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Applicants usually don't know when a startup has used artificial intelligence to triage their resume. When Big Tech deploys AI to tweak a social feed and maximize scrolling time, users often can't tell, either. The same goes when the government relies on AI to dole out benefits — citizens have little say in the matter. What's happening: As companies and the government take up AI at a delirious pace, it's increasingly difficult to know what they're automating — or hold them accountable when they make mistakes. If something goes wrong, those harmed have had no chance to vet their own fate. Why it matters: AI tasked with critical choices can be deployed rapidly, with little supervision — and it can fall dangerously short. The big picture: Researchers and companies are subject to no fixed rules or even specific professional guidelines regarding AI. Hence, companies have tripped up but suffered little more than a short-lived PR fuss. Last February, MIT researchers found that facial recognition systems often misidentified the gender of women of color. Some of the companies involved revised their software. In October, Amazon pulled an internal AI recruiting tool when it found that the system favored men over women. "Technology is amplifying the inequality built into the current market," says Frank Pasquale, an expert on AI law at the University of Maryland. The absence of rules of the road is in part because industry hands have cast tech regulation as troglodytic, says Meredith Whittaker, co-founder of the AI Now Institute at New York University. In addition, many AI systems and the companies that make them are opaque. "Technocratic smokescreens have made it difficult or intimidating for a lot of people to question the implications of these technologies," Whittaker tells Axios. One result of these and other tech sector behaviors is to raise some people’s suspicions. The industry has made matters worse by testing rough-around-the-edges products on unsuspecting people: pedestrians in the case of autonomous vehicles, patients in the case of health care AI, and students in the case of educational software. In 2016, Cambridge Analytica quietly used Facebook data to sway Americans’ political opinions. In 2012, Facebook researchers quietly manipulated some users' newsfeeds — emphasizing positive posts for one group and negative ones for another — and monitored for an emotional response. "This is a repeated pattern when market dominance and profits are valued over safety, transparency, and assurance," write Whittaker and her co-authors in an AI Now report published last month. Go deeper: AI makers get political

Technology

Artificial Intelligence

Tia Keenan is a writer, cook and cheese specialist. She is the author of "The Art of the Cheese Plate: Pairings, Recipes, Style, Attitude." The views expressed in this commentary are solely hers. (CNN)I've never been assaulted by Mario Batali, who stepped away from his restaurant business and ABC television show amid allegations of sexual misconduct this week. But I know someone who allegedly was. At the time, she was a rising star in the industry working in one of the finest restaurants in the world. She'd made the mistake (if you could call it that) of partying after hours with a group of fellow restaurant rock stars, who eventually trickled away and left her alone with Batali. A busser interrupted the assault, and she fled. She called me at 2 a.m., sobbing from the sidewalk in front of his restaurant. "He tried to rape me! What do I do?" she was screaming. "What do I do? What do I do?" Sadly, I didn't have the answer that night, and I don't have it today. If she had reported the assault, her star in the restaurant world surely would have been yanked back to earth. Although he was unaware of this specific allegation, Batali said on Monday that he is "deeply sorry" for the pain or humiliation he has caused "his peers, employees, customers, friends and family." Restaurant workers are supposed to worship at the altar of comfort; it's repeated to us again and again that hospitality is above all a soothing of those who have more power than we do, a la "the customer is always right." Accusing a pillar of the industry of assault is the opposite of comforting for everyone: bosses, co-workers, diners, food media. Even if she was believed (and that's a big "if"), she very likely would have been punished anyway for challenging the same givens of restaurant employment and culture I've always heard: abuse "just happens," silence is "taking one for the team," and "betraying" anyone who has more power than you is grounds for excommunication. Transgressors of these norms, usually women and people of color who refuse to keep quiet, are often described as "not cut out for the business." I've never been assaulted by Mario Batali, but I've been assaulted while working in a restaurant owned by another restauranteur. My story is unremarkable because it's a tiny drop in the rancid stew of unchecked power, abuse, and coverups that the entire industry sups on. After I was assaulted, my immediate supervisor (a woman) told me to "look for another job." I requested the abuser's employment be terminated, but that was seemingly too much to ask. I was forced to work with him until I left the job four months later. On my last day of work -- after over two years of employment -- not one of my direct supervisors acknowledged my departure. By speaking up, I ensured only that I would leave in an awkward, shamed silence. Blaming the wretchedness of the restaurant industry on "culture" alone, however, is too easy. It ignores the fact that the typical restaurant labor model relies on a deep disparity of power to function. It's an inherently exploitive, gendered and racialized system. In idealized, revered establishments -- like Batali's -- generally black and brown hands harvest, receive and prep the food. Usually white, male chefs command a "line" of white, male cooks. White hands typically serve guests, themselves wealthy and/or white. When it's over, predominantly black and brown hands clean up the mess. This system serves the economic needs of restaurant investors and speaks to our very definitions of hospitality, namely who is served and who does the serving, who has a right to comfort and who does not. Of course there are individual exceptions, and I won't erase the black, brown and female restaurant makers who work so hard (10 times as hard, the "joke" goes) to wrest positions of power in this system. They exist despite industry norms, not because of them. (I'd also feel remiss if I didn't acknowledge that black, brown and female guests often receive inferior, begrudging service. Their presence as guests challenges the twisted belief systems of hospitality.) And of course there are the good guy "thought leaders" of the industry. But even they -- what are they doing to change the power ratios in restaurants? Are they funding female chefs? Hiring black general managers? Promoting brown sous chefs? If they are, I don't see it. The apparatus that keeps the industry afloat -- the white male investors whose money fuels the industry -- don't want to hear about assault. It's not proper dinner conversation and it's certainly not good for business. But what they really don't want to hear is how to fix it, because any fix would require a fundamental redistribution of power not just in restaurants, but throughout society. A fix would require them to give up power. The titans know their business model can't function without gross economic, racial and gender disparity, so they've convinced us -- diners and dishwashers, cooks and critics alike -- to be shocked but do nothing when the human collateral of this rotted industry peek out from subjugation to say #metoo. It's easier to be outraged than to tear the system down. And all of it is hard to swallow. On Tuesday, after this opinion article was published, Mario Batali gave a statement to CNN about the allegations described: "I vehemently deny this."

People

Names

Former Arizona Sen. Jeff FlakeJeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeArpaio considering running for former sheriff job after Trump pardon Overnight Energy: Warren edges past Sanders in poll of climate-focused voters | Carbon tax shows new signs of life | Greens fuming at Trump plans for development at Bears Ears monument Carbon tax shows new signs of life in Congress MORE (R) criticized former president Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 Trump spends big in Texas, raising questions about whether he's worried Here's how senators can overcome their hyperpartisanship with judicial nominees MORE’s suggestion that President TrumpDonald John TrumpFacebook releases audit on conservative bias claims Harry Reid: 'Decriminalizing border crossings is not something that should be at the top of the list' Recessions happen when presidents overlook key problems MORE wasn’t elected legitimately, calling for a “need to stop trying to disqualify each other.” “President Carter calling President Trump illegitimate is not right either,” Flake tweeted Saturday. “We should be better than this.” We need to stop trying to disqualify each other. I could not support President Trump largely because of his awful embrace of birtherism. President Carter calling President Trump illegitimate is not right either. We should be better than this. Flake, a frequent Trump critic who left the Senate last year, said Carter challenging the president’s legitimacy was “an awful thing for one American president to say about another.” “Argue that he shouldn’t be reelected, sure, but don’t say that he was legitimately elected.” This is an awful thing for one American President to say about another. Argue that he shouldn't be reelected, sure, but don't say that he wasn't legitimately elected.https://t.co/jRjGdH6n9Q Carter said Friday during an event in Leesburg, Va. that “there’s no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the elections and I think the interference, although not yet quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016." “He lost the election and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf,” Carter said. When asked by moderator and historian Jon Meacham if he believed Trump was then an “illegitimate” president, Carter replied: “Based on what I just said, which I can’t retract.” Trump dismissed Carter’s criticism Saturday morning, saying “he was a terrible president.” View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

US

Right Now: Five people have been wounded by a single gunman, who died after he was shot and taken into custody. • Five people, including Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and a member of the House leadership, were shot Wednesday morning in an attack at a baseball field in Alexandria, Va. • Police said the gunman was shot and wounded and taken into custody. President Trump said the assailant, identified by authorities as James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill., died from the wounds. • Mr. Scalise was in critical condition and was undergoing surgery. His office said that he was “in good spirits” before going into surgery at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and that he spoke to his wife by phone. “He is grateful for the brave actions of the U.S. Capitol Police, first responders and colleagues,” his office said. • He was at a baseball practice with other lawmakers and staff members preparing for a charity game when the attack occurred. • Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, said two law enforcement officers and a congressional aide were among the injured. • Mr. Brooks told CNN that players took cover wherever they could on the field and that members of a security team exchanged fire with the gunman, who had a rifle. • Police said a call came in at 7:09 a.m., and officers responded in three minutes. Two officers engaged the attacker and returned fire, the authorities said. • The office of Representative Roger Williams, Republican of Texas, said that a member of his staff had been shot and was receiving medical attention. (His office said the congressman had not been shot, as some have reported.) • Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said quick action by Capitol Police saved lives. “The field was basically a killing field,” he said. • The motive of the gunman was still under investigation. • Police have not said whether the gunman knew any of the victims. • The conditions of the other wounded were not immediately available. • Police have not disclosed how the gunman knew of the lawmakers’ practice schedule. Five people were shot at a morning practice about five miles from the Capitol, the police said.

Crime

Police

Russian President Vladimir Putin this week dismissed "yelling and hollering in Congress" over the criminal charges filed in the Justice Department's Russia probe. "I have to see first what they've done. Give us materials, give us information," Putin told NBC's Megan Kelly in an interview for "Nightly News" in Moscow on Friday. He said Russia could not prosecute those indicted on charges of meddling in the U.S. presidential election unless the U.S. presented them with hard evidence.  Special counsel Robert MuellerRobert (Bob) Swan MuellerTrump calls for probe of Obama book deal Democrats express private disappointment with Mueller testimony Kellyanne Conway: 'I'd like to know' if Mueller read his own report MORE last month indicted 13 Russian nationals and three entities allegedly involved in the Moscow-backed effort to spread propaganda and polarizing political content to sway the 2016 election.  Putin has denied that Russia attempted to interfere with the election. He maintained in the interview that to do anything with the indictments would take an official request to the nation's top attorney.  "The list has to go through official channels, not through the press or yelling and hollering in the United States Congress," he said.  In the first part of the interview on Thursday, Putin also dismissed claims of a new "cold war" as "propaganda." View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Law

It’s the year of #MeToo, says Vanity Fair Editor Radhika Jones, but it’s also the year of “Black Panther” and “Crazy Rich Asians.” In both negative and positive ways, “the way things were done in Hollywood” is changing. “You could argue that this magazine played a major role in the creation of the celebrity industrial complex, and it’s very much part of that world, but also, it’s our job and it’s appropriate for us to hold that world to account,” Jones said on the latest episode of Recode Media. “There are just all of these truisms about Hollywood that I don’t think are actually true anymore, or at the very least, they bear interrogation.” The magazine is famous for its celebrity photoshoots and profiles, which Recode Media guest host Lydia Polgreen (the editor in chief of HuffPost) pointed out require negotiating with those celebs for access. Comparing her magazine to political journalism, Jones told Polgreen the magazine’s appetite for investigative work is “shifting.” “At a certain point, when certain kinds of stories in our current moment, one has to ask oneself whether the access is helpful to the story or hurts the story,” Jones said. “Does having access to Donald Trump get you closer to the truth about Donald Trump? Or is the write-around really the way to get at the truth about him? ... Access isn’t the be-all and end-all of journalism about Hollywood anymore.” Vanity Fair recently released its 2018 New Establishment list, the name of which feels especially appropriate this year, Jones said, as some in the old guard are “being toppled from their pedestals.” And topping the list this year is someone who is seemingly giving zero access to any journalist: Special Counsel for the Department of Justice Robert Mueller. “Talk about an uncooperative profile subject,” Polgreen said. “The man everyone wants to profile,” Jones replied. “Who is, I think, probably the hardest-working man in Washington right now. And whose findings might change the course of history, or not. We’ll have to see.” You can listen to Recode Media wherever you get your podcasts — including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts and Overcast. Below, we’ve shared a full transcript of Lydia’s conversation with Radhika. Lydia Polgreen: Today, I’m really excited to be in the studio with Radhika Jones, the editor of Vanity Fair. Radhika, welcome to Recode Media. Radhika Jones: Thank you Lydia, it’s great to be here. So you have been the editor of Vanity Fair for how long now? It’s been about nine months. Nine months, long enough to make a baby. Mm-hmm. Does it feel like a baby has been born? I almost wish you could go into hiding and come out with the baby. The thing about Vanity Fair is we’re publishing hourly and we’re publishing monthly, and you know how it is. So all of the baby making is done every moment, but it has been great to start to cycle through this first year and kind of get an understanding. We cover so many, these core areas of coverage, Washington, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Wall Street and celebrity culture also in general. And so I feel like over the course of the year, just because of certain events like the Oscars and also just because of the natural ebbs and flows of the news cycle, not that they ebb so much anymore, you start to get a feel for the rhythms of the job. And so nine months in is a lot better than six months in, which is a lot better than three months in. So you took over this job from one of the best-known magazine editors out there, Graydon Carter, a celebrity in his own right. What’s it like stepping into a role as yourself following someone who’s a larger-than-life personality? Not that I personally have any experience with this, having followed Arianna Huffington at HuffPost. It’s an excellent question, and I think the thing that I try to be very clear about in my own mind from the beginning was that there was no way that I could replace Graydon Carter. He is still walking among us, for one thing, and he’s an incredibly iconic and creative and innovative editor. And I think that with these jobs, you have to just have confidence that you make the job your own. The brand has existed for a long time. Tina Brown was the editor before Graydon, and she too was iconic. And so I thought a lot about Tina’s Vanity Fair, and I spent time looking at the archives and thinking about what is the Venn diagram between the editor’s sensibility and the identity of the brand? And I think that’s really the challenge for me, is not do I imitate Tina, do I imitate Graydon. I could try to do those things for a very long time, and I would fail utterly because imitating is not how you succeed in these roles. So for me, it was more about trying to figure what I could add to this brand to make it special in my own way. You mentioned Tina Brown, and I think I read that you read her diaries, which I think was one of the most delicious reads. I devoured it basically in one sitting on a flight to India. And one of the things that struck me in reading that book was just how different the media world is now. Are you going to those kinds of parties that she goes to, are you running the business in this kind of big-ticket way that she was running it in this sort of woman in the arena? I loved reading that book, and I had an early copy because I was with the New York Times, I was on the books desk so we got it early. So I actually had read it before Graydon announced that he was stepping down and before anybody approached me about the job, which was good, because I read it completely just as a kind of magazine fan. And it’s of course incredibly exhilarating, and her energy level is just astonishing. And she was so young when she was doing the job, which I kept thinking about. But it is a completely different environment. There was no internet, so she was out pounding the pavement getting stories because that was the only way to get stories at that time. And she was also making a print magazine, and that was all she was making. So when you step into this kind of job in contemporary times, you have the print magazine, but you also have the website and you have an events business as we have, and you have an entire social environment where you have to assert the brand identity and engage readers and viewers and listeners. So it feels like a completely different ecosystem, but the thing, that sort of elemental part of it that impressed me, is just that she was after the very best story for her time, for her moment, and I feel like that is the common denominator is can you find the story that no one else is doing in a particular Vanity Fair way, in a particular sort of substantive and rigorous but also entertaining way. So you mentioned that she got the job when she was really young. I’d love to hear how you got this job. Obviously, Graydon announced that he was leaving, there were a number of people who were considered for the role, I’m sure. What can you tell us about the process? So I read that Graydon was stepping down, and like everyone else I wondered what would happen, and it was about a year ago I got an email from David Remnick, and he said, “I’m reaching out to some people who I thought might be an interesting fit for the Vanity Fair job. Is that something you would like to speak about?” So I wrote back, “Yes please,” right away. And David, who is very generous with his time, spoke to me about it. And we talked about Tina’s diaries, actually, which was a lot of fun. And so we began a conversation about it. He said, “Well, just jot down some thoughts,” so I gave it a little thought and I was turning things over in my mind, and the next day he checked in and he said, “Well, where are those thoughts?” And I thought, “Oh, okay. This is ... we’re doing this. Okay. I have homework.” So I did indeed jot down those thoughts, and it went on from there. And it was a really exciting thing for me to think about, because it honestly just hadn’t been ... I mean, it’s a dream job, but it wasn’t something that I had particularly set my sights on. So I kind of came to it a little serendipitously, just the idea of it, and I think that freed up my thinking about what it might be, but also what I might bring to the table. Yeah, I mean, you’ve had a really interesting career path, right? You were a reporter in Moscow at one point, you were at Time, Paris Review, you’ve done a lot of interesting forms of reporting, editing, literary — sort of, mass market as Time is... I’m curious how all of those various experiences have brought you to this point, and how they kind of braid together in what you’re trying to do with Vanity Fair. So it’s true, my first job in journalism was at the Moscow Times in Russia in the mid ’90s, and I think about that time, I was only there for two years and I began as a copy editor, which is still a skill that I take great pride in, and I think when I retire I will just spend my free time copy editing the internet. But the news in Russia at that time moved so quickly, and there’s something about this moment that we’re in right now. I mean, obviously this was in the mid ’90s, the internet was in its very beginning, so there were certain technological changes to the pace of news that hadn’t yet happened, but it was an incredibly volatile time in Moscow, and there were wars going on with Chechnya and there were a lot of sort of juggling alliances, and there was the rise of the oligarchs, and all of these ... It was like the table was being set for a lot of what we see going on in the world today in terms of certain power alliances and struggles. So it was just a really exciting time to be there and be kind of in the swirl of the news, and I sort of worked all around the paper. People came in and out because it was this very small but dynamic English-language paper in Moscow. At a certain point, I was the restaurant critic, which may still be my best-ever job. I was, I will say, a terrible restaurant critic, and I had no palate, but in a way it was more like a sociological survey because there was really no restaurant culture in Moscow at the time, so it was just every week was sort of an adventure with my dining companion. So I learned a lot, almost about just being curious and being open to experiences, and that was my first experience with journalism, was that world events are happening but in this very volatile way, and my center of gravity had shifted from the U.S. So that was very informative for me, but I did realize that I wasn’t going to stay there for the rest of my life, so I came back to the states and I started a graduate degree at Columbia, a PhD track in English, which I did end up finishing, but I ended up working in magazines throughout. And as you said, I worked at literary magazines, visual arts, kind of all over the place. I just kind of became a magazine junkie. I like project-based work, I like deadlines, I like the adrenaline of news. And I basically just tried to take opportunities and jobs where I felt I was going to learn something from the people around me, and as you know, there are a lot of incredibly intelligent but also curious and innovative people in our field. So I was lucky to be able to move from place to place and just keep learning. I mean, there were things ... I went on press when I was working at the Paris Review, which is a literary journal. Philip Gourevitch was the editor at the time, and he felt it was very important for one of us to be on press, because we were publishing photography. And we were doing it on matte paper, not glossy paper, which means that it’s harder to reproduce the colors in the way that the photographer might’ve intended. So I went on press to Winnipeg seven times for the Paris Review, and I think I saw all the possible sights to see in Winnipeg. I was there every season. But just to be in a printing press and watch something come off the presses, it’s very romantic, but also I just feel like I got to touch ... through all of these various jobs, I touched not only a lot of subject matter, but a lot of parts of the work, like the actual making of a magazine — or a journal in that case — or the creation of a micro-site for a digital project or something like that. I’ve always been an omnivore in terms of how things get done. So in a way, the dotted line from job to job is a little bit of a zigzag, and I can’t say that I ever had a master plan, but when I started having conversations about Vanity Fair, it did feel that there was something about the eclectic nature of my experience that actually worked for this role. Because it’s sort of an eclectic and just intellectually curious magazine. And it’s interesting, because I mean obviously I think you’re the first doctor, person with a PhD, to edit Vanity Fair, I suspect. Maybe, I don’t know actually. We’ll find out. Yeah, it’s a great question. But I think when the initial sort of shock of your name emerged and people were like, “Wait, who? Oh yeah, that very glamorous woman who runs the Time 100. Isn’t she terribly literary? Isn’t she incredibly highbrow? How is she going to manage the high-low mix that’s so important to Vanity Fair?” It’s so funny, because the things you work for in your life, they change on a dime. It’s like, yes, I am terribly literary. I worked so hard to be highbrow. No, I am absolutely a literary person, but I also will sit on my phone and look at slideshows of Prince George, which I feel, it makes me human, I love to do it. I think that honestly, most people have that range of interest, but I certainly do. I think that the common denominator, again, for Vanity Fair is there are obviously a lot of news outlets that do serious investigative journalism, which the magazine has always been known for. There are fewer places that publish really high-impact photography, and I think that’s a core area of strength and one that we want to build on, but I think it just comes down to, I think that as long as, if we are telling a story well, then the story can be about the high or the low. But the thing that makes it a quality story, that makes it a Vanity Fair story, is in the telling of it. So it feels to me ... I don’t have a problem reconciling that at all. The other thing is that I think I’ve always had eclectic taste in music, in books, and all of those things, and I think that that’s really at the heart of it for me in that high and low. What’s your biggest lowbrow guilty pleasure? Oh my, let’s see. That’s a very loaded question. I mean, I’ll tell you ... We were talking about Egg McMuffins before we went on the air, so ... Well, mine is “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Okay. That’s a good one. That’s a good one. Well, no, but we gotta have yours now. Okay. Let’s see. Currently, currently ... I have to think about it a little bit. This doesn’t really count, but I will say one of my go-to shows is “The Great British Baking Show.” I think of that as therapy in the current environment. Right. It’s uplift. It’s uplift. I like how they’re so nice to each other. They’re super nice to each other. Everything looks tasty. Even the things that don’t work look tasty, and oh, I don’t know. Actually, I recently started ... I’m just thinking about these very random things. There was a ... No, it’s gone. Nevermind. Okay. No worries. We can ... We’ll stay with the baking show, but if something else comes to mind, I’m gonna let you know. Interject and let me know. Okay. So, you were talking about photography and storytelling. Those are two places where I think you’ve made some pretty striking choices. For example, I believe the first cover that you’ve fully edited and brought into the world was the Lena Waithe cover. That was a big moment, and it kind of landed with a real bang. Can you tell me a little bit about how that came to be, and strikingly, not just having a queer black woman who’s really on the rise in Hollywood, but you also had an unusual choice of writer to tell her story. So, could you tell me a little bit about that? So, I had watched “Master of None,” and I just thought Lena was so tremendous. I just hadn’t seen someone like her on the screen. She was so funny, and we loved that show, and so I was sort of a fan of that performance and of her, and particularly that episode that she ended up winning an Emmy for, and then I watched her speech at the Emmys, and it was very moving. So, that was about a year ago, and then I started talking to Condé and asked about this job, and of course, if you’re thinking about taking on a job where you’d have to produce magazine covers, one of the first questions that you ask yourself is, “Well, who would go on the cover of my magazine?” I always had Lena on my mind, just because she was very present in the culture in this way that felt very fresh, and I feel like in this day and age, if you have at your disposal a magazine cover, you should try to use it, and I don’t mean just to provoke or even just to surprise, but really to kind of bring forward or shed light on something that you think is worth talking about and worth thinking about. Then when I actually took the role, all of these things had started happening in Hollywood. I mean, so much changed in that period of time when I was literally having conversations about Vanity Fair. So much was changing about the areas that we cover in Hollywood because of all the Weinstein reporting and everything. So it was just this great moment of flux, and I felt like the thing that was grounding for me was to think about where the momentum was and who was kind of coming out of all of this, the messiness that was being exposed about the way Hollywood worked. It just felt valuable to think about the future and people who were working in a different way. Lena Waithe is a creator as well as an actor, and she had won this historic Emmy, and it seemed like she was really busy working, and I like that. So when it came to thinking about that cover, which was the April cover, I just ... I don’t know. I wouldn’t say it was obvious, necessarily, but it just seemed to me like her work aligned with the kind of thing that I wanted to be thinking about, and so we did the shoot. Annie Leibovitz did the shoot, which was great, and we went to Jackie Woodson to do the profile, a literary writer, a writer of young-adult fiction, among other things. And memoir. And memoir, and someone who I felt would ... I’ve always been interested as an editor in cross-casting, so someone who’s written a lot about politics, have that person write about someone in music, or have a fashion writer write about celebrity or something, because I do feel like that, in the intersection of those worlds, that’s where Vanity Fair lives, and it’s something that we can offer, but also, it just brings things out differently, and different conversations emerge, and you never know. I mean, you never know if that person’s gonna be interested in the subject or what, but Jackie was interested and it just worked out. It just felt like an interesting match and something that I hadn’t seen before, and I come back to that idea that to be in an editorial role the way that we are, the thing that makes it worthwhile is to think, “Oh, I’m using this opportunity to put something in the world that maybe hasn’t been there before in the same way.” I mean, I think if I look back at the covers since you took over as editor in chief, Meghan Markle, perhaps an obvious one, Meghan and Harry, but Kendrick Lamar, and then this month’s cover, Michael B. Jordan, that’s a pretty high proportion of people of color. They’re younger people. They’re voices that wouldn’t necessarily have been seen with such frequency on the cover of Vanity Fair, so I think that’s been really remarkable. I want to ask you about the case for magazines in general, and there’s a really interesting juxtaposition to my mind. I feel like the internet is the perfect medium. In particular, social media is the perfect medium to transmit the kind of meme-like quality that a magazine cover has. Right? Yet, the disaggregation that the internet has brought to media really kind of pulls at the seams of the idea of the magazine. This is true of tabloid newspapers as well. It’s like the best of times because your billboard travels in a way that it really couldn’t before, even when it was on newsstands. It’s in the palm of everyone’s hand, but the thing-ness of the magazine has been in many ways kind of fragmented and pulled apart. How do you wrestle with that? It’s funny because as a consumer, I feel all of that. I feel it viscerally. I mean, I do. The place I see magazine covers is on my phone. I see my own magazine covers on my phone. I see other people’s. I react to them, and that really ... I think a lot about that. I think anyone in my role, even five years ago, was thinking about newsstands, and I just feel like there aren’t a lot of newsstands now. I mean, it’s great ... If you have a great newsstand seller, that’s awesome. That’s wonderful, and everyone should go to the newsstand and buy Vanity Fair, and I’ll say that again before our time is up. But I also just ... I do think that there is the amplifying power of technology in terms of getting those images out and getting that identity out is really powerful. So, I guess my answer to your question is these days, if you have a brand like Vanity Fair that is a legacy print publication, but also a player in the digital space and the event space and all of that, you do have to do all things. That is the job. The challenge for us is to do the best work that we can do, tailored to the pace and momentum of each place. In a way, I feel like the print magazine ... The opportunity for a print magazine now is to raise the bar even higher, because if you’re working on a monthly schedule and you’re assigning and commissioning photography, which no matter how great photography looks online or on an iPad or wherever you’re looking at it, it’s very seldom — and correct me if I’m wrong — but digital-only outlets are very seldom commissioning high-impact photojournalism or portraiture or anything like that. That still sort of is the province of the print community. Yep. I think that’s right. And I think it’s really important. I mean, we’re all photographers now, of course, but it matters when a photojournalist composes a certain kind of picture out of a war zone or a portrait photographer takes a certain kind of very meaningful portrait, and that’s core to Vanity Fair. So, to my mind, it’s like the opportunity for me is to perfect the magazine form. Make it beautiful. Make it luxurious as a reading experience. All of the care that’s taken when you don’t have unlimited space the way that you do online, but you actually have to fit something to a page, and so you really have to weigh the value of words in a sentence and sentences in a paragraph, that craft is very dear to me. I think it’s worthwhile because I think ... I mean, we circulate it at 1.2 million. There are a lot of people who are reading the print magazine, and they deserve the very best that they can get, and it’s something that is also a timestamp. It is a cultural artifact, and I think the things that have mattered to me, many things that have mattered to me since I took this job, and people have been telling me sort of how they engage with Vanity Fair and what they love about it and what they don’t love about it, past and present, but one of the things I love hearing is, “I’m keeping this one. I’m keeping this one.” You can do that with a magazine. Yeah. National Geographic is a great example of that, right? Right. People who just keep old copies of it, and they’re ... I still have old copies of magazines that inspired me in my career, and this is after ... I live in New York City, so I’ve moved like eight times, and yes, some of those magazines went away, but I still have this core shelf of magazines that really hit that bar, and it’s fun. Also, it’s project-based work, and goes very much hand-in-hand. I mean, we have a much more integrated operation now than it was a year ago in terms of the digital staff and the print staff. I mean, I wouldn’t even categorize them in that way. It’s really the Vanity Fair staff. So, there’s a lot going back and forth in terms of where story ideas are coming from and who’s doing the work and who’s doing the writing and the editing. These staffs are blended, but we have to make all these different things, and so ideally, you’re just making them to very best of your ability. Mm-hmm. Let’s turn to the business of making magazines. Obviously, you came in, I think, with a significant expectation that cost would come down at Vanity Fair. Having read Tiny Brown’s diaries, I know what the world was like back then. I don’t know exactly what it was like during the world of Graydon Carter, but you’d had this kind of caricature in your mind of very expensive lunches, black cars chauffeuring everyone around, unlimited location budgets, business class travel for everyone. And correct me if I’m wrong, but my sense is that there is a desire to bring that more into line with the realities of publishing as it exists today, and more generally, I think Condé Nast has been on a trajectory of what seems from the outside like decline. You’re closing titles, consolidation, things like that. How’s the business going? Well, I will say reading Tina’s diaries was very entertaining on that score, just as someone who’s worked, let alone Vanity Fair, but who’s worked in the business over the last 20 years, I guess. Wow. I’ve been all over it. I’ve been at newspapers. I’ve been at a weekly magazine at Time. And I think what I take away from that arc of that experience is that there are ways to innovate. There are titles that are lost to us now. They are gone, and there are titles I still miss. I miss Gourmet. So not everyone makes it, but I do think that in terms of a brand like Vanity Fair, the legacy is something that works in our favor. There are assets ... I mean, I thought about this. I thought about this when I was thinking about the job because it’s something ... I think back in the day, if you were the editor, you just didn’t worry about the business side of it, and that’s just not true anymore. What percentage of your time do you spend thinking about the economic sort of challenges or opportunities of Vanity Fair? I probably spend 100 percent of my time thinking about editorial and 100 percent thinking about the business, and so that’s 200 percent. That sounds really familiar and completely accurate based on my experience. Right. Right. I mean, I just think for people of our generation, it’s almost harder to split them apart because you’re thinking about the vitality of the product. And those two things are related in my mind. There are values to a legacy publication that I hold very dear: For example, the opportunity to work with an archive. Vanity Fair has an amazing archive, and that is just a huge asset to us. And so when we think about the challenges of the business, you know, one of the challenges of the business is just that there was a very clear model that used to be the case, and it was a very straightforward advertising model. And that’s what powered Tina’s Vanity Fair — subscriptions too, but really, it was an advertising model. And the truth is, now we just have to diversify. And so that’s already happening. We put up a paywall this spring, which has been very encouraging, successful. And that’s about ... We still do have a robust advertising business, but we also want to think very seriously about what our consumer revenue picture could be because there are a lot of people out there who are very attached to what we do. And I remember from my days as a freelancer, the philosophy that if you set a value to your work, people will believe that you are worth it. And I think personally, I was very struck by that advice when I was a young, scrappy editor, roaming all around town looking for work. But I think it’s true of content too. And so I think really for me — and maybe this is true for Conde Nast at large, but I can speak mostly for myself — it’s really about just trying to think creatively about where, how can we ... We know that we will not be able to ride on a solely advertising business for the rest of our days, or rather if we do, the rest of our days will not be terribly long. And I care about this content, and I care about the opportunities that it presents, not just for me and my staff but for the people we cover and the stories we can tell. So it’s part of the job to think about how we can change that model. Have you gleaned any insights from your experience with the paywall about what motivates people to sign up? Is it, “I got to know the latest inside dope from the White House,” from Gabe Sherman. Is it the big profile? Or is it some combination? So the great news has been that it is a combination, and I think that’s a real strength for us, and it’s something that, again, is very encouraging because the mix really matters to our readers. Like they want to ... Because there are a lot of places where you can go for the one thing and where you can do a really deep dive in politics, or in celebrity news or what have you. But I think it seems from the data that we have, that what people appreciate about Vanity Fair is that they can be in an environment where they’re being served multiple different kinds of dishes but all with this same level of quality, and I come back to the word entertainment like in the writing of it and the tone and the voice. So that’s been great to see because we do care a lot about covering all of our different worlds and also finding the intersections between them. Talk to me a little bit about how ... Your editorship has coincided with the #MeToo era in Hollywood. Vanity Fair, obviously, huge impact in Hollywood. It’s one of the main subjects that you’re known for and cover aggressively, both the business of Hollywood and the celebrities themselves and the culture around them. How have you approached Hollywood in this time? It was truly fascinating. Again, I go back to a year ago just to think about what Vanity Fair could mean or could do in this era that was just changing rapidly under our feet. You could argue that this magazine played a major role in the creation of the celebrity industrial complex, and it’s very much part of that world, but also, it’s our job and it’s appropriate for us to hold that world to account. So for me, I think what felt like an opportunity to me was that it meant that all of that, that establishment, the kind of codes of the way things were done in Hollywood, the certain aspects of the clubbiness of it, certain impressions about what would fly and what wouldn’t, or what kinds of movies would succeed and what wouldn’t, all those things have been picked apart. It’s #MeToo, but it’s also, this is the year of “Black Panther,” this is the year of “Crazy Rich Asians.” There are just all of these truisms about Hollywood that I don’t think are actually true anymore, or at the very least, they bear interrogation. It’s fun and exciting and intellectually exciting for me to think about how Vanity Fair can pursue some of those storylines because I think that audiences perceive the change. Certainly, we read all about it in the news, but I think that we’re in the middle of a very dynamic and kinetic cultural moment, and that’s sort of the perfect place for us. I think that some folks would ask ... Vanity Fair has a really sort of conflicted relationship here, right? It is one of the practitioners, the prime practitioners of the celebrity profile, which requires access, which requires negotiation, which in some ways, can make you a less aggressive scrutinizer of the networks of power in Hollywood. Vanity Fair didn’t break the Harvey Weinstein story, The New York Times and the New Yorker did, despite Vanity Fair having a really aggressive past in investigative journalism. Do you think that’s shifting now? Is that something that you’d like to see greater scrutiny of these power networks in a kind of investigative reporting kind of way? I think it’s shifting, and I think that all journalists, or at least a lot of us now, it’s funny, it’s almost like the analogy in politics makes it interesting to me. At a certain point, when certain kinds of stories in our current moment, one has to ask oneself whether the access is helpful to the story or hurts the story. Does having access to Donald Trump get you closer to the truth about Donald Trump? Or is the write-around really the way to get at the truth about him? And I think we’ve kind of seen compelling arguments on both sides. And so that’s sort of how I think about it, story by story, and I think when we’re all talking about stories and sort of what to pursue, it’s kind of ... Sometimes the thing to do is to sit down with the person and talk to them and hear all about it. And sometimes, that’s not the story that you need or want. And so I think for me, it’s very much about figuring out how are we going to serve our readers, where do we need to put our investigative energy, and access isn’t the be all and end all of journalism about Hollywood anymore. And you know, of course celebrities are rioting against it. I don’t know if you saw in the New York Times magazine, they had a profile of Bradley Cooper where the writer, one of the great profile writers working right now, Taffy Akner, who basically said he refused to cooperate the writing of the profiles. So that creates its own issues. So, I want to talk a little bit about The New Establishment list, which just came out. Top of the list was a surprise. How did you put this list together and how is this year, given everything that’s going on, obviously #MeToo, the craziness of the Trump administration, a world on fire. How did you put this list together? So it’s amazing. When I got to Vanity Fair, they showed me this machine that they have where you put all the data in and then you crank it, and it comes out with this ranked list, and it’s total science. It’s amazing. It should be- I knew it existed! Well, it should be said you do have some experience in list-making. You worked on the Time 100, which is I think a very, also a fascinating exercise in list-making. So you come by this honestly. Yes, I have made many lists in my day. I’m a big believer in the list actually. I feel like lists are useful. They’re useful for me in my life. I love to see ... It’s just a spectator sport, but I love all the year end lists and what books and everything. So I think lists are a great way to take a snapshot of a moment in time, and The New Establishment has these two conflicting words in the name, “new” and “establishment”, and I feel like that’s exactly what we saw on display over this past year. And it was in Hollywood when, as you had people sort of literally being toppled from their pedestals, but also in Silicon Valley and certainly in Washington and in Wall Street, too. And so it was a great year to be involved in this particular list-making because it felt like there was a lot of newness to go along with the establishment, and even the establishment people are kind of doing new things, they’re being forced to. So someone like Bob Iger, who has certainly been on this list before, has been, his new cycle this year is very different from what it has been in the past, with the acquisition of Fox. So we felt like there was opportunity for some fresh faces, fresh voices. I think with a list like this, you want it to have momentum. You want to be able to capture some momentum and point readers toward where the energy is. And so we have the brand new CEO of Time’s Up and the core Time’s Up group on this list. And we have the kind of rule breakers in politics on the left, who are rewriting that playbook. Whether they win or lose in the midterms, I think they’ve changed the conversation about what progressivism is and what the Democratic Party might represent in the coming presidential election. And yes, at the top of the list we have a taciturn- Talk about an uncooperative profile subject. Uncooperative profile subject, the man everyone wants to profile, Robert Mueller. It’s Mueller, right? Exactly. Who is, I think, probably the hardest-working man in Washington right now. And whose findings might change the course of history, or not. We’ll have to see. Hmm. Yeah. And you’ll be holding an event around this? Yes. So we have a summit in Los Angeles next week, and it’s a couple of days of programming on all sorts of topics. We are talking to, I’m sort of thinking of a few different kinds of panels. We’re talking to the leadership of the New York Times about- I saw that, the three cousins all together for the first, I think, for the first time being interviewed together. I think so, yes, and sort of what their year has been like. And we’re talking to the new CEO of Goldman Sachs, 10 years after the financial crisis, and kind of what the future of that organization looks like. We are talking to Bob Iger, actually Doris Kearns Goodwin will be interviewing him, which will be fun. And also ... yeah, some other treats. One conversation that caught my eye was Hannah Gadsby talking to Monica Lewinsky and I thought, “Oh, that’s gonna be a really interesting conversation between the two of them.” I’m really excited about that one. Hannah Gadsby, of course, is the breakout comedian whose Netflix special this summer, which she was touring, and then her Netflix special kind of like snapped everyone’s heads about sort of what comedy is in the current moment. And Monica Lewinsky, who actually wrote this amazing piece for us earlier in the year about #MeToo and sort of her overlapping experience in that vein, is just very thoughtful about a lot of the issues that Hannah addresses in her work. And so I think I feel like that will be a very timely and intriguing conversation. Hannah is also very funny. Which is great. Which is great. We need some fun. Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you, Radhika, for coming onto the podcast. Thank you. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Entertainment

