private document, obtained by the free speech campaigners Open Rights Group and shared with the Guardian, urges the government to introduce a voluntary body that would remove rogue websites from internet search results. The proposals were made to the culture minister Ed Vaizey as part of a series of consultations on internet piracy between rights holders, search giants and the government in November last year. The nine-page document was submitted on behalf of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the UK body for the music majors, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the Premier League, the Publishers Association and the Pact, the film and TV independent producers' trade body. Privately, rights holders said there is a "spirit of optimism" between the entertainment groups and search engines as they attempt to usher in more legal media sites, including Google's own fledgling music service. Google has in the past year stepped up efforts to remove copyright-infringing content, launching a fast-track removal requests form and filtering terms "associated with infringement". However, the rights holders claim in the document that "as time goes on, the situation is getting worse rather than better". "Consumers rely on search engines to find and access entertainment content and they play a vital role in the UK digital economy," the rights holders state. "At present, consumer searching for digital copies of copyright entertainment content are directed overwhelmingly to illegal sites and services." The entertainment groups want Google to "continuously review key search words" and "effectively screen" mobile apps on Android smartphones in an effort to combat illicit sharing. The document claims that 16 of the first 20 Google search results for chart singles link to "known illegal sites", according to searches by the BPI in September. In an attempt to persuade the government to clamp down on search engines, the groups claim that 41% of Google's first-page results for bestselling books in April last year were "non-legal links" to websites. "Much of the illegal activity in the digital economy is facilitated and encouraged by money-making rogue sites," the document claimed. "Intermediaries, unwittingly or by wilfully turning a blind eye (or in some cases, by encouraging such activity), play a key role in enabling content theft and often even profit from it. Only a comprehensive approach can address this issue." The entertainment bodies call for search engines to: • Assign lower rankings to sites that "repeatedly" make available copyright-infringing material • Prioritise sites that "obtain certification as a licensed site" for music and film downloading • Stop indexing sites that are subject to court orders • Stop indexing "substantially infringing websites" • Improve "notice and takedown" system • Ensure that users are not directed to illicit filesharing sites through suggested search • Ensure search engines do not advertise around unlawful sites or sell keywords associated with piracy or sell mobile apps "which facilitate infringement" The chief executive of BPI, Geoff Taylor, said on Thursday: "The vast majority of consumers want search engines to direct them to legal sources of entertainment rather than the online black market. "As search engines roll out high-quality content services, like Google Music, we want to build a constructive partnership that supports a legal online economy. We hope that Google and other search engines will respond positively." A spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association added: "If you look for film or music via a search engine you usually find websites providing access to pirated films or music at the top of the list of results. "This is confusing for consumers, damages the legal market and legitimises copyright theft. We are in dialogue with search engines, ISPs [internet service providers], advertising networks and payment processors about a code to deal with the escalating problem of online copyright theft which threatens the growth of the entire creative industries sector. This paper is a result of that dialogue and we appreciate government's continuing efforts to help bring about a more responsible internet". A spokesman for Google said: "Google takes the fight against online piracy very seriously. Last year, we removed over five million infringing items from Google Search. We have made industry-leading efforts in this field, investing over $50m (£32m) in fighting bad advertisements and over $30m on Content ID software, giving rights holders control over their YouTube content. "We continue to work in close partnership with rights holders to help them combat piracy and protect their property." Peter Bradwell, campaigner for the Open Rights Group, said the proposal contained "some dangerous ideas". He said: "It's another plan to take on far too much power over what we're allowed to look at and do online."

Fingerprint riddle leads to new call for Dr David Kelly inquest Found in woods: Dr David Kelly's possessions did not have any fingerprints on them Fresh information casting doubt on how weapons inspector Dr David Kelly died has been sent to the Government by campaigners trying to secure an inquest into his death. Attorney General Dominic Grieve was presented with legal papers on Monday arguing that because there were no fingerprints on five items found with Dr Kelly’s body – including the knife he supposedly used to kill himself – a coroner’s inquest must be held to determine how he died. The information, covering dozens of legal and scientific points, was submitted by a group of doctors who believe Dr Kelly’s death has never been investigated properly. Mr Grieve will now consider if there is sufficient fresh evidence for a full examination of what remains one of the most notorious episodes of Tony Blair’s premiership. His decision is expected shortly. Dr Kelly, a world-renowned weapons inspector, is said to have killed himself after being named as the prime source of a BBC report accusing Blair’s government of lying to take Britain into the Iraq war. His body was found in woods close to his home in Oxfordshire on July 18, 2003. Uniquely, for an unexpected death such as his, no coroner’s inquest has ever been held. The public inquiry into his death chaired by Lord Hutton found that he killed himself after slashing his wrist with a blunt pruning knife and overdosing on painkillers. But Mr Grieve has been told by the doctors that they have established a range of fresh evidence questioning the official finding and highlighting several irregularities. They state that it has been established, using the Freedom of Information Act, that there were no fingerprints on five items found with Dr Kelly’s body: the knife, a watch, his mobile phone, an open water bottle and blister packs of pills he supposedly swallowed. In their legal papers, the doctors state: ‘It is submitted that to properly investigate the circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death, any coroner would be obliged to make inquiries as to why there were no fingerprints found, including for example seeking evidence on whether any tests were carried out to establish if anything had been used to attempt to erase fingerprint evidence. Fresh inquiry call: Body of the government scientist was found at Harrowdown Hill, Oxfordshire, on July 18, 2003 ‘This is particularly relevant as it was noted no gloves were found on the body or in its vicinity.’ The doctors have also alleged that Dr Kelly’s GP, Dr Malcolm Warner, may have concealed crucial evidence about seeing the weapon inspector’s corpse when he appeared as a witness at the Hutton Inquiry in 2003. The doctors claim they were ultimately made aware of this by Dr Kelly’s MP, Robert Jackson, who has since retired from Parliament. They also say conflicting evidence about where Dr Kelly was found leads them to believe his body might have been moved after death. According to the two volunteer searchers who found him, Dr Kelly’s body was sitting against a tree, but pathologist Nicholas Hunt described him as lying several feet in front of the tree. The doctors have also raised questions about the fact that Thames Valley Police failed to collect vital evidence offered to them by Dr Kelly’s close friend Nigel Cox. This evidence suggests that, immediately before his death, Dr Kelly had made social plans for July 23. Mr Cox is understood to still have an answerphone message proving his claim. The doctors have stipulated that because none of the fingerprint evidence was even mentioned at the Hutton Inquiry, this point on its own ought to satisfy the minimum legal requirement for a coroner’s inquest to be held. The legal document covers 36 points. It was co-authored by medical doctors Stephen Frost, Christopher Burns-Cox, David Halpin and Andrew Rouse. Dr Michael Powers QC, who has been instructed to represent the doctors in their legal action, said: ‘The circumstances of this case are highly unusual. ‘They have troubled a wide section of public opinion. Given the inadequacy of Lord Hutton’s investigation, it’s essential there should now be a full coroner’s inquest.’

The Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City has decided to cut ties with the Girl Scouts. Archbishop Joseph F Naumann announced on Monday that he’s asked churches in his archdiocese to transition away from hosting Girl Scout troops, in favor of partnering with the Christian scouting organization, American Heritage Girls. Parishes in the diocese were given the choice to stop chartering Girl Scout troops immediately, or graduate scouts already in the program to American Heritage Girl troops over the next few years. Previously, Naumann had told priests to end sales of the Girls Scouts’ famous cookies, according to the Kansas City Star. “No Girl Scout cookie sales should occur in Catholic Schools or on parish property after the 2016-2017 school year,” he said in a letter sent to priests in his parish in January. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images The archbishop of Kansas City, Kansas, Joseph Naumann (left). The problem with Girl Scouts, according to Naumann, is that their programs and materials can cause children to be “misled and misinformed” by “secular culture.” “To follow Jesus and his Gospel will often require us to be counter-cultural,” Naumann wrote in his statement. “With the promotion by Girl Scouts USA (GSUSA) of programs and materials reflective of many of the troubling trends in our secular culture, they are no longer a compatible partner in helping us form young women with the virtues and values of the Gospel.” In particular, Naumann pointed to the fact that Girl Scouts USA pays membership dues to the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), which the archbishop claims has ties to International Planned Parenthood. Naumann also referred to how Girls Scouts materials portray birth control activist Margaret Sanger and feminists Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem as role models. “These as well as many other ‘role models’ in the GSUSA’s new manuals and web content not only do not reflect our Catholic worldview but stand in stark opposition to what we believe,” he wrote. “Our greatest responsibility as a church is to the children and young people in our care,” Naumann wrote in his statement. “We have a limited time and number of opportunities to impact the formation of our young people. It is essential that all youth programs at our parishes affirm virtues and values consistent with our Catholic faith.” John Moore via Getty Images Girl Scouts sell cookies as a winter storm moves in on February 8, 2013 in New York City. In a statement to HuffPost, a GSUSA spokesperson said that the organization has worked to create a positive relationship with the Catholic Church over the past 100 years. “Girl Scouts is always willing to work with any and every person or organization in order to fulfill our mission of building girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place.” On its website, the GSUSA said that it “does not not have a relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood.” The GSUSA does pay dues to WAGGGS, but claims that it does not always take the same positions as the global organization, and that scouts’ membership dues aren’t used to pay WAGGGS. GSUSA also said that it is a secular organization and doesn’t take an official position on birth control, abortion, and human sexuality. The American Catholic bishops and the Girl Scouts USA have had a tense relationship in recent years, much of which centers around the church’s concerns around the culture war issues of contraception, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops held a series of talks with the GSUSA in 2013 and 2014 about these issues. As a result of the dialogue, the committee in charge of the review issued a document saying that it was “morally objectionable” that WAGGGS promoted educating girls about their “sexual and reproductive health/rights.” The committee believed the phrase itself was “problematic.” Still, the committee didn’t endorse or condemn the GSUSA, leaving decisions about church-hosted scouting to each individual diocesan bishop. In 2016, the archdiocese of St. Louis officially disbanded its committee on Girl Scouts, and encouraged its priests to choose alternative scouting programs, instead. In a statement about the move, Archbishop Robert Carlson cited concerns about the GSUSA’s “position on and inclusion of transgender and homosexual issues,” among other issues.

Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Chengdu in southern China last Saturday (5.7.2014) with two dozen top managers in tow, including five heads of DAX-listed companies. Since Tuesday, the final day of Merkel's China visit, it's been evident that the large German business contingent made less of an impression on the Chinese than some of the members of the delegation had hoped. In the end, the Chinese were not quite as open to everything the German business leaders had on their wish list as the Germans would have liked. Accords amounting to 3 billion euros ($4 billion) were signed, which is not bad at all. However, it's a relatively small package if you take into account the fact that China's Prime Minister Li Keqiang spread around more than 21 billion euros on his last trip to Britain three weeks ago. Only Volkswagen and Airbus had reason to be pleased - and Airbus is half-French. VW and its Chinese partner FAW agreed on two additional plants in China, with investment of a billion euros each. Airbus secured a contract on the shipment of 100 helicopters worth about 300 million euros. However, there were plenty of disappointments: Siemens failed to close deals with four major Chinese cities that would have brought the group orders into the three-digit million euro range. Germany's stock exchange failed to garner the bid to form a joint enterprise with the Shanghai stock exchange. Complaints about conditions Frank Sieren: China makes the rules Even more important than concrete deals: on the flight to China, Chancellor Merkel had enough time to listen to German business leaders' complaints. Many feel the framework for business deals in China is unfair. Why, they wonder, can the Chinese buy practically every medium-sized German company they have an appetite for, while German corporations that want to do business in China are forced into joint ventures that flush a good deal of money into Chinese coffers. VW chief Martin Winterkorn can tell you a thing or two about that. For years, he's been fighting for permission to found a wholly-owned subsidiary in China. China dictates the pace Understandably, the Chinese approach has been angering German managers. But it's not likely to change any time soon. Who can force China? Not even Europe's mightiest politician, Angela Merkel, has that power. Beijing will open its economy at the pace it deems to be correct, and won't let the West dictate the rules. And it's worth noting that in the past, it has sometimes been to Western companies' advantage that Beijing has its own views on the topic. Just take a look at China's financial sector. Don't bother thinking that the 2008 financial crisis would have ended if Chinese capital flows had been as liberal and linked to the rest of the world as Western bankers had long desired. The Chinese economy, too, would have been entangled in a deep crisis, and would have dropped away as a motor for the global economy - including for German enterprises. But since those companies still managed to reliably sell their goods to China even after the Lehman crash, they got off fairly lightly. German firms make good money inChina It's fine to clearly state one's point of view toward China, but it would be inappropriate to complain too much about the conditions there. After all, German firms make good money on the Chinese market. And that is bound to continue. Beijing no longer wants to be the world's workbench, it wants China to be more innovative - and the Germans are expected to help. In effect, that means China wants to hold on to the German-Sino symbiosis, closely tested over two decades: exchanging Chinese market shares for Western technology. There's no way to prevent the Chinese from slowly turning into competitors for German manufacturers. But as long as the economy continues to grow, German companies will move forward. Over the next few years, Beijing envisions higher wages for the middle classes and plans to pull an additional 200 million people out of poverty in western China. So, even if the Chinese continue to make the rules, consumption will continue to rise. For German companies, that means more competition - but also more opportunities for growth. DW correspondent Frank Sieren is considered one of the leading German experts on China. He has lived in Beijing for the past 20 years.

Day two of Government Shutdown 2013 offered America plenty of surreal moments, from the brief and ridiculous re-emergence of the Grand Bargain, to the sight of multiple members of a universally reviled governing body offering to give up their paychecks as if they thought it was a move worthy of a medal. But nowhere did Salvador Dali's clocks warp and melt under the heat of sustained stupidity as badly as they did down at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. Yesterday, it became pretty obvious that if you wanted to catch the eye of any Beltway reporter to discuss what you were enduring during the shutdown, you had to go on down to this memorial to make your case. Unfortunately, that's where many members of Congress decided to while away their day as well. As Ryan Reilly reported, heroic members of Congress turned out to boldly grandstand at the memorial, pretending just as hard as they could that its temporary closure was the most dire effect of the shutdown ... for which ... they voted. Yes, that was by far the most surreal thing about it. Gawker's Tom Scocca turned the best phrase about the whole mess, describing those lawmakers as committing "an act of civil disobedience against themselves." But Mark Segraves, reporting for NBC News' Washington affiliate, managed to capture the howler highlight of the Great World War II Memorial Bleat-n-Repeat -- Rep. Randy Neugebauer's (R-Tex.) Wednesday confrontation of a poor park ranger on the scene -- who was doing nothing more than her job -- blaming her for the closure he voted for and telling her that she should be ashamed of herself. Seriously, this actually happened. Per Segraves: "How do you look at them and ... deny them access?" said Neugebauer. He, with most House Republicans, had voted early Sunday morning to pass a funding measure that would delay the Affordable Care Act, a vote that set up a showdown with the Senate and President Barack Obama. With the parties unable to agree on how to fund the federal government, non-essential government functions shut down Tuesday. "It's difficult," responded the Park Service employee. "Well, it should be difficult," replied the congressman, who was carrying a small American flag in his breast pocket. "It is difficult," responded the Park Service employee. "I'm sorry, sir." "The Park Service should be ashamed of themselves," the congressman said. "I'm not ashamed," replied the ranger. From there, Segraves reports, "a crowd of onlookers got involved," and began loudly demanding that Neugebauer lay off the park ranger, pointing out again and again that the reason everyone was in the position they were in was due to the fact that Congress very specifically put them there. Neugebauer countered that it was all really Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) fault, but that failed to impress anyone. What's really ghastly about this is that the whole "Harry Reid shut down the government" line is a talking point. It's "messaging" -- the mostly disingenuous bilge that politicos spit in order to gain some phantom upper hand in a war of rhetoric that plays itself out in the press. It's not intended to be sincere, it's all posturing -- throwing sub-standard witticisms at a wall in the hopes that something will stick and convince people. This is all stuff intended for an audience of reporters -- and in that setting, all is fair. But you're not actually supposed to extend "messaging" out into the world of ordinary human Americans in this fashion, and victimize park rangers with it. What's also inane about this is that, as Segraves takes pains to point out, the park rangers deployed to the World War II Memorial, while enforcing the closure of the memorial to the general public, are also there to make sure that the Honor Flight veterans who come to the memorial get access to the site. So, by impeding her from doing her job, all Neugebauer was doing was impeding access for the Honor Flight veterans. And telling the ranger that she should be ashamed? Man, that's not a good look, and the gathered crowd made sure Neugebauer learned that the hard way. Got to give credit to the ranger for standing her ground and doing her job with professionalism, in the face of an idiot who really needs to learn his place.

Massive spoilers in this article for Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain Back in 2013, Metal Gear Solid fans were presented with the barely-dressed character design for female sniper assassin Quiet. The reaction wasn’t entirely positive, but Hideo Kojima stepped forward to assure fans that there was a perfectly reasonable narrative justification for the character’s attire. “I know there’s people concerning about ‘Quiet’ but don’t worry,” he wrote in a series of tweets. “I created her character as an antithesis to the women characters appeared in the past fighting game who are excessively exposed. ‘Quiet’ who doesn’t have a word will be teased in the story as well. But once you recognise the secret reason for her exposure, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds.” So, two years on Phantom Pain has been released. No one has forgotten Kojima’s words and we have the full story behind Quiet’s attire. Are we ashamed? Well, not for ourselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HywkFVKGgbQ It turns out that the reason Quiet wears that bikini outfit is because of a parasitic infection. This infection means that she has to breathe through her skin, using photosynthesis to absorb air, water, and nutrients. So, you see, Quiet doesn’t want to be exposed in the way she is. She has to be. And that’s empowering how exactly? She’s essentially a houseplant. Quiet is actually the second photosynthetic character in the series, the previous character being The End, but for some reason he gets to wear a lot more clothes than Quiet does. Probably his lack of displayable tits.

Porter Airlines confirmed today it plans to buy up to 30 CS100 jets from Montreal-based Bombardier, which would expand the regional carrier's reach from coast to coast, and take direct aim at Air Canada and WestJet. "We believe it is time to spread our wings," president and CEO Bob Deluce said at a news conference at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, where Porter is based. "And so I present to you our vision for the future of Porter Airlines — a vision with service to destinations across North America, from Calgary and Vancouver, to Los Angeles, Miami and Orlando." The move pushes Porter into direct competition with Air Canada and WestJet as a national carrier, while setting up a potential political standoff over expansion of the island airport in downtown Toronto. The conditional deal is to buy 12 Bombardier CS100s, with options on 18 more. The deal also includes purchase rights for six of Bombardier's Q400 turboprop aircraft, currently the mainstay of the Porter fleet. The total purchase could reach $2.29 billion US if all the options and purchase rights are exercised. Delivery of the first jet, which has seating for 107 passengers, is expected in 2016. The conditional purchase agreement signed on Tuesday is a coup for Bombardier, and ushers in a change in Canadian aviation. That's because the CSeries jets can fly 5,400 km without refuelling, much farther than the current fleet of Q400 turboprop planes that Porter flies to connect 19 cities across Eastern Canada and the U.S. The airline said the expansion could mean 1,000 new employees, which would bring the total to 2,400. Potential price war Joseph D'Cruz, a University of Toronto business professor and aviation expert, said the move could be good news for consumers. The announcement could lead to a political dispute over the airport, which is near residents on the island and the city's heavily populated downtown. (Marivel Taruc/CBC) "It's going to be interesting to watch how WestJet and Air Canada react once Porter starts biting into their business," he told CBC News. "They're going to retaliate, and the only way they can retaliate is lower prices." "This may trigger a vicious price war," D'Cruz said. Air Canada said that before it takes a position on further investment at the island airport, it wants assurance that takeoff and landing slots will become available for other airlines that have been seeking increased access. Canada's largest airline currently has only enough landing and takeoff slots to offer service between Montreal and the airport on the Toronto waterfront. WestJet Airlines did not directly address Porter's plans, but said it remains focused on keeping its own business. "We expect competition to increase and are preparing accordingly," WestJet spokesman Robert Palmer said in a statement. Political dispute The announcement could lead to a political dispute over the airport, which is near residents on the island and the city's heavily populated downtown. The airline will seek permission to fly the long-range jets out of the island airport, where the runway would need to be extended into what is now water by 168 metres at each end. Jets are currently not allowed to fly out of the waterfront airport except under special circumstances, and any changes would need to be approved under the airport's three-way agreement between the City of Toronto, the federal government and Toronto Port Authority. The Toronto Port Authority said it wouldn't take any position on Porter's business plans. "The TPA will not consider any change of use to the airport until a determination is first made by the elected representatives on Toronto City Council regarding Porter's proposed changes to the 1983 Tripartite Agreement," it said in a news release. Deluce said Porter expects to have all the needed approvals within six months. Politicians who represent the area at the municipal and federal level were quick to say before the announcement that any plans to expand Toronto's island airport would be out of the question. "You can't pave the lake," Toronto Coun. Adam Vaughan told CBC News on Tuesday. Porter executives went out of their way Wednesday to underline how quiet the new Bombardier jets will be designed to be. "We knew that operating from a downtown urban airport would require us to be responsible operators and good neighbours, said Deluce, who launched the airline in 2006. "We believe that our track record of nearly seven years has shown that Porter has delivered on the promises we made when we announced plans to operate from this airport." "We believe the CS100 is the perfect aircraft for the next stage of our growth for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is the quietest commercial jet in production." Robert Kokonis, co-founder of airline consulting firm AirTrav, noted to CBC News that the thrust reverser required on landing may be louder than Deluce's promise of an engine that is "whisper" quiet. "The runway's not long enough and to get an agreement to lengthen the runway, they’re going to have to go before … three levels of government, not to mention community opposition, environmental studies, so there’s a fair degree of long shot in Bob Deluce’s plans for Porter today," said Kokonis, who also questioned how the expansion will be financed. In a separate interview with The Canadian Press, Kokonis noted that Porter's planes have been flying less full while load factors at WestJet and Air Canada have been improving. "In a zero sum game where they're all sort of chasing the same passenger, it does give one pause for concern that Porter might be struggling in some areas." Despite the expansion, Deluce said taking the privately held airline public and raising money through an initial public offering is not a priority right now. The company had planned to issue shares on the public markets in the past, but shelved them for various reasons. "We've not thought about an IPO in most recent times," Deluce said. "Sometime in the future it's a possibility."

Last month, the Seattle Parks Department ordered the destruction of a play area designed for special needs kids, claiming its four-foot rope ladder, tire swing, and "nest" made of rope and bike tires were "extreme dangers" and "hazardous conditions." That's an odd verdict: In 10 years of existence, no children were ever significantly injured on the play area equipment, according to Liz Bullard, who helped design the space. As she writes in Crosscut.com: These simple play features may seem ordinary, but...here children with cerebral palsy, autism and developmental delays are encouraged and assisted as needed to climb and swing alongside their typically developing peers. The joy is palpable. We complied with the order, but it has left a bitter taste in our mouths. Our kids have been robbed of the simple pleasure of climbing and swinging under a beautiful tree. The thing about kids with special needs is that they often have to spend a lot of time in less-than-fun institutions. Hospitals. Therapists' offices. Waiting rooms. The "Wild Zone," as the play area was called, was specifically "designed to provide relief from the highly controlled and often hyper-medicalized world our kids move in," writes Bullard. One mom of a child with special needs commented on a post about the city's order, "This is a travesty!! How dare they steal the only play space in the Greater Seattle area, let alone the NW that is dedicated to creating a healthy play space for special kids where they aren't judged by their lesser abilities." Wrote another mom: "The Play Garden is the best! My son attended preschool there for three years and I am so grateful for the Wild Zone. There was nothing dangerous about it. Nothing!" Ah, but when you're a bureaucrat and you live in the world of what if thinking, danger is everywhere. Just imagine, "what if someone got hurt?" Look at the world that way and no play area wil seem safe enough. This outlook seems to be sweeping Washington state. Recall that just a few weeks ago the Richland School District decided to phase out all swings because what if a child got hurt on them? Too bad the bureaucrats never consider the reverse: What if kids never get a chance to climb a ladder, or hang from the monkey bars? What if kids with special needs know that after their doctor's appointment they will have to go straight home, because there's no place left for them to play? At least they won't be exposed to the "extreme danger" of a tire swing. Related: "Little Girl's Playset Is in Her Own Backyard, City Wants It Destroyed Anyway"