Television

Oct 16 (Reuters) - Gold Resource Corp * Gold Resource Corporation reports preliminary third quarter production of 6,465 gold ounces and 392,153 silver ounces maintaining 2017 annual outlook Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

Investment

Precious Metals

Two Massachusetts men stand accused of using a residence at a senior living facility to conduct a prostitution ring, PEOPLE confirms. According to a release by Pittsfield police, Randy Lambach, 45, and Joseph VanWert, 65, face multiple charges related to prostitution. The release alleges Lambach recruited women with drug problems into prostitution and that VanWert used his residence at a senior living facility as a place to conduct the prostitution. According to the release, Lambach allegedly facilitated meetings with “johns” and transported women to various locations, where he would allegedly wait nearby and take a portion of the earnings. Sometimes, he would allegedly compensate the women with drugs in lieu of cash. The drugs allegedly included heroin, cocaine and prescription medication. • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. The Associated Press and CBS report that Lambach allegedly threatened to turn the women in if they stopped working for him. Members of the Pittsfield Police Department are now working to help provide resources and support for the alleged victims, the release states. The investigation, which is ongoing, was launched because of an increase in calls for service for prostitution and solicitation in certain parts of the city, according to the release. Lambach and VanWert both face charges of human trafficking, deriving support from a prostitute, knowingly permitting prostitution on the premises and sexual conduct for a fee. They are currently being held at the Berkshire County Jail and House of Correction without bail pending a dangerousness hearing scheduled for November 29, the release states. It was not immediately clear if they have retained attorneys or entered pleas to the charges against them.

Law

Criminal Justice

The annual Time 100 list debuted Wednesday with a shocking juxtaposition: The magazine recognized Christine Blasey Ford as an "icon" but also honored Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the man she said drunkenly assaulted her during high school, as a "leader." Letting Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praise Kavanaugh's character, citing his "resilience," "loyal devotion to family and friends," and "undeterred reverence for the law," is akin to casting a long shadow on not just Ford's claim, but also the profile Senator Kamala Harris, a Democrat, wrote on her behalf.  You put her on the same list as the man she said assaulted her. So disappointing @TIME Christine Blasey Ford > Brett Kavanaugh pic.twitter.com/O91vmY8E6G — Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) April 17, 2019 When read next to Kavanaugh's entry, which describes the Congressional hearings as "unhinged partisanship," it feels like the powerful have failed Ford once again. Harris writes that Ford made an "unfathomable sacrifice" by testifying, and Kavanaugh's inclusion on the list is yet another example of how it surely cost Ford more than most can imagine.  Honoring Ford and Kavanaugh in practically the same breath also reveals how American culture makes it inconvenient and even difficult to fully believe survivors of sexual assault. There's no splitting the difference here by recognizing Ford's bravery and then casting Kavanaugh in the same heroic light. You either believe Ford, or you don't.  Despite evidence that it happens with alarming frequency, the public still struggles to accept that accomplished, charming men who are trusted by their families, friends, and peers can also be capable of heinous acts. Putting Kavanaugh on the Time 100 reflects a collective, deep-seated resistance to admitting that predatory behavior has nothing to do with a man's resume or social standing; it's about his willingness to abuse the power he holds. Perhaps Time's own editors struggled with this question. Perhaps they argue that the list is no endorsement of the individual featured, just an acknowledgment of their influence. Maybe they worried more that choosing between Ford or Kavanaugh would result in accusations of media bias. Instead, including both figures led some critics to see Time's choice as a maddening example of the media's obsession with offering "both sides" of an argument. TIME magazine profiling Christine Blasey Ford alongside the man who sexually assaulted her is peak "both sides" and I'm so tired. — Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) April 17, 2019 It's also worth noting that neither entry actually names what happened: that Ford accused Kavanaugh and that Kavanaugh was accused. If you weren't familiar with the news story, you wouldn't know the Time list recognizes both a victim and her attacker. That Time couldn't bring itself to print those details, or successfully insist that McConnell and Harris include them, suggests the magazine wanted to avoid controversy as much as possible.  Mashable reached out to Time for comment, but the publication has yet to offer an explanation for its decision. Imagine making Time's 100 Most Influential People list because you accused a prominent man of sexual assault, and then finding out he is on the same list. How many ways can we keep re-traumatizing Blasey Ford https://t.co/KpL9YS6gPY — Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) April 17, 2019 Regardless of why Time chose to include Ford and Kavanaugh on the same list, the decision sends a disheartening message to survivors who see it's now possible, even acceptable, to cheer on victims who stand up for justice while simultaneously hailing the accused as a leader for our time. That unexpected combination of encouragement and callousness may well convince some survivors that coming forward is not worth the resulting heartache, now rendered in newly agonizing ways. In that regard, we can only hope that the Time 100 list is far less influential than it aspires to be. 

Politics

US

U.S. equities traded in a wide range on Wednesday after reaching all-time highs as tech stocks declined. The market's high valuation also made some investors nervous. The Dow Jones industrial average closed 41.31 points higher at 26,252.12, managing intraday and closing records. The 30-stock index rose as much as 182 points and briefly fell 104 points. The finished just below the flatline at 2,837.54 and fell as much as half a percent. The broad index had risen as much as 0.5 percent. Tech stocks declined 0.9 percent. The Nasdaq composite dropped 0.6 percent to 7,415.06. Tech stocks were led lower by Apple, which fell 1.6 percent after Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi predicted iPhone sales growth could be weak this spring. Shares of Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet also traded lower. Equities have kicked off 2018 with strong gains. The major indexes are up at least 6 percent year to date as strong earnings and a lower corporate tax rate help maintain optimism in the economy. But Jeff Kilburg, CEO of KKM Financial, said "the air is getting pretty thin up here," adding: "This has truly been an extraordinary rally." Worries about further U.S. protectionist policies also gave investors jitters. Earlier on Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross suggested the U.S. was ready to enter a trade war. "In general, it's starting to feel like you have four things. You have tariffs placed on solar panels and washing machines. You have the Treasury Secretary touting a weaker dollar," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR. "You have Wilbur Ross talking about how trade wars are normal and the U.S. is willing to fight to the them, and you have NAFTA negotiations going on in real time." Hogan said. "That's enough for the markets to pause." The major indexes hit all-time highs earlier in the session as investors cheered better-than-expected quarterly earnings. Abbott Laboratories, United Technologies, Baker Hughes and NBCUniversal-parent Comcast all reported earnings and revenue that beat analyst expectations. "We've got a pretty good earnings season under way," said Randy Frederick, vice president of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab. "It's early but the percentage of beats we've seen thus far is pretty good." Of the S&P 500 companies that had reported as of Tuesday morning, 77 percent have beaten earnings estimates, while 80 percent have topped revenue expectations, according to FactSet. Investors also paid attention to the U.S. dollar, which hit fresh 2014 lows on Wednesday. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback's performance against six major currencies, fell 0.9 percent to 89.50 on Wednesday. Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial, said the lower dollar "has commodity prices going through the roof." Crude futures rose 1.8 percent on Wednesday, hitting their highest level since December 2014. Gold futures, meanwhile, climbed $19.60 to settle at $1,356.30 per ounce. Elsewhere, airline stocks fell broadly after United Continental's growth plans raised concern it could drive down fares. Shares of United Continental pulled back 11.4 percent, the biggest decliner in the S&P 500. American Airlines declined 6 percent, while Delta Air Lines fell 5.2 percent and Southwest Airlines dropped 4.7 percent. —CNBC's Patti Domm contributed to this report.

Finance

Investing

NORDSTROM INC - DURING Q1, CO HAD SOME EXECUTIONAL MISSES WITH CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE THAT HAD IMPACT ON SALES ACROSS FULL-PRICE AND OFF-PRICE- CONF CALL

Business

Retail

Iraq will supply 5 million barrels of extra crude to its partners in June, industry sources familiar with the issue said, joining other Middle East producers by lifting market share ahead of an OPEC meeting this week. Iraq, which is the second-largest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, had already been targeting record crude export volumes from southern terminals next month of 3.47 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and the United Arab Emirates, also plan to raise supplies in the third quarter. A recovery in global oil prices from 12-year lows to above $50 a barrel and rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran have dampened expectations that OPEC will rein in supplies at Thursday's meeting. While additional exports could make up for shrinking output and supply disruptions elsewhere, the new supplies also risk delaying a re-balancing of a global market still awash with oil. "OPEC is indeed increasing supplies, practicing their market share first strategy," said Victor Shum, managing director of downstream energy consulting at IHS, referring to a Saudi-led drive to boost OPEC's production to take back market share. He said that additional oil from Saudi and Iraq may slow down a re-balancing of the global market, although this could be countered by supply disruptions from other places and strong seasonal demand. Iraq's Oil Marketing Company (SOMO) allocated 5 million more barrels of Basra Light crude loading in June to upstream partners including PetroChina, Eni and Lukoil, three sources familiar with the matter said. Foreign companies are paid in oil under technical service contracts (TSCs) signed with SOMO, although payments have been delayed after the oil price drop squeezed Iraq's budget. A Gulf industry source said the additional oil was given "because of the pressure from the TSC contractors". Iraq is also obligated to meet payments to contractors as part of conditions of an International Monetary Fund loan, he said. The additional supplies come from an expansion of the Luhais and Artawi fields in southern Iraq. Iraq wants to increase its oil output by up to a third by 2020. SOMO could not be immediately reached for comment. A source from one of the companies that received the oil said the additional 1 million barrels of Basra Light was sold two hours after SOMO's notification, signalling that demand for Iraqi crude remained firm amid expectations the official selling prices (OSPs) would rise in July. Still, spot premiums for June supplies have dropped to 40-80 cents a barrel, down from more than $1 in May, on the big export volume and a rise in June's OSPs, traders said.

Energy

Oil

The president is getting credit in some circles, especially among his own staff, for the supposed restraint he’s shown toward Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in the early 1980s. As CNN reports, “White House aides who steeled themselves for what President Donald Trump would say when he finally addressed the sexual assault allegation against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were quietly stunned when Trump said the process should be followed and the accuser should be heard.” Trump has cleared a very low bar by not insulting Dr. Blasey, but the fact is, he has repeatedly expressed sympathy for Kavanaugh and not even pro forma concern for Dr. Blasey. Further, Republicans have more than filled the void. On Thursday, Republican Congressman Ralph Norman joked in poor taste by asking, “Did y’all hear the latest late-breaking news on the Kavanaugh hearings? Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out that she was groped by Abraham Lincoln.” South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman: "Did y'all hear the latest late-breaking news on the Kavanaugh hearings? Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out that she was groped by Abraham Lincoln." https://t.co/qfEneGbxxZ pic.twitter.com/p51z9UZkEt “This has been a drive-by shooting when it comes to Kavanaugh,” South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham complained. “I’ll listen to the lady, but we’re going to bring this to a close.” Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who will be questioning Dr. Blasey if she testifies, has clearly already made up his mind, saying that he believes Kavanaugh and suggesting that Dr. Blasey is “mistaken.” Hatch added that “clearly somebody’s mixed up.” Senate Republicans also have worked diligently to block Ford’s request for the FBI to investigate her allegations. As The Nation notes, there has been a broader push on the right to impugn Dr. Blasey: “The White House has dismissed her as a liar; conservative commentator Tomi Lahren implied that she was an opportunist; and a Wall Street Journal editorial not only impugns her but suggests that going to therapy can result in invented memories.” It’s yet another reminder that Trump is not an anomaly within the Republican Party; he has plenty of allies to do his dirty work for him.

Politics

US

STOCKHOLM, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Sweden’s central bank bought 750 million crowns ($82.4 million) in inflation-linked bonds in a reverse auction, it said on Friday. The Debt Office bought 375 million of linkers maturing in 2019 at an average yield of -2.053 percent and the same amount in 2025 linkers at an average yield of -1.386 percent. Source text for Eikon: ($1 = 9.1009 Swedish crowns) (Reporting by Simon Johnson)

Technology

Software

At least 58 people are dead and more than 500 were injured after a shooting at a concert in Las Vegas yesterday, making it the deadliest mass shooting in US history. In a grim coincidence, a study released today found that gun-related injuries contribute to $2.8 billion worth of emergency room and inpatient expenses annually. An estimated 93 Americans die from gun-related incidents each day, for a total of 33,000 deaths a year. Gun-related deaths are the third leading cause of injury-related deaths in the US, but research has been limited in assessing both national trends and risk factors as well as the financial costs of these injuries, study co-author Faiz Gani, a research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Surgery Center for Outcomes Research, said in a press release. For the study, researchers gathered patient information from the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample. The researchers focused on 150,930 cases in which patients arrived in the emergency room to receive care for gunshot-related injuries between 2006 and 2014. A substantial portion of the patients were wounded from assaults (49.5 percent), while 35.3 percent of the cases were due to unintentional injuries, and 5.3 percent of the patients attempted suicide. Firearm injuries, the report explains, are nine times more common in men than in women, and these cases are more common among men 20 to 24 years old. The results, which were published in Health Affairs today, showed that about 37.2 percent of these patients received inpatient care, and 8.3 percent died while being treated in the emergency room. The average cost for emergency department care for each patient was $5,254, while the average inpatient expenses were $95,887. That adds up to an estimated $2.8 billion in annual medical costs nationwide. Watch more from Motherboard: But it's likely that the costs are substantially higher. The study authors note that the $2.8 billion figure doesn't include postdischarge care needed for gunshot victims such as physical therapy, trauma counseling, and in-home care. Gani explained another limitation in the release, which is that the study doesn't reflect cases in which the patient died before getting to the hospital or those who didn't visit the emergency room following a gunshot injury. Still, he is convinced that the new findings provided an updated understanding of the gun violence trend. Gun-related injuries are a public health concern that require preventive resources, not just post-shooting attention, and not enough studies on the topic are being funded because of politics, says co-author Joseph Sakran, the associate chief of acute care surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. "First let me say that my prayers are with the victims in Las Vegas. Our thoughts are with their families and everyone enduring yet another senseless tragedy," Sakran says. "This article was scheduled to be published today and it just happened to coincidentally be in the wake of this very sad and somber day for Americans all across this nation. "Unfortunately, death and injury from firearms happens on a daily basis and does not always get the media attention that is seen during horrific mass shootings such as last night in Las Vegas," Sakran says. "I'm hoping that after this incident we can all finally come together and promote more research on this topic and more importantly allocate greater funding for such studies. Only through a better understanding of this issue will we be able to pass policies that ensure that we're not back here having the same conversation a year from today." The new paper outlines the scope of the funding problem. The authors write: "While gun violence is responsible for about as many deaths as sepsis is, funding for gun violence research is equivalent to 0.7 percent of the funding allocated for sepsis, and for every hundred articles published on sepsis, only about four are published on gun violence." Of course, research can only do so much; we also need lawmakers who will listen. "Although numerous previous studies have identified and proposed effective interventions to limit firearm-related violence," the authors write, "efforts to reduce firearm-related injuries have been limited as a result of the politicized environment surrounding gun violence and a lack of will to consistently implement proposed policies." For their part, the authors proposed universal background checks for all gun purchases—regardless of whether they're made online, in a store, or at a gun show—in order to limit access to guns for people with a history of violence or previous convictions. "The only way to truly and effectively understand this public health concern is to better study this issue and develop effective policies that can prevent these injuries and deaths," Sakran says. "We hope that our study taken with previous works can lead this conversation and play a role in providing evidence for more effective future policies." Read This Next: The Government Quietly Let Funding Lapse for Gun Violence Research

Crime

Police

LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would be speaking with her Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar later on Wednesday, a day after parliament gave her a mandate to try and renegotiate her Brexit deal. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan, writing by William James)

Politics

UK

Last year, Kerri Walsh Jennings injured her shoulder. Although she was sidelined for most of the fall, there was one benefit: it helped her and her new beach volleyball partner April Ross become a stronger team. “My injury, it was such a blessing in so many ways because it brought us closer together,” the three-time Olympian beach volleyball gold medalist told PEOPLE at an event hosted by KT Tape. “It broke us down, and it was like ‘April, I need you.’ ‘Kerri, I need you.’ ” While competing with Ross last summer, Walsh Jennings, 37, dislocated her right shoulder twice. She continued playing through August, but did so with “one arm.” In September, she finally took a break to have surgery to repair her labrum, which had torn off the bone. “I’m literally playing with one arm and she’s asked to elevate and I’m asked to do what I can do, you have to go inside and you have to come together,” said the mother of three– Joey, 6, Sundance, 5, and Scout Margery, 2. “It’s either that or go apart and the dreams don’t come true.” “It allowed for us to unite. It was really beautiful and really powerful,” she said. After taking six months off, Walsh Jennings recently returned to competition. In March, she and Ross spent two weeks in Brazil competing in a tournament to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. While in Brazil, she and Ross won one silver medal and one gold meal and earned their 100th victory as a team. “The feeling on the court was like, we are one,” said Walsh-Jennings. Off the court, Walsh Jennings says the pair are like sisters. And right on time for this summer’s Olympic Games, “We just fit.”

Other

Other

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Benchmark U.S. Treasury debt yields fell to their lowest since late 2017 on Monday and a gauge of world stocks dropped for a second straight session on persistent concerns over global economic growth. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield fell below 2.4 percent for the first time since December 2017. Germany’s benchmark 10-year bond yield slid back into negative territory. MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 0.46 percent, after it posted on Friday its biggest one-day drop in about three months. Wall Street’s main indexes ended little changed during a choppy session after falling sharply on Friday. Investors were still digesting weak U.S. factory data last week that prompted an inversion of the U.S. Treasury yield curve, which is widely seen as an indicator of an economic recession. “The big story is bond yields,” said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird in Milwaukee. “You are at a point now where a drop in yields isn’t being perceived as being a good thing for stocks... The thinking is, yields are dropping because the economy is weakening and that’s not a good thing for stocks,” Delwiche said. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 14.51 points, or 0.06 percent, to 25,516.83, the S&P 500 lost 2.35 points, or 0.08 percent, to 2,798.36 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 5.13 points, or 0.07 percent, to 7,637.54. Apple shares fell 1.2 percent, weighing on indexes, as the company unveiled a streaming video service. The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.45 percent, its fourth straight drop. In one economic bright spot, a survey showed German business morale improved unexpectedly in March after six consecutive drops. Benchmark U.S. 10-year notes last rose 12/32 in price to yield 2.414 percent, from 2.455 percent late on Friday. The yield fell as low as 2.377 percent. On Friday, the spread between yields on three-month Treasury bills and 10-year notes fell below zero for the first time since 2007. Such an inversion is a warning sign about the economy. Investors were evaluating last week’s dovish pivot by the U.S. Federal Reserve, in which the central bank stunned investors by abandoning projections for any interest rate hikes this year. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, fell 0.12 percent, with the euro down 0.01 percent to $1.1311. U.S. crude settled down 0.4 percent at $58.82 a barrel, while Brent settled at $67.21, up 0.3 percent on the day. Gold prices rose to a more than three-week high, helped by a weaker dollar and as worries over global economic growth pushed investors into safe-haven assets. Spot gold added 0.7 percent to $1,322.21 an ounce. Additional reporting by Karen Brettell in New York and Karin Strohecker in London; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Chris Reese

Finance

Investing

Oct 30 (Reuters) - CBZ HOLDINGS LTD: * DECLARED INTERIM DIVIDEND OF 0.25644 CENTS PER SHARE FOR THE SIX MONTHS ENDED JUNE 30, WHICH WILL BE PAID ON OR ABOUT NOV 17‍​ Source: bit.ly/2gNCOUE Further company coverage: ([email protected])

Finance

Investment

This story was originally published on August 17, 2017. Ikea is the unofficial sponsor of twenty-somethings who need to fill up their apartments, and fast. But, if you're only shopping at the Swedish megastore for big-ticket items like couches and tables, you're missing out on some of their best stuff. Not only do the superstore sell some seriously cute decor, it also has a range of useful kitchen solutions for cheap. Like all under $10 cheap. Ahead, 15 genius, cheap kitchen buys that your kitchen will thank you for.

Design

Architecture

Apple might be planning to dive into the high-end headphones market, possibly even this year.  This is according to a new Bloomberg report, which claims these headphones will have noise-cancellation and be wireless, with pairing likely being as easy as with Apple's AirPods.  We've heard the same thing a week ago from nearly-always-accurate Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said the headphones will have an "all-new" design and be more expensive than AirPods.  The Bloomberg report adds a few new details, though. It says that Apple's headphones are likely to use similar audio tech as seen in the company's smart speaker, HomePod, but no further details are provided. Furthermore, the report claims that Apple has been working on the headphones for at least a year, and that the development has been hampered with undisclosed issues which could push the release date into 2019 (the company currently plans to launch them at the end of 2018).  Apple launching its own line of headphones sounds like a risky proposition, given that the company already owns Beats, a hugely successful brand that produces several types of headphones, including over-the-ear models. Its most expensive model is Beats Pro, which retails for $400; it's unclear whether Apple's new headphones would be more or less expensive than those.  On the other hand, Apple did recently bet big on audio by launching the HomePod, a smart speaker with a hefty price tag that focuses on audio quality. Before HomePod, Apple already sold a speaker under the Beats brand, the $180 Beats Pill Plus. 