This is why friends shouldn’t let friends drive drunk. New Jersey cops scored a drunk-driving hat trick when they busted a motorist for DUI, then pinched her two sloshed friends who separately drove to the police station to pick her up. It all started when a cop in Readington Township pulled over Carmen Reategui, 34, after he noticed her car swerving on Route 22 early one morning last week. Charged with DUI, she was taken to the town’s police station, where she called a friend to come and get her. But the friend wasn’t much help. Nina Petracca, 23, who drove down to the station, was filling out necessary paperwork when a cop noticed that she, too, seemed a little tipsy. She failed a sobriety test right in the station lobby and was charged with DUI. So Petracca, too, was slapped with a DUI charge, as well as a drug charge for Vicodin tablets found in her purse, police said. Both women then reached out to another friend, Ryan Hogan, who, like Petracca before him, raced down to the police station to help his friends out of a jam. But when he showed up, Police Sgt. Carlos Ferreiro thought he seemed off. “When I was outside talking to him he displayed signs of intoxication,” he said. Hogan also failed sobriety tests, police said. “They finally got a sober adult to come pick up all three of them,” Ferreiro said. “It’s the first time in nine years I’ve had something like this.” All three friends are scheduled to appear in court next month. Reategui vented about the ordeal on Facebook. “Just getting home,” she posted to her page on Dec. 16. “ABSOLUTELY THE WORST NIGHT OF MY F–KING LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Petracca “liked” her lockup pal’s comment. Later in the day she was wishing the whole thing had never happened, posting: “Heavy, heavy heart. Wish there was an undo button in life.”

Recently, education reporter Jay Mathews of The Washington Post has been writing about reading in the public schools, two of those pieces appearing here and here. One reason for doing so stems from a report issued by Renaissance Learning, a reading program that helps teachers and parents determine how well children understand the reading they do for homework and on their own. Because of the popularity of the program, Renaissance Learning has a vast database on the books kids in public schools from kindergarten to 12th Grade actually read voluntarily and for class. The most recent findings, for the 2008-09 school year, are now released in a paper entitled “What Kids Are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools” (here’s for the link). The list of most popular titles for Grades 9 through 12 show just how powerful the social element of reading is at that age. The top four spots (!) are held by one author, Stephanie Meyer — Twilight, New Moon, Breaking Dawn, and Eclipse. (At Border’s Books yesterday, I asked for the jigsaw puzzles and the man directed me to a rear wall, adding, “We only have six or seven puzzles, and nearly all of them are New Moon stuff.”) At No. 5 sits To Kill a Mockingbird, then comes Night (Wiesel), A Child Called “It” (Dave Pelzer), Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, Brisingr (Christopher Paolini), Romeo and Juliet, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Giver, and seven more works of literature. That makes only two nonfiction works in the entire list, prompting Mathews to comment: “Educators say nonfiction is more difficult than fiction for students to comprehend. It requires more factual knowledge, beyond fiction’s simple truths of love, hate, passion and remorse. So we have a pathetic cycle. Students don’t know enough about the real world because they don’t read nonfiction and they can’t read nonfiction because they don’t know enough about the real world.” This dilemma is increasingly discussed in English Language Arts circles as more and more ELA standards are oriented toward abstract reading skills. Those standards will say things like “Students identify the main thesis in a text” and “Students detail the evidence used to support a contention in a text” — essential capacities, to be sure. To a decreasing degree, however, they ask for students to demonstrate specific “domain knowledge” such as “Students characterize, with examples, major periods of English and American literary history.” As a result, the knowledge deficits proceed, and so does poor achievement in the higher grades. Mathews again: “Educational theorist E.D. Hirsch Jr. insists this is what keeps many students from acquiring the communication skills they need for successful lives. “Language mastery is not some abstract skill,” he said in his latest book, The Making of Americans. “It depends on possessing broad general knowledge shared by other competent people within the language community.” Hirsch’s new book may be found here. Another voice on the issue is cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham, who contributes an introductory note to the reading report above. There, Willingham maintains: “Many people think of intelligence as comprised of mental skills that are independent of knowledge. That is, smart people think logically and analytically about problems, and they do that for pretty much any problem that comes along. If you’re a ‘good thinker’ you can apply those thinking skills quite broadly. This view is inaccurate. Thinking well is intertwined with knowledge.” Why so? Willingham: “We tend to think of reading as a skill that can be applied to any text. Indeed, describing a child as a good reader implies that she will be a good reader no matter what the content. That is true only for decoding — the process of turning written letters into sounds. Comprehending what you read depends heavily on what you already know about the topic. “Here’s why that’s true. We all omit information when we speak. For example, imagine I said to a friend “I ate pasta when I wore my new sweater. Now I’m going to have to throw it out.” I don’t elaborate that I spilled pasta sauce on my sweater, or that stains are hard to remove from some fabrics, or that these fabrics are often used to make sweaters, or that I am the sort of person who would throw out a sweater if it were stained. I assume that my friend knows all this, and can fill in the gaps. If I didn’t omit information that the listener already knows, speech would be very long and very boring.”

Frazer Brown writes, At London Super Comic Con this weekend I stood in line to get some ‘Swamp Thing‘ stuff signed, to add to the growing pile of plastic and paper things I don’t quite know what to do with in my office (But somehow serve as creative stimuli in my peripheral vision whilst working)* Naturally my first stop for ‘Swamp Goods’ was Yanick Paquette’s booth. Whilst chatting with Yanick, young James (aged 6) arrived with his dad and nervously presented the artist with his own crayoned vision of Swamp Thing for Yanick to keep. In return Mr YP drafted a totally gratis Swampie for James to treasure for ever. It was all incredibly sweet. I then proceeded to walk away from Yanick’s stall without paying for ANY of the stuff I had taken! Like a thieving Toe Rag**. Contacting him on Twitter the same day to apologise this was the response I got: I’d like to nominate Yanick Paquette for the ‘Nicest Artist at LSCC Award’*** *watching netflix ** Toe Rag noun, British, Informal /təʊraɡ/ a contemptible or worthless person. ***Award doesn’t actually exist Frazer Brown is a lifelong fan of the ‘Swamp Creature’ genre of comics. So much so, he’s investing time and money on two projects that involve creatures of the ‘Slime’ or ‘Swamp’ variety in 2016. Funny how life turns out. You can follow him on twitter @frazerbrown About Rich Johnston Chief writer and founder of Bleeding Cool. Father of two. Comic book clairvoyant. Political cartoonist. (Last Updated ) Related Posts None found

0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr released a statement today criticizing the bungled police raid of the mayor’s home in Berwyn Heights, Maryland. He said that no knock raids are unconstitutional, and that law enforcement has become arrogant and less accountable. The case Barr is referring to involves a bungled raid on Mayor Cheye Calvo ‘s home that resulted in the mayor and his mother in law being hand cuffed and his two dogs killed. The mayor had been victimized by drug smugglers, but law enforcement never bothered to take the time to actually investigate and gather the facts. “Absent exigent circumstances, not present here, so-called no-knock raids are an affront to the Constitution. So is a shoot first, ask questions later philosophy by the police. Yet the Prince George’s police have done this before—last fall they invaded a house at the wrong address and shot the family dog. All Americans are at risk when the police behave this way. Just ask yourself what might happen if a suspicious package is delivered to your home and the cops bust in,” Barr said. His bigger point is that law enforcement needs to be able to do their job while protecting people’s liberties, “But there is an even larger point. Law enforcement agencies have become more arrogant and less accountable in cases other than those involving drugs. Most people are aware of well-publicized examples like Waco and Ruby Ridge, but similar abuses are common across the country, though they usually receive little or no public notice. We all want police to do their jobs well, but part of doing their job well is respecting the people’s constitutional liberties.” Barr knows what he is talking about. Before serving in the House of Representatives, he was a U.S. attorney, and before that he worked at the CIA. For lack of a better term, I think that some law enforcement agencies have gotten lazy. We see people getting shot or tasered too often without cause, but seems like if some law enforcement officers don’t want to deal with a situation, they skip right to using force. This attitude comes from the top down. It can be traced to the example set by the Bush administration after 9/11. This anything goes attitude needs to stop which is another reason why the neo-cons have to go. If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:

While it might not have the name recognition of Rupp Arena or Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Thomas & Mack Center is one of college basketball’s most iconic arenas. It’s played host to the 1990 UNLV men’s national championship team, as well as other spectator events most college hoops’ venues could never dream of, from world class concerts, to championship boxing matches and, yes, the annual rodeo. Yet even by the insane standard that events in Vegas can provide, a recent drive up to Thomas & Mack tells you something else altogether: The arena is preparing for an event the likes of which neither UNLV nor Vegas has ever seen. On a calm afternoon, weeks before the start of basketball season, security is at an all-time high. Every car is funneled through the same entrance, and every driver is politely asked where they’re headed, who they’re there to see and the purpose of their visit. Parking is at a minimum, if available at all. Article continues below ... Clearly, this isn’t your normal protocol on a normal afternoon, and it isn’t until later that you realize this has nothing to do with UNLV hoops or some Rascal Flatts concert tour rolling through town. This isn’t about questioning visitors in an aggressive manor; instead, it's about protecting the future of the country. Literally. While the focus at the Thomas & Mack Center is usually on basketball this time of year, politics are taking center stage. The arena will host the third and final presidential debate on Wednesday night. But while the debate will bring the eyes of the world to Las Vegas, it has brought something else to UNLV basketball, the primary tenant of the Thomas & Mack Center: headaches. Lots and lots of headaches. “The first thing that came to mind was ‘that’s pretty cool,’ the national attention that it will bring to the Thomas & Mack and the university” new UNLV head coach Marvin Menzies said. “But then the second thought was ‘wow, that’s going to be a logistical nightmare.’” Admittedly, the debate has been a logistical nightmare for just about everyone on UNLV’s campus, and very likely for the entire city of Las Vegas in recent days. However, it’s taken an especially large toll on the UNLV basketball team because its offices are located in the Thomas & Mack and its practice facility is located right next door at the Mendenhall Center. To prepare for the debate and to make sure the entire surrounding area is completely secure, the Runnin’ Rebels hoops team was forced to leave its offices last Friday and won't be able to return until Thursday morning. Coaches have been put in temporary offices alongside other coaches in other sports, while practices have taken place at an intramural gym across campus. When players, coaches and administrators left the facility last week, they were forced to bring anything with them they could possibly need for six days, knowing that once they exited they wouldn’t be allowed back in. “There’s a long list of things,” Menzies said. “We’ll need to bring basketball equipment and pads and balls and things of that nature. And then your files, records, recruiting, things of that nature. [Thankfully] in this day and age, technology is so advanced there’s a lot of things that we will work off of that will be off our laptops that we will be able to access.” The situation is unique and could be especially troublesome for this particular UNLV squad. Menzies is in his first year as head coach after being hired in late April, and after bringing in nine new players this offseason (and returning just four from last year’s squad), there is a major learning curve for everyone. Players are still not only getting to know the coaches (and vice-versa), but they’re also getting to know each other. For most coaches, that alone would be a nightmare. But then consider that precious time and effort in the preseason has been dedicated to such trivial matters as “where will practice be today” and “where will my office be for the next six days.” However, instead of looking at this situation as a negative, Menzies has turned it into a positive. He will be able to see how his young team deals with a tiny bit of adversity. And it will also give them a chance to grow together as a group. “Getting your kids ready to handle change because change is coming,” Menzies said. “Whether you’re going on the road to travel, whether you’re out because of an electrical outage. It gives your kids an opportunity to handle change. I think it can actually be beneficial depending on how you look at it and how you handle it.” And when discussing the “big picture” of the debate, Menzies takes things one step further. After all, is it really a bad thing to alter a couple practices when the eyes of an entire nation will be on your school and campus? Could it possibly be a negative to have an event in your home arena that required over 700 media credentials and will bring a reported $85 million in free advertising to your school? It’s one of the biggest positives any school could ask for. “Let’s face it, this is a national branding for the university,” Menzies said. “[This is a national branding opportunity for] the Thomas & Mack.” And most important, it’s a teaching moment for Menzies and his staff. Being a college basketball coach isn’t just about X’s and O’s, but about helping boys become men. It’s about teaching them that life is bigger than basketball, and that it’s important to look beyond just the stat sheets and box scores to other important things in life. That’s especially true as we enter one of the most heated and controversial elections ever. “I think we’ve used it as an observation to talk a little bit about the privilege to be able to vote,” Menzies said. “Being to see all the pomp and circumstance that goes with the debate, it makes it a little more real for the guys. “It is [bigger than sports],” he said. “The magnitude of this particular debate, along with that it’s just such a dynamic event in and of itself. So to have it at your university, I think that’s a cool thing. It’s a good thing.” Even if it does force you to move a practice or two.

Fact Buster Q: Does coffee make you dehydrated? A: If you drink coffee regularly and don't drink too much it shouldn't dehydrate you. Our expert: Dietitian Lisa Renn [Image source: Reuters | Mick Tsikas ] Have your say Have you found coffee can make you feel dehydrated? Conditions of Use Have you been told that you need to drink an extra glass of water for every cup of coffee or tea that you drink? For some time there has been a belief that drinking coffee and tea can make you dehydrated because the caffeine they contain has a diuretic effect. (A diuretic is a substance that causes your body to produce urine, and it has been suggested caffeine can do this because it increases blood flow through the kidneys.) But is there any evidence to show that your morning cuppa needs to be offset with a big glass of water? If you regularly enjoy a few cups of coffee or tea a day, then you can rest assured the moderate amount of caffeine they contain doesn't cause you to lose more fluid than you ingest, says Lisa Renn, accredited practising dietitian and spokesperson for the Dietitians Association of Australia. Nor will your cuppa be any more likely to send you off to the loo than any other drink. "There is evidence that caffeine in higher amounts acts as a diuretic in some people, but moderate intake is actually not that significant," Renn says. A recent UK study of regular male coffee drinkers found no difference in hydration levels between those who drank four 200ml cups of coffee a day and those who drank the same amount of water. Researchers measured the men's urine output over a 24-hour period and other hydration markers in their blood, and concluded moderate coffee intake provides similar hydrating qualities to water. While the study focused on the intake of coffee, those who drink tea can also take heart from the results as it contains similar amounts of caffeine to coffee. It's worth noting, the study involved men who were regular coffee drinkers – and it's been suggested coffee may have more of a diuretic effect on those who do not habitually consume caffeine because they haven't developed a tolerance to caffeine. But so far the evidence on this point isn't completely clear. How caffeine affects hydration One of the reasons that drinks containing caffeine, such as coffee, tea, chocolate, cola drinks and energy drinks, have been given such a bad rap over the years is because caffeine is a diuretic when consumed in large doses (more than 500mg). Diuretics make your body produce more urine, so not only do they have you running to the toilet more often, they also cause you to lose sodium and water. When you lose too much sodium and water you become dehydrated, and this can have an effect on a range of bodily functions – from temperature control to absorption of food. However, the amount of caffeine you get in a cuppa is unlikely to have these effects and it can actually contribute to your overall daily fluid intake. "If you have to have more than four cups of coffee a day you may see a diuretic effect from that, but if your intake is less, then from a dehydration view you're going to be okay," says Renn. Men's bodies need around 2.6 litres and women's around 2.1 litres of water a day, but this can be gleaned from a range of food and drinks other than water, including coffee and tea. "Certainly you can be interspersing coffees and waters throughout the day, so you might have a bottle of water with you and be sipping on that most of the time, and then you might have a coffee in your break times," Renn says. The good and bad sides of coffee It's worth noting there are also other side effects associated with caffeinated drinks, which include: rapid heart beat (palpitations) restlessness and excitability anxiety and irritability trembling hands sleeplessness. And if you are drinking coffees with lots of milk it may affect your weight. "Lattes and cappuccinos can make an excellent dairy-based or soy-based snack, but if you're having lots of those throughout the day, especially if you're trying to lose weight and having four milk coffees a day, it's going to impact on your calorie intake," Renn says. However, drinking coffee can also have a range of health benefits, and has been linked to decreased risk of some cancers, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. "Coffee is certainly not the evil we once thought it was, but it's that old adage of everything in moderation," says Renn. For more on caffeine, it's side effects and benefits see our Caffeine fact file.

Squeeze on consumer spending is the worst in peacetime for a century, new research shows Households are facing the most savage peacetime squeeze on consumer spending in almost 100 years. Figures show that only during the Second World War did spending suffer a deeper fall. Even the Great Depression saw nothing on this scale. Analysis by the independent Centre for Economics and Business Research shows an 8.4 per cent fall in real consumer spending per household between 2007 and the end of this year. The comparable figure for 1939-1945 was 14 per cent. Consumer spending: Only during the Second World War did it suffer a deeper fall Chief executive Douglas McWilliams said only in the slump of 1919-1920 was there possibly a peacetime drop on today’s scale. The extraordinary figures are published today ahead Tuesday’s expected downgrading of economic growth in the third quarter. The first estimate showed the economy roaring back to health, with growth of one per cent from July to September. But it is now thought that this may have exaggerated the recovery from recession and that the second estimate is likely to see the rate of expansion cut to 0.9 per cent, or lower. The psychological impact could be out of proportion to the size of the reduction, according to Howard Archer of independent consultancy IHS Global Insight. ‘The fact of no longer having a “one” in front of the decimal point and having a nought instead may weigh with some people,’ he said. ‘More worrying is the possibility of a flat or negative number in the fourth quarter. Much will hinge on spending over Christmas.’ He said higher than expected inflation may make people more concerned and this, in turn, could make worries about negative growth in the first quarter of next year into a self-fulfilling prophecy. A recession is defined as two successive quarters of negative growth, so shrinkage in this quarter and the next would plunge Britain into a slump for the third time in less than five years. Trevor Williams, chief economist at Lloyds Bank wholesale markets, said: ‘The second estimate could be lower, perhaps 0.9 per cent instead of one per cent. ‘As for the fourth quarter, I would expect that to be flat, or even slightly negative. But the prospects of a triple-dip recession are more remote. There is no obvious reason why we would get a negative reading in the first quarter of next year.’ Peter Dixon, strategist at Commerzbank, said: ‘There is a possibility of a negative fourth quarter. I am certainly not looking for anything stellar.’

Royal Jordanian Air is making a last-ditch pitch to travelers, telling Middle Easterners to visit the United States before a possible Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE presidency. ADVERTISEMENT "Just in case he wins... travel to the U.S. while you're still allowed to!" the airline tweeted on Election Day. The post includes current prices of the Royal Jordanian Air's flights to the U.S. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, originally proposed a ban on Muslim immigration to the U.S. but has recently scaled back his rhetoric to focus on "extreme vetting" of those who want to enter the U.S. Royal Jordanian Air flies from Jordan, a Muslim-majority country, to New York, Chicago and Detroit. The airline isn't the first to use Trump's rhetoric for an ad campaign. Earlier this year, Air Canada invited Americans to "test drive" the country should Trump win.

Corporations And Governments The Real Threats To Free Speech Above Photo: This guy is not actually the biggest threat to free speech in the country, despite the New York Times using him to illustrate an op-ed (11/12/15) on “Who Is Entitled to Be Heard?” Daniel Brenner/NYT. I find this statement in a New York Times oped (11/12/15), coming from Suzanne Nossel, the head of PEN America, to be absolutely stunning: Some of the most potent threats to free speech these days come not from our government or corporations, but from our citizenry. Anyone who can write a sentence like this simply doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Which is fine, but not fine when the person is the head of an organization dedicated to freedom of expression. By “our citizenry,” Nossel is referring to the recent round of free speech wars on college campuses. Now, when these issues of free speech arise on campus, you usually see an explosion of conversation about it: on the campus itself, and in the media. Far from dampening down discussion, the controversy over free speech on campus actually ignites discussion. Everyone has an opinion, everyone voices it. And while I wouldn’t diminish the challenges to free speech that these controversies pose, the notion that they are far more common and threatening than what governments or corporations do is risible. Though given that Nossel is a former State Department flak, perhaps understandable. She is, after all, someone who has said: To advance from a nuanced dissent to a compelling vision, progressive policymakers should turn to the great mainstay of 20th-century US foreign policy: liberal internationalism…should offer assertive leadership — diplomatic, economic, and not least, military — to advance a broad array of goals. When there are not just threats but actual abridgments of speech at the workplace—Nossel says “corporations,” referring I guess to firms’ financial lock on the political process, but as I’ve argued many times, it’s in their capacity as employers that firms really do damage to free speech—there is no such explosion as there is on college campuses. Partially because people like Nossel and the media are completely uninterested in the topic, even when the workplace in question is a university: If Nossel wrote an oped in the New York Times when Columbia prohibited its workers from speaking Spanish, I must have missed it. But more important, there’s no explosion because abridgments of speech at work are so lethally effective. Workers are silenced, that is the end of the story. We never hear about it. At one point in her op-ed, Nossel does give a nod to the status of speech in the workplace. Here’s what she says: Who would trade their [universities’ and colleges’] free-range spirit for the dreary sameness of a corporate office, with its federally sanctioned posters on what constitutes unlawful discrimination? That’s where Nossel sees the threat to freedom of speech at work: in the “dreary sameness” roused by government efforts to inform workers of their rights against discrimination. There’s a suspicion on the left that freedom of speech is little more than a rationalization for racism or indifference to racism. I try to fight that suspicion all the time. But when the head of PEN America writes sentences like these, it makes that job infinitely harder. Whatever one thinks about the current controversy over free speech at Yale and the University of Missouri, if the head of PEN America is going to leverage her pen on behalf of freedom of speech on the pages of the New York Times, she would well do to consider where the real threats to such speech lie.

Poland will sign ACTA despite massive protests, Global Voices Online reports, citing Polish Minister of Administration and Digitisation Michal Boni. Unfortunately, it appears that the Polish minister does not shy away from telling his citizens blatant lies, in order to get the controversial ACTA agreement signed. According to Global Voices, Mr. Boni said in a radio interview in Polish that it was ”impossible not to sign the agreement, because it was too late: Poland joined the negotiation process in 2008 and all the other European countries have already signed it”. If Mr. Boni did in fact say this (I don’t speak Polish, so I cannot verify independently), it is an outright lie. Not a single one of the 27 EU Member States has signed the agreement yet. Poland is the first country scheduled to do so, tomorrow on January 26. The European Council of Ministers has taken a decision that it wants the EU to sign the agreement, but that is a completely different thing. ACTA is a so called ”mixed agreement”, that has to be signed by both the EU and each of the member states. On the national level, no member state has taken the formal decision to sign the agreement yet. Global Voices further reports that Mr. Boni said that Poland ”should attach a clause to the treaty that would show how we interpret these articles”. If it is true that he said this, it is also a direct lie. There is no way of attaching any further clauses to the ACTA agreement. The negotiations have been concluded, and the only thing left for the EU and the individual member states to do now is to say either ”yes” or ”no”. Being a minister in the Polish government, Mr. Boni would of course know this. It is apparent that the game of telling EU citizens whatever lies may be necessary to get the ACTA agreement signed has begun. Poland is only the first of 27 EU member states. Do not get surprised if the story repeats itself in your own country in the coming months.