Technology

Consumer Electronics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As trade talks resume between China and the United States, President Donald Trump’s advisers are confident he can portray his stance against Beijing as a strength in the 2020 election, despite making concessions and having no deal in sight. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed in Japan last month to another truce in the year-long trade war between the world’s two largest economies, thanks largely to Trump’s promise not to impose new tariffs on Chinese goods and to ease restrictions on technology company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd. The agreement in Osaka kick-started talks that had been stalled since May. Chinese and U.S. negotiators spoke by phone on Tuesday and are discussing a face-to-face meeting in the future. But no deadline has been set for the process to conclude, leaving the possibility of a protracted negotiation that lasts well into next year and Trump’s re-election fight. “I think you’re into 2020 before there’s any resolution to this,” said Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief White House strategist, who has advocated for a tough stance against Beijing. He applauded Trump’s decision to take new tariffs off the table and be flexible on Huawei because it got the talks between the two countries going again. “I think it will help him politically because it’s the reality of the world that we live in,” Bannon said. The United States wants China to change what it considers unfair trade practices including intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer by U.S. companies to their Chinese counterparts, support for state-owned enterprises and currency manipulation. Trump has imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods and has pledged only to accept a deal with Beijing that includes structural reforms to the way China does business. Beijing’s retaliatory tariffs last year on imports of U.S. agricultural goods have struck a blow at U.S. farmers, a constituency that helped propel Trump to victory in 2016. But Trump’s bashing of China as a presidential candidate in 2016 delighted his crowds, and he is likely to highlight his tariff policy as a sign of toughness in 2020. Washington and Beijing were close to completing a deal in May when Chinese officials balked at requirements that it change its laws to implement reforms, U.S. officials have said. While other U.S. leaders have pressured China to change its business practices, Trump’s negotiating team arguably brought Beijing closer than it had ever come to an agreement to change. Still, Democrats, many of whom also favor a tough approach to China, see potential vulnerability for Trump in his approach. The president insists the tariffs are not hurting U.S. consumers and has offered tens of billions of dollars in relief to farmers affected by them. With no deal by 2020 and tariffs still in place, political swing states such as Iowa and Pennsylvania, which supported Trump in 2016, could swing to the Democratic candidate next year. “From farmers in Iowa to an array of manufacturing jobs across the Midwest, swing state after swing state supported him based on the promise that he would win the trade war with China and bring their jobs back. So far he’s done neither,” said Scott Mulhauser, a China expert and former aide to Vice President Joe Biden, the current front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Those dynamics worry some in Trump’s circle. Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser to the president, said a quick deal would be helpful. The de-escalation agreed to in Japan was positive, he said, but truces do not last forever. “Perhaps this could get us through the election,” said Moore, who withdrew from consideration for a seat on the Federal Reserve earlier this year after criticism of his sexist comments on women and shifts on interest rate policy. “My personal advice to Trump ... when he’s asked me about it, is get a deal that you’ve got now and pick up a much harder line with China after you get re-elected,” he said. Trump has not done everything he pledged to do with regard to China as a candidate in 2016. He did not declare the country a currency manipulator, and his tariff policies are balanced by frequent and glowing praise of Xi. Famous for considering himself a skilled dealmaker, Trump did not appear to have nudged his Chinese counterpart to restore the promises Beijing reneged on in May. “The biggest accomplishment on the trade talks is getting them (China) back to the table, but there’s no date set and there was no public mention ... that they have taken back any of the ‘reneging,’” said Michael Pillsbury, an outside trade adviser to Trump, adding the concessions were worth it to get talks started. “It’s a bold decision because if he hadn’t done it, we might be having no talks at all.” U.S. officials said China agreed in Osaka to buy more American crops and farm products, but those purchases, despite being heralded by the president, have not taken place. Trump signaled his dissatisfaction about that fact on Thursday. “China is letting us down in that they have not been buying the agricultural products from our great Farmers that they said they would. Hopefully they will start soon!” he wrote in a tweet. Democrats have criticized Trump’s tactics on China, while seeking to walk a careful line. Toughness against Beijing has significant bipartisan support. Biden has had to walk back comments that China was not a threat, but he has criticized Trump’s tariffs tactics. Senator Bernie Sanders, who identifies as a democratic socialist and is also high in the polls in the crowded Democratic presidential field, considers China a currency manipulator. His campaign says he agrees on the need for a tough stance on China, just not with how Trump has carried it out. But Trump’s team sees his record as a strength, believing that no trade deal is better than a bad deal and progress is better than stalemate. “President Trump is the first U.S. president to stand up to China for their bad actions on trade over many decades, a position of strength that will resonate with voters concerned about American jobs,” said Trump campaign spokeswoman Erin Perrine. China’s purchases or failure to purchase U.S. goods could have a political impact in 2020, too, if voters in farming and manufacturing states become convinced that Trump’s pledges on that subject are not materializing. “If people believe that things are moving in the right direction and there continues to be purchases of different agricultural goods - soybeans and other things in those key states ... then the president will be able to rightfully say things are progressing,” said Sean Spicer, Trump’s former spokesman and a former trade official himself. “It’s just a question of whether it’s moving in the right direction.” Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Peter Cooney

Politics

International Relations

A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry. When I saw Google Home for the first time back at Google I/O, I was excited at the prospect of having a brainier Alexa in my home. Like others, I waited and almost forgot all about it, until it was reintroduced last month and I actually could go and preorder it. I got my Google Home at the end of last week, and placed it in the same room Alexa has been calling home for almost a year now. The experience has been interesting, mainly because of the high expectations I had. Making comparisons with Amazon’s Echo is natural. There are things that are somewhat unfair to compare because of the time the two devices have been on the market, and therefore the different opportunity to have apps and devices that connect to them. There are others, though, that have to do with how the devices were designed and built. I don’t want to do a full comparison, as there are many reviews out there that have done a good job of that, but I do want to highlight some things that, in my view, point to the different perspective Amazon and Google are coming from when it comes to digital assistants. Like Echo, Google Home has lights that show you when it is listening. Sadly, though, it is difficult to see those lights if you are not close to the device, as they sit on top rather than on the side like the blue Echo lights that run in circles while you are talking to Alexa. This, and the lack of sound feedback, can make you wonder if Google Home has heard you or not. You can correct that by turning on the accessibility feature in the settings, which allow a chime to alert you that Google Home is engaged. It is interesting to me that, while Amazon thought the feedback actually enhanced the experience of my exchange with Alexa, Google did not think it was necessary and, furthermore, something that had to do with accessibility versus an uneasiness in just trusting I will be heard. This is especially puzzling given that Echo has seven microphones that clearly help with picking up my voice from across the room far better than Google Home does. The blue lights on the Echo have helped me train my voice over time so I do not scream at Alexa, but speak clearly enough for her to hear even over music or the TV. This indirect training has helped, not just with efficiency, but it has also made our exchanges more natural. I’ve discussed before whether there is an advantage in humanizing a digital assistant. After a few days with Google Home, my answer is a clear yes. My daughters and I are not a fan of the “Okay, Google” command but, more importantly, I think there is a disconnect between what comes across like a bubbly personality and a corporate name. Google Assistant — I am talking about the genie in the bottle as opposed to the bottle itself — comes across as a little more fun than Alexa, from the way it sings “Happy Birthday” to the games it can play with you. Yet it seems like it wants to keep its distance, which does not help in building a relationship and, ultimately, could impact our trust. I realize that I am talking about an object that reminds you of an air freshener, but this bond is the key to success. Alexa has become part of the family, from being our Pandora DJ in the morning, as our trusted time keeper for homework and as my daughter’s reading companion. And the bond was instant. Alexa was a “she” five minutes out of the box. While Google Assistant performs most of the same roles, it feels more like hired help than a family member. The big selling point of Google Home has been, right from the get-go, how all the goodness of Google search will help Google Assistant be smarter. This, coupled with what Google knows about me through my Gmail, Google docs, search history, Google Maps, etc., would all help deliver a more personalized experience. Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe I finally understand that being great at search might not, by default, make you great at AI. I asked my three assistants this question: “Can I feed cauliflower to my bearded dragon?” Here is what I got: Alexa: Um, I can’t find the answer to the question I heard. Siri: Here is what I found (displayed the right set of results on my iPhone). Google Assistant: According to the bearded dragon, dragons can eat green beans … Just in case you’re wondering, it is safe to feed bearded dragons cauliflower, but just occasionally! Clearly, Google Assistant was able to understand my question (I actually asked multiple times to make sure it understood what I had said) but pulled up a search result that was not correct. It gave me information about other vegetables and then told me to go and find more information on the bearded-dragon website. The first time I asked who was running for president, I received an answer that explained who can run versus who was running. Bottom line: While I appreciate the attempt to answer the questions, and I also understand when Google Assistant says, “I do not know how to do that yet, but I am learning every day,” the experience is disappointing. Google is, of course, very good at machine learning, as it has shown on several occasions. I could experience that first hand using the translation feature Google Home offers. I asked Google Assistant how to say, “You are the love of my life” in Italian. I got the right answer, delivered by what was clearly a different voice with a pretty good Italian accent. Sadly, though, Google Home could not translate from Italian back into English, which means my role as a translator for my mom’s next visit will not be fully outsourced. We all understand today’s assistants are not the real deal, but rather they are a promise of what we will have down the line. Assistant providers should also understand that with all the things the assistants are helping us with today, there is an old-fashioned way to do it which, more likely than not, will be correct. So when I ask a question, I know I can get an answer by reaching for my phone or a computer; or when I want to turn the lights off, I know I can get up and reach for the switch. This is why a non-experience at this stage is better than the wrong experience. In other words, I accept Google Assistant might not yet know how to interpret my question and answer it, but I am less tolerant of a wrong answer. Google Assistant is clearly better at knowing things about me than Alexa, and it’s not scared to use that knowledge. This, once again, seems to underline a difference in practices between Amazon and Google. When I asked if there was a Starbucks close to me, Google Assistant used my address to deliver the right answer. Alexa gave me the address of a Starbucks in San Jose based on a ZIP code. But Alexa knows where I live, because Amazon knows where I live, and my account is linked to my Echo. Why did I have to go into the Alexa app to add my home address? Amazon is doing a great job adding features and keeping users up to speed with what Alexa can do, and I expect Google to start growing the number of devices and apps that can feed into Google Home. While the price difference between Google Home and Echo might help those consumers who have been waiting to dip their toes with a smart speaker, I feel that consumers who are really eager to experience a smart assistant might want to make the extra investment to have the more complete experience available today. We are still at the very beginning of this market, but Google is running the risk of disappointing more than delighting at the moment. Rightly or wrongly, we do expect more from Google, especially when we are already invested in the ecosystem. We assume that Google Assistant could add appointments to my calendar, read an email or remind me of upcoming event, and when it doesn’t, we feel let down. The big risk, as assistants are going to be something we will start to engage more with, is that consumers might come to question their ecosystem loyalty if they see no return in it. Carolina Milanesi is a principal analyst at Creative Strategies Inc. She focuses on consumer tech across the board; from hardware to services she analyzes today to help predict and shape tomorrow. In her prior role as chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Milanesi drove thought leadership research; before that, she spent 14 years at Gartner, most recently as VP of consumer devices research and agenda manager. Reach her at @caro_milanesi. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Technology

Smart Home

Move over, eggs benedict and rainbow-colored swimsuits — house plants are currently the reigning likebait on Instagram. The Internet's love leafy shrubs, cute succulents, and towering cacti seems to know no bounds: Accounts like @boyswithplants and @plantsindecor have gained a considerable following in seemingly no time. For many millennials, plant porn is the new #foodporn. No one is more qualified to chart the meteoric rise of greenery in the online space than Igor Josifovic and Judith de Graaff, the founders of Urban Jungle Blog, a global community about all things house plants. Since launching the site in 2013, the duo has garnered over half a million followers on Instagram, who fervently tagging their plant shots with #urbanjunglebloggers in hopes of getting regrammed. The pair recently released a book, Urban Jungle, dedicated to plant care and styling. Inspired by Josifovic and de Graaff's discerning eye, we asked them to share their top tips for taking a killer plant photo, paired with some of our favorite uploads from the collective. Click on for a photography masterclass to make your succulent stash look like a million bucks. Brace yourself for a ton of likes. Read This Story Next:These Are The Best Places To Buy Plants Online

Lifestyle

Culture

Nov 22 (Reuters) - Soribada Inc : * Says it completes the issuance of 10 billion won worth of convertible bonds, as of Nov. 22 Source text in Korean: goo.gl/2q6eqW Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)

Other

Other

Charlie Murphy‘s family and friends gathered in New Jersey on Wednesday evening to celebrate the late comedian’s life. Dave Chappelle, George Lopez, Cedric the Entertainer and more paid their respects, one week after Murphy passed away at the age of 57 after a battle with leukemia. “Tonite [sic] we joined Family n Friends to pay tribute and lay to rest our brother the Legendary #charliemurphy,” Cedric captioned a group photo that also included Neal Brennan, Eddie Griffin, Affion Crockett, Donnell Rawlings and D.L. Hughley. “We love you charlie RIP keep doing it big,” Rawlings captioned a different photo of the friends. Murphy, who is Eddie Murphy‘s older brother, died in a New York City hospital on Apr. 12. His manager said he had been battling leukemia and going through chemotherapy treatment. https://twitter.com/_/status/854912107892158465 Tonight we honored #Darkness @charliemurphy @comedygetdown @affioncrockett @nealbrennan… https://t.co/DOEv8yOq0j — George Lopez (@georgelopez) April 20, 2017 After learning of his death, Chris Rock, Kevin Hart, Ice Cube and many more took to social media to remember the late comedian, who rose to fame as a recurring performer on Comedy Central’s Chappelle’s Show from 2003-4. “Our hearts are heavy with the loss today of our son, brother, father, uncle, and friend Charlie,” the Murphy family said in a statement. “Charlie filled our family with love and laughter, and there won’t be a day that goes by that his presence will not be missed. Thank you for the outpouring of condolences and prayers. We respectfully ask for privacy during this time of great loss for all of us.”

Entertainment

Television

It seems as if we have been here before: the euro zone fretting that a crisis with Greece will balloon out of all proportion while the government in Athens says it will not impose one euro more in cuts on its austerity-battered public. Cue a euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels. There are differences this time from two years ago when a battery of "last chance" meetings over a new bailout brought Greece to the brink of bankruptcy and default - and threatened the euro zone with its first dropout. When the ministers have their regular meeting on Monday there will be little brinkmanship or fear of failure. For one thing, a bailout is already in place - the argument this time is about compliance and future targets in order to get another tranche of money. Indeed, some euro zone officials have been briefing privately that Greece has enough money to see it through for now, even if it fails to get the next tranche of bailout funds by the July deadline for paying back as much as 7.5 billion euros of debt falling due. But it would not be trite to say that another festering row with Greece is the last thing the euro zone needs when faced with a protectionist U.S. president, Britain leaving the European Union, and anti-euro politicians vying for power or presence in French, Dutch and German elections. So EU officials have been urging speed in finding agreement and calmly warning of instability ahead if none is found. "There is a common understanding that time lost in reaching an agreement will have a cost for everyone," the European commissioner responsible for the euro, Valdis Dombrovskis, told Greek news portal Euro2day. The issue, however, is multi-layered and thus particularly complex. Part of it is about what kind of primary surplus - what is left in a surplus budget before debt obligations - Greece must reach and run for some time. The bailout, signed by Greece and euro zone lenders, says 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (which would be by far the highest in the euro zone). The International Monetary Fund, the other major lender, says that is undoable without further Greek belt-tightening. It says 1.5 percent of GDP and some form of debt relaxation - for example, over what is paid when - would be more realistic and sustainable. The IMF, furthermore, says it won't participate in any bailout that it does not believe to be viable. Germany and others say that the IMF must be a part of the bailout or there is no deal. Both lenders have told Greece they want about 3.6 billion euros in additional savings, including a reduction in the tax- free income threshold, now at about 8,600 euros per person per year, a number the IMF maintains lets some 56 percent of wage-earning Greeks escape paying income tax. Greece says no. Its economy contracted again in the fourth quarter of 2016, nearly one in four Greeks is unemployed and its pensioners have already seen 11 cuts to income. So plenty of scope for crisis - if not quite yet. This old-but-new pressure comes as the euro zone's overall economy is beginning to pick up. How sustainable it is, however, may be seen on Tuesday when research firm Markit releases its flash - or preliminary - purchasing manager indexes for the euro zone, France, and Germany, as well as for the United States. Reuters polls suggest that the composite indexes - which test the views of manufacturing and services businesses and correlate closely with economic growth - will be down for Germany and France, if still in growth mode. The euro zone index is expected to be flat, held up presumably by member countries where there is no flash report, such as Spain. The U.S. manufacturing index, in the meantime, is expected to dip slightly. This all points to an easing off of growth - but not one that necessarily presages trouble ahead. EU-quitter Britain, meanwhile, is not be so blessed. It is doing well, but has just had the first signs of Brexit economic trouble. Consumers in January were hit by rising inflation and factory input prices rose 20.5 percent to their highest since 2008. A report by the Confederation of British Industry, due on Monday, may show whether any of it has spilled over into industrial orders - although the weaker pound should help exports and offset any UK slowdown. Slightly off the beaten path, meanwhile, is Israel, which has shown some surprising recovery. Its gross domestic product surged at an annualized 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and it has just shaken off 28 months of deflation. Look for industrial output numbers and a Bank of Israel meeting next week for more. Follow CNBC International on and Facebook.

Finance

Banking

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Soccer Federation has reached a tentative agreement for mediation with the women’s national team to resolve complaints in a lawsuit over equal pay with the men’s team, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. U.S. Soccer’s lawyers in a letter on Monday agreed to participate in mediation after the ongoing women’s World Cup concludes on July 7, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation. All 28 members of the defending World Cup champion U.S. squad, who have reached the knockout stage of this year’s tournament in France, were named as plaintiffs in federal court when the lawsuit was filed in March. The players, including stars Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd and Alex Morgan, say they have been consistently paid less money than their male counterparts even though their performance has been superior to the men’s team. The lawsuit also outlines years of institutionalized gender discrimination, claiming travel conditions, medical personnel, promotion of games and training are less favorable for female players than for their male counterparts. “We hope their pledge to submit a proposal to solve the ongoing gender disparities is genuine,” Molly Levinson, a spokeswoman for the players, said in the report. “It would be truly remarkable for these games to mark the beginning of pay equity. The world is watching.” U.S. Soccer and Levinson did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Reuters. According to the report, lawyers for the women reached out to U.S. Soccer’s lawyers after the World Cup began two weeks ago to ask if the federation would agree to mediation talks. The report, quoting a U.S. Soccer spokesman, said that while the group welcomed the chance to mediate, it was disappointed that the news came out during the World Cup. “We look forward to everyone returning their focus to the efforts on the field as we aim to win another title,” the spokesman told the Journal. The U.S. women’s team, which have not conceded a goal at this year’s World Cup, finished atop Group F with a 3-0 record to set up a last-16 clash with Spain on Monday. Writing by Susan Heavey and Frank Pingue; Editing by Bill Berkrot

Sports

Soccer

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives has voted to require Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to determine whether U.S. military or intelligence personnel violated the law in interrogations of detainees in Yemen. By voice vote, the House on Thursday adopted the measure as part of the 2019 defense authorization bill. The amendment was sponsored by Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat of California. It&aposs unclear whether the measure will be included in the final defense bill. There is no equivalent provision in the Senate&aposs version of the bill. The Associated Press last year reported that hundreds of men swept up in the hunt for al-Qaida militants have disappeared into a secret network of prisons in southern Yemen. It reported that American officials acknowledged that U.S. forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights abuses.

Military

Defense

Using screens in a dark room was associated with worse sleep outcomes than using them with the lights on. Using screens before bedtime impairs children’s sleep and may diminish their quality of life. British researchers studied 6,616 children, average age 12, who reported their use of screens — mobile phone, tablet, e-reader, computer, portable media player, television or game console — during the hour before bedtime. They also filled out a well-validated 10-item questionnaire measuring worries and stresses, social functioning and other determinants of quality-of-life. The children reported their bedtimes, how long it took them to fall asleep and how long their sleep lasted. More than two-thirds said they used at least one screen at bedtime. The study is in Environment International. Nighttime screen use was associated with poor sleep — both difficulty falling asleep and waking too early. Mobile phones and televisions were associated with 60 percent higher odds of waking up late, and children who used screens at bedtime consistently scored lower on quality-of-life tests. Using screens in a dark room was associated with worse sleep outcomes than using them with the lights on. “These findings need to be confirmed in future studies,” said the lead author, Michael O. Mireku, a lecturer at the University of Lincoln. In the meantime, he said, “Parents should just be aware of this possible association.”

Other

Other

The Trump administration will allow 7,000 Syrian immigrants to remain in the United States under Temporary Protected Status (TPS) but will not accept new applicants from the country for the program, according The Associated Press.  For those Syrians already in the U.S., the TPS protections will be extended for another 18 months. Their status had been set to expire on March 31. Yet the Department of Homeland Security will not designate Syria as a country where the conditions are too dangerous for citizens to return, despite the brutal, years-long civil war in the country.  TPS permits citizens of designated countries that have endured a major natural or man-made disaster to stay in the U.S. legally until their home nations recover. The Trump administration has dramatically scaled back TPS protections, saying the program has been abused. The department announced earlier this month it would end the protected status for 262,500 people from El Salvador. Late last year, it similarly ended the protected status for 59,000 Haitians. Previous Democratic and Republican administrations routinely renewed TPS country designations for the maximum 18-month period, based on an assessment of conditions in the home countries. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Immigration

It's real. Meet the DJs and nightlife figures–including Moby, GENG, and Tommie Sunshine–who go drug and alcohol free.  FACT compiled this 43-track playlist of Pharrell-produced tracks in honor of the musician's 43rd birthday. Our pals at THUMP UK spoke with DJs performing at the I Love Acid label's 10th anniversary party at Corsica Studios to select their favorite acid house tracks from the I Love Acid back catalog. Their selections might surprise you.  Musician Riley Smithson reveals how producing music helped him combat his speech impediment.  Paris nightlife is more than just French Touch. Meet the female DJ crew TGAF helping revolutionize the French nightlife scene.  Settle in with this two-hour mix from DJ and producer Avalon Emerson, recorded live last month in London.  Sex positive parties and sex parties are not the same thing. We spoke to figures from Berlin's scene to distinguish between the two.  Bandcamp created this excellent primer to 10 of Iran's most interesting emerging underground electronic and ambient artists. Dig in! We spoke with Seattle promoter Allen Huang about how he is working to increase asian visibility in the city's electronic music scene, and beyond.  Mixmag rounded up their top documentary picks charting the rise of dance music culture across the globe. 

Technology

Computers

IDOMENI, Greece (Reuters) - Six-day-old Asima lies on her back a few meters away from a line of public toilets used by crowds of refugees and migrants stranded at a muddy border outpost in northern Greece. She is one of the youngest of thousands of children trapped in what aid workers say is a petri dish of filth and festering infections, as European leaders work out what to do with the growing masses fleeing conflict zones and heading to Europe. Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says there are at least 40 pregnant women in Idomeni camp on the Macedonian border, and 40 percent of its population are children. “There are many babies at the camp, and they are vulnerable to respiratory infections,” said Christian Reynders, deputy coordinator for MSF at Idomeni. “Refugees set fires at night to keep their families warm. They burn everything, wood, plastic bags, old clothes. The smoke is toxic and we are afraid that respiratory infection especially for newborn babies might ‎create permanent problems to their breathing system,” he added. MSF doctors see about 60 children a day suffering from the results of the humidity and smoke, he said. By the latest count, there were about 36,000 refugees and migrants stranded in Greece on Wednesday, their plans to travel further north blocked by border shutdowns throughout the Balkans. Asima’s Syrian mother gave birth in the town of Kilkis, about 40 km (25 miles) away from the camp which has sprouted up in muddy meadows. But she then promptly returned, waiting with at least 13,000 others to cross a frontier which now appears permanently shut. A nurse from the ‘Arsis’ charity changes Asima’s nappy, saying she knows of at least five infants stuck in squalid conditions. “I few minutes ago we had a three-month-old baby in who only weighed three kilos,” the nurse said, less than half the usual weight for that age. “A few days after giving birth their parents bring them back to the camp. They are afraid of losing their place to cross the borders. Many are malnourished.” Sarala, in her early twenties, has been living there for 19 days, in a tiny tent covered in mud. She fled Idlib in Syria with her daughter, then 15 days old. She crossed into Greece about a month ago and wants to go to Germany. The baby is wearing a pink babygrow also spattered with mud. “I’ll stay at the camp until Macedonia open the borders,” she told Reuters. She wouldn’t contemplate leaving for better conditions elsewhere. “I was one of the first to arrive at Idomeni. I don’t want to lose an opportunity to pass”. Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Andrew Heavens

Politics

International Relations

(CNN)The grim discovery of 11 emaciated children on a filthy New Mexico compound, along with a cache of guns and the remains of a small boy has captured headlines for days. It has become a case in which prosecutors allege that a family sequestered itself in a remote town to plot violence -- and that a boy died during a ritual to expel demons from his body. But the investigation started more simply, as a search for a child reported missing months ago in Georgia. One of the latest chapters of the case ended Thursday, when officials confirmed the remains found on the New Mexico compound were that of the missing boy, 3-year-old Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj. Authorities raided the New Mexico compound August 3, putting the 11 surviving children into protective custody and arresting three women and two armed men. The adults, including Siraj Wahhaj, 40, Abdul-Ghani's father, have been charged with child abuse. They've pleaded not guilty. Here's what we know about the investigation that led to the raid: Abdul-Ghani's alleged abduction by his father months earlier in Georgia. A mom reported her 3-year-old missing in November Siraj Wahhaj is accused of abducting Abdul-Ghani from his mother's home in Jonesboro, Georgia, in November. The boy's mother, Hakima Ramzi, reported the child missing days later, telling police that they left in a gold Jeep Liberty, supposedly to go to a park, but never came back. "When I would ask (Wahhaj) where he was, he said he was on his way, he was coming soon, he was just keeping him for the night," she told CNN earlier this month. Police initially did not file a child abduction report because Wahhaj and Ramzi were married -- she filed for divorce in December, Clayton County court documents show. But a juvenile court judge in January issued an arrest warrant for Wahhaj for failing to let Ramzi know where he'd taken Abdul-Ghani. The dad allegedly wanted to cast demons from son Abdul-Ghani's disappearance was related to his health condition and, prosecutors allege, his father's and his co-defendants' belief that they were on a mission from God to heal the boy. Abdul-Ghani suffered from hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. He had seizures and needed constant care and medical attention, Ramzi said. After a trip to Saudi Arabia in October 2017, Siraj Wahhaj -- a Muslim and the son of an imam in New York -- said he wanted to stop giving his son medication and perform rituals to "cast demonic spirits" out of the boy's body, New Mexico prosecutor John Lovelace said in a court hearing this week, citing Ramzi. Those rituals began in Georgia and continued after his father took him from his mother's home in November, prosecutors allege. Prosecutors allege that Siraj Wahhaj and his co-defendants -- two of his sisters; his brother-in-law Lucas Morten; and Jany Leveille, described in court testimony Monday as Wahhaj's "Muslim wife" -- went to New Mexico with their children on messages from God. The defendants allegedly believed Leveille had received those messages from the angel Gabriel. One of the messages, an FBI agent testified Monday, was for the family to go to New Mexico, where Morten had property, to continue the rituals on Abdul-Ghani. The dad was involved in an Alabama car crash On December 13, a couple of weeks after he abducted his son, authorities say, Siraj Wahhaj was in a car accident in Alabama with some of his children and Leveille. It's not clear whether Abdul-Ghani was in the car. Wahhaj flipped a Ford Explorer on Interstate 65 in Chilton County, Alabama, north of Montgomery, according to a police traffic report. Wahhaj told police he did not recall what caused the crash. He said he left the roadway and when he attempted to swerve back onto I-65, the Explorer rolled and came to rest on its roof, the report said. The police report states the only people injured in the crash were a 5-year-old boy and Leveille. Both were taken to a hospital. Wahhaj told a trooper that the family was on its way to New Mexico to go camping, said Lovelace, the New Mexico prosecutor. But the trooper noted in his report that he saw no camping equipment in the overturned vehicle. Wahhaj also told the officer that he was married to Leveille, though she would clarify to the officer that they were not legally married, Lovelace said. Morten picked up the family in a rental truck and drove them to New Mexico with their belongings, including a weapons cache that included handguns, a bulletproof vest and several magazines, Lovelace said. But when Georgia police questioned Morten in December, he said he didn't know where Wahhaj was. The truck and the weapons were eventually found at the compound, authorities said. An investigator says the boy died during a ritual New Mexico authorities suspected the boy and his father were at the compound after learning about the abduction in May, but didn't have enough evidence for a search warrant, the Taos County sheriff has said. Authorities raided the compound August 3, after they learned that someone on the compound had asked a friend on the outside for money and expressed fears of starvation. A family friend in Georgia told CNN that one of Siraj Wahhaj's sisters had sent him the message, and that he relayed the information to her father and to police. After the raid, FBI agent Travis Taylor interviewed two teenage children who'd been on the compound, the agent testified. The family had arrived in New Mexico in January, and the rituals on Abdul-Ghani continued in New Mexico under Leveille's direction, the FBI agent testified, citing at least one of the children. In the rituals, which went on for several days, Abdul-Ghani's father recited verses from the Quran and held his hand on the boy's forehead as he foamed from the mouth, Taylor said. During one of those rituals, according to the children, Abdul-Ghani passed out and died, the agent testified. The family believed he had already died and that his body was inhabited by demons, Taylor said. They believed he would return four months later as Jesus and tell them which government institutions to get rid of, Taylor said. Those who did not believe "their message" would be killed or detained "until they believed," the agent said, citing one of the teens. But Siraj Wahhaj's lawyer, noting the defendants were black Muslims, said "no one would bat an eye" if the suspects were white Christians accused of shooting guns on their property or practicing their religion. "If these were white people of a Christian faith who owned guns, that's not a big deal because there's a Second Amendment right to own firearms in this country. If these were white Christians, faith healing is of no consequence because we have freedom of religion in this country. But they look different and they worship differently from the rest of us," Wahhaj's attorney Thomas Clark said at Monday's hearing. "When black Muslims do it, there seems to be something nefarious, something evil," he later said outside the courthouse. After four hours of testimony Monday, Judge Sarah Backus ruled that the suspects were not shown to be a threat and allowed them unsecured bond. "The state alleges there was a big plan afoot, but the state has not shown to my satisfaction by clear and convincing evidence what in fact that plan was," Backus said. "The state wants me to make a leap, and it's a large leap. And that would be to hold people in jail without bond based on -- again -- troubling facts. But I didn't hear any choate plan that was being alleged by the state." None of the defendants had posted bond by Friday morning. Siraj Wahhaj will remain in custody despite being granted bond, Clark said, while he waits for authorities in Georgia to execute his January fugitive warrant. Imam visits detention center Siraj Wahhaj's father, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, visited the detention center in Taos, New Mexico, on Friday. He was allowed to speak briefly with his two daughters, Subhannah and Hujrah, but not his son. "This whole thing is baffling to us because we are close, we are a close-knit family," he said. Imam Wahhaj said he made the visit because "any father, if their children are facing any kind of difficulty, you have to be there. For us as Muslims, we are told to ascertain the facts, whatever the facts are." He said his daughters are in good spirits, but they weren't able to talk about anything specific to the case. He has no idea when they are getting out and doesn't think he will be allowed to speak to his son. Imam Wahhaj said he did not know how long he would remain in New Mexico. When asked about his son's faith, he didn't answer. "We (Muslims) are about the truth wherever it lands, even if it is against ourselves, against our parents, against anyone. We have to tell the truth and we have to be witnesses for God." CNN's Scott McLean, Sara Weisfeldt, Dakin Andone and Hollie Silverman contributed to this report.

Crime

Murder

Three’s company for Olivia Colman. The newly-minted Oscar winner joked to reporters that she already has a plan as to where her new Best Actress trophy will be stored: under the covers. “In bed with me. Between me and my husband,” the British actress said in the Oscars press room. “He doesn’t know yet, he won’t mind.” Colman, 45, is married to Ed Sinclair, who got a special shout out during her acceptance speech after she scooped up the prize for Best Actress on Sunday at the 91st annual Academy Awards. The star won for her role as Queen Anne in The Favourite. “My husband Ed and best friend, I love you so much,” she said during the speech. “25 years you have been my best supporter and he is going to cry. I’m not.” The star — who appeared visibly shocked by her win — drew laughs with the hilarious speech as she accepted her trophy. “It’s genuinely quite stressful. This is hilarious. I got an Oscar,” she said on the stage. “I have to thank lots of people. Yorgos [Lanthimos], my best director and the best film with Emma [Stone] and Rachel [Weisz], the two loveliest women to fall in love with and go to work with every day. You can imagine it wasn’t a hardship.” Colman tells PEOPLE that she was surprised by her win, and was entirely unprepared to give a speech. “No, not at all. It was rubbish, really!” she said. Colman was the sole winner for The Favourite, which was nominated for an additional nine awards, including Best Picture. The 91st Academy Awards were broadcast live from Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 24, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on ABC.

Entertainment

Movies

Regardless of where we live, all Americans deserve to have access to a primary care physician as such access has been demonstrated to be essential to improving care while controlling cost. And while the government has taken steps in recent years to help ensure access to care even in underserved communities, action is needed to ensure we can fulfill the demand for primary care physicians for years to come.  At the moment, three pivotal federal programs that support local access to care for millions of Americans – the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program (THCs), community health centers, and the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) – are funded only through this September. And the uncertain fate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), with repeal discussions continuing in Washington even after the demise of the first iteration of the American Health Care Act, complicates the future of these programs even further.  Initially established and later reauthorized by Congress, teaching health centers train residents in rural health clinics, urban clinics, tribal reservations, and other community settings. While roughly 50 million Americans have trouble accessing care due to their geographic location, most family physicians typically end up practicing within 50 miles of where they’re trained – driving home the need to provide training where demand is highest. Demand for the program is high; in fact, centers receive roughly 100 applications for every open residency. Should funding for the teaching health centers disappear, the consequences could be grave. Case in point: because residency training takes three years, many teaching health centers are finding it hard to plan their staffing for the foreseeable future beyond September. Prior to the 2015 ‘funding cliff’ that culminated in the passage of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), it was estimated that the loss of funding for THCs would disrupt the training of more than 700 medical residents in underserved communities nationwide. The nation’s roughly 9,200 community health centers, meanwhile, provide care for patients regardless of their ability to pay in similarly underserved communities. While community health centers predate the ACA, the landmark 2010 legislation provided funding that increased the number of patients served by the centers by 5 million. Finally, the NHSC provides loan forgiveness for physicians who commit to serving high-need areas. Currently, the program supports nearly 9,000 clinicians who provide care to nearly 10 million patients across 15,000 sites. In many ways, the NHSC makes practicing family medicine viable for talented physicians who might otherwise be discouraged by burdensome debt – all while increasing access to care. Together, these programs help ensure that Americans can count on seeing primary care physicians within a reasonable distance of their homes. Congress had the foresight to continue funding for all three programs in MACRA, but the extension runs out in just six months. At the same time, teaching health centers are also threatened by a possible repeal of the ACA, while community health centers could lose significant funding if Congress makes substantive changes to the administration of Medicaid at the state level. The U.S. health care system was once referred to by famed management consultant Peter Drucker as the most complex system on earth. As Congress and the administration continue to deliberate on changes to our health care system, we ask them to remember a simple principle: that all Americans deserve to be able to access a primary care physician near their homes when they need it most. John Meigs, Jr., MD, is president of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a family physician in Centreville, Ala. The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Policy

Healthcare

CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem is the author of "Security Mom: An Unclassified Guide to Protecting Our Homeland and Your Home." She is a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School, a former assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration and founder of Kayyem Solutions, a security consulting firm. The opinions expressed in this commentary are hers. (CNN)While President Trump stumbles along with his executive order (now blocked by a federal appeals court) banning immigration from seven countries, an important reality has been lost in the international criticism and legal analysis: not all seven countries named in the ban are alike. They are not all enemies of the US -- like Iran -- or nations we have been at war with -- like Iraq or Afghanistan. In fact one of them this week provided a clear example of the perilous geopolitical territory the Trump administration wandered into when its ban not only resulted in confusion, but delivered a serious blow to counterterrorism efforts that help keep America safe. I'm referring here to Yemen. In a 24-hour period late last month, Yemen was the focus of not one, but two, important efforts by the Trump administration. On a Friday, the ban was imposed against Yemen. A day later, Trump authorized a raid by special forces to capture the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Qassim al-Rimi, that resulted in the death of a US Navy SEAL, 13 civilians (according to Yemeni officials) including an 8-year-old girl and the downing of an Osprey aircraft. The Pentagon said 14 al Qaeda fighters were killed in the battle. It was, by all accounts (except that of the Trump administration, which called the effort a "great success") a failed mission, resulting in no new intelligence or a captured terrorist. This week, in response to internal pressure, it was reported first that Yemen would no longer allow the US to do ground raids on its soil without specific permission. That statement was softened, in part, by Yemen asking for a "reassessment" of an arrangement that has been uncontroversial for years. But any pre-approval of specific missions puts our military at risk. And however the "reassessment" turns out, these are remarkable, and damaging, statements by Yemen not least because it publicly admitted that it had authorized raids like that in the past. For years during the Bush and Obama administrations, Yemen had cooperated with US efforts, which included drones and ground raids, well aware that many areas in its country were being used by terrorists to train and hide. It never required specific approval, which would have delayed US missions and potentially risked their secrecy. Yemen's public skepticism and the unclear status of what a "reassessment" actually is present a major impediment to our counterterrorism efforts. In nations like Yemen, with major geographic areas that are essentially failed states, the coalition efforts rely on the host country to allow it to come in and fight terror. That is not an easy agreement for a country like Yemen: it has to deal with internal forces that do not view the United States as a force of good. The careless mission, coupled with the "in your face" naming in the executive order, were unsustainable affronts to Yemen and it responded in kind. Yemen is not a democratic nation and it is a human rights violator. It is not a friend, in the sense of how Americans view Great Britain or France as friends. But it isn't a foe either. This represents the quintessential challenge of the emerging Trump Doctrine. The President views foreign relations in a binary fashion: nations are good or bad. The world is a little more complicated. Mexico isn't just about a wall, for example; it is a major trading partner. Australia isn't just about a refugee dispute; it is a major ally in our war efforts. Yemen isn't just a state that harbors terrorists; it is a partner in a global mission. In domestic circles, the debate about whether the now-stalled executive order is good or bad for counterterrorism efforts is being litigated in courts and public opinion. But for Yemen, the inclusion was a blow to a historic expectation that the nations -- for better or for worse, in the gray area or not -- would fight together. President Trump has said that rescinding the executive order would put our nation at risk. That statement is questionable but clearly a political tactic. The failed al Qaeda mission and Yemen's response will hinder our ability to engage fully in targeted military efforts to protect our nation in the global war on terror. With friends like us, Yemen found it necessary to reset the relationship.

Politics

Immigration

Steelers 18, Chiefs 16 KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The playoffs within the A.F.C. playoffs concluded Sunday night at Arrowhead Stadium, and the winners afterward received not a glistening trophy or pristine new caps to wear but a more urgent, less tangible distinction. They earned a coveted title, the Team Most Equipped to Face the New England Patriots, and a chance to assert their legitimacy once more. The Pittsburgh Steelers won last week in the afternoon chill of their home stadium. They won Sunday night in the ceaseless mist and din of a stadium craving its first postseason victory in 23 years, defeating the Kansas City Chiefs by 18-16. Behind a postseason-record six field goals by Chris Boswell, the Steelers advanced to play top-seeded New England for the conference championship next Sunday at Gillette Stadium, where they will tote the following credentials: a nine-game winning streak, a snarling defense and a running back, Le’Veon Bell, who, with 30 carries for 170 yards Sunday, surpassed the franchise’s single-game postseason rushing record — a record that had stood for 42 years — for the second time in two weeks. “I’ve never really felt this way about a team,” guard David DeCastro said, adding: “With everyone healthy for the most part, I’d just be disappointed if we didn’t keep winning. That’s just kind of the expectations I have.” There are similar expectations in New England, where the Patriots defeated Houston on Saturday by 18 points — and seethed and smoldered afterward at their mistakes. That attitude — never satisfied, always unfulfilled — has forged their dominance this era, with six consecutive berths in the A.F.C. title game. “There’s a lot of things we’ve got to do to be successful against them,” quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. “They’re the best in the world for a reason.” The Steelers, though, present a worthy adversary. If over the years New England has thrived by adapting to its personnel — featuring a downfield passing game one season, two tight ends another — Pittsburgh these last few months has demonstrated its own resourcefulness. Even with Bell flattening the Chiefs’ defense and his comrade Antonio Brown exceeding 100 receiving yards yet again, the Steelers’ offensive performance Sunday night bore little resemblance to the splendor against Miami last week, when they scored touchdowns on their first three drives. Against Kansas City, they went 0 for 4 in the red zone, where Roethlisberger threw his only interception. Fending off the Chiefs, in what Roethlisberger called the loudest stadium in the league, demanded a different formula. It demanded a defensive showing that contained the speedster Tyreek Hill, who had only 45 yards from scrimmage and fizzled as a returner, and thwarted one final comeback. And it demanded the conviction in Roethlisberger to make the correct call on the decisive play. After scoring on a 1-yard run by Spencer Ware with 2 minutes 43 seconds left, the Chiefs, trailing by 18-16, attempted a 2-point play and converted it — or so they thought. A holding penalty on tackle Eric Fisher — which drew the wrath of tight end Travis Kelce, who afterward said that the official who made the call should not even be permitted to work at Foot Locker — pushed the attempt back to the 12-yard line. This time, safety Sean Davis atoned for the illegal hit on Chris Conley that extended the drive by reading Alex Smith’s eyes and knocking away the pass intended for Jeremy Maclin. On the Steelers’ ensuing possession, facing third-and-3 at their own 12, Roethlisberger convened with his offensive coordinator, Todd Haley, on the sideline. Haley asked Roethlisberger what play he liked. Roethlisberger selected one with crossing patterns, figuring that his offensive line could give him enough time to throw and one of his receivers to slip free. Rolling right, Roethlisberger found Brown for 7 yards and a first down, securing the victory and shoving the best Chiefs team in nearly 15 years into the abyss. “You want the ball in your hands,” Roethlisberger said. “I love that situation.” The Chiefs have advanced as far as the conference championship game only once since 1969, when they won the Super Bowl, and this team was considered the franchise’s best chance to return. Instead, they have lost their last five home playoff games, a streak of ignominy that has now touched four coaches and five quarterbacks, the latest being Coach Andy Reid and Smith, who finished 20 of 34 for 172 yards, one touchdown and an interception. “It takes a lot to believe what is happening,” Maclin said. “This is the best football team I have played on, by far. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.” Entering Sunday, Reid’s teams were 19-2 after a bye, and he acknowledged that he and his staff had used a bit of the extra time to study more film. The Chiefs did need it, every second, to prepare for the unorthodox style of Bell, whose combination of strength, balance and acceleration torments even the most experienced defensive gurus. Upon taking the handoff, Bell approaches the line of scrimmage as if groping for a light-switch in darkness. He takes a small step, extends his hand, reads the block and then surges through an opening the approximate size of a two-by-four. Usually, at least. Every so often, he does get stopped, as he did on third-and-1 from the Steelers’ 11-yard line late in the third quarter. Taking over at the Pittsburgh 46 after a punt, the Chiefs converted on a third-and-20 but managed only a field goal, a 48-yarder by Cairo Santos that drew them to within 15-10. Asked last week how the Steelers would approach kicking to Hill, Coach Mike Tomlin quipped, “Very thoughtfully.” Their defensive coordinator, Keith Butler, asked about his unit’s plans, offered a less subtle response: “We have to make him feel it.” Pittsburgh undoubtedly would have, if only Kansas City had complied. Exploiting the Steelers’ fixation with Hill, the Chiefs often deployed him as a decoy. They ended an opening drive that began on their 45-yard line, after Pittsburgh squib-kicked away from him, with a fake sweep to Hill and a nifty 5-yard touchdown pass from Smith to Albert Wilson. Trailing by 7-3, the Steelers reacquainted themselves with a Chiefs defense that toughened when tested. Pittsburgh penetrated as deep as Kansas City’s 27 on its five series before halftime but did not score a touchdown, coming away with four Boswell field goals and a Roethlisberger interception off a tipped pass. The Steelers’ 275 first-half yards produced all of 12 points. For other teams, in other games, that total might portend regret or doom. Not the Steelers, not on Sunday. Their defense, so ferocious against Miami, limited the Chiefs to 227 total yards, 61 on the ground. The next challenge, against Tom Brady and his band of deadly options, figures to be tougher. But the Steelers, one victory from the Super Bowl, are grateful for that opportunity.

Sports

Football

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who released a report on Monday that investigated the FBI's probe of possible Russian coordination with President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, is set to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The inspector general's 400-page report found no evidence of political bias at the root of the FBI's Russia investigation, contrary to Trump's claims of a "deep state" effort to undermine his administration. Horowitz's report concluded that a decision by a top official in the FBI's counterintelligence division "in opening the investigation was in compliance with Department and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced his decision." That probe evolved into special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Trump's 2016 campaign. Horowitz did find "serious performance failures" such as "factual misstatements" that "taken together resulted in [surveillance] applications that made it appear that the information supporting probable cause was stronger than was actually the case."

Politics

Law

Hey. There are major spoilers ahead, in case the headline didn't make that clear. You should probably turn back if you haven't seen Avengers: Infinity War yet. There's an Avengers: Infinity War takeaway where the real villain is Star-Lord, not Thanos. I'm here to tell you: That take is wrong. Star-Lord did some dumb shit on Titan, no question. After the combined efforts of three Avengers, three Guardians of the Galaxy, and Nebula left Thanos ensnared and — at last! — vulnerable, Peter Quill screwed it all up. Before I tell you why Quill isn't the bad guy here, let me set the scene. We're deep into Infinity War now. Doctor Strange, Iron Man, and Spider-Man have linked up with Star-Lord, Mantis, Drax, and Nebula on the surface of Thanos's home planet, Titan. They've all realized they share the same goal, and together, they hatch a plan to ambush the big, purple baddie. If they can pull it off, they'll have a shot at ripping away the Infinity Gauntlet, which at that point possesses the power of four Infinity Stones. Strange has a fifth one, the Time Stone, and he's using it as bait to lure in the big guy. Before Thanos attacks, Strange uses his cosmic artifact to leap ahead into the future and explore different possibilities. When he returns to the present, he shares an alarming fact: Of the 14,000,605 possible futures he looked at, only one resulted in a victory for our heroes. Then, Thanos shows up and all hell breaks loose. It's maybe the best fight scene in all of Avengers: Infinity War, with all the heroes getting increasingly creative about combining their powers and working together.  It works: After several minutes of brutal fighting, they get Thanos pinned long enough for Mantis to get on his shoulders and use her powers to put him into a waking sleep. He's conscious, and able to talk (with great difficulty), but he's completely subdued. As Iron Man and Spidey work together to pull off the Gauntlet, Star-Lord saunters up to the Mad Titan, both to gloat and to ask an important (to him) question: Where is Gamora? I'm here to tell you: Peter Quill isn't the bad guy. Earlier in the movie, Thanos spirited away his green-skinned daughter, who is also Quill's lover and a fellow Guardian of the Galaxy. She eventually leads her adoptive father to the only unaccounted-for Infinity Stone, the Soul Stone. But to obtain the artifact, he must pay a terrible price: Sacrifice that which he loves. He kills Gamora then and there, tossing her over the edge of a steep drop, and promptly blacks out and has a sort of vision. He then wakes up a short time later down one daughter, but with the newly acquired Soul Stone in his hand. Back to Titan. Thanos, now pinned by our heroes and struggling to free himself, has Quill screaming in his face. He wants answers. So Thanos gives him one. Gamora is dead, he says. I killed her. The revelation is too much for the stricken Quill. Grief takes over and he starts space pistol-whipping the purple brute, unfortunately catching Mantis's hand in the process. The act breaks her already tenuous hold on Thanos. He frees himself and regains the Gauntlet that Spider-Man almost managed to slip off. You know how the rest of it goes. Thanos heads to Earth, gets the last stone, and half the universe fades from existence, including many of our favorite heroes. And yes, from a certain point of view, it is all Quill's fault. But! Let's not forget: The battle on Titan played out exactly the way Strange wanted. He knew from looking into the future that there was only one path to victory, and that path included losing the battle on Titan and him forking over his Time Stone. Out of the many futures he saw, it's very very likely that in at least a few of them, Quill kept his chill. We can't know for sure, of course, but the probability is high. We do know, however, that of the 14,000,605 possible futures, 14,000,604 of them were wrong. Strange did what he did to ensure the one "happy ending" came to pass. So is Star-Lord a brash hothead who too frequently lets emotion get in the way of sound thinking? Yes, absolutely. But is it really fair to blame the guy for inadvertently enabling Thanos to complete his mission of wiping out half the universe? Hell no. Everything that happened on Titan and beyond is part of Strange's grand design. He's gone now, faded to dust like so many of the other key heroes. But he knew exactly what he was doing when he let Quill work through his anger and, subsequently, sacrificed everything. Find showtimes and theaters for Avengers: Infinity War near you.

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Welcome to Hillicon Valley, The Hill's newsletter detailing all you need to know about the tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. If you don't already, be sure to sign up for our newsletter with this LINK. Welcome! Follow the cyber team, Maggie Miller (@magmill95), and the tech team, Emily Birnbaum (@birnbaum_e) and Chris Mills Rodrigo (@chrisismills).   NEW DETAILS ON TWITTER'S POLITICAL AD RULES: Twitter on Friday announced that it is going to restrict, but not outright ban, advertisements that raise awareness about particular issues like climate change and abortion as part of a broader effort to rein in political advertisements. The social media platform, which has about 330 million monthly active users and raked in ad revenue of $2.61 billion last year, said it is placing significant limitations around advertisements that touch on topics like "environmental stewardship" or "social equity causes." Twitter will no longer allow the groups and individuals placing those "cause-based" ads to target particular demographic groups or zip codes.  And Twitter will do what its CEO Jack Dorsey announced earlier this month: the platform will completely ban all advertisements from or about politicians, political candidates, particular pieces of legislation, specific regulations, ballot measures, elections or court cases.  Twitter's new pared-down political ads policy, which the company shared for the first time on Friday, will go into effect next week. How Twitter is explaining it: "We believe ... political reach should be earned and not bought," Del Harvey, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, said on a call with reporters. "But the other thing that we considered is, while advertising should not be used to drive political, legislative or regulatory outcomes, there's certain cause-based advertising that can facilitate conversation about important topics."  Twitter is walking a fine line as it seeks to ban all advertising aimed at achieving specific political outcomes, while allowing advocacy groups and individuals to pay to raise awareness around issues like the economy, health care and climate change. The specifics: The company's new policy specifies that for-profit organizations, like large corporations, will not be allowed to run ads with the "primary goal" of pushing for particular political outcomes. For example, a company like Exxon will be allowed to continue running ads about carbon dioxide, as it currently does, but it will not be allowed to run ads pushing for particular bills. Political action committees and social welfare organizations registered as 501(c)(4)s will not be allowed to run ads at all, alongside candidates and government officials.  The politics: Twitter's Dorsey first announced the political ads ban two weeks ago amid controversy over Facebook's policy of allowing politicians to publish misleading or false claims in political ads. While Facebook launched an offensive to defend the policy as an effort to promote free expression online, Dorsey announced Twitter would ban those ads entirely, claiming his company is against "paying for reach" when it comes to political messaging. On the Friday call, officials made it clear that Twitter does not have a specific policy barring misinformation in advertisements, including cause-related ads. But Harvey said Twitter will no longer allow "super siloed, hidden targeting" on those sensitive topics. Read more on Twitter's new policy here.    ESPER DEFENDS JEDI: Defense Secretary Mark EsperMark EsperPentagon chief: US giving Vietnam surplus ship for coast guard Talks stall on defense costs with South Korea Overnight Defense — Presented by Boeing — Stopgap spending bill includes military pay raise | Schumer presses Pentagon to protect impeachment witnesses | US ends civil-nuclear waiver in Iran MORE doubled down Friday on his belief that Microsoft was fairly awarded a $10 billion cloud-computing contract, The Associated Press reports. When the Pentagon awarded the massive contract to Microsoft in late October, Amazon, which was in the running for the contract, protested heavily, citing "unmistakable bias," while announcing that it would challenge the decision in court. Esper reportedly recused himself from the awarding process as his son had previously worked for one of the unsuccessful bidders. "I am confident that it was conducted freely and fairly without any type of outside influence," Esper told reporters Friday in Seoul, South Korea. Amazon is challenging the decision in federal court. Read more here.   AT LONG LAST: The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up the long-running legal battle over Oracle's allegations that Google illegally used its code, setting the stage for a landmark battle over copyright that could have wide-reaching implications for Silicon Valley. The justices agreed to decide whether Google violated federal copyright law when it used some of Oracle's programming language to build its Android operating system, taking up a heated legal conflict that has bounced through the courts for almost a decade. Google had appealed a lower court's ruling that it unlawfully used Oracle's code in its software. The Supreme Court had denied an earlier Google petition to hear the case in 2014, after the initial trial. For years, Oracle has alleged that Google stole its code to build the mega-popular Android software, which runs the majority of smartphones in the world. Google says it did not violate any laws and made the code its own when it incorporated Oracle's Java programming language into the Android platform. Oracle first sued Google in 2010, and the case has been closely watched because of its implications for how copyright protection affects programming language. "We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to review the case and we hope that the Court reaffirms the importance of software interoperability in American competitiveness," Kent Walker, Google's senior vice president for global affairs, said in a statement on Friday. "Developers should be able to create applications across platforms and not be locked into one company's software." Read more on Google v. Oracle here.   ROBOCALL COMPROMISE: Key lawmakers in the House and Senate on Friday announced they have drawn up a bill to stave off the scourge of robocalls in the U.S., expressing optimism that the negotiated legislation "can be signed into law by the President."  The long-awaited anti-robocall bill, which has not been made public in its final form yet, would allow telephone carriers to block robocalls – spam calls often aimed at stealing personal information from vulnerable populations – in a "consistent and transparent" way without charging consumers any extra money, according to Friday statement from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Sen. John ThuneJohn Randolph ThuneSenators grill safety regulator over self-driving cars Tensions rise in Senate's legislative 'graveyard' Overnight Health Care: GOP senator says drug price action unlikely this year | House panel weighs ban on flavored e-cigs | New York sues Juul MORE (R-S.D.), a top member of the Senate Commerce Committee, among others. The House and Senate have been working for months on similar legislation to address robocalls, which have been increasing in volume and aggravating millions of Americans for years. The statement on Friday signals they have negotiated agreements over several of the points of disagreement between the bills.  "Today, we are proud to announce that we have come to an agreement in principle on legislation, the Pallone-Thune TRACED Act, to combat the robocall epidemic that we believe can be signed into law by the President," the House and Senate lawmakers said in the statement. "It's time to put Americans back in charge of their phones." The anti-robocall bill will require telephone carriers to verify calls and offer tools for their customers to block spammy calls. It will also give the Federal Communications Commission more time to investigate and punish illegal robocallers.  The statement is also signed by the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Greg WaldenGregory (Greg) Paul WaldenHillicon Valley: Google to limit political ad targeting | Senators scrutinize self-driving car safety | Trump to 'look at' Apple tariff exemption | Progressive lawmakers call for surveillance reforms | House panel advances telecom bills House committee advances legislation to secure telecom networks against foreign interference Hillicon Valley: Twitter shares more details on political ad rules | Supreme Court takes up Google-Oracle fight | Pentagon chief defends Microsoft cloud contract MORE (R-Ore). The lawmakers are working to finalize the bill text "in the coming days," they said.  The final bill will likely allow for tougher penalties against the scammers who generate billions of unwanted calls each year. The number of robocallers dialing up U.S. consumers is on the rise.  Read more here.   A LIGHTER CLICK: Someone has watched "The Birds" one too many times   AN OP-ED TO CHEW ON: What college football can teach us about innovation    NOTABLE LINKS FROM AROUND THE WEB:  Apple removes all vaping-related apps from the App Store (The Average)  How Google interferes with its search algorithms and changes your results (The Wall Street Journal)  We're stuck with the tech giants. But they're stuck with each other (The New York Times)  More than half of Fortune 500 companies were exposed to remote access hacking (Axios) View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

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Houston Texans linebacker Whitney Mercilus is desperately trying to find his missing dogs, Rocky and Princess ... and says he's concerned they may have been taken. Mercilus says his beloved pets -- a German shepherd and a yorkshire terrier-chihuahua mix -- got out of a gated area at his Houston area home Thursday while he was at football practice. WM has been asking the public for help ... and says he's already gotten a few leads. The most promising tip ... witnesses say a white landscaper truck with blue lettering was spotted picking up the dogs in his neighborhood and putting them in the back of the ride. He's doing everything he can to track down the truck. Whitney is begging anyone with information to help out -- "I would love for them to be back home safe and sound." If you know anything, Whitney asks that you please contact his P.R. team at 832-455-0078.

Pets

Dogs

It's safe to assume that the whole world really, really wants a Spice Girls reunion. But, honestly, the emotional rollercoaster that comes with the "Will they or won't they" questions is getting to be too much to handle — and the latest news from Mel C. isn't helping at all. According to E! News, Sporty Spice (aka Melanie Chisholm) joked at The Prince's Trust Awards about Melanie Brown's insistence that the '90s girl group had been invited to the royal wedding. "There's been quite a lot of press interest there, my invite hasn't turned up yet," she said. "It was all that snow. I think the mail's been a bit held up in the snow. I think [Brown] was joking. I think the media ran with it a little bit." Can you really blame us for being excited, Sporty? As if the news that the women would probably not be performing at Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's nuptials wasn't bad enough, Chisholm then seemed to shut down all of our hopes and dreams for a future reunion tour. "We're all just dead busy," she said. "So if anything were to happen, it wouldn't be now." All of this is so confusing, because it seems to both contradict and align with many of the reports we've been hearing over the past month. Let's go back to the beginning and break this whole thing down. The photo and the statement On February 2, the five women posed for the above Instagram photo together. Later that evening, they released a statement announcing that they have plans for "some incredible new opportunities." "We have enjoyed a wonderful afternoon catching up and reminiscing about the amazing times we have spent together," the statement read. "We are always overwhelmed at how much interest there is across the whole world for The Spice Girls. The time now feels right to explore some incredible new opportunities together. We all agree that there are many exciting possibilities that will once again embrace the original essence of The Spice Girls, while reinforcing our message of female empowerment for future generations." Naturally, people assumed that this meant the women might be getting ready to hit the road for a reunion tour. The denial Well, that dream was fun while it lasted (for eight measly days). On February 10, Victoria Beckham stomped her platformed boot on the prospect of a reunion in an interview with British Vogue. "I'm not going on tour," she said simply. "The girls aren't going on tour." OUCH. The budding royal friendship Beckham's statement came just after a source told Vanity Fair that the singer/designer had been giving fashion tips to bride-to-be Meghan Markle. This left some to wonder if maybe the "exciting possibilities" mentioned in the Spice Girls statement could have anything to do with Markle's marriage to Prince Harry on May 19. The royal announcement And, just like that, Brown seemed to make all of our dreams come true. On February 27, Scary Spice went on The Real and implied that she and the other Spice Girls had not only been invited to the wedding, but that they were also likely to perform. "Yeah, I'm going," she said. "I don't know if I should have just said that. Us five Spice Girls are [going]." That leads us to... The royal bummer It seems that Chisholm and Beckham are pretty aligned in their statements, which means there's a strong possibility we'll never get to see the Spice Girls take the stage as a unit again. But, for the sake of idealism, let's wait until Geri (Halliwell) Horner and Emma Bunton chime in before we jump to any dire conclusions. Read These Stories Next:The Viral Words You Need To KnowHeartbreaking Movies You Should Never Watch AloneHappy Songs That Will Instantly Put You In A Good Mood Related Video:

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Television

* MSCI Asia ex-Japan up 0.28% as HK plays catch-up * Trump says trade deal should favour U.S. * Global PMIs show manufacturing weakness * RBA cuts cash rate to record low 1% * Asian stock markets: tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4 By Andrew Galbraith SHANGHAI, July 2 (Reuters) - Asian shares wobbled on Tuesday, U.S. Treasury yields fell and gold rebounded as weak global factory activity reinforced fears about slowing growth, while doubts over whether the United States and China can pull off a trade deal also hurt sentiment. Markets in Europe are expected to extend the previous day’s rally, with financial spreadbetters seeing London’s FTSE and Paris’ CAC up 0.3% each at the open, and Frankfurt’s DAX 0.2% higher. President Donald Trump said on Monday that any trade deal with China would need to be “somewhat tilted” in favour of the United States. The U.S. government also threatened tariffs on $4 billion of additional European Union goods in a long-running dispute over aircraft subsidies. U.S. S&P 500 e-mini futures were up 0.09% and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan added 0.28%, helped by a 1.23% gain in Hong Kong shares as investors caught up to Monday’s global rally. Markets in Hong Kong had been closed on Monday for a public holiday. But Chinese blue-chips dipped 0.13% and Korean shares lost 0.3%. “Euphoria that the trade negotiations are back on the table has probably waned and again the cautious tone is getting hold of the markets,” said Prakash Sakpal, an economist with ING in Singapore. “We need to see a great deal of negotiation progress on the China-U.S. trade war. And we should also see more regional policy stimulus actually kicking in to prevent any further deterioration in economic activity across the region.” Australian shares were flat, pulling back from earlier gains after the Reserve Bank of Australia cut its benchmark cash rate by 25 basis points to a record low of 1.0%, as widely expected. However, the RBA left limited room for more reductions, raising the possibility of unconventional policy easing. Japan’s Nikkei finished up 0.11%. Global shares had rallied strongly on Monday after the United States and China agreed on the weekend to restart trade negotiations aimed at resolving their year-long trade war and Washington said it would postpone further tariffs. U.S. President Donald Trump also offered concessions, including an easing of restrictions on tech company Huawei . Yet, with the previous rounds of Sino-U.S. negotiations breaking down in acrimony, investors were now turning to the prospects of actual progress in talks to settle the dispute that has dented global trade, business investment and economic growth. The fresh U.S. tariff threats against Europe also point to a worrisome prospect of a broadening trade dispute, said Michael McCarthy, chief markets strategist at CMC Markets in Sydney, in a note to clients. “The problem is the widening of the dispute. Europe, the U.S. and China account for almost two thirds of global GDP,” he said. “An ongoing disruption to trade between these three major economies, prosecuted for domestic political purposes, could sink global growth.” Manufacturing surveys over the past 24 hours underscored those risks. Factory activity in the euro zone shrank faster last month than previously thought, and U.S. manufacturing activity slowed to a near three-year low in June. “Global manufacturing PMI took the wind from the sails of risk assets outside of those which are stock related as it becomes apparent this is a real and genuine slowdown the world is experiencing,” Greg McKenna, strategist at McKenna Macro, said in a note to clients. While stocks on Wall Street ended higher, they pared early gains that had seen the benchmark S&P 500 index briefly surpass its previous record high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.44% to 26,717.43, the S&P 500 gained 0.77% to 2,964.33 and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.06% to 8,091.16. Over recent trading sessions, risk assets have also been held back by a tempering of expectations by U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers for aggressive rate cuts at this month’s meeting. “With the easing of Sino-U.S. trade frictions there will certainly be an improvement in downward pressure on the U.S. economy, and the need for the Fed to ease will clearly lessen,” analysts at Jianghai Securities said in a note. Market expectations that the Fed would implement a relatively large rate cut in July have fallen, with the probability of a 50 basis-point cut at 17.5%, from close to 50% last week. The cautious market mood pushed the yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes lower to 2.017%, compared with its U.S. close of 2.033% on Monday, while the two-year yield, watched as a gauge of rate expectations, edged down to 1.7713% from a U.S. close of 1.787%. The safe-haven yen strengthened against the dollar, which fell 0.09% to 108.34, and the euro was flat at $1.1287. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against major rivals was 0.05% lower at at 96.792. In commodity markets, Brent crude recovered after worries over the outlook for the global economy had weighed on prices. The global benchmark was up 0.11% at $65.13 per barrel, though U.S. crude remained weaker, down 0.05% at $59.06 a barrel Spot gold retained its lustre, adding 0.52% to $1,391.26 per ounce. Reporting by Andrew Galbraith; Additional reporting by David Randall in NEW YORK Editing by Jacqueline Wong & Shri Navaratnam

Technology

Semiconductors

(Updates career history, reporting lines.) By Kristen Haunss NEW YORK, June 24 (Reuters) - UBS has hired Barry Zamore, the former head of US trading of performing leveraged loans at Credit Suisse, to run loan trading, according to sources. Zamore, who is expected to start at the bank in New York in July, will report to Philip Olesen, global head of credit trading at UBS, the sources said. A veteran of the US$880bn loan market, Zamore worked at Credit Suisse since 1993 before leaving earlier this year. He led the fight to remove loan trading assignment fees from the market. An assignment fee is charged on trades completed by banks that are not the administrative agent of the loan. Most banks, but not all, will agree to waive assignment fees for other dealers that have joined a so-called no-fee consortium, which Zamore began in the early 2000s. A UBS spokesperson declined to comment. Zamore also declined to comment. (Reporting by Kristen Haunss; Editing By Jon Methven)

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President Donald Trump on Thursday shot down rumors that he might name Mike Pompeo national security adviser while keeping him as secretary of State. “No, I wouldn’t” give Pompeo a second title, Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a congressional GOP retreat. He noted he’d spoken to Pompeo about the idea, however. “I think he’s fantastic. But I actually spoke to Mike Pompeo about that. He decided — I get along with him so well,” he continued. “We have a lot of the same views and a couple of a little different views. But he likes the idea of having somebody in there with him, and I do, too.” Trump also said he has 15 candidates in mind as possible replacements for John Bolton, whose departure he announced earlier this week after numerous disagreements about foreign affairs. POLITICO had reported on Wednesday that a wide range of people were being floated for National Security Council chief, from ambassadors to military officers to business leaders. Trump also said he received plenty of interest in the post, despite his administration’s reputation for record turnover. “Everybody wants it badly, as you can imagine,” he said. “A lot of people want the job — it’s a great job. It’s great because it’s a lot of fun to work with Donald Trump. It’s very easy actually to work with me. You know why it’s easy? Because I make all the decisions. They don’t have to work.” The prevailing assumption is that Trump will pick an NSC head who keeps a lower profile and makes a greater effort to maintain good relations with the rest of Trump’s national security team. In announcing Bolton’s departure from the administration earlier this week, Trump said he would name Bolton’s replacement next week, a timeline he reiterated Thursday. “I think we’ll have an answer for you,” he said, adding, “we’ll probably next week sometime make that decision.”

Politics

Government

Update: Fashion duo Christine Centenera and Josh Goot are back with the second installment of WARDROBE.NYC — and this time, it's with an exclusive collaboration what's pretty much guaranteed to sell out. Because if Yeezy can kill it with Adidas, so can they. The latest drop features an exclusive Adidas sneaker that taps into the ever-present "dad sneaker" trend which shows no signs of slowing down. Admittedly, the shoes pair quite well with the brand's launch of wardrobe staples for men and women in black performance textiles. For women, that takes the form of tight crop tops, bike shorts (they're the exact length you've been looking for!), airy jackets, borrowed-from-the-boys sweatpants, and more. The 10 pieces are being referred to as the "02/SPORT" release and are available today on WARDROBE.NYC for a total of $1,500. So if you're streetwear-obsessed but are looking to streamline your closet rather than chase the hype, this capsule collection will have you covered. And if you need a styling cue, look no further than Centenera herself (she's the one responsible for Kim Kardashian 2.0, after all), who took to the 'gram today to show the pieces in action. This article was originally published on December 7, 2017. The fashion world, much like the world at large, is currently in a state of flux. Between exaggerated rumors about "the death of retail," designers moving their fashion shows from New York to Paris, the combination of menswear with womenswear on the runways, and the whole "see-now, buy-now" trend, the industry is ripe for new ideas. Enter WARDROBE.NYC, a new direct-to-consumer luxury label founded by designer Josh Goot and Vogue Australia's Christine Centenera, which launches Thursday. What makes this collection different from everything else on the market is that the pieces must must be purchased as a set (you have the option of buying an eight-piece or four-piece set). "There is so much talk about a broken model and the changing landscape [of the fashion industry]," Goot tells Refinery29. "I was thinking about how to continue what I love about fashion, but with something that makes sense from a business model." He then approached Centenera with the concept. "We knew that we wanted the first collection to be focused on suiting," Centenera shares. "As a stylist, I sometimes find it difficult to find what I think is the perfect blazer or the perfect tailored white shirt — something that is not defined by a specific brand, something that is high quality and nondescript." The first offering includes a blazer, a shirt, a T-shirt, a skirt, a blouse, a coat, a knit, and leggings for women; and a blazer, a shirt, a t-shirt, a hoodie, a coat, a knit, and pants and trousers for men. All of the pieces are available in that most classic of color schemes: black and white. While the collection is not "genderless," it is not heavily gendered either, another example of its modern take on dressing. "The men's and women's capsules feel very similar and that is intentional and a core element to the brand we want to continue," explains Goot. Centenera adds: "The women's pieces have a masculine edge, and the core pieces are inspired by men's tailoring." There is something about the uniform approach of their collection that feels oddly futuristic, but also reflective of the way that many people in the fashion industry approach getting dressed. "[The label] came from a personal place, and as a result, from a place of practicality," says Centenera. "The pieces work together, but they help form a basis for other fashion to be brought in." "I feel like we are at a point in our lives where we love fashion but don't want to spend a significant amount of money in the excess of it all," Goot adds. And while the collection isn't necessarily inexpensive — $1,500 for four pieces or $3,000 for the whole eight-piece collection — when you think about how much a classic Mansur Gavriel or Stella McCartney coat retails for (about $1,000), the value is evident. "We wanted to allow people to access this quality of clothing with a reasonable price," Centenera explains, noting that the collection is designed in New York and made in Italy. "I don't think that these pieces exist in the market at this quality level at this price range." "We are excited to explore how the initial first release can evolve over time and how people can continually work [the collection] into their lives," Goot says. "We like the idea of concepts specific to the season, [and] for the next spring release, we are looking into a travel or sports-related collection." Will capsule collections become the next big trend in fashion? The answer seems to be yes, if Centenera and Goot have anything to do with it.

Fashion

Clothing

The Godmother of Soul is back! Grammy award-winning singer Erykah Badu is set to host the 2016 Soul Train awards again — and it’s no surprise after last year’s headline-making performance. One attention-grabbing moment from her 2015 hosting stint came when she declared that the R&B-focused award show isn’t for rappers and jokingly pretended to call rapper Iggy Azalea. “Iggy Azalea? Yeah, hey!” she said. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. You can come, ’cause what you’re doin’ is definitely not rap.” Azalea seemed to respond in a tweet days later, although she did not name the R&B singer. Iggy shade #SoulTrainAwards 😭 pic.twitter.com/VlNFhjX4ia — messy Jessie®🧚🏾‍♂️ (@Boothie___) November 30, 2015 “We are days from 2016, but i came online today and saw its still cool to try and discredit my 2014 accomplishments. LOL, f—— hell,” she tweeted. We are days from 2016, but i came online today and saw its still cool to try and discredit my 2014 accomplishments. LOL, fucking hell. — IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) December 1, 2015 It is unclear what Badu, 45, has planned for this year’s show, held at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, but the award ceremony’s nomination list features a bevy of music’s hottest stars. Drake leads the pack with a dozen nominations and Beyoncé follows close behind with eight for her latest album Lemonade. Grammy award-winning producer Edward Theodore “Teddy” Riley is slated to receive the coveted Legend award and singer Brandy will receive the Lady of Soul award. The 2016 Soul Train Awards will air Nov. 27 on Centric and BET.

Music

Pop

RT, the Russian broadcaster identified in January by the US intelligence community as a Kremlin propaganda arm, registered as an agent of the Russian government on Monday, the US Department of Justice said. Dana Boente, the acting assistant attorney general for national security, said in a statement that Washington-based T&R Productions, LLC, "registered today with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) as an agent for ANO TV-Novosti, the Russian government entity responsible for the worldwide broadcasts of the RT Network (RT)." "The National Security Division’s FARA Registration Unit is reviewing T&R’s filings for sufficiency," the statement added. In its January 2017 assessment of Russian interference in last year's election, the intelligence community said RT was part of the Kremlin's influence campaign. RT, which is funded by the Russian government, said in September that the Justice Department had asked it to register as a foreign agent. "The war the US establishment wages with our journalists is dedicated to all the starry-eyed idealists who still believe in freedom of speech. Those who invented it, have buried it," RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan was quoted as saying at the time. RT subsequently said it would pull advertisements in Washington that appeared to reference the intelligence community's assessment and Hillary Clinton's election loss. Monday's Justice Department statement notes that FARA registration "does not inhibit freedom of expression, does not restrict the content of information disseminated, does not restrict an agent’s lobbying or publication of information or advocacy and applies neutrally to all foreign countries." FARA, which Congress passed in 1938 to combat Nazi propaganda, is meant "to ensure that the American public and our lawmakers know the source of information that is provided at the behest of a foreign principal, where that information may be intended to influence U.S. public opinion, policy and laws," the DOJ said in its statement. "The law does not restrict registrants from operating, however." Numerous lawmakers have called on RT to register as a foreign agent since the election. FARA, a previously lesser-known and infrequently used law, has recently come to the forefront of controversies involving former key associates of President Donald Trump. In late October, the office of special counsel Robert Mueller — which is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russia government — announced it was charging Paul Manafort, Trump's one-time campaign manager, and Rick Gates, Manafort's longtime business partner, for failing to register as agents of the government of Ukraine. Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser who was fired just 24 days into the presidency after misleading the Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russian officials, has also run into FARA-related issues. In March, Flynn belatedly registered as a foreign agent, revealing that he was paid more than $500,000 to promote Turkish interests — all while serving as an adviser to Trump during the presidential race. RT also has become embroiled in Congress' investigation into Russian use of social media platforms. In early November, BuzzFeed News revealed that in a June 2016 email Twitter offered RT up to 15% of its election ad inventory in return for a $3 million payment. RT rejected the offer. In October, as pressure mounted over Russia-purchased ads on US social media platforms, Twitter announced that RT would no longer be allowed to advertise.

Politics

International Relations

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday said it would adopt rules to strengthen the regulatory framework for clearing agencies deemed systematically important or that are involved in complex transactions, such as security-based swaps. Clearing agencies act as a middlemen between the parties to securities transactions by ensuring the smooth transfer of funds and securities, and in some cases, serve as a backstop in case a brokerage defaults. The rules are aimed at preventing clearing agencies deemed “too big to fail” from collapsing and spreading systemic market risks. These include the Fixed Income Clearing Corp, the National Securities Clearing Corp and the Options Clearing Corp. “The use of clearing agencies is critical to the safety and efficiency of securities trading, enabling billions of dollars of securities to change hands smoothly every day,” said SEC Chair Mary Jo White. “At the same time, their centralized role in concentrating and managing financial exposures, which has grown significantly since the financial crisis, can raise systemic risk concerns.” A key pillar of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law was to reduce risk in the derivatives market by requiring many products to be routed through clearing houses. The SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission were tasked with policing the clearing houses and making sure they have enough resources to stay afloat. The new rules would enhance existing regulations put in place in 2014 though policies and procedures such as requiring daily stress testing, monthly review and annual validation of credit risk models. The rules would also increase capital requirements for the agencies and require them to have plans for an orderly recovery or wind-down of their operations. The SEC also agreed to consider expanding the scope of the rules to include any registered clearing agency that provides the services of a central counterparty, central securities depository or a securities settlement system. Separately, the regulator voted in favor of a proposal that if adopted, would shorten settlement times for most securities transactions to two days after a trade occurs from three days currently. The move was aimed at mitigating systemic market risk by allowing funds to be freed up faster for reinvestment while reducing credit and counterparty exposure. The idea gained steam during the 2007-09 global financial crisis as a way for firms to limit the risk associated with the person or firm on the other side of a trade defaulting. Reporting by John McCrank, editing by G Crosse

Technology

Internet

(Reuters) - Morgan Stanley (MS.N) has fired or placed on leave at least four traders over alleged mismarking of securities that concealed losses of between $100 million and $140 million, Bloomberg reported on Thursday citing people familiar with the matter. The company is investigating the suspected mismarking that was linked to emerging-market currencies and the traders were based in London and New York, according to the report. (bloom.bg/33wcdRI) A Morgan Stanley spokesman declined to comment on the report. The probe at the sixth largest U.S. bank relates to complex trading products including so-called FX options that give buyers the right to trade currencies at a set price in the future, according to Bloomberg. Reporting by Saumya Sibi Joseph in Bengaluru

Technology

Internet

More states are trying to fashion their own, better versions of daylight savings time — in part because the construct is linked to spikes in depression, disrupted sleep cycles and moderate increases in heart attacks. Quick take: In last fall's midterms, Californians voted to implement a permanent year-round daylight savings time, followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) reintroducing the Sunshine Protection Act on Wednesday to do the same thing on a national level. In New Hampshire, a bill recently passed in the State House aims to shift the state to the Atlantic time zone, which would enable a permanent shift into the 1-hour-ahead effect that daylight savings normally provides for them, per the New York Times. The catch: California's proposal could only pass with an act of Congress, and New Hampshire's bill says it will only adopt the jump to Atlantic time if other New England states do the same. The Sunshine Protection Act would require a change in the federal statute in order to move forward.

Other

Other

When you think Tim McGraw, you probably think Taylor Swift too.  Her first single, "Tim McGraw," had a big moment on Saturday night thanks to a special appearance by McGraw himself, along with Faith Hill. The country music power couple joined Swift in Nashville — where it all began for her — and fans went absolutely nuts.  Taylor Swift sang “Tim McGraw” with Tim McGraw and Faith Hall in nashville tonight and this stadium. lost. it. pic.twitter.com/Yn5SGepYEt — Ashley Lee (@cashleelee) August 26, 2018 Swift sang the first half of the love song with Hill, before introducing "the actual Tim McGraw" to finish it off in front of the sold out crowd. Swift first wrote the song in high school, and since then has performed other material with McGraw and Hill over the years as her career has taken off. She even opened for the couple on tour in 2007, which made this Nashville moment a special one.  The significance of it all sunk in with fans during and after the show, and many tweeted excitedly about the performance.  In 2006, A 16 y.o girl named Taylor Swift, wishing to be a big artist, released her debut single named "Tim McGraw".And Today After 12 years, THAT SAME GIRL sang THAT SONG with THE PERSON whom she named the song after, Tim McGraw... for the first time!I'm not crying, you're😭 — aryan♡ (@RoarlikeSwift) August 26, 2018 there was once a very brave girl who went up to Tim Mcgraw and introduced herself, her name was Taylor Swift. She then went to be the opening act of Tim and his wife, Faith Hill. In 2018, Tim and Faith are guests at Taylor’s show, in her stadium tour. Y’all mind if I cry? pic.twitter.com/BdmpAdPNQI — vicky (@IKTayWT) August 26, 2018 Taylor first single: Tim McGrawNashville: The city where it all began.Taylor opened for: Tim McGrawFlash forward:August 25,2018TAYLOR IS SINGING WITH TIM MCGRAW IN FRONT OF A SOLD OUT STADIUM IN NASHVILLE. Talk about a GLOW UP@taylorswift13 #repTourNahsville — Ashley King(REP TOUR 16 TIMES💁🏼‍♀️🙈) (@Ashzash) August 26, 2018 [during sex]me: hurt mehim: Tim McGraw was the first song Taylor swift ever released and she started her career opening up for his tour me: I know but-him: tonight she sung it to over 50,000 people in Nashville and brought him up as her special guestme, crying: stop — crystal ☾ (@swiftistrouble) August 26, 2018 Until the next time this magical moment happens, we'll just be watching this classic on loop. 

Music

Country Music

LONDON — The 19-year-old woman who left Britain to join the Islamic State and who recently spoke out about wanting to return home has given birth to a boy in a refugee camp in Syria. The woman, Shamima Begum, had recently fled the last remaining village held by the terrorist group in Syria. In a televised interview with Sky News on Sunday, Ms. Begum asked to be allowed to return to Britain. As another woman cradled her newborn, Ms. Begum also defended her actions in Syria, saying she had only taken care of her husband and children and had never made propaganda for the Islamic State or encouraged others to travel to Syria. “I think a lot of people should have, like, sympathy toward me for everything I’ve been through,” she said. “I didn’t know what I was getting into when I left. And I just was hoping that maybe for the sake of me and my child, they let me come back. Because I can’t live in this camp forever. It’s not really possible.” She also said she had no regrets about joining the Islamic State and that she had been “attracted by the propaganda videos.” A lawyer for her family, Tasnime Akunjee, said in a statement that though Ms. Begum’s family had not spoken directly to her, “we understand that both she and the baby are in good health.” Ms. Begum’s comments set off a fierce debate in Britain about the country’s obligations to a woman who was lured as a 15-year-old student to marry into the Islamic State. She was one of three schoolgirls, including Kadiza Sultana and Amira Abase, from Bethnal Green Academy in East London who left Britain to travel to Syria in February 2015. British officials had said soon after they traveled to Syria that the girls would be allowed to return home without facing charges because there was no evidence they had committed terrorism offenses. But they held to a harder line this past week, with the home secretary, Sajid Javid, saying that he would not hesitate to prevent the return of those who supported terrorist groups abroad. It is not clear how Ms. Begum may be trying to get home. Ben Wallace, Britain’s security minister, said this past week that British officials would not help rescue Ms. Begum because it was too dangerous to provide consular services in Syria. He warned that anyone who had traveled to support terrorism against the British government’s advice would, upon returning, be “questioned, investigated and potentially prosecuted for committing terrorist offenses.” Ms. Begum’s parents have said that they would raise their grandchild if their daughter was jailed upon her return. She has been living in Al Hawl refugee camp in northeastern Syria since leaving the village of Baghuz, the last speck of land under Islamic State control in Syria, as Kurdish-led forces allied with the United States closed in. Her Dutch husband, an Islamic State fighter whom she married soon after arriving in Raqqa, Syria, surrendered to Syrian fighters allied to the Kurdish-led forces. On Sunday, The Guardian published an interview with an American woman at the same refugee camp who was captured after fleeing the same territory. Hoda Muthana, 24, told the newspaper that she “deeply regrets” traveling to Syria to join the group and that she wants to return to Alabama with her 18-month-old son. Thousands of people have been streaming out of the Islamic State’s fast-shrinking territory in recent weeks. The group once ruled an area the size of Britain, but that is now all but gone. Before giving birth, Ms. Begum told The Times of London that she had lost two children — an 8-month-old son and a daughter who was nearly 2 — to illness and malnutrition in recent months, and that she feared for her then-unborn child.

Politics

International Relations

NEW YORK, June 10 (Reuters) - As U.S. stocks close in on new record highs, some investors are betting on a return of the wild ride that marked the first two months of the year. Their reasoning: the bounce-back in commodity prices that fueled much of the 13.3-percent rally in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index since its February lows is leveling off. That leaves investors facing an uncertain remainder of 2016, featuring a vote on whether Britain will stay within the European Union, the U.S. presidential election, the possibility of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, and persistent concerns about the Chinese economy. “We’ve got a very volatile summer coming up,” said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors, who said he has been raising cash and moving more money into defensive sectors such as healthcare and utilities. The S&P 500 trades 1.8 percent below its record closing high of 2,130.82, reached on May 21 of last year. The index fell 10.5 percent over the first six weeks of the year as the price of crude oil slid to 13-year lows. Recent inflows to exchange-traded products (ETPs) used to place bets on market volatility show growing expectations of more gyrations for the stock market. On a net basis, flows into short-term volatility ETPs, including the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures ETN and VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term ETN, point to substantial bets on higher volatility. This is a swing away from the start of the year, when investors were betting on calm, said Stewart Warther, an equity and derivatives strategist at BNP Paribas SA in New York. The ProShares Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF and the VXX, used to bet on higher volatility, showed four consecutive months of net flows totaling $3.56 billion between February and May, the longest streak in the last 12 months, according to Lipper data. Brian Smoluch, portfolio manager of the Hood River Small Cap Growth fund, said that he has been holding off on adding new positions on expectation that the stock market’s smooth ride through the spring will soon give way to larger swings downward. “Given the run-up recently, there seems to be a decent amount of complacency about problems that haven’t changed much in the last six months,” he said. (Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Finance

Investing

Here's the million dollar question that comes to mind when watching the markets this week: Are we seeing a healthy dip, or is this the moment when the Trump rally gets derailed. Either way, it's essential for investors to be aware of the sectors that saw the biggest inflows since President Trump won the election. These sectors, including energy, financials, industrials and health care, have been the most heavily influenced. And they are going to present the biggest opportunities, whichever way the market moves. The S&P 500 Financial sector was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Trump trade because investors were hoping that the U.S. president and his administration would be able to relax regulations. The index is still handsomely above the 200-day and 100-day moving averages. Nevertheless weakness has started as it has broken the 50-day moving average. With the Federal Reserve not being too hawkish and taking a very methodological approach to interest rates hikes, the index could easily give up another 13 percent from its current price, bringing it in line with its 200 day moving average. This is the point where institutional money is always interested in buying. Investors trading the energy sector were very optimistic when Trump was elected because this gave them hope that Trump was going to bring fossil fuel back. Although he has repeatedly called coal "clean and beautiful" and he has made a major headway with North Dakota pipeline, the index performance has been vile. This is in large part due to the tug war between OPEC and U.S. shale producers and is a major concern for investors. Until and unless we see the demand side picking up, I think extra supply is going to hurt the market. The price of the S&P 500 Energy sector is trading below the 50, 100 and 200 day moving average which tells us that the trend is strongly towards the downside. Moreover, we have given up all those gains which started with Trump winning the elections. If shorting (selling the stock to buy at a lower price) is not your thing, then perhaps stay on the side lines. The S&P 500 Health Care sector made a tremendous move when Trump won the election as he was going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something new. Passage of the replacement bill in Congress is uncertain at best. Trump has also said that he will reduce the trial period of various drug trials. Reducing the drug trials can bring some new innovation to the market at a much faster pace and this could be beneficial for the healthcare sector. The sector is holding well so far, though some signs of weakness are surfacing. The price is well above all those three important averages and we are nearly 8.86 percent higher since Trump won the election. Still, the pessimism around Trump's capabilities to repeal and replace could push the index lower and cause disappointment. Hence, the trade may be to wait for price to come down to a level which makes it more attractive. The S&P 500 Industrial sector is the most talked about sector since Trump won the election and we are up more than 12 percent from that day. The question investors are asking now is will Congress be able to pass all those mammoth plans which Donald Trump has talked about. Traders considered Trump's victory as food from manna and are heavily invested in this sector. But things are changing as we have not heard anything material on this topic lately. Trump has delayed his plans to give any clearance on infrastructure action and in this scenario, time is money. The more the delay, the worse the performance of the sector could be. Thus, I think we could see the price of the S&P 500 Industrials dropping all the way to $520. It is essential to keep in mind that the price has already broken the 50-day moving average-the blood is there! When Trump took office there was so much optimism around the infrastructure spending in the U.S. This inflated the price of copper as it is an essential ingredient of infrastructure. Now there are some serious doubts about whether his one trillion dollar infrastructure spending plan will get approval and this is evaporating the gains in copper. I am expecting this rally to fade further as Trump is failing to convince the market. The price of copper has retraced -37.9 percent from its high (when normalised as of 8th of November 2016). This is also impacting on the firms which are part of the S&P500 index and the index has also retraced -15.05 percent from its high (normalised as of 8th of November). If the copper price continues to drop, it will take more steam out of the S&P500 index. This is purely because a number of firms are involved in building infrastructure. If we look at different metals and compare them, there is one thing that becomes clear. Palladium is a very interesting investment and it has shown that it is completely Trump-proof. Hence we need to look at this opportunity as the metal is trading on its own merit and is immune to Trump pessimism or optimism. Commentary by Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at ThinkMarkets. Follow him on Twitter @NAEEMASLAM23.

Finance

Investment

Modern Love And I was that man. “Stay here and guard the castle,” I would say to my dog, Dusty, every time I left our condo. Over the years, his eyes — one blue, one brown — had become washed with gray, his sight was failing, and his hips were becoming tight. He was hardly a guard dog. When I came home, he no longer greeted me at the door but would raise his nose in welcome. I gave him peanut butter for his bravery, sometimes with painkillers to help with his hips. Eleven years earlier, I adopted Dusty-Danger Dog (his full name) from the Town Lake Animal Shelter in Austin. I stopped by the shelter one day, came back the next, and Dusty was the only dog who remembered me. He had pointy ears like a giant fox and was at risk of being euthanized. Since then, he and I traveled the country in my bumper-stickered Toyota pickup, visiting 28 states while putting 290,000 miles on that truck. During our years in Austin, Dusty became a local legend, helping to raise thousands of dollars for nonprofit organizations such as Austin Bat Cave and the Fusebox Festival. For a monetary donation to the nonprofit, Dusty and I would take someone’s dog on a special date, and I would write an essay about it for the donor. This raised a surprisingly large amount of money. For this, Austin’s mayor proclaimed August 17 (this very weekend!) “Dusty-Danger Dog Day,” citing Dusty’s “meaningful contributions to the city and people of Austin with volunteerism, fund-raising and four-legged ambassadorship for the arts, environment, education and health.” On a personal level, Dusty became the manager of my life. He got me up in the morning with a lick to my face. When he ate, I ate. In the middle of the day, he forced me to turn off my computer and go for a walk. I enjoyed the sun on my face and the smell of wildflowers. We shared sandwiches and pizza and watched comic-book movies together. Dusty never cared if I changed my clothes. I would read to him from my favorite book, “The Little Prince,” lines like: “You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” I had those words tattooed to my arm. Dusty taught me everything I needed to know about life, but over the years there had been something missing. My friends Ben and Rachel insisted I join a dating app to expand my horizons. That’s how they met, but I loathed the idea. Why would I want to expand my life? I had a dog, a place to live, a pickup truck smothered in bumper stickers. But out of curiosity (or God knows what), I humored them. I created a Tinder account with a picture of Dusty as my profile picture. No one matched with me until Rachel explained that I was swiping in the wrong direction. The first time I swiped right, I matched. On my date with Ilse, we had salad and calamari. She was shy, lovely and, as a person with diabetes, checked her blood sugar when food came. On our second date, we drank wine, bowled at a speakeasy, and talked about Dusty and her cats, Dori Ann Gray and Oscar Wilde. On our third date, Ilse held my hand and shared that she had been assaulted in New Orleans in June, years ago. As a result, June makes her sad, and so does New Orleans, a town she loved and lost, and Dusty and I had come to love in our travels. As a landscape architect, she works with plants and water. She doesn’t like comic-book movies and watches the Hallmark Channel. She makes me eat brussels sprouts, which are surprisingly tolerable on pizza. With Dusty everything was safe and there was never a compromise, but with Ilse I had to listen and negotiate. Ilse knew how to manage her life, and she made me change. Sometimes she made me change my clothes. After a year of dating, Ilse began pushing for marriage, an idea that terrified me. I’m not afraid of commitment; I’m afraid of divorce, of failure. But I was also afraid of losing Ilse. She said it’s difficult for an entrepreneurial woman in her 30s to find love with someone who has a good job and is nice to animals. We had a back and forth, like playing chess. For every argument I made for not getting married and giving up my perfect life, she had a better counter argument. She used words like “us” and “ours,” words I had previously reserved for my relationship with Dusty. One evening, Ilse said if I wasn’t going to be with her, I had to let her go so she could find someone else. As much as I loved my dog and my perfect life, I didn’t want to lose Ilse, especially knowing I was about to lose Dusty, whose health had deteriorated to the point where he could barely walk. The next morning, I told Dusty, as usual, to stay home and guard the castle. I was driving to the University of Texas at San Antonio at 5:30 a.m. to lecture about subjectivity and causality when I was hit from behind by what I think was a drunken driver. The collision launched my truck, at 70 miles per hour, into a cement barrier, where it was ripped to pieces. The force of the impact peeled two of my bumper stickers from the tailgate. If it weren’t for the airbag, I would be dead. As the paramedics cut me from the truck, all I said was: “Take care of my dog, take care of my dog, take care of my dog.” In that moment, coughing from airbag dust, I thought none of this was worth anything unless I had something more to live for. So I designed an elaborate, weeklong wedding proposal that included a writing class, rock climbing and a party at an urban winery. After Ilse said yes, she moved into what is now our condo, bringing her cat, Dori, who became fast friends with Dusty, napping together and sharing food. My goal was to marry in June so Ilse could reclaim that month with a fond memory. I asked Dusty to be in my wedding party. “Maybe he can tie my tie,” I thought. Ilse and I registered for small appliances and dishes. Everything changed. Two weeks before our wedding, Dusty caught his paw on the rug as he tried to get up from his nap with Dori. He hit the floor hard and whimpered. I held him and gave him peanut butter with painkillers. He looked at Ilse as she stacked wedding gifts in our office, and then he looked at me. His eyes said, “It’s time.” I took Dusty for one last walk so he could feel the sun on his nose. We had treats and watched a comic-book movie together. The vet gave him drugs. Dusty died at home, in my arms, his nose on my knee, only days before Ilse and I got married. As he closed his eyes, I whispered, “I’ll guard the castle.” We wrapped him in blankets, placed him in a basket and a white van took him away. Within minutes I was lost, pacing the living room, looking out the window for the white van to come back, hoping the vet had made a mistake, wishing everything could return to the way it had been. Ilse asked if I wanted to hike or swim to take my mind off Dusty, but I couldn’t. “All I ask is you smile for pictures,” Ilse said as our wedding approached. We had been taking classes for our first dance to Wilco’s “California Stars,” the song we first danced to in my kitchen, and I could hardly shuffle my feet. When I went to pick up Dusty’s ashes at the funeral home, they also gave me wildflower seeds to plant in his name. I placed his urn in the back seat of my new car and belted it in. We drove by our favorite pizzeria, our favorite parks, our favorite everythings in Austin, and as we drove, I thought I saw Dusty’s shape in a cloud. I knew he would always be with me. On the day of the wedding, I led a team of true believers to Town Lake, not far from where I adopted Dusty, to plant those wildflowers. I bought kazoos and we gave him a 21-kazoo salute. Five hours later, after my groomsmen had tied my tie, Ilse and I stood before friends and family as my best man read from “The Little Prince,” ending with: “You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.” I thought I had been responsible for Dusty, but really he had been responsible for me, and now he was passing the torch to Ilse, my new partner for smelling the wildflowers. With the sun on my face, I said, “I do.” Timothy Braun is a writer in Austin, Tex. He wrote previously in Modern Love about his early years with Dusty. Modern Love can be reached at [email protected]. To hear Modern Love: The Podcast, subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music. To read past Modern Love columns, click here. Continue following our fashion and lifestyle coverage on Facebook (Styles and Modern Love), Twitter (Styles, Fashion and Weddings) and Instagram.

Pets

Dogs

* H1 current operating profit 138.3 mln euros vs est. 143.3 mln * Eyes flat current operating profit in FY 2019/20 * CEO cautious on Hong Kong, confident on China, U.S. in H2 * Eric Vallat replaces Valerie Chapoulaud-Floquet as CEO on Dec. 1 (Adds CEO comments from call, shares, analyst) By Dominique Vidalon PARIS, Nov 28 (Reuters) - The departing boss of Remy Cointreau said on Thursday she did not foresee any improvement soon in demand for cognac in Hong Kong where falling tourism tied to the political protests dented profit in the first half of the year. Valerie Chapoulaud-Floquet was more confident about prospects in mainland China, where “massively good” demand during the mid-autumn festival boded well for business during the key Chinese New Year festivities in January. Chapoulaud-Floquet, the architect of Remy Cointreau’s push towards higher-priced spirits to drive profit margins, will be replaced on Dec. 1 by Richemont’s Eric Vallat.. “I think volatility will be more than ever part of the reality. We are facing a quite negative situation in Hong Kong,” she said, highlighting the challenges facing the future CEO. She was speaking after Remy Cointreau predicted that its current operating profit for the year would be flat because of a weaker than expected first half as falling tourism in Hong Kong and promotional spending hit earnings. The group’s share price has more than doubled since Chapoulaud-Floquet, a luxury sector specialist, took over in September 2014 with a strategy focused on selling spirits priced at $50 or more a bottle. The strategy has also benefited from a rebound in Chinese demand. “We are on the right track and we will continue to invest behind our brands,” she said. The French company on Thursday kept its medium-term outlook, reiterating its aim to generate 60%-65% of turnover from spirits sold at $50 a bottle or more and its ambition to become “the world leader in exceptional spirits”. Current group operating profit for the six months to Sept. 30 reached 138.3 million euros ($152.4 million), lagging a company-compiled consensus from 15 analysts who forecast current operating profit of 143.3 million euros. By 1038 GMT, Remy Cointreau shares were down 2.9% as analysts focused on the flat profit guidance for the year, which lagged the market consensus for a 4% rise. “We like Remy’s category exposure and vision for the company as a super-premium business. However we see risk of de-rating against high valuation given negative earnings revisions and low visibility on timing of recovery,” said Jefferies analysts. Operating profit at the Remy Martin cognac division, which makes over 80% of group profit, reached 126.9 million euros in the first half. This marked a like-for-like rise of 0.9%, below analysts expectations for 1.4% growth. This reflected the good demand for cognac in mainland China where sales of the group’s cognac categories were growing at double-digit rate, but also the fall in tourism in Hong Kong and slower than anticipated stock replenishment by U.S retailers. “We had a slow start in the U.S. but I am very confident for the second half,” Chapoulaud-Floquet said. Remy Cointreau group sales fell an already reported 3.6% in the first half on a like-for-like basis. $1 = 0.9073 euros Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Edmund Blair and David Evans

Technology

E-commerce

Republican presidential front-runner Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpPossible GOP challenger says Trump doesn't doesn't deserve reelection, but would vote for him over Democrat O'Rourke: Trump driving global, U.S. economy into recession Manchin: Trump has 'golden opportunity' on gun reforms MORE late Wednesday declined to attack rival Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump moves forward with F-16 sale to Taiwan opposed by China The Hill's Campaign Report: Battle for Senate begins to take shape O'Rourke says he will not 'in any scenario' run for Senate MORE in the wake of news that the Texas senator misreported campaign finances, but he did acknowledge that it was a “very big thing.” “Well, I heard it’s a big thing. I know nothing about it. But I hear it’s a very big thing,” Trump said in an interview on Bloomberg News's “With All Due Respect.” “I hope he solves it. I think he’s a nice guy and I hope he gets it solved.” The New York Times reported Wednesday evening that Cruz did not disclose a loan from Goldman Sachs, where his wife works, to his 2012 Senate campaign. Trump has previously attacked GOP primary rivals for being beholden by big donors, flaunting his personal wealth as an aegis against the corrupting influence of money in politics. The billionaire businessman also responded to a Cruz attack that he “embodies New York values.” “When you want to knock New York, you’ve got to go through me,” Trump said. “New York is an amazing place with amazing people.” Trump said New York’s resilient spirit was never on greater display than in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “We took a big hit with the World Trade Center — worst thing ever, worst attack ever in the United States, worse than Pearl Harbor because they attacked civilians, they attacked people having breakfast,” Trump said. “And, frankly, if you would’ve been there and if you would’ve lived through that like I did with New York people, the way they handled that attack was one of the most incredible things that anybody has ever seen,” he added. Trump also said that he and Cruz have a similarly “strong temperaments.” “Honestly, I don’t know. He’s had a very nice temperament,” he said of Cruz. “He has a lot of problems with a lot of people. I can say there’s a lot of people that probably don’t like him.” “They don’t want to be called, you know, liars on the Senate floor and, frankly, it’s pretty tough stuff. But at the same time, he’s very upset like I am.” View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

US

Labor Day is summer's last stand—a final excuse to kick it with your squad, gluttonize some gluten, and, of course, not work in the slightest! But for us here at THUMP, our work is luckily to spread good music to lovely people like yourselves, so we're using the holiday as an excuse to share some of our favorite BBQ-friendly tracks. There's some serious heat (see what we did there?) in the embeds below—from the classic deep house of Pepe Bradock, to Craig David, and Yves Tumor's souful falsetto. Throw on some oven mitts, crack a cold one, and get cooking. Cameo's Kevin Kendrick's psychedelic robo-funk ode to disarming power of the human silhouette was included on a strange vinyl-only compilation of Atlanta music that McDonald's (yes, the fast food juggernaut) put together in the 80s. With that in mind, it's got just about everything you could ask for from a good BBQ—a tight ass, a brand new pair of blue jeans, and America's leading burger-slingers at your back. —Colin Joyce Earl Jeffers - "Gloria" Put the one on just as you're loading up the freshly-charred hot dogs and hamburgers onto a serving platter—the classic house groove will work up everyone's appetite, and those magically tinkling, chime-like keys are the closest thing you'll get to throwing a puff of glitter in the air as you present the (grilled) fruits of your labor to your friends. If you time it right, those velvety moans will come in just as everyone starts to ooh and aah. That's when you smile, graciously accept everyone's praise of your impeccable food and track pairing, and say, "can you believe this dude is from Wales?!" —Michelle Lhooq "Honey, that side's ready—flip the damn thing!" "No, a little longer," you plead, as that succulent patty slowly starts to bubble droplets of fat upward toward the sky like a geyser of pure American emotion. What better accompaniment to your masterpiece of a burger than—no, not ketchup!—Pepe Bradock's seminal deep house anthem "Deep Burnt"? There has never been a more fitting soundtrack to the sizzling, the sumptuous, the straight up scorching slice of life that's on your grill. Savor it until there's nothing left. Repeat. —David Garber Mood Hut - "Better" When you've been barbecuing for hours, the late summer sun's beating down, and you're still dutifully flipping over eggplant slices on a 500 degree charcoal grill—you need something to take you to another place. Mood Hut's always a reliable candidate for teleportation, but their mid-August single's spacey disco breeze is the most likely to take you somewhere cooler, calmer, more relaxed, or, as the title of the track simply puts it, "Better." —Colin Joyce Craig David and Big Narstie - "When The Bassline Drops" The secret to any good BBQ is a chilled host. No one's going to have fun if you're flipping out that you've not bought enough of those toothpicks with the tiny flags rather than flipping burgers with a big, fat grin on your face. So do yourself a favor and before the guests arrive, blast UK garage's favorite comeback kid Craig David's sunny belter with Big Narstie, "When The Bassline Drops". David crooning "Bringing you them vibes, ready for the weekend / Don't matter where you are as long as you're here with me," over that classic garage bassline will relax you faster than a xanax. —Anna Codrea-Rado Yves Tumor - "The Feeling When You Walk Away" Blood Orange's new record has gotten me into a bit of a soul kick, and this gem, off Yves Tumor's new album Serpent Music (which arrives on PAN at the end of this month) is as stirring as anything on Freetown Sound. Yves' falsetto is distant and drenched in reverb—it sounds like he's singing to a lover walking down a long tunnel—and those blues-y guitar riffs strumming along to a lackadaisical gait conjure the sweet kind of melancholy that the end of summer brings. —Michelle Lhooq Black Cock Records - "Juicy Sushi" Everything you know about the art of a summer BBQs is wrong. Forget burgers. Hot dogs? Nah. Chicken? Never heard of it. Sushi is the answer—juicy sushi, with a side of glorious disco to make it go down easy. Enter Black Cock Records's unattributed but highly sought after 1994 edit—you got it, "Juicy Sushi." Guarded by the likes of Krystal Klear and Floating Points, the belter's "Made In USA" vocal line will keep the patriots in check, while the barrage of horns sneak down into your innards like bumps of high octane wasabi. —David Garber

Music

Hip Hop

* Asian stock markets: tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4 * MSCI ex-Japan ticks up, Japan’s Nikkei stumbles * Chinese shares on firm footing on stimulus hopes * Japan’s GDP shrinks at fastest pace in 6 years * Singapore downgrades growth outlook due to coronavirus By Swati Pandey SYDNEY, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Asian shares reversed earlier losses on Monday and moved back toward a three-week top as Chinese efforts to cushion the blow from a coronavirus outbreak cheered investors, although Japanese stocks faltered amid growing recession risks. Trading is expected to be light as U.S. stocks and bond markets will be shut on Monday for a public holiday. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was a tad firmer at 557.30, not far from last week’s peak of 558.30, which was the highest since late January. The gains were helped largely by Chinese shares with the blue-chip index adding 0.4% after the country’s central bank lowered one of its key interest rates and injected more liquidity into the system. Also whetting risk appetite was an announcement by China’s Finance Minister on Sunday that Beijing would roll out targeted and phased tax and fee cuts. Fears about the jolt to the world economy from the coronavirus still lingered though as the number of reported new cases in China rose to 2,048 as on Sunday from 2,009 the previous day. Restrictions were tightened further in Hubei on Sunday with most vehicles banned from the roads and companies told to stay shut until further notice. China’s “containment measures suggest that activity is only likely to normalise by mid-March at best and more likely end Q1,” said Jefferies analyst Sean Darby. “The question remains over the degree of stimulus to be required given the country’s fiscal position.” Japan’s Nikkei stumbled 0.7% after the country’s economy shrank at the fastest pace in the December quarter since the second quarter of 2014. The hit to the world’s third-largest economy comes amid fresh concerns about weakness in the current quarter, as the coronavirus damages output and tourism, stoking fears Japan may be on the cusp of a recession. Trade-dependent Singapore downgraded its 2020 economic growth forecast due to the coronavirus, while China’s economy is also widely expected to take a sharp hit. Asia’s woes have yet to spread elsewhere, with Wall Street indexes scaling record highs. E-Mini futures for the S&P500 were up 0.2% in Asian trading on Monday. Talk of a U.S. middle class tax cut and a proposal to encourage everyday Americans to invest in the equities market boosted share market sentiment late last week, Betashares chief economist David Bassanese said. Bassanese had misgivings about the plan, saying it reminded him of former U.S. President George Bush encouraging Americans to buy a home during a housing boom. “It adds to my suspicion that this decade-long bull market could eventually end via a blow-off bubble, driven by central bank persistent low interest rate policy,” he said in a note. Later in the week, flash manufacturing activity data for February are due for the Eurozone, the United Kingdom and the United States, which is likely to capture at least some of the early impact of the viral epidemic. Action was relatively muted in the currency markets, with the dollar a tad firmer against the yen at 109.81. It was unchanged on the pound at $1.3047 and a tad weaker on the euro at $1.0837. The risk-sensitive Aussie, which is also played as a liquid proxy for the Chinese yuan, ticked up to $0.6723. That left the dollar index flat at 99.141. In commodities, gold inched lower to $1,582.27 an ounce. Oil futures slipped with Brent crude down 34 cents at $56.98 a barrel and U.S. crude off 12 cents at $51.93. Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Richard Pullin and Sam Holmes

Finance

Investment

An Arctic blast striking the Midwest carried over into the eastern U.S., bringing record-low temperatures to parts of New York, Vermont and Ohio on Wednesday, AP reports. Why it matters: "The frigid airmass produced mid-winter conditions" in November, meteorologist with the National Weather Service Mark Bloomer told AP. Snow and ice have resulted in at least four deaths in auto accidents in the Plains and throughout the Midwest, per Weather.com. The state of play: Nearly 30% of the continental U.S. is covered in snow, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the second-greatest Nov. 12 measure since monitoring started in 2003. "[M]ore than a hundred locations are expected to tie or set new low-temperature records," the National Weather Service writes. Record low temperatures, per AP: New York City. Buffalo, N.Y. Burlington, Vt. Parts of Ohio. Areas in Pennsylvania. Birmingham, Ala., and more "than 100 other sites in Alabama." Mississippi. What's next: Forecasters expect temperatures to drop further late Wednesday and into Thursday morning in some locations, per AP. Go deeper: Arctic blast set to spread across the U.S. in record cold snap Snow storm strikes the Midwest Early blizzard demolishes harvests already threatened by spring floods Editor's note: This article has been updated with the latest weather forecast.

Weather

Snow

I arrive at the Philippine General Hospital early. Stalls outside the building offer fruits and pork skewers for sale. The day is cloudy but heat hangs on the body. My host soon appears: Edsel Salvaña, a clinical associate professor of infectious diseases at the hospital. We plan to talk about an alarming rise in HIV cases in the Philippines. The number is still small in comparison to that of many African countries. But the Philippines has seen the steepest increase in Asia in recent years. According to the Department of Health’s most recent data, a decade ago two people a day were newly diagnosed with HIV on average. Now the figure stands at 32 people a day. Dr Salvaña is generous with his time. The hospital was erected more than a century ago, and then largely rebuilt after Manila’s destruction in the second world war. We first admire the huge paintings on the walls (copies of the originals) within the colonial entrance. They depict the history of medicine in the Philippines, from animistic rituals and incantations to Christian ministrations and thence to American interventions and the modern era. Demons disappear, replaced by scrubs and surgical masks. Walking through corridors beside crumbling courtyards, Dr Salvaña jokes that it looks like a war zone. The hospital has 1,500 beds, and people in need of help queue outside from 4am. The doctors can only see so many people in a day: usually the staff send home those people who are still outside after four hours. Patients who make it inside lie on rickety beds, drips in their skinny arms. In mixed wards “watchers”—relatives or sometimes hired helpers—attend to patients more often than nurses. Flattened cardboard underneath the beds of the sick hints at where they sleep.Up a steep set of slippery green stairs, we come to the HIV clinic. It is quieter and darker here, with those waiting to be seen sitting meekly on stools lining the corridor. Inside the clinic, flimsy curtains separate consulting spaces from each other. Privacy is a privilege rarely afforded. Dr Salvaña returned from America a decade ago to find that HIV, almost unheard of while he studied at medical school in Manila, had come back. Precisely why is hard to know. One hypothesis is that attitudes to homosexuality have become more relaxed even as condom use in this largely Catholic country continues to be discouraged: those who sit in the cubicles, often fearful and alone, are almost always young men. Employment patterns may also provide an explanation. As call centres have boomed in the country over the past two decades—the industry now employs more people in the Philippines than it does in India—large groups of young people have grown used to working late en masse, giving them more opportunity to pair up. A law signed by President Rodrigo Duterte in December boosts the provision of free treatments to those affected; it also aims to eliminate stigma surrounding the virus, such as the inaccurate stereotype that only sex workers contract HIV. But these measures only go so far. “Better drugs are available to richer countries but they are not yet available in the Philippines,” laments Dr Salvaña. What’s more, a particular subtype of the virus, different to that which is most common in America and Europe, is plaguing the Philippines. Mounting data suggest it develops resistance to existing treatment drugs more quickly than other strains, and that it is also more easily transmitted and progresses to AIDS more rapidly. Important research into this subtype occurs at the hospital itself. But progress comes too slowly to help patients who show strong resistance to treatment today. “We keep them on the medication and I basically just watch them die,” concedes the physician. At the entrance to the hospital’s medical school, a statue of a torch-bearing maiden stands on top of a skull, representing the triumph of science over death. In the Philippines’ fight against HIV, that battle is too often lost.

Other

Other

STOCKHOLM, June 13 (Reuters) - A Swedish government proposal to reduce the size of the currency reserve could be in violation of EU regulations and encroaches on the independence of the Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank Governor Stefan Ingves said on Tuesday. “As far as I can judge, it is designed in such a way that it violates EU regulations, it encroaches on the independence of the Riksbank and it makes it harder for us to handle financial stability,” he said in a parliament hearing. The centre-left government proposed in March to reduce the central bank’s currency reserve by around 200 billion crowns ($22.98 billion) and use that money to pay off on the country’s sovereign debt. ($1 = 8.7033 Swedish crowns) (Reporting by Johan Ahlander; editing by Niklas Pollard)

Finance

Banking

March 13 (Reuters) - Below are company-related news and stories from French and Benelux media which could have an impact on the region’s markets or individual stocks. BEl: Bel announced on Thursday the signing of an agreement to acquire All In Foods. The company also published an operating profit for FY up at 211 million euros., Bollore reported on Thursday an operating income for FY up at 1.63 billion euros. France will close from Monday all nurseries, schools and universities to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus, President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address, calling the outbreak the nation’s worst public health crisis in a century. Klepierre announced on Thursday that between February 22 and March 11, footfall in it’s Italian malls fell by 30%. Rubis published on Thursday a reported net profit group share for FY up at 307 million euros. Unibail Rodamco published on Thursday a net result for FY of 87.8 million euros, and announced a proposed dividend of 10.80 euro for 2019. Pan-European market data: European Equities speed guide................... FTSE Eurotop 300 index.............................. DJ STOXX index...................................... Top 10 STOXX sectors........................... Top 10 EUROSTOXX sectors...................... Top 10 Eurotop 300 sectors..................... Top 25 European pct gainers....................... Top 25 European pct losers........................ Main stock markets: Dow Jones............... Wall Street report ..... Nikkei 225............. Tokyo report............ FTSE 100............... London report........... Xetra DAX............. Frankfurt items......... CAC-40................. Paris items............ World Indices..................................... Reuters survey of world bourse outlook......... European Asset Allocation........................ Reuters News at a glance: Top News............. Equities.............. Main oil report........... Main currency report.....

Technology

Software

Bret Stephens If you follow the news from Israel, you might surmise that Benjamin Netanyahu’s days as prime minister are numbered. The police recommend that he be charged on multiple counts of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Fresh charges may yet be brought in additional investigations. A former top aide to Netanyahu agreed this week to serve as a witness against him. Press reports suggest a man clinging to power. Don’t be so sure. If an election were held tomorrow, Bibi — as Netanyahu is universally known in Israel — and his Likud party would likely win, according to recent polls. Roughly half of Israelis think the prime minister should quit, but that’s down from 60 percent in December. Netanyahu has no intention of resigning, even if the attorney general chooses to indict him. The Likud rank-and-file remain loyal to their leader. His coalition partners may detest him, but for now they see greater political advantage in a wounded prime minister than in a fresh one. Besides, Bibi has been, for Israelis, a pretty good prime minister. Some indicators: Economy: Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, the economy has grown by nearly 30 percent in constant dollars — nearly twice the growth rate of Germany or the United States. Some 3.6 million tourists visited Israel in 2017, a record for the Jewish state. On Monday, Israel announced a $15 billion dollar deal to export natural gas to Egypt from its huge offshore fields. Diplomacy: Netanyahu’s personal ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are exceptionally close, as they are with Japan’s Shinzo Abe. Israel’s relations with African countries and the Arab world are the best they’ve been in decades; reaction in Riyadh and Cairo to the Trump administration’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem amounted to a shrug. Netanyahu’s 2015 speech to Congress opposing the Iran deal, billed as an affront to the Obama administration, turned out to be an inspiration for Israel’s neighbors. And Netanyahu’s arguments against the deal now prevail in the current White House. Security: In 2002, at the height of the second intifada, Israelis suffered more than 400 terrorism fatalities. In 2017 there were fewer than two dozen. Two wars in and around Gaza, both initiated by Hamas, were devastating for Palestinians but resulted in relatively few Israeli casualties. The Israeli Air Force lost an F-16 after coming under heavy Syrian antiaircraft fire, but that seems to have been a fluke. For the most part, Israel has been able to strike Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah targets at will. None of this makes much of an impression on non-Israelis. Diaspora Jews were infuriated last year by the government’s backtracking on a plan to let men and women pray together at the Western Wall. Israel’s bad decision to forcibly deport African migrants has stirred additional, and warranted, indignation. And then there are the Palestinians. The central complaint of Netanyahu’s critics is that he has failed to make good on the promise of his 2009 speech at Bar-Ilan University, where he claimed to accept the principle of a Palestinian state. Subsidiary charges include his refusal to halt settlement construction or give former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad a sufficient political boost. It should go without saying that a Palestinian state is a terrific idea in principle — assuming, that is, that it resembles the United Arab Emirates. But Israelis have no reason to believe that it will look like anything except the way Gaza does today: militant, despotic, desperate and aggressive. Netanyahu’s foreign critics are demanding that he replicate on a large scale what has failed catastrophically on a smaller scale. It’s an absurd ask. It’s also strange that the same people who insist that Israel help create a Palestinian state in order to remain a democracy seem so indifferent to the views of that democracy. Israel’s political left was not destroyed by Netanyahu. It was obliterated one Palestinian suicide bombing, rocket salvo, tunnel attack and rejected statehood offer at a time. Bibi’s long tenure of office is the consequence, not the cause, of this. Specifically, it is the consequence of Israel’s internalization of the two great lessons of the past 30 years. First, that separation from the Palestinians is essential — in the long term. Second, that peace with the Palestinians is impossible — in the short term. The result is a policy that amounts to a type of indefinite holding pattern, with Israel circling a runway it knows it cannot yet land on even as it fears running out of gas. The risks here are obvious. But it’s hard to imagine any other sort of approach, which is why any successor to Netanyahu will have to pursue essentially identical policies — policies whose chief art will consist in fending off false promises of salvation. There’s a long Jewish history of this. For all of his flaws, few have done it as well as Bibi, which is why he has endured, and will probably continue to do so.

Politics

Government

Dec 19 (Reuters) - Chia Chang Co Ltd : * Says its unit Chia Corporation sells 51 percent stake in Suzhou-based precision electronic hardware company, at price of up to 5.6 million yuan Source text in Chinese: goo.gl/wSZLQs Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)

Technology

Manufacturing

Chris Correa, a former scouting director for the St. Louis Cardinals who was fired for his role in hacking the database of the Houston Astros, pleaded guilty on Friday in United States District Court in Houston to five counts of unauthorized access to a protected computer. In a highly unusual situation for professional sports involving two teams that went to the postseason in 2015, Mr. Correa, 35, who was dismissed in early July after the case emerged, now faces sentencing in April, with a maximum penalty on each count of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. No other members of the Cardinals organization were charged. Hours after the plea, Major League Baseball issued a statement in which it said it was anticipating that the federal authorities would “share with us the results of their investigation at the appropriate time.” After that, Major League Baseball added, “we will determine what further actions to take.” Those actions could include a fine assessed against the Cardinals or a loss of draft picks by the club. From the start, the case pointed to the increased use of computer-driven analytics in baseball and other sports. According to court documents, Mr. Correa gained access to the Astros’ database from March 2013 through June 2014. Mr. Correa was then the Cardinals’ baseball development director, helping the team’s baseball operations department with analytics, and he became the scouting director in December 2014. The court filing shows that his pattern of unauthorized access fit neatly with the draft-driven calendar followed by baseball officials, including Jeff Luhnow, the Astros’ general manager and Mr. Correa’s former boss with St. Louis. Mr. Correa was completing a graduate degree in psychology at the University of Michigan in 2009 when he was hired to do draft analytics for the Cardinals. He then worked under Mr. Luhnow, who oversaw the Cardinals’ drafts until leaving for Houston in December 2011. At that point, according to the summary of the charges, a former Cardinals employee was told to turn over his Cardinals laptop and password to Mr. Correa. The former employee — most likely Mr. Luhnow or Sig Mejdal, now a top Astros analyst — used a “similar (albeit obscure) password” for his Astros email and other accounts, according to the court documents, and Mr. Correa used that password to breach the Astros’ system, known as Ground Control. In late March 2013, a time when teams were feverishly scouting amateur talent in preparation for the draft, Mr. Correa downloaded a file containing the Astros’ rankings for all players eligible for the 2013 draft, with their proposed bonuses, injury histories and expected potential. On June 8, the third day of that draft, Mr. Correa gained access to Ground Control to view the Astros’ information on several prospects in the draft, including three who had been selected by the Cardinals. On July 31, the day of the nonwaiver trading deadline, Mr. Correa breached Ground Control again and viewed the Astros’ notes on their trade discussions with other teams. The next March, after The Houston Chronicle published an article on Ground Control, the team changed its security protocols, requiring all users to choose new passwords, the documents stated. The day after the article appeared, Mr. Correa gained access to a former Cardinal employee’s email account — most likely Mr. Luhnow’s or Mr. Mejdal’s — and found the new web address and password for Ground Control. Minutes later, Mr. Correa was viewing Ground Control again, and he looked at 118 pages of information on draft-eligible players, trade talks and international prospects. “They were watching what the Astros were doing,” Kenneth Magidson, the United States attorney for the Southern District of Texas in Houston, told reporters after Mr. Correa’s guilty plea. He put the financial damages for all of Mr. Correa’s computer intrusions at $1.7 million. In court, Mr. Correa stated that a motive for the computer hacking was to see whether the former Cardinals employees had taken proprietary information to Houston. That assertion brought a quick response from the Astros. “The Astros refute Mr. Correa’s statement that our database contained any information that was proprietary to the St. Louis Cardinals,” Giles Kibbe, the Astros’ general counsel, said in a statement. “We have a great amount of respect for Bill DeWitt” — the Cardinals’ owner — “and the Cardinals’ organization. And we are confident that Commissioner Manfred will guide M.L.B. through this process in the best way possible.” Asked about Mr. Correa’s statement about his fears that Cardinals information had ended up in the Astros’ database, Mr. Magidson said, “It’s always a concern when we hear about information that’s not supposed to be in other people’s computers.” He added, “But again, we’re talking about the case against Mr. Correa and what he did.” In a separate interview with The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Mr. Magidson declined to say whether others might eventually be charged. He said the current investigation had been “thorough and complete.” The episode has been a painful one for the Cardinals, one of baseball’s most revered teams. They have reached the National League Championship Series nine times since 2000 and over all have won 11 World Series, second only to the Yankees. On Friday, the Cardinals issued a one-sentence statement in which they said it would be inappropriate to comment because “the court proceedings in this matter will not be completed until Mr. Correa’s sentencing.” His sentence will very likely include jail time, said Steven Fink, the president of Los Angeles-based Lexicon Communications Corporation, a crisis-management company with extensive experience in dealing with economic espionage. Mr. Fink said that one could look at Mr. Correa’s guilty plea as a more elaborate “high-tech version of what’s been going on forever in baseball — stealing signals.” Nevertheless, he was quick to add, Mr. Correa committed a serious offense, the theft of trade secrets.

Sports

Baseball

Even amid a years-long national housing crisis, New York City's rental market has seemed especially cruel. The average rent increased by 24 percent between 2009 and 2016, the number of new homes grew far slower than the number of people flocking to NYC, and the typical family earning between $10,000 and $20,000 paid upwards of 74 percent of their income on rent, according to a report issued last fall by the city comptroller Scott Stringer. "There's nothing at all sustainable about the way New York is evolving," said Joel Kotkin, a housing researcher and fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in California. But this week, tenants in America's largest city—and New York State as a whole—appear to have won some historic relief. As the New York Times reported, state lawmakers agreed on a historic package of legislation Tuesday that would protect some rent-stabilized properties from rate hikes, bar landlords from certain predatory practices, and allow cities and towns outside the five boroughs to enact their own regulations around rent. If signed into law, as expected, the measures would mean New York tenants have some of the most powerful housing protections in the country, advocates said. "It's stronger than anything anybody predicted going into this campaign," said Rebecca Garrard, a housing organizer with Citizen Action of New York, one of the organizations in the Upstate Downstate Housing Alliance, a coalition that advocated for the new housing policies. "It's a culmination of a multi-year, statewide movement that has accomplished fighting back [against] real estate lobby money." The new deal is focused mostly on the urban populations in the state. In particular, it's centered on rent stabilization, a method of controlling rent increases, especially in buildings built before 1974 in New York City. The decision in Albany would bar landlords from their current practice of deregulating rent-stabilized apartments after rents hit a certain point so that they can charge market rates. And it would abolish the so-called vacancy bonus, wherein a landlord can hike up the rent after a tenant leaves a rent-stabilized apartment. This would protect some of the almost one million regulated apartments in the city. "This sweeping legislation provides the strongest tenant protections since the rent laws were enacted decades ago," Democratic state senator Mike Gianaris of Queens said in a statement. His party's lawmakers heralded the housing protections not only as a win for tenants, but for the stronghold that the progressive left was erecting in the state. But there was plenty lost in the compromise for those fighting toward what advocates call universal rent control—particularly senator Julia Salazar's "Good Cause Eviction Bill," which might have prevented landlords from evicting their tenants if they couldn't pay for rent increases that were more than 150 percent of the consumer price index. Still, as the Times noted, tenants should have more time to find legal representation or catch up on rent when facing possible eviction under the new regulations, and the package would slap new criminal penalties on landlords who strong-arm people out of their apartments. Real estate firms criticized the move, which would impose restrictions on their growth. "This legislation fails to address the city’s housing crisis and will lead to disinvestment in the city's private-sector rental stock, consigning hundreds of thousands of rent-regulated tenants to living in buildings that are likely to fall into disrepair," read a statement from Taxpayers for an Affordable New York, a coalition of real estate firms. For his part, Kotkin said the laws may indeed hurt small property owners attempting to pay for the management of older buildings in the city. But he said that as long as real estate developers were focused on luxury condos instead of affordable family housing, that tension would remain. "Rent control is what happens when everything fails," he said. Meanwhile, the fight in New York could help spur along other housing legislation across the country. Advocates in other states, such as Colorado and Illinois, have been challenging state laws that restrict rent control, and hoping to provide new tenants protections as housing costs continue to escalate. And Garrard said the jubilant coalition in New York was ready to lead that movement. "We really feel like it's just the beginning," she said. "This was not created for a one-year campaign." Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily. Follow Ankita Rao on Twitter.

Government

Politics

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc has settled with the top legal officers in all 50 U.S. states over a massive data breach that the company failed to disclose in 2016, resolving one of the more catastrophic embarrassments that have engulfed the ride-hailing company over the last couple of years. State attorneys general said on Wednesday that Uber will pay a fine of $148 million, to be distributed in varying amounts across the states and Washington, D.C.. The settlement follows a 10-month investigation into a data breach that exposed personal data from around 57 million accounts, including 600,000 driver’s license numbers. The terms also include changes to Uber’s business practices to prevent future breaches and to reform its corporate culture. “We know that earning the trust of our customers and the regulators we work with globally is no easy feat,” said Uber Chief Legal Officer Tony West. “We’ll continue to invest in protections to keep our customers and their data safe and secure, and we’re committed to maintaining a constructive and collaborative relationship with governments around the world.” (Reporting by Heather Somerville Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Technology

Transportation

President Trump continued his drive to promote an “energy dominance” policy Wednesday by meeting with state and tribal leaders and energy industry association heads on the subject. “I’m confident that, working together, we can usher in a golden age of American energy dominance and the extraordinary financial and security benefits that it brings to our citizens, not only the Native Americans, but all over the country,” Trump said during brief remarks in front of reporters before the meeting. In his prepared remarks, Trump spoke repeatedly about the need to end restrictions on drilling, mining and other energy production activities. Trump also promoted his administration's roll back on environmental regulations that he said got in the way. “These untapped resources of wealth can help you build new schools, fix roads, improve your communities and create jobs, jobs like you’ve never seen before. All you want is the freedom to use them, and that’s been the problem. It’s been very difficult, hasn’t it? It’ll be a lot easier now, under the Trump administration.” Turning to the mostly Republican group of governors and other state government representatives present at the meeting, Trump said they have confronted similar issues. “Many of our states have also been denied access to the abundant energy resources on their lands that could bring greater wealth to the people and benefit to our whole nation,” Trump said. “We’re becoming more and more energy dominant. I don’t want to be energy free; we want to be energy dominant in terms of the world.” He thanked Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott PruittEdward (Scott) Scott PruittEnvironmentalists renew bid to overturn EPA policy barring scientists from advisory panels Six states sue EPA over pesticide tied to brain damage Overnight Energy: Trump EPA looks to change air pollution permit process | GOP senators propose easing Obama water rule | Green group sues EPA over lead dust rules MORE and other administration officials, saying they’ve “taken swift action to lift the crushing restrictions on American energy.” “Scott Pruitt has done an amazing job, an incredible job, in a very short period of time. And most people love him; there are a couple that don’t, but that’s OK, right?” Trump said to laughter from the room. A reporter asked Trump at the end of the speech whether he believes in climate change, following up on recent statements from Energy Secretary Rick PerryJames (Rick) Richard PerryThe credible case for Texas and its clean energy solutions Oversight: Trump confidant Tom Barrack pushed for Saudi nuclear plant construction Amazon taps Trump ally to lobby amid Pentagon cloud-computing contract fight MORE, White House press secretary Sean Spicer and others who said they have not discussed Trump’s climate beliefs with him. Trump listened to the question, but did not answer. Instead, Trump thanked the journalists as they were escorted out of the room. The event was organized as part of the administration’s “Energy Week,” which is meant to promote Trump's energy agenda. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

Energy

Back in December 2015, I wrote a fairly waffling account of my attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days for National Novel Writing Month. You can read the whole thing here if you want, but the TL;DR version is this: I had very little sleep, drank far too much tea, and all-in-all felt like I had aged about 10 years in the process. But in the end I just about managed it. After reaching the 50,000 word target, I had three main aims: 1) actually finish the book, 2) have a stab at getting it published, and 3) somehow become best friends with Stephen King and/or J.K. Rowling, who are pretty much my literary heroes and the subject of at least 80% of the articles I write for Mashable. Well now it's roughly 18 months later, and I'm back to give you an update. In rough chronological order, here are all the important things that have happened in the past year-and-a-half: 1) I completed the first draft of the novel, put it away, went back and edited it, did some re-writes, and finally finished it. It's called The Moor, and it's a coming-of-age horror story that's a bit like Stand by Me meets Stranger Things, with a hint of The Blair Witch Project thrown in for good measure. You can read the opening extract here.  2) I saw J.K. Rowling shopping in London, but was too cripplingly shy to approach her and say hello. 3) I signed with a literary agent. 4) I received an offer from a publisher called Unbound. It involves crowdfunding the initial publishing costs of the novel myself, but more on that later. 5) Absolutely no progress at all on the Stephen King front. I do tweet about him quite a bit, though. A few weeks back I wrote this important piece of journalism about his dog, Molly. I figure there's now at least a 3% chance he knows who I am. Molly, aka the Thing of Evil, tries to convince me she is a Thing of Good. I am not persuaded. pic.twitter.com/7JQcbhtjrS — Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 26, 2015 There's a saying about two buses arriving at the same time. It is pretty much the oldest cliché in the book. But sometimes those are the ones that say it best. The short version of my quest to find a literary agent and/or a publisher is this: I started submitting my novel in April. This was followed by weeks of nervous waiting, and plenty of highs and lows. There were requests to read the full manuscript. There were rejections. There were long, nail-biting stretches of silence. Then everything happened at once. Last month, in the space of a week, I received an offer of representation from the literary agency Coombs Moylett Maclean, and a publishing offer from Unbound. After I'd finished weeping hysterical tears of happiness, I pulled myself together and spoke to my new literary agent, Zoë Apostolides, on the phone. A week later I'd signed Unbound's contract and I was busy with the planning stages of my crowdfunding campaign.  It's just gone live. A screengrab of my campaign page on Unbound, prior to the launch. I first read about Unbound earlier this year. They're essentially a traditional publisher with a Kickstarter element: they have a partnership with Penguin Random House and distribute both online and in bookshops, but you're required to crowd fund the initial publishing costs yourself. If enough people like the book and you manage to fund it, you get a higher share of the royalties once it's published. The first time I saw them mentioned was on Twitter. A writer I follow, Dan Dalton, had just launched a funding campaign with them for his debut novel, Johnny Ruin. Dan told me they first came to his attention back in 2013, when a novel they published — Paul Kingsnorth's The Wake — was nominated for the Man Booker prize. "I was curious, the model made a lot of sense," said Dan. "They seemed to be using the platform to publish work that might not have been published through traditional channels, which can only be a good thing." Dan's own funding campaign launched at the beginning of March. His book was 100% funded nine days later. He described the process of crowdfunding as, "daunting, exciting, sleepless, and thrilling, in that order". The best part, he said, is that you get to bring a bunch of people — friends and strangers alike — on the journey with you. "You get to bring all these people, friends and strangers alike, with you on this mad adventure" "As a debut author, having a community of support before the book is even released is something you don't get with more traditional publishing models, and it's incredibly valuable," he said. And as for the advice he'd give someone like me, who's just starting out? "Plan. Plan hard. I'm not a writer who does a terrible amount of planning when it comes to novels, but for my Unbound campaign I had the whole thing orchestrated well in advance. I made lists of people to email, from 'most likely to pre-order' to 'met once on holiday ten years ago' and I worked through them, one-by-one, once the campaign launched." Dan said he sent 15-20 personalised emails a day, wrote blog posts, made playlists and commissioned art work in order to keep the campaign fresh and get people excited. "The only reason I was able to do all that, to keep all those plates spinning, was by planning it. As a result I funded my novel in 9 days. It can be tempting to race out of the blocks, but it's worth waiting. Don't start your campaign until you're really ready." As much as the thought of funding my novel in nine days is incredibly exciting, I'd be lying if I said the other possibility — not reaching my funding goal at all — isn't playing on my mind a bit. The thing is, if you don't make 100% of your target, the book doesn't get published. So over the last few weeks I've been following Dan's advice. I've been planning. I've made a list of people I think may be interested in pre-ordering the book, I've come up with different pledge levels, and I've tried to get as much content together as I can. Images, a bio, a synopsis, that sort of thing. There's even a trailer: Over the next few weeks, my quest to publish my debut novel — and then ultimately meet Stephen King and/or J.K. Rowling at some kind of book-related event, strike up a conversation and definitely become awesome best friends forever — begins in earnest. I'll let you know how I get on...

Literature

Books

Hollywood is remaking Lord of the Flies, except this time ... wait for it ... the island is full of girls.  The movie will be written and directed by two men, Scott McGehee and David Siegel, most recently known for the critically acclaimed What Maisie Knew. Deadline reported the news Wednesday. “We want to do a very faithful but contemporized adaptation of the book, but our idea was to do it with all girls rather than boys,” Siegel told Deadline. William Golding's classic book was adapted for the screen in 1963 and 1990. Now, we don't a lot of details about this film, which comes courtesy of Warner Bros. But after the news broke, people were, let's just say, underwhelmed by the concept.  An all women remake of Lord of the Flies makes no sense because... the plot of that book wouldn't happen with all women. — roxane gay (@rgay) August 31, 2017 [flies into frame on a broom]the thing about lord of the flies is that it's about systemic male violence + how it replicates[flies away] — #rachelsyme (@rachsyme) August 30, 2017 uhm lord of the flies is about the replication of systemic masculine toxicity every 9th grader knows thisu can read about it on sparknotes https://t.co/EQFyuSA3MV — froy (@froynextdoor) August 31, 2017 Lord of the Flies, but with women, and also written and directed by two men! This couldn’t POSSIBLY miss the mark! https://t.co/hxJMXg4Rsd — Jordan Crucchiola (@JorCru) August 30, 2017 imagine having such little interest in seeking out original stories about girlhood by women that you remake LORD OF THE FLIES with girls — JamesHurleyVEVO (@soalexgoes) August 30, 2017 GOOD: A female-centric Lord of the Flies!BAD: A female-centric Lord of the Flies written by... two men.https://t.co/26CBGu4lMj — Devan Coggan (@devancoggan) August 30, 2017 "all-female Lord of the Flies remake" SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE MISSED THE FUUUUUCKIN POINT OF LORD OF THE FLIES — Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) August 30, 2017 Welp, this should go well. 

Other

Other

In BLACKOUT, a series made possible by Jigsaw, VICE News takes viewers across the globe, from Pakistan to Belarus, to examine technology's role in the ongoing fight for free expression.Watch the rest of the series here: http://bit.ly/1UNxdKP In October of last year, Alexander Lukashenko swept to his fifth term as the Belarusian president, marking 22 years in power. Despite the elections being marred by allegations of fraud, the EU in February lifted travel sanctions against Lukashenko's government, as a reward for good behavior — the elections passed without a repeat of 2010's violent crackdown against opposition parties. But critics argue that the EU is making a dangerous endorsement of an autocratic regime that still employs the use of internet surveillance, censorship, and intimidation to exert control over its people and press. VICE News meets the Belarusian journalists and bloggers struggling to tell the truth about Belarus in this post-soviet dictatorship. Watch "Blackout: Being LGBT in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan" Watch "Blackout: Venezuela's Activist Journalists"

Politics

Government

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said he was actively considering breaking up big banks, Bloomberg Television reported on Monday. Trump’s comments could give a push to efforts to revive the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial lending from investment banking. Reviving such a law would require an act by Congress. “I’m looking at that right now,” Trump said on Monday in an interview with Bloomberg News in the Oval Office. “There’s some people that want to go back to the old system, right? So we’re going to look at that.” While campaigning for president, Trump had expressed support on the campaign trail for a “21st-century Glass-Steagall.” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing that Trump had expressed interest in the issue and had been briefed on it by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin but was not ready to discuss it publicly. “We’re not at a point where we’re ready to roll out details of that yet,” Spicer said. “He is actively looking at options and considering things.” One of Trump’s top economic advisers, Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, reiterated Trump’s support for the concept during a private meeting with lawmakers on April 6, a White House spokesperson told Reuters. U.S. stocks sharply pared gains on Monday after Trump’s comments and the S&P 500 bank index dropped nearly 1 percent before rebounding. Reporting by Timothy Ahmann and Doina Chiacu; editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis

Politics

Government

Nick Lachey and Donnie Wahlberg are teaming up again, but this time they’re bringing their boy bands to the small screen. The 98 Degrees frontman stopped by PEOPLE Now to talk about his new TV project with the New Kids on the Block member, a comedy inspired by their former boy bands reuniting later in life and the struggles that come along with it. “We put our heads together and said, ‘This sounds like a great show,’ ” says Lachey. “There’s a lot of material there that’s pretty comedic, and it will be a lot of fun.” Although the show is still in its beginning stages, Entourage creator Doug Ellin is working on the script so they can cast and shoot a pilot. “I’m very excited about it, I expect big things,” Lachey shares, teasing that “there’ll be a lot more to talk about later this year.” On top of the humorous element to the show, the father of three with wife Vanessa wants audiences to know that being in a boy band isn’t a piece of cake. “A lot of times there’s misconceptions about boy bands and sometimes people tend to discount the talent of a boy band — ‘Ah, it’s just fluff. It’s nothing,’ ” he says. “But when you’re in a boy band, it’s like being in any other band. You work your ass off. There’s a lot of hard work that goes into it; there’s a lot of talent that’s out there on that stage.” He continues, “Then to come back and do it later in life, it’s crazy it’s a whole other set of challenges. I’m just excited for people to see that world.” Although Lachey says both New Kids on the Block and 98 Degrees have big plans this year, including a New Kids on the Block tour with Paula Abdul and Boyz II Men this summer, the groups may reunite on the road once again. “There’s always a chance,” Lachey teases. “As long as we enjoy performing together, which we do, I don’t see any reason to stop.”

Entertainment

Television

Not Daisy Ridley, too! The Star Wars star seems to be the latest celebrity to delete her social media account after being bullied online. According to The Nerdy Bird, Ridley took down her Instagram account on Monday, following a post from the Teen Choice Awards. The 24-year-old Brit had responded to the TCA segment honoring the victims of gun violence. Here's what she said, which was cross-posted to her Facebook page:"Thinking about how lucky I am like...Serious bit: as I sat in the audience yesterday tears were streaming down my face at the tribute to those that have been lost to gun violence. I didn’t get a great picture of the incredible group that came on stage but they were so brave. It was a true moment of togetherness. We must ‪#‎stoptheviolence‬." We can't see what kind of response she received on Instagram, but the main critiques on Facebook are along the lines of this one: "It's not GUN violence it is human violence. People will be violent with or without guns. Funny how nobody blamed the lightsaber for the deaths of all the youngings at Vader's hand huh, it's the same in this world it is the evil people holding the gun, knife, or shoot even just using bare hands. The individual person is the evildoers not the item used. Bottem line is SIN is being allowed to run rampant more and more nowadays." [SIC] According to a Reddit thread about this, Ridley opened the account again momentarily to say the hiatus was because, "I just want to be on my phone less! Trying to be more present and all that and got a busy few months ahead so wanted less distractions... It's all good:) I always appreciate the support and love of the Instagram community." But since the account was closed again, we can't confirm Ridley actually said this. It also doesn't explain why she had to take down her account rather than just not post to it. The Nerdy Bird also shared a screenshot of Ridley's co-star John Boyega responding to fans requests for her return to Instagram. "She’s doing what’s best for her," he reportedly wrote. "I won’t be advising my friend to come back. Sorry."

Entertainment

Television

growth@ (Adds more details from letter) April 4 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive Jamie Dimon on Thursday called for reforms to U.S. public policy on education, infrastructure and mortgages to repair what he called the "fraying" American dream. "Governments must be better and more effective - we cannot succeed without their help," Dimon wrote UPDATE 1-India govt may direct state banks on debt resolution - finmin source - Reuters in his 50-page annual letter, a third of which was devoted to his argument. "The rest of us could do a better job, too." As head of the largest U.S. bank, Dimon has frequently used the letter to promote his views on public policy and corporate responsibility. On Thursday, he highlighted 11 problems he said are impeding U.S. growth and opportunities. U.S. schools are failing to prepare students for professional-level jobs, he said, and suggested that more high schools and community colleges provide training programs and internships for specific jobs. JPMorgan is retraining some staff in its own workforce as it prepares for jobs to be eliminated by advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence, Dimon said. Dimon also called on the U.S. government to finish implementing the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, which was passed in 2015 and is meant to provide $305 billion to improve America's highways through 2020. Bad mortgage rules are also hindering U.S. economic growth, Dimon said. He called for on policymakers to reduce "onerous and unnecessary origination and servicing requirements" and to open up "the securitization markets for safe loans." JPMorgan is reviewing its role in originating, servicing and holding mortgages, given the current lack of reforms, he said. Last year, Dimon praised U.S. President Donald Trump for the 2017 tax reform law, which lowered the business tax rate. JPMorgan invested in technology and new branches and raised employee salaries in 2018 because the reforms boosted its net income by $3.7 billion, Dimon wrote. However, Dimon said reform is still needed to address inequities in taxes on individuals, and suggested the government expand the earned income tax credit to help the lowest earners. JPMorgan said it expects its first-quarter net interest income will likely be flat compared with the prior quarter and adjusted expense to be up by "mid-single" digit percentage compared with the year-ago quarter. The bank reports its first-quarter results on April 12. (Reporting by Aparajita Saxena and Sweta Singh in Bengaluru, and Elizabeth Dilts in New York; Editing by Arun Koyyur, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Sonya Hepinstall)

Finance

Banking

Oct 16 (Reuters) - Trevali Mining Corp- * Trevali Mining Corp - sees 52-57 million pounds of payable zinc in concentrate from Santander mine​ for ‍2017 * Trevali Mining Corp - sees ‍700,000-900,000 ounces of payable silver from Santander mine for 2017​ * Trevali Mining Corp - sees production of ‍12-14 million pounds of payable lead in concentrate for Santander mine​ in 2017 * ‍Trevali Mining Corp - 2017 production guidance estimate for Caribou mine has been revised to 81-84 million pounds of payable zinc in concentrate​ * Trevali Mining Corp - ‍consolidated Q3 preliminary production of 58.4 million payable lbs of zinc​ * Trevali Mining Corp - ‍consolidated Q3 preliminary production of 12.5 million payable lbs. Of lead and 433,442 payable ounces of silver​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

Mining

Geology

Kate Winslet is standing up against childhood bullying by opening up about her own experience getting picked on as a kid. Speaking at the fourth annual WE Day UK event at the SSE Arena in Wembley, London on Wednesday, the Oscar-winner told a crowd of about 12,000 that she was teased growing up because she wanted to be an actress. “I had been bullied at school. They called me Blubber. Teased me for wanting to act. Locked me in the cupboard. Laughed at me,” she said. “I was even told that I might be lucky with my acting, if I was happy to settle for the fat girl parts,” she added. “I felt that I wasn’t enough, I wasn’t good enough. I didn’t look right … and all because I didn’t fit into someone else’s idea of ‘perfect.’ I didn’t have the perfect body.” The actress has been candid about her experiences with bullying in the past, and told the audience she “had to choose to rise above it all.” Winslet never let the bullying get in the way of her acting, and even if she didn’t get the best part, she never gave up. “I would often get cast as the crocodile, or the scarecrow, or the dark fairy, I was even a dancing frog once,” she remembered. “But it didn’t matter. I still loved it. I loved acting. It didn’t matter how big or small the parts were. I wanted to be great and I was determined to keep learning.” From Coinage: The Top 5 Most Expensive Movies of All Time She went on to recount the day her dedication finally paid off. “One day, I was cast as Rose in Titanic,” she said. “The most unlikely candidate, Kate from the sandwich shop in Reading, suddenly acting in one of the biggest movies ever made!” Citing her success, Winslet encourage others to “get out there and go for it because your generation has the power to rock the world!” She added, “You can be from anywhere, and you can do anything. Believe it.”

Entertainment

Television

President Donald Trump’s immigration policies have the potential to alter the fabric of the United States, freshman Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday morning, shifting the nation from “a country of aspirations” to “a country of deportation.” Espaillat, the first Dominican-American member of Congress and himself a former undocumented immigrant in the U.S., said the shift in policy by the Trump administration toward tougher enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws could alter the country’s identity. “We are a country of aspirations. Are we a country of deportation or are we a country of aspirations? I think that's what's on the table right now,” Espaillat said Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day.” “Have we changed the course of America? Are we now a heavy-handed, bullying country? Or are we a country that anybody could do anything, including an undocumented young boy that’s now a member of Congress.” By today’s standards, Espaillat, who was born in the Dominican Republic, would have been considered a “Dreamer” when he was first brought to the U.S. When he was 9 years old, he accompanied his parents when they came to the U.S. on travel visas, which they overstayed. Seeking legal permanent resident status in the U.S., the family returned to the Dominican Republican, where they were eventually given green cards, allowing them to return to the U.S. While Trump’s hard-line stance on immigration has proved controversial, the policies he has so far pursued as president closely match his campaign promises. He has already taken early steps toward constructing a wall along the southern border with Mexico and on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security issued guidance memos allowing immigration agents wide leeway to arrest, detain and deport all “removable aliens.” At least since securing the GOP nomination, Trump has promised that his top priority would be to deal with those undocumented immigrants who have criminal records in addition to their illegal residency in the U.S. Former President Barack Obama made deporting those with violent criminal records a priority, but the DHS memos released Tuesday expand the scope to include those charged with crimes or who have committed acts that could constitute a chargeable offense. Espaillat said he supports the deportation of violent criminals who are in the U.S. illegally. Living in the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant has a “chilling effect,” Espaillat said, recalling how his grandparents warned him not to talk to strangers and to be careful where he traveled. He said Trump’s executive orders on immigration have left many in his district, which comprises portions of upper Manhattan and the Bronx, nervous. Some, he said, leave their homes only at night, too afraid to do so during the day. “What I find now is that many people are afraid. I hear in my district office, people calling in concerned. They don't know how these new guidelines will apply to them,” Espaillat said. “It unleashes the hound dogs, if you may. It sets fear as a mass deportation guideline that he sets out. You know, it expedites removal. It fractures families.”

Politics

Immigration

The University of Maryland on Saturday placed its football coach, D. J. Durkin, on administrative leave while it investigates accusations about mistreatment of players that surfaced after offensive lineman Jordan McNair collapsed during a May workout and died weeks later. [UPDATE: Maryland fires its strength and conditioning coach.] The suspension came one day after an article by ESPN detailed a culture of fear and intimidation at Maryland, according to current and former players and staff members, who said that coaches and trainers commonly embarrassed and humiliated players. The sources of the accusations were anonymous. Players’ masculinity was mocked when they were unable to complete a workout or lift a weight, and one player was belittled after passing out, according to ESPN. Coaches forced one player to overeat to the point of vomiting, the article said, and another — whom the coaches wanted to lose weight — was forced to eat candy bars while watching teammates working out. Maryland’s president, Wallace D. Loh, said such behavior was unacceptable. “Our responsibility as teachers is to inspire and enable students to perform at their best and expand the boundaries of their potential,” Loh said in a statement. He added, “Humiliating and demeaning a student is not only bad teaching and coaching, it is an abuse of the authority of a teacher and coach.” According to ESPN, the college on Friday placed three others associated with the program on leave: the strength and conditioning coach, Rick Court; the director of athletic training, Steve Nordwall; and the athletic trainer, Wes Robinson. Durkin is the second Big Ten football coach to be placed on leave this month while his school investigates allegations of abuse. Ohio State is examining whether its coach, Urban Meyer, properly handled domestic abuse allegations against a longtime assistant coach. Durkin served as an assistant under Meyer at Bowling Green and at the University of Florida. Durkin, 40, had been preparing for his third season at Maryland. The school has hired Rod Walters, a former college athletic trainer, to investigate whether coaches and officials followed protocol when McNair, a 19-year-old redshirt freshman, collapsed during a workout on May 29. He died on June 13. No cause of death has been released, but ESPN reported that McNair had died of heatstroke. Billy Murphy, a lawyer for McNair’s family, said that Maryland’s 911 call for help, which was recorded at 5:58 p.m., did not come until nearly an hour after McNair had first had convulsions after a series of sprints, which happened around 5 p.m. Such a delay, Murphy told ESPN, shows “an utter disregard of the health of this player, and we are extraordinarily concerned that the coaches did not react appropriately to his injury.” Maryland, in a statement, said that “no student-athlete, athletic trainer or coach reported a seizure occurring at 5 p.m.” College football practices may not be as severe as they once were, when players were routinely denied water breaks even in sweltering conditions in the belief that suffering would toughen them up. But many coaches still employ conditioning drills that are intended to imbue players with mental toughness. After McNair’s death, Durkin called a meeting to address concerns of players and their parents. On Friday, in advance of ESPN’s article, he wrote a letter to the parents, saying the program is cooperating with the investigation, which is expected to be completed by Sept. 15. “Our priority every day is the safety along with the academic, personal and athletic development of your sons,” Durkin wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Baltimore Sun. “During this time of healing, our focus needs to be on each other and unity within our program.” Durkin, in the third year of a $12.5 million contract, coached the Terrapins at their Saturday morning practice. He will be replaced indefinitely by the offensive coordinator, Matt Canada. Maryland’s first game is in less than three weeks, on Sept. 1, against visiting Texas.

Sports

Football

* Most analysts had expected first rate cut since 2015 * Central bank says taking steps to make policy more accommodative * Shekel up 7.5% vs dollar, up 9% vs currency basket so far in ‘19 * Inflation rate stands at 0.4% (Adds shekel reaction, analyst comment) By Steven Scheer and Ari Rabinovitch JERUSALEM, Nov 25 (Reuters) - The Bank of Israel left its benchmark interest rate at 0.25% on Monday for the eighth decision in a row, confounding expectations among analysts and investors that it would cut borrowing costs for the first time in nearly five years. The bank said economic growth was solid but warned that political uncertainty may ultimately harm the economy. Ten of 16 economists polled by Reuters had predicted the central bank would lower the key rate to 0.1% as the strong shekel is helping to keep inflation close to zero. Six others forecast no change. “It will be necessary to leave the interest rate at its current level for a prolonged period or to reduce it in order to support a process at the end of which inflation will stabilize around the midpoint of the target range, and so that the economy will continue to grow strongly,” the central bank said in a statement. It said its analysis was based on a host of local and global factors. “The (monetary policy) committee is taking additional steps as necessary to make monetary policy more accommodative,” it added — a likely reference to intervention in the foreign exchange market to stem shekel strength. The Israeli currency has gained 7.5% so far in 2019 against the dollar and some 9% versus a basket of currencies of main trading partners. Annual inflation edged up to a rate of 0.4% in October — well below the government’s 1-3% target — from 0.3% in September but it was down from a peak of 1.5% in May. “The (shekel’s) appreciation continues to make it difficult to return inflation to the target range,” the central bank said. The central bank bought $314 million of foreign currency in October, its first major intervention in 2019. Israel’s economy continues to grow at around 3% percent, which is considered the country’s potential, while the labour market remains tight, the bank said. “However, the political situation remains uncertain, and if the government is forced to operate on a continuance budget for a prolonged period, it may have a contractionary effect.” The Israeli economy has so far weathered two inconclusive elections and a year of successive caretaker governments. But the political stalemate means it will be well into 2020 before a new annual budget is passed, triggering months of cutbacks that are likely to drag on economic growth. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted last week on corruption charges, plunging Israel into further political disarray after neither he nor his main challenger, centrist Benny Gantz, secured a parliamentary majority in April and September elections. Until a new budget is passed, government ministries will be funded according to their 2019 monthly allocations, making it harder to commission new roads, pay contractors and cover a growing deficit. The shekel was flat against the dollar after the decision after gaining as much as 0.5% earlier. Analysts still believe the chance of a rate cut in 2020 remains high. The next decision will be on Jan. 9. “The likelihood of interest rate reductions in the coming months as well as foreign exchange purchases is still significant, especially in the event that we return and see a rapid appreciation of the shekel,” said Ofer Klein, head of economics and research at Harel Insurance and Finance. (Additional reporting by Tova Cohen; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Finance

Economics

For years, if you were following the speedrunning scene for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time or Wind Waker, you were intimately familiar with Narcissa Wright. She discovered the infamous glitch that allowed speedrunners to escape the opening forest area without beating the Deku Tree, regularly broke world records, and over time, became one of the public faces for speedrunning—Zelda or otherwise. Yesterday, Wright received an “indefinite suspension” from Twitch, essentially banning her from streaming on Twitch for the foreseeable future. “Based on review of community reports about your activity or content,” reads a statement shared by Wright on Twitter, “we have issued a Community Guidelines strike on your account for Reason: ‘Nudity or Sexual Behavior/Attire’ and indefinite suspension from accessing or using Twitch services.” Wright told me she couldn’t pin down what exactly prompted Twitch’s ban, wondering if it could have been related to reading healthcare documents with gender reassignment surgery imagery; “questionable things” like watching the anime Hunter X Hunter, after already getting in trouble for watching another anime with sex scenes, Berserk; streams where the “shape” of her nipples were visible through a shirt. In other words, Wright figures she’s been on Twitch’s radar for a while now, and admits to “probably” breaking Twitch’s terms of service. Twitch declined to comment, their usual response to questions on community management. Her streams have changed substantially over time, and no longer focus on what Wright originally became known for: speedrunning Zelda games. Around the same time Wright came out as transgender in 2015, a public transition that regularly lead to vile harassment, she experienced lingering pain in her hands. The pain was most acute after long, demanding sessions with her fingers, which made her bread and butter, speedrunning, a real problem. “I don’t have health insurance right now. I’m trying to get that settled,” she told Kotaku in 2016. “I walked into a physical therapy place, but they told me I need a doctor’s note and insurance. I want to get that figured out in 2016. In the meantime, I’ve been doing stuff like hand exercises—just trying to stretch my hands and take care of them. I also took a two week break from console gaming, and that’s helped a bit. But I still can’t do those long sessions.” Wright didn’t entirely walk away from gaming—she streams casually, and briefly held the world record for speedrunning Breath of the Wild in 2017—but putting speedrunning largely on hold meant she had to become more creative when it came to streaming, finding new sources of inspiration and fun. Sometimes that meant vlogging, other times it meant painting. Her relationship with streaming has only grown in the months and years since. Some of her streams will go on for hours without sound or meaningful interaction with the people watching. A recent stream from May 12, for example, is nearly five hours long, and largely features Wright staring at the computer screen in various positions and eventually sleeping. “When I'm not ‘online’ I feel like it's not even real, in a way,” she said. “I'm just like, wired in.” Wright speculates one of the reasons Twitch banned her was because of all the bandwidth she was taking up on the service, without making a lot of money for Twitch. (Her numbers have understandably dropped post-speedrunning.) Her streams could go for more than 24 hours, with Wright occasionally letting the camera roll on for hours, while she idled or walked away. She called this a mixture of “content” and “non-content,” a form of experimentation. In April 2016, Wright briefly shut down her Twitch account, following harassment. "I've been so unhappy on the internet and it sucks because I feel like the internet is my home," she said on Twitter at the time. "I feel like I can't be myself without getting shit on constantly. I feel like I have to constantly apologize for being myself." This part—getting shit on constantly—hasn’t changed much. You can’t read the comments on Wright’s videos without coming across rampant abuse, transphobia, and other toxicity, and whole corners of the Internet dedicate huge amounts of time to documenting everything she does. Many comments cite her lack of speedrunning, wishing she’d return to what she was known for, as justification for their words, but that’s obviously bullshit. It’s just a cover. “I probably could have handled things more elegantly to begin with,” she said, “but the amount of venom that can be seen online kinda gives me a feeling of despair at times.” But in the midst of this harassment, she’s doubled down on streaming every move, as she works to find a public identity for herself, albeit increasingly an online one, beyond speedrunning. “The more you put yourself out there the more fodder malicious people have to use against you, is one downside,” she told me, before citing concerns with copyright, storage space, and how so much of what now define her is based on the whims of large corporations. Streaming isn’t just a side gig for Wright—it’s the whole gig. Her work is supported by a few dozen backers on Patreon, but it’s not enough to feel stability. Sometimes, a big donation during a stream comes through, giving her some room to work with, but it’s not reliable. She made a little bit off cryptocurrency, but her current situation is a “shitty patchwork of income.” “I'm not bothered by this suspension,” she said. “I'm just gonna move to YouTube for now. My income will be hurt by this but I feel like I'll manage or be okay maybe? Hopefully. I'm an optimist.” Earlier today, Wright streamed Breath of the Wild on YouTube for a few hours, testing a new setup. She hasn’t ruled out a return to Twitch, but for the moment, Wright remains banned. “I feel young,” she wrote on Twitter this afternoon. “And pretty. And powerful." Follow Patrick on Twitter. If you have a tip or a story idea, drop him an email: [email protected]. Have thoughts? Swing by Waypoints forums to share them!

Other

Other

South Africa's ruling African National Congress suffered its worst electoral results since the end of apartheid, sparking fears the government will avoid painful reforms and try to win back votes by overspending. The ANC — the party of Nelson Mandela that has dominated South African politics since the country's first open elections in 1994 — gained only 54 percent of votes on Wednesday, with the main opposition Democratic Alliance gaining in popularity. The vote's result suggests South Africa's years under a de facto one-party political system are nearing a close. The Democratic Alliance was once dismissed as a party for the white middle classes but appears to be doing a better job of winning a broader base of voters. Analysts warn the result may further deter the ANC from pushing through economic reforms needed to boost South Africa's stagnating economy, ahead of a national election due in 2019. The World Bank sees South African gross domestic product growing by only 0.6 percent this year. "Official election results show that support for the ruling ANC fell below 60 percent for the first time ever. Pushing painful structural reforms probably isn't the first thing that an unpopular government is going to do," BBH analysts led by Win Thin said in a research note. "The knee-jerk reaction would more likely be to boost spending and handouts, which would pressure the country's ratings," they added. BBH's base case is that South Africa will be downgraded to sub-investment — or "junk" — grade by one of the big-three credit ratings agencies by the end of the year. At present, Fitch Ratings rates South Africa at BBB-, one notch above sub-investment grade. Jan Friederich, senior director of sovereigns at Fitch, concurred that the election result would increase the risk of populist policies and said it might also weaken President Jacob Zuma's position within his own party. "Increased in-fighting within the ANC could divert political energies from policy-making and we think it most likely that the national government will continue without major changes to policies. This would entail no substantial progress on structural reforms that could accelerate sluggish trend growth, but also no measures that could seriously threaten fiscal sustainability," Friederich said in a report on Friday. On Monday, the South African Treasury said in a statement seen by Reuters that it had noted the concerns from ratings agencies but remained committed to reforming the economy and "returning public finances to a sustainable path." Follow CNBC International on and Facebook.

Politics

Government

A global reckoning around the future of the internet is underway as autocratic regimes look to censor the internet in their countries, and races to develop new internet technologies, such as blockchain and 5G, heat up between the U.S. and China. Why it matters: The next version of the internet could be split between countries that embrace an open web and isolationists that don't. It could also be fractured by different technologies that could fundamentally change the interconnected nature of the network and limit who can do business where. Driving the news: India recently announced a proposal that would install a Chinese-style of internet censorship ahead of its elections. The proposed rules would allow Indian officials to demand that big web platforms remove content that they deem libelous or bad for society. The move brings India, which has the second-largest internet population, closer to China's censorship strategy and farther from other democratic republics around the globe. Elsewhere, nations are using election security risks and geopolitical threats as a means to introduce heavy-handed censorship rules. Some efforts mimic broader isolationist policies instituted for the expressed purposes of global defense. Russia is considering a plan to temporarily disconnect from the internet as a way to test its cyberdefenses. President Vladimir Putin has indicated that the country is thinking about creating an autonomous Russian internet in the event that foreign adversaries cut off Russia from its networks. Some African nations are continuing to use censorship to manipulate elections. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, for example, have faced uproar and external pressure to reduce efforts to censor or shut off the internet ahead of elections this year. China has long used a firewall to block access to certain sites and web franchises from being accessed within its borders. Some users try to avoid such barriers by using illegal VPNs (or network access points.) What's next: New technology and shifting economics will also be driving forces in how the internet develops around the world. Blockchain: Some experts see blockchain, the open-source technology that powers bitcoin, as a tool that will drive the expansion of an open web. 5G: The fifth generation of mobile connectivity (5G) will be so much faster than the current network that experts think the first region or corporation to create an expansive 5G network will create its own version of the web. The bottom line: The internet, which for years has been perceived as the driving force for global connectivity, could one day wind up separating parts of the world even further.

Technology

Internet

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Time is running out for Deutsche Bank to turn around on its own, making a merger with rival Commerzbank more likely, two people with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. Bank executives, analysts, government officials and some investors thought until some months ago that both banks had more time to turn around independently, but that opinion has recently changed, one of the people said. A major investor is awaiting market reaction to both banks’ earnings over the next couple of weeks before deciding on the need for a merger, said a second person close to the investor. “Then we will decide whether we will change our view,” the person said. The investor wouldn’t oppose a merger if the government wanted one, the person said. Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, and the German finance ministry declined to comment. Speculation of a merger between the two has heightened under the tenure of Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, who has spoken in favor of strong banks. His team has met frequently with executives of Deutsche, Commerzbank and major shareholders. Deutsche is considered one of the most important banks for the global financial system, along with JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citigroup. But Deutsche has been plagued by three years of losses, ratings downgrades, failed stress tests, and money laundering scandals. A $7.2 billion U.S. fine in 2017 for its role in the mortgage market scandal was a major blow that spooked clients. A merger between Deutsche and a European bank was also an option but less likely because it would be harder to sell to politicians, said the first person with knowledge of the matter. Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing, who assumed the helm last year in a sudden management shake-up, has repeatedly said in public that he was focused on the bank’s “homework” - returning the bank to profitability. He announced job cuts last year and moved to slim down the sprawling investment bank division. Earlier on Thursday, a separate source at Deutsche said the bank was focused on achieving sustainable profitability, seeking to distance the lender from talk of a merger with Commerzbank. The suggestion that such a merger is the only option for Deutsche is “completely false”, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. Shares in both lenders tumbled on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that Deutsche was expecting a government-brokered merger with Commerzbank by mid-year if efforts to restructure the lender fall short of targets. Deutsche shares closed 4 percent lower, while Commerzbank - still partially held by the government after a bailout - was 6.7 percent weaker. On Friday, Deutsche Bank will report its 2018 results and analysts expect it to deliver its first annual profit since 2014. CEO Sewing is also likely to face further questions about a possible merger. A Deutsche supervisory board member said last week that there was no desire among board members for a merger with Commerzbank. Commerzbank reports earnings on Feb. 14. The Verdi German labor union has said a merger of the no. 1 and no. 2 banks would lead to large job cuts. Gildas Surry, a portfolio manager with Axiom, which holds Deutsche Bank bonds, said that merging the two banks would be like mixing oil with vinegar, with questionable cost and revenue synergies. But those hurdles may not be enough to sway governments pressing for banking consolidation. “It is very difficult for politicians to forgo their national champions,” he said. Reporting by Andreas Framke, Arno Schuetze, Hans Seidenstuecker and Tom Sims; editing by Tassilo Hummel, Jason Neely and Alexandra Hudson

Finance

Banking

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis will host Chinese leaders at the State Department Wednesday for discussions that are likely to focus on North Korea.  North Korea will receive “top billing” at the meeting, Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told The Associated Press. The talks will aim to continue the “positive momentum” between the two countries, she added. President Trump has been increasingly looking to China to exert its influence in the region as North Korea works to create a nuclear missile that could reach American soil. Trump on Tuesday tweeted that China’s efforts to halt the North Korean threat have been unsuccessful. “While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out," Trump said. "At least I know China tried!” “This discussion elevates the level of dialogue with the Chinese in a way that in our view will enable in-depth consideration in areas of cooperation,” said acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs David Helvey at a Foreign Press Center briefing Tuesday, according to the Washington Examiner. Thornton said the talks between U.S. and Chinese diplomats and military officials will also address the military buildup of Beijing's forces in the disputed South China Sea, as well as bilateral efforts to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Tillerson and Mattis will hold a joint news conference at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the State Department, which you can watch live here. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

Politics

International Relations

Paul McCartney, best known as the father of esteemed fashion designer Stella McCartney, has been cast in the new Pirates of the Caribbean film, Dead Men Tell No Tales, according the Deadline. The film news site speculates that the husband of New York Metropolitan Transportation board member Nancy Shevell, will be the center of a large action set piece, possibly including the film's high profile cast of Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, and Orlando Bloom. McCartney's an unusual fit for an action flick. The longtime PETA supporter is recognized by fans as a talented up-and-coming musician, having written a song for the video game Destiny, and provided back-up vocals for a handful of recent Kanye West tracks.

Other

Other

Brickell is Miami's famed financial district, nicknamed " Wall Street South." Real-estate agents in the area say young people are flocking to live in the up-and-coming neighborhood as new luxury condos, bars, and restaurants open up. I spent an afternoon walking around Brickell, and I didn't see what all the hype was about. The neighborhood isn't very pedestrian friendly, it's dominated by high-rise towers, and there didn't seem to be many options for dining and drinking. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Move aside, Wall Street. The country's most exciting financial district is Brickell in Miami, according to real-estate agents in the area. Nicknamed "Wall Street South," the city's financial hub is situated just south of downtown Miami. Real-estate agents say it's an increasingly popular place for young people to live, and it's seen a huge amount of development in recent years, from luxury condos to shopping centers and dining destinations. "It's the second-largest financial hub outside of New York, and it has the hottest retail real-estate market in the US," Karen Elmir, a luxury realtor who sells homes in Brickell, told me in a phone conversation. Scott Beyer wrote for Forbes that Brickell "personifies the new Miami: it is rich, multicultural, and intensive, having become an 'overnight neighborhood' of gleaming skyscrapers whose designs and coloration reflect the coral blue waters of Biscayne Bay." On a recent trip to Miami, I spent an afternoon in the city's famed financial district. But after all the hype I'd heard, I wasn't too impressed by the neighborhood. Brickell in an afternoon Undeniably, part of it comes down to personal taste, as a district of brand-new, "gleaming skyscrapers" doesn't fit my idea of where I'd like to live. I started my walking tour of the neighborhood at Brickell City Centre, the 500,000-square-foot " vertical shopping experience" with four levels of shops including Sephora, Coach, Sandro, Zara, and All Saints, as well as bars, restaurants, and a movie theater. There's also an Apple store and a 107,000-square-foot Saks Fifth Avenue. While I appreciated that the shopping center was outdoors — the better to enjoy the balmy Miami weather — I didn't see any anything that I couldn't have found in New York City, where I live. After a tour of the shopping center, I spent a few hours wandering through Brickell. I passed towering skyscrapers, banks and other financial institutions, and quite a bit of construction. Elmir told me most of the people moving to Brickell are young professionals between the ages of 25 and 45 who work in industries like finance and law. These young professionals buy condominiums in luxury high-rises such as Echo Brickell, according to Elmir, where a four-bedroom penthouse is asking $37 million. The median sale price of homes in Brickell is $356,800, and the median monthly rent is $2,500 — both higher than the numbers for Miami as a whole, according to Zillow. In Brickell, Elmir says the average price of the apartments she sells is $1 million. As I walked through Brickell, I expected a lively neighborhood bustling with bars and restaurants. Instead, the few cafés and eateries I passed seemed to be outliers. Most of the time, I found myself walking beneath skyscrapers with few other pedestrians around, apart from right around Brickell City Centre. And apart from Brickell City Centre, I didn't see many retail establishments, either. Millennials may be moving to Brickell — but aside from its proximity to offices, I just don't see the draw As I walked around, I found myself getting increasingly bored, with very little to look at besides the facades of skyscrapers. The lack of street-level retail, bars and restaurants — not to mention green space — made the neighborhood feel unfriendly to pedestrians. While financial districts in general aren't known for being the most culturally vibrant neighborhoods, walking through the streets of New York City's Financial District, where I work, is a completely different experience than the one I had in Brickell. In Manhattan's Financial District, the bustling streets are overflowing with restaurants and fast casual dining options, bars (often mediocre, but they are there), and shopping. Like most of my millennial peers, I'm partial to lively, walkable neighborhoods, and from what I saw, while Brickell may be on the way to being one, it's just not there yet. I found Miami Beach's South of Fifth neighborhood to be much more appealing and walkable, with its 17-acre waterfront park, cafés, bars, and restaurants. I got access to the richest zip code in the US, an island off Miami where the average income is $2.2 million, the beaches have sand imported from the Bahamas, and the preferred mode of transportation is golf carts. Here's what it looks like.

Real Estate

Housing

BEIJING (Reuters) - Just a little under a year ago, Min Junqian was an unknown art student in China’s eastern province of Shandong, dreaming of becoming a star and hitting the big time. Fast-forward a year and the 23-year-old is a member of Acrush, China’s first all-girl “boy band”, which released its debut single last week, but already has hundreds of thousands of fans. “Our fathers’ generation still holds the idea that girls should dress in a feminine manner, something I was never comfortable with,” Min told Reuters. “I just like to dress in a unisex way.” Min wasn’t expecting to be picked when she went to the band’s audition last year. But her boyish appearance and androgynous style were exactly what entertainment startup Zhejiang Huati Culture Communication, backed by Tencent Holdings, was looking for. Marketed as a pop band that encourages girls to pursue their own identities and shake up female conventions, Acrush has won more than 749,000 followers on Chinese social networking site Weibo. Acrush goes against the grain in China’s still-evolving music industry, where girl bands are marketed as sweet young things to appeal to a male audience. “I left home when I was young,” said the band’s lead singer, 21-year-old Peng Xichen. “To comfort my parents, I told them my boyish appearance would keep me safe.” Some fans, most of them millennials born after the mid-1990s, have called the band members their “husbands”. Some have sent love letters, which the band cannot answer, bound by contract. “We are not allowed to disclose our gender preferences or have romantic relationships,” said Lu Keran, the band’s leader. From day one, Zhejiang Huati has created individual identities for the women. Min is supposed to be the band’s comedian, while Peng is a “gentle romantic”, and the 21-year-old Lu is portrayed as an energetic dancer with a sunny disposition. She wears long-sleeved outfits to shield from the public eye a dragon tattoo on her arm, and is reluctant to talk about it, saying only, “I did it when I was an ignorant girl.” But she did admit to sometimes dressing in pink and behaving like a little girl. The Chinese blogosphere is ablaze with questions about Acrush’s leanings. Asked if they supported feminism and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, the band said they had no idea what the abbreviation LGBT stood for. “We’re just ‘handsome’ girls,” said Min. Reporting by Muyu Xu and Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Thomas Sun in BEIJING; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

Other

Other

(CNN)"Grey's Anatomy" fans are soon going to find out what happened to Dr. Alex Karev, showrunner Krista Vernoff told Variety. The writers were left to create a storyline for original cast member Justin Chambers following his sudden departure from the medical drama. His last episode aired in November. Vernoff explains that Chambers' character arc "was a very careful threading of a needle, where we are giving a little bit of information and pain to Jo," she said of Camilla Luddington's character, Jo Karev, adding, "We're, episode by episode, illuminating the story of where Alex is. And it takes us quite a few more episodes to get there and to give the audience clarity." She added that the storyline will be touched on as the episodes go on, but his disappearance won't be resolved immediately. Luddington's Jo was also taken into consideration when figuring out what to do with Chambers' character. "Jo went through so much pain and so much grief just last season that I wanted to be careful," Vernoff said. "And so it's a bit of a mystery (what's going on with Alex), so that we don't watch Jo in the same place that we watched her in last season. We did it as carefully as we could. But it takes a while to get there," she said. Chambers said in a statement to Deadline when he announced his departure that "There's no good time to say goodbye to a show and character that's defined so much of my life for the past 15 years." "For some time now, however, I have hoped to diversify my acting roles and career choices. And, as I turn 50 and am blessed with my remarkable, supportive wife and five wonderful children, now is that time."

Television

Entertainment

(CNN)Dartmouth College has settled a lawsuit that claimed female students in the school's Department of Psychological and Brain Science were routinely subjected to rape and sexual harassment. According to a joint statement issued by the school and the nine plaintiffs, Dartmouth will pay out $14 million pending court approval of the agreement. "Together with Dartmouth, we plan to continue addressing the systemic roots of power-based personal violence and gender-based discrimination across all levels of severity so that our experiences -- and those of the class we represent -- are never repeated," plaintiffs Kristina Rapuano, Vassiki Chauhan, Sasha Brietzke, Annemarie Brown, Andrea Courtney, Marissa Evans, Jane Doe, Jane Doe 2 and Jane Doe 3 said in the joint statement. They said they are "satisfied" to have reached the agreement with Dartmouth. The nine women, all current or former Dartmouth students, filed suit in November 2018 seeking $70 million in damages from the school for violating Title IX. Three former professors -- Todd Heatherton, William Kelley and Paul Whalen -- were referenced in the lawsuit and accused of turning the school's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences into a "21st Century Animal House," treating women as sex objects, groping and also coercing them into drinking. One of them retired and the other two resigned, Dartmouth said in a statement in January. All three are no longer allowed on campus. The suit also accused Dartmouth of failing to create an environment free from gender-based discrimination, in violation of Title IX. In the joint statement, Dartmouth president Philip J. Hanlon said he "cannot express strongly enough my deep disappointment that these individuals violated their positions of trust to these, and other, students and members of our community." Heatherton declined to comment on the settlement through his attorney, Julie Moore. In a statement he gave in November, Heatherton denied "playing any role in creating a toxic environment at Dartmouth College" and said none of the plaintiffs were his graduate students. Kelley and Whalen could not be reached for comment.

Law

Crime

A few years before Stacey Oristano booked the role she’s probably best known for — Mindy Riggins on Friday Night Lights — she was performing in a musical off-Broadway. When the show’s costumer asked if she’d mind having her photo taken in her most provocative costume, Oristano agreed after being assured it was just for the costumer’s records. The next day, however, the show’s producer told her that he’d stolen a copy of the photo for himself. When the same producer had told her days earlier that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about a plaid skirt she’d worn, she thought he was “being really nice, because I was the young girl in the cast.” Now, with the photo she’d taken as part of her job repurposed for someone else’s personal collection, she was “incredibly uncomfortable.” “The whole thing was me feeling guilty and me feeling like I had done something wrong,” Oristano said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have worn that skirt. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that picture. Maybe I did things I wasn’t supposed to do.” Kathryn Rossetter and Dustin Hoffman. In recent months, the #MeToo movement has sent shockwaves across industries, with major figures from restaurants to film to politics being accused of sexual harassment and assault. Theater has not been immune. Actor Anthony Rapp told BuzzFeed News that Kevin Spacey made a sexual advance on him in 1986, when they were actors on Broadway and Rapp was a minor. Among several claims of sexual harassment and assault against Dustin Hoffman is Kathryn Rossetter’s accusation that the actor harassed and inappropriately touched her while they were performing in the 1984 revival of Death of a Salesman. And casting director Justin Huff was fired from his job at Telsey + Company, Broadway’s most prominent casting agency, following accusations of inappropriate sexual behavior. More recently, theater legend Ben Vereen was accused of sexual harassment and assault by several young actors he directed in a community theater production of Hair. In New York, performers at the immersive production Sleep No More spoke to BuzzFeed News about being sexually assaulted by audience members. Thomas Schumacher, the president of Disney Theatrical Productions and the recently elected chair of the Broadway League board, was accused of sexual harassment. From an outside perspective, it might seem as though the reckoning has arrived for sexual misconduct in theater; within the industry, however, there is a pervasive feeling of uncertainty that anything will change. Because theater is a unique industry where boundaries between the professional and personal are frequently blurry, it can be difficult to identify harassment — let alone stop it from happening. Ben Vereen and Thomas Schumacher. To understand the challenges of eradicating sexual harassment and assault in theater, it’s essential to look at how theater has fostered a culture in which this kind of behavior can flourish. The theater professionals who spoke to BuzzFeed News — including actors, directors, writers, and casting directors — discussed theater’s long-standing tradition of intimate working relationships. This free-flowing atmosphere is a double-edged sword — on the one hand, it has allowed for open creative exploration and a familial environment that appeals to many in the industry; on the other, it makes it difficult to know what constitutes harassment, and how to deal with it when it happens. This problem isn’t limited to Broadway or the larger New York theater community, of course, but because Broadway itself is the most high-profile international stage, New York remains a focal point for many theater artists, and the stories included here are based in the city. Broadway may have prominent international standing, but it doesn’t have an HR department: While individual theaters, both on Broadway and off, should have their own guidelines, there is no one governing body to deal with sexual misconduct allegations. There are methods for reporting misconduct, but the theater professionals BuzzFeed News spoke to either weren’t sure of the proper avenue for complaints, or were unconvinced that any of the existing venues had the authority or the ability to respond to their specific allegations. At the time of the photo incident, Oristano didn’t even consider complaining; the producer’s behavior didn’t seem out of the ordinary at first. “It started out so small and minute that I didn't even notice it was happening,” she said. But it didn’t end with the creepy compliment and the purloined photo. When the cast and creative team of her show were staying together at a resort during the musical's out-of-town tryout, she began receiving late-night phone calls from the producer that quickly turned sexual, including questions about whether she’d brought a vibrator. “I would laugh at it and try and cutesy it away so that he would leave me alone,” she said, adding that he then said he was going to come by her hotel room. To fend off his pursuit, she began having another woman cast member stay in her room every night — and made sure the producer knew she wasn’t alone whenever he threatened to show up at her door uninvited. Oristano didn’t tell any of the men in the cast about what was happening because she worried they would “think I was being stupid.” Stacey Oristano The circumstances Oristano found herself in reflect the unusual intimacy of theater: For eight weeks, these actors and members of the creative team were all living in the same place. When they weren’t rehearsing, they were often spending time together socially, blurring the distinction between the professional and the personal. Looking back, Oristano wishes she’d pushed back more against the producer’s behavior, although she’s not sure whom she could have reported it to. If she were in the same situation today, she’s still uncertain with whom she would file a complaint. Additionally, Oristano believes that, as a woman, she was conditioned to not speak up for fear of being branded “difficult.” “I don’t want anyone to ever say that about me to somebody else who’s considering me for a job,” she said. Because there’s no one group who oversees all of theater, and because inappropriate conduct has traditionally been ill defined, Oristano has struggled to know — beyond her personal discomfort — when behavior crosses the line. “The lines are blurred and gray,” Oristano said. “They know they can get away with it because they have for so long.” There is no one typical story of sexual misconduct in the theater community — as in every other industry, there are countless iterations of people in positions of power overstepping their bounds. In reflecting on the culture that fostered this misconduct, the theater professionals BuzzFeed News spoke to repeatedly returned to the particularly intimate, relationship-driven nature of the industry. For some, that’s what brought them to the profession in the first place. Stephanie Swirsky When playwright Stephanie Swirsky was still new to New York, she was introduced to a director who said he was eager to work with her. He was a little further along in his career, and had contacts at theaters that could help in getting her work seen. The two embarked on a professional relationship but also became close friends, with the director occasionally pushing Swirsky out of her comfort zone with flirty advances. One night, when she was drunk, the director invited Swirsky back to his apartment. She repeatedly told him that she did not want to have sex, and that she was on her period. He continued trying and she expressed discomfort; she allowed him to kiss her, but told him she didn’t want it to go further than that. At one point, however, they got naked. The director got on top of her, and when Swirsky felt him penetrate her, she decided to just let it happen, hoping it would end quickly. A couple weeks later, the director invited Swirsky over late at night. She agreed to come over, but asked if it would be OK if they didn’t have sex, which he agreed to. BuzzFeed News reviewed this text message exchange. Once she arrived, she found that the director was drunk and “in a real state.” She tried comforting him and cuddled with him, but put a stop to things when he tried to kiss her and touch her breast. The director was almost in tears, asking Swirsky why she wasn’t attracted to him and why she was rejecting him. She told him that he could touch her vagina to see that she was aroused. “And then he just put his dick inside me,” she said. Again, she decided to go along with it and wait for it to be over. At first, Swirsky didn’t consider these incidents rape, even though she said she had told the director she did not want to have sex, and had not consented to being penetrated. Two of the friends she described the experiences to were alarmed by what Swirsky shared with them, especially when she told one, “I said no, but with my legs open,” they told BuzzFeed News. As Swirsky struggled to process her feelings about what had happened with the director, she still felt that she had to maintain a professional relationship with him because of his connections in the industry. She also tried to continue their friendship, even having consensual sex with him on two separate occasions, which she said was her attempt to gain control of the situation. Swirsky realizes that it may be difficult to understand why she tried to work with the director after the alleged assault, but she thinks he also positioned himself as a “gatekeeper.” At one point, she believed her playwriting career was largely dependent on their relationship. She recalled the director telling her that his success would only help her. As he introduced her to the theater professionals who could produce her work, he assured her that he would bring her up. “In some ways,” she said, “I actually believed it.” But the play they were supposed to collaborate on never came together. “I didn't know what was gonna happen to my playwriting career,” Swirsky continued. “I just wanted things to go back to normal. I wanted to work on my play.” After working with a therapist and coming to terms with what had happened to her, Swirsky determined that she had been raped. When she did eventually confront the director, telling him that she had not consented to two separate sexual encounters, he apologized and said that he had been drunk and didn’t remember. But even after their conversation, Swirsky still had a hard time going to shows and industry events where she’d see him, and eventually stopped attending most events altogether. She believes this hampered her career opportunities, noting that the directors, producers, and other theater professionals you see in person are more likely to remember you and work with you down the line. As in Oristano’s experience, Swirsky wasn’t sure what to do next, feeling that the only option would be to go to the police, something that didn’t appeal to her given how much time had passed, and the fact that she had a friendly relationship with the director and had had consensual sex with him twice, which she thought would complicate things. In terms of the theater community, she believed that she had no recourse, noting that she felt uncertain about reporting the director’s behavior to the same theater professionals he had introduced her to. “He smartly made me feel like I was without power,” she said. Swirsky now works mostly with women, because she thinks they have a much clearer sense of boundaries. That can be a challenging prospect in an industry where the majority of directors and producers are still men. With men, she explained, it’s difficult to know how to respond when they cross a line, particularly when you’re trying to maintain a professional relationship. “It's scary to backtrack because then you feel very vulnerable,” she said. “You're afraid to lose that relationship, especially if the person has more power than you.” “You have to think about the type of people that are drawn to theater. It’s inherently a social business,” Swirsky said. “You’re in these intimate conversations and interactions when you're putting on a play. And that always will somehow mirror itself in your rehearsal and then it will move outside of it.” This is partly why there’s doubt over how quickly the industry could change — intense personal relationships are forged during artistic collaborations. The boundaries of those bonds are often poorly defined, and that kind of murkiness can be easily exploited. Consider the allegations against Ben Vereen, in which his actors said that his sexual misconduct was conflated with his attempt as a director to push them out of their comfort zones. “There’s such an intimacy that happens automatically with a cast in theater,” Oristano said. She noted that just by the nature of the smaller space and daily rehearsals, it’s inherently more tightly knit than film and TV. “Those lines are so gray, as far as intimacy and vulnerability, and if you’re gonna bare your soul as an actor, you bare your soul to these people, and what does that mean? What does that entail?” That intimacy is also why speaking out is so difficult. In an industry where career advancement often hinges on who you know, preserving good relationships can be the difference between working or not. Swirsky felt it when she stopped attending events and networking and subsequently received fewer offers. The same was true for a former actor, who withheld his name for fear of career retribution. “When you get in that situation, if you handle it wrong, your career is done,” he said. Although he still works in theater, an early experience with a casting director soured him on acting. Early in his career, before he was openly gay, a casting director repeatedly came on to him, offering him auditions in exchange for dates. The actor always said no, but feared hurting his relationship with the powerful casting director. “When the dream role is dangled in front of you in exchange for sex — I don’t want to be a part of that,” the former actor said. “I just couldn’t do it. And I think it really did hurt my career tremendously.” People starting out in theater — as Swirsky and Oristano also were — are typically at the mercy of those who are more established to help them succeed. A misstep, which the former actor feared making, could seriously derail an actor’s future. Even as the phone calls from the casting director increased — including a more explicit quid pro quo offer of a starring role on Broadway for a date — the former actor struggled to stand his ground without upsetting his pursuer. The back and forth went on for months, until the actor finally got frustrated and threatened to take his story to the press. The next time the casting director reached out to him, his tone was entirely different. With a newfound formality, he offered the former actor an audition. But the audition turned out to be another source of humiliation, he said, when the casting director acknowledged his talent, then commented on his body in front of several other individuals. “I felt like a prop, like a piece of meat,” he said. At that point, he decided he no longer wanted to be an actor. What’s more, he wasn’t sure whom he could have reported the casting director’s behavior to at the time. Back then he was worried about what could happen if he made the casting director an enemy, and even now, with his acting ambitions years behind him, he’s still worried about the damage speaking out could inflict on his current career. There are few easy answers when it comes to determining the best way forward. Of course, as with all instances of sexual misconduct, the onus is on the abusers — they are the ones whose behavior needs to change. But there is still a sense that the business as a whole can adapt and transform itself into a safer place. Because while theater is often thought of as a haven, particularly for outcasts and misfits, those who spoke to BuzzFeed News described a far more fraught and sometimes dangerous environment. “It should be this warm, welcoming place,” the former actor said, “but it’s never been a warm, welcoming place.” Marin Ireland Despite the challenges, there are movements toward progress: On Dec. 4, the Public Theater hosted a town hall to discuss sexual harassment and abuse in theater, and actor Marin Ireland and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel launched Human Resources for the Arts on Jan. 16. But while these are clearly steps in the right direction — this is the most public the discussion of sexual misconduct in theater has ever been — the theater professionals who spoke to BuzzFeed News remain uncertain about what real change will look like. There is no official HR department on Broadway, and the chain of command can be unclear. One actor who spoke to BuzzFeed News and declined to share her name described a situation in which the stage manager on a show she was working on was sexually harassing actors. Because she believed she was supposed to report incidents of sexual misconduct to her stage manager, she was at a loss over whom to tell. “It really is so different from film and TV,” Oristano said. “I would know the steps of people I could go to to talk about it on [a TV or film] set, and I know that something would be done.” There are organizations designed to advocate for the rights of actors, which includes the ability to push back against sexual misconduct in the workplace: Actors’ Equity is the union that represents live theater actors. A representative for Actors’ Equity stressed that it is the responsibility of the employers — that is, the theaters — to provide a safe workplace, free from harassment and discrimination. They have reminded theaters to maintain clear harassment policies, and they advise actors to refer to those guidelines. Actors can also make a complaint to their Equity business representative, as long as they are on an Equity contract. In addition to outlining the options available, Equity may also refer them to the Actors Fund, an organization that offers a wide range of social services, including counseling, which could help someone navigate the decision to make a formal complaint. Unlike Equity, the Actors Fund is open to anyone in the theater industry, not just actors who are members of the union. But while this protocol exists, there is still rampant confusion among many theater professionals about how to handle harassment. One actor told BuzzFeed News that she would first make a complaint to her stage manager and then, as a last resort, to her Equity deputy, a liaison between performers and the union voted in by members on the first day of rehearsal. But the representative for Equity said they would advise against that course of action, noting that neither the stage manager nor the Equity deputy has any legal responsibility in these situations, and that reporting harassment to the wrong person could complicate making a formal complaint down the line. This misinformation is part of why Equity is working to educate its members, while also making sure theaters are holding up their end of the bargain as employers. There are other grassroots organizations that are working to combat the problem of sexual misconduct in theater, like Ireland and Siegel’s Human Resources for the Arts, which provides education, a list of available resources, and a mediation program designed to resolve issues of harassment. In Chicago, the organization Not in Our House has worked to encourage theaters to adopt clear sexual harassment guidelines. Director Rachel Dart has started a project called Let Us Work with similar aims: Currently, the group is circulating an anonymous survey about sexual harassment in indie theater. All of these organizations are focused not only on countering sexual misconduct as it happens, but also on promoting change that will ideally prevent future transgressions. The focus on education and cultural change is an important one — beyond dealing with individual instances of harassment or assault, there’s the need for a change in attitude. When the former actor did his first professional show, he was told, “It’s part of the game that you have to become friendly with the director, that you have to think long-term. If this director is gonna then go do another show, you want him to take you because you’re fun and you’re friendly and you’re flirty.” He believes that’s still the way many people feel. Oristano said that she’s grown tired of how the looseness and overfamiliarity of theater is treated as normal. “I’m questioning that now, this whole, ‘We’re not a workplace, we’re a family,’” she said. “Maybe we need to stop thinking that way. That is my job. You are my director. You are my boss. Or, I am in a position of power over you. I need to know boundaries.” But there are larger attitude adjustments that need to take place — and they extend beyond theater. As painful as the reckoning has been for many people, it has been a startling wake-up call to those who were able to overlook the sexual misconduct that flourished under their noses for years. Those who work in theater need to take the same hard look at their own behavior and that of those around them, Swirsky said, beyond simply firing people who have stepped out of line. “If you’re not continuously vigilant and mindful of it, you’ll just slide back and it’ll continue to happen,” she noted. Sexual misconduct is nothing new — not in theater or outside of it — but the way we as a culture handle it can be. “People have been speaking up, it’s just that no one’s been listening,” Swirsky said. “I think now people are listening.” ●

Politics

US

In case you haven't heard yet, JAY-Z is seriously opening up on his new album, 4:44. He seems to cover everything, from his former friendship with Kanye West, to his relationship with Beyoncé.  But the album wouldn't be complete without a shoutout to his mom, and one track in particular sees her share some personal news. On the album's third song, "Smile," he partners up with his mother, Gloria, for a duet which she uses to musically come out. JAY-Z is first to mention the topic. He raps: "Mama had four kids, but she's a lesbian/Had to pretend so long that she's a thespian/Had to hide in the closet, so she medicate/Society shame and the pain was too much to take." And in a beautiful tribute to his mother, he continues to say that he cried tears of joy when she finally found love.  "Don't matter to me if it's a him or her/I just wanna see you smile through all the hate," he says.  Later in the song, his mother takes over to talk about how difficult it was for her to hide the truth.  "The world is changing and they say it's time to be free/But you live with the fear of just being me/Living in the shadow feels like the safe place to be/No harm for them, no harm for me/But life is short, and it's time to be free/Love who you love, because life isn't guaranteed," she says.  It's a moving piece, and it's a great sign to see JAY-Z and Gloria letting fans be part of such an emotional experience. 

Entertainment

Television

White Castle customers are craving a new kind of burger. After slinging tiny square beef sliders for decades, the company began testing meat-free burgers at 140 locations in April — and it's become a cult favorite