ST. LOUIS — Peter Chiarelli knew this was going to happen. The Team North America co-general manager said as much back in February. “It’s a cross between pro scouting and amateur scouting,” he said of trying to pick the Under-24 team for this fall’s World Cup of Hockey. “These players change way more than 25- or 26-year-olds. An older player can have a lull in his game, but you know what you’re going to get. These guys, their swings are huge.” Case in point: Chiarelli politely dismissed Auston Matthews’ chances of making this team back in March. “He’s got an uphill road,” he said then. Now, how can they not include Matthews, who looked very much at home playing for Team USA at the world championships? Meanwhile, Jonathan Drouin was on his self-imposed holdout from the Tampa Bay Lightning back when they named the first 16 players for Team North America. Today he has 12 playoff points, the second-most of any player eligible for the U-24 team. The U-24 player who has the most points? Robby Fabbri, another player who was barely on Chiarelli and Bowman’s radar three months ago. General managers will flesh out their World Cup rosters on Friday, May 27 adding seven players apiece. Watch it live on Sportsnet at 6 p.m. ET and world-wide at sportsnet.ca here. Here’s our projected Team North America roster, by position: GOAL Already named: Matt Murray (PIT), Connor Hellebuyck (WPG), John Gibson (ANA). The three goalies were all named in March, but Murray’s playoff performance has changed everything. Remember, when the format was first devised, Chiarelli and Bowman petitioned organizers for some relief in goal, because they were afraid they wouldn’t have a U-24 goalie that could allow their team to compete. Now? They’ve got to be feeling mighty good about Murray, who was barely up from the AHL when he was named to the squad in March. DEFENCE Already named: Morgan Rielly (TOR), Aaron Ekblad (FLA), Ryan Murray (CBJ), Seth Jones (CBJ). Rielly and Murray are lefties, while Ekblad and Jones are right-handed shots. Lefty Shayne Gostisbehere became a force for Philadelphia this season, while righty Colton Parayko (St. Louis) will make a perfect partner for him, with his ability to stay at home and defend, as well as unleash a cannon of a one-timer when asked to. They’ll both be added this week. “At the beginning of the season my only goal was to make this team (the Blues), then let things unfold,” said Parayko. “It would be extremely exciting. They’re world-class players. It’s going to be a cool tournament.” We’ll make Winnipeg’s Jacob Trouba the final pick, an all-around defenceman who can adopt whichever role he is asked to play. Honourable mentions to Noah Hanifin (Carolina) and Cody Ceci (Ottawa), who were both in the conversation. FORWARDS Already named: Dylan Larkin (DET), Connor McDavid (EDM), Nathan MacKinnon (COL), Johnny Gaudreau (CGY), Sean Monahan (CGY), Jack Eichel (BUF), Brandon Saad (CBJ), Sean Couturier (PHI), J.T. Miller (NYR). The problem at forward with Team North America is the glut of lefties. This team will likely have only three right-handed shots up front in MacKinnon, Eichel and Winnipeg’s Mark Scheifele, all centres who will be pushed to the wing for this tournament. Saad will also see duty on the right side, a spot he is accustomed to. If McDavid is the No. 1 centre, Monahan the No. 2 and Couturier the No. 4, that leaves a third-line centre spot. We’ll fill that spot with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who gets the nod here as the only player other than Couturier with 300 NHL games under his belt. Experience is precious here, especially considering McDavid has played just 45 games in the NHL, and Matthews has yet to play his first. Drouin has played himself onto this team and will play the left side (unless the coaching staff feels he can handle playing on his wrong wing), and Scheifele’s strong world championships puts him on this roster as well. That leaves one final spot for a utility forward, and although Fabbri has likely earned it, we’ll give it to Auston Matthews. If this team is going to be about young guns and the NHL’s stars of the future, then it would pretty tough to show up at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto having excluded the player we expect the Maple Leafs to draft No. 1 overall in June. TEAM NORTH AMERICA LINEUP * Denotes late addition Line 1: Dylan Larkin Connor McDavid Nathan MacKinnon Line 2: Johnny Gaudreau Sean Monahan Jack Eichel Line 3: *Jonathan Drouin *Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Brandon Saad Line 4: J.T. Miller Sean Couturier *Mark Scheifele Extra: Auston Matthews (?) 1st Pair: Morgan Rielly Aaron Ekblad 2nd Pair: Ryan Murray Seth Jones 3rd Pair: *Shayne Gostisbehere *Colton Parayko Extra: Jacob Trouba Starter: Matt Murray Backup: John Gibson Reserve: Connor Hellebuyck

On a third-down in 11-on-11 scrimmage, he zoomed past starting left tackle Jake Matthews and sacked quarterback Matt Ryan. Well, he tagged him down, since they don’t tackle to the ground anymore in NFL practices. But that’s a practice sack and the Falcons are hoping their first-round pick, who has recovered from offseason shoulder surgery, has plenty of real sacks in his 6-foot, 2-inch and 250-pound frame. “It feels great,” McKinley said after the morning practice. “I’m back to football, back to what I love doing.” McKinley was selected 26th overall in the 2017 draft. He had surgery to repair a torn labrum and glenoid socket in his right shoulder on March 6. He was cleared before training camp, but Falcons coach Dan Quinn wanted to ease him back into practice by letting McKinley participate in individual drills. “It was our first chance getting some reps for Takk Mckinley,” Quinn said. “He was on the plan that (Adrian) Clayborn did last week. He did the individual and then some team. He worked some team today.” McKinley won over the fans with a passionate speech on draft night about how he wanted to honor his grand mother who helped to raise him. He was so emotional that he let loose with a few expletives. McKinley was much more composed after his first practice, i in which he was able to showcase his skills in team and one-on-one drills. “Just being back on the field,” Quinn said. “For him, it was good to be back with the guys, his teammates and getting in the huddle and playing. He hasn’t done that for awhile.” After practice, McKinley had a long session with defensive line coach Bryant Young. “We are just getting started with him,” Quinn said. “We are anxious to put the work in over the next month.” While out and not allowed to attend OTAs or minicamp because of the NFL academic rules for schools on the quarter system, McKinley picked up the defensive scheme during his Facetime sessions with Young. “Between him and Bryant Young, they did a good job together,” Quinn said. “They had to put the work in. That was his way to show I’m committed and I’m in….. although there was some frustration about (not) playing , (he) could still do (his) part from a scheme standpoint…I have to commend him for putting in the work over the summer to get ready.” McKinley admitted that he had some butterflies in his stomach. “I was nervous,” McKinley said. “It was my first time in pads since November. To be able to go out there and play football again, felt real good.” It wasn’t a perfect first practice. “The biggest thing is to play fast,” McKinley said. “I know coming out as a rookie that I’ll make a few mistakes, but as long as I’m playing fast and hustling to the ball, I’ll be good.” McKinley impressed his teammates. “He looked good,” linebacker Kemal Ishmael said. “He went out there and did a good job. He went out there and played well.” McKinley felt well about how he performed. “Those were my first one-on-ones,” McKinley said. “I was just trying to go with a bull rush and try to show of my strength and stuff like that. To be honest that might be my only rush so far just to kind of help the shoulder feel better.” McKinley’s knows there will be some adjustments to the NFL game. “The tackles are bigger, stronger and more athletic,” McKinley said. “They are faster. The game is faster. The quarterbacks …you might have a freshman quarterback who takes his time at the line (in college), but in practice you are going against Matt Ryan and it’s quick. In the NFL you’ve got Cam (Newton) and (Tom) Brady and whoever else. The games will go by much faster. It’s all about knowing your plays, getting lined up and going.” He said the shoulder felt fine. “I put in so much effort since I had surgery on March 6 over the past summer and spring to be where I’m at right now,” McKinley said. “My goal was to get one percent better each day. There were no days off, Mondays through Fridays and on Saturdays, I’d come in for treatment, just trying to get right. “I’ve got the green light, so I’m going out there…whenever they put me out there, I’m just going as hard as I can.” McKinley played the past two seasons at UCLA with the injured shoulder. “So, now that it’ fit I feel like I can just throw it all over the place,” McKinley said. “Before it wasn’t fit, I was being real careful and real hesitate. Now, that it’s fit, that’s the doctor’s job to worry about my shoulder. My job is to go out here and go as hard as I can.”

On August 22, 2015, at approximately 07:13 a.m., the Coos Bay Police Department dispatch center received a 911 call pertaining to a reckless driver within the Empire District of the City of Coos Bay. An Oregon State Police Senior Trooper overheard the criminal call and responded to assist. The Trooper located the suspect vehicle unoccupied and parked on N. Morrison Street in the City of Coos Bay. The Trooper attempted to contact the registered owner of the vehicle at an adjacent residence to further the investigation into the Reckless Driving complaint. The Trooper attempted contact at the residence and was unable to contact the registered owner of the vehicle in question. The Trooper walked away from the residence and was conducting further follow up investigation and documenting suspect vehicle descriptions and identifiers as the vehicle was parked on the side of N. Morrison Street. As the Trooper was conducting the follow up investigation, an adult male identified as Michael SCOTT, age 25, from North Bend, came out of the residence from which the Trooper had previously attempted to contact the registered owner. SCOTT approached the suspect vehicle and the Trooper with a digital recording device in hand. SCOTT proceeded to climb up onto the hood of the car and then sit on the roof of the car with his legs positioned over the windshield, facing the Trooper who was positioned near the front of the suspect vehicle. The Trooper disengaged contact with SCOTT and walked back towards his patrol vehicle and ultimately re-entered the patrol vehicle. SCOTT dismounted from the suspect vehicle and followed the Trooper. SCOTT continued to advance towards the police vehicle, walking in front of it, on the passenger side, across the rear and then advancing towards the driver side. The Trooper exited his vehicle as SCOTT was approaching him from the rear. The Trooper was attempting to stop SCOTT from further interfering with his investigation of the original Reckless Driving Complaint. Coos Bay Police Department responded and arrived to assist with the investigation and further continuing the investigation into the Reckless Driving Complaint. The Oregon State Police is continuing the investigation into the incident with SCOTT and will be referring the completed criminal report to the Coos County District Attorney’s Office for consideration of the charges of: Interfering with a Police Officer and Disorderly Conduct II. Other criminal charges may be considered upon the review of the Coos County District Attorney.

Ultra-loved Steve Harvey’s career may be in ultra-trouble. The famous TV host has been accused of some very ugly behavior. A two-month investigation into the Family Feud host has apparently uncovered evidence of some racist ranting that, if true, cannot be ignored. “Spit on white people,” Harvey allegedly said, as per Freedom Daily. A former employee of Harvey’s, Joseph Cooper, claims to be in possession of tapes of several racial rants and has filed a $20 million lawsuit against Harvey. Cooper says these types of outbursts were commonplace from Harvey. According to Cooper, Harvey isn’t just anti-white—he is anti-American. “I don’t give a s**t about America,” Cooper accuses Harvey of saying. Cooper says that he has 120 hours of recordings from a 20-year span of Harvey’s career, going back to 1993 and his early stand-up days. He alleges that this was a pattern of behavior rather than mere isolated incidents. Harvey is arguably one of the greatest African-American stars in both radio and television. The Steve Harvey Show, Family Feud, and Little Big Shots draw tens of millions of loyal listeners and viewers on a daily basis. So, with an empire valued at some $100 million, he has much to lose. Harvey is not taking this news lying down and has issued a counter-suit against Cooper. The suit claims that Cooper is seeking to extort and coerce money from Harvey. Harvey is asking for $5 million in damages. On this matter, Harvey’s lawyer has said, “Virtually every time Harvey was hired for a television show, [Cooper] would contact the owners or principals to inform them of potentially embarrassing material and/or tapes and attempt to have them influence Harvey to pay for the tapes.” Interestingly, court documents appear to show that Harvey admits to the rants, saying that at times he was edgier than others. “I didn’t have to concern myself with branding or imaging or anything. You could just say — I thought I was funnier,” Harvey said. Cooper alleges that on one tape, Harvey says it would take an hour and a half to explain how badly he hates white people. He says that Harvey regularly called white people “honkeys.” Special grace is often offered to comedians over these kinds of matters. Indeed, the edgy nature of their work is often what makes them funny. However, racism is unacceptable. Imagine if a white comedian was saying he hates black people, calling them the N-word and calling on folks to spit on them. Can you imagine the backlash? What do you think about Harvey’s alleged behavior? Please share this story on Facebook and tell us because we want to hear YOUR voice!

It’s a well-kept secret, but 95% of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO₂ emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error. It’s not surprising. – Maurice Newman, AC, Chair of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, writing in The Australian newspaper, May 8, 2015. As the Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s top business adviser, Mr Newman is a person of influence in Australia so his public statements should be held up to scrutiny. In a recent newspaper column, Mr Newman said discrepancies between climate model forecasts and recorded temperatures begged the question: “Why then, with such little evidence, does the UN insist the world spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on futile climate change policies?” All scientists would agree with Mr Newman that critical analysis of mathematical modelling is a crucial part of science. But it is a logical fallacy to leap from that valuable topic to describing climate change policies as futile. Climate models: what they can and can’t do There is a saying in science that “all models are wrong, but some models are useful”. In simulating any complex system, any model will fail to reproduce all facets of the system perfectly. Mathematical models may be imperfect but they are extremely helpful to predict the weather, design aeroplanes and even test new vaccines. They are essential to modern life. A major part of scientific research is not only developing models, but determining how they are best employed. When asked for a data source to substantiate his 95% claim, Mr Newman referred The Conversation to research by a range of scientists including Professor Judith Curry from the Georgia Institute of Technology and Professor John Christy from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Mr Newman said these researchers had identified errors in climate modelling. Mr Newman also quoted former NASA scientist and University of Alabama in Huntsville research scientist, Dr Roy Spencer as saying: … the climate models that governments base policy decisions on have failed miserably. I’ve updated our comparison of 90 climate models versus observations for global average surface temperatures through 2013, and we still see that >95% of the models have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH).“ It’s true that over the last two decades modelled surface temperatures have generally risen faster than temperatures recorded in real life. But there are good reasons for that and it doesn’t mean we should take the prospect of climate change any less seriously. Why don’t the models match observed temperatures? What Mr Newman described as a "well-kept secret” has actually been the subject of numerous scientific papers These papers show that the recent discrepancy between projections and recorded temperatures is very likely due to random fluctuations in the climate system. The “problem” is clearly seen in this graph showing that modelled surface temperatures have generally tracked above observed temperatures over recent years. This graph depicts two well known global surface temperature observational datasets, the UK’s HadCRUT and the US’ NASA GISS. To understand what’s happening, it is critical to realise that the climate changes for a number of reasons in addition to CO₂. These include solar variations, volcanic eruptions and human aerosol emissions. The influence of all these “climate drivers” are included in modern climate models. On top of this, our climate also changes as a result of natural and largely random fluctuations – like the El Nino Southern Oscillation, ENSO and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, [IPO] – that can redistribute heat to the deep ocean (thereby masking surface warming). Such fluctuations are unpredictable beyond a few months (or possibly years), being triggered by atmospheric and oceanic weather systems. So while models do generate fluctuations like ENSO and IPO, in centennial scale simulations they don’t (and wouldn’t be expected to) occur at the same time as they do in observations. Indeed, if some advanced civilisation were to make an exact copy of Earth, the copy would also fail to reproduce the fluctuation associated with the recent slowdown in temperatures. This is not a modelling failure, this is just a fact of life in dealing with complex systems. So, yes, as the figure shows there are multiple decadal periods in the past where the models either overestimate or underestimate the observed warming. Despite this, its clear that the overall modelled surface warming over the course of more than a century is only off by a very small margin. Ocean temperatures more reliable Rather than relying on surface temperature to keep track of global warming, it is far more reliable to look at total ocean heat content or its twin, ocean sea level (which reflects ocean heat content plus land ice melt). These metrics are far less sensitive to random fluctuations as they don’t suffer from the complications of heat redistribution. Moreover, over 90% of the additional heat from anthropogenic warming goes into the ocean, with only a small fraction going to raising surface temperatures. Based on these more representative metrics, there is no “pause” in either the observations or in the climate models. Indeed, both indicate increasing rates of change over time. No secrets here We have known of the link between CO₂ and warming since the experiments of John Tyndall in the mid 19th century. It’s certainly not a revelation from climate models. Indeed, by the end of that century, Swedish Nobel Prize laureate Svante Arrhenius had already predicted that large CO₂ emissions would cause substantial global warming. Modern climate models add considerable value to the well-tested empirical relationships. They resolve the land, ocean and atmosphere and explicitly include the impact of all known drivers of climate change without simply assuming that all change is due to CO₂ (as Mr Newman’s statement would imply). Critically, this means that we can use the unique fingerprints of each driver to disentangle and attribute the changes in historical temperature to these complex mix of drivers. The planet has clearly warmed over the last 100 years, and climate models demonstrate that natural drivers like the sun are unable to explain this warming. Conversely, the warming is consistent in both magnitude and spatial pattern with our emissions of greenhouse gases. Verdict Mr Newman’s implication that discrepancies resulting from the recent climate fluctuation somehow invalidates climate models is incorrect. Climate models have been thoroughly and critically tested against observations and are able to simulate with fair accuracy the component of climate change caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols as well as natural factors like solar variations and volcanic eruptions. However, long-term climate simulations do not and likely never will reproduce the timing of shorter-term random fluctuations, like the recent slowdown in surface temperatures. In the long run, this fluctuation, like many before, will just be noise on a gradually increasing temperature signal. That the discrepancy is a “well-kept secret” is demonstrably false given the large number of scientific papers discussing and trying to explain exactly this issue. Review This is a sound analysis that effectively explains the appropriate way to assess the reliability of models. Scientists can glean much scientific insight from comparing observations to model predictions, especially when there are discrepancies between the two. In contrast, the critique of models employed by Maurice Newman does not increase scientific understanding. – John Cook Have you ever seen a “fact” that doesn’t look quite right? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at [email protected]. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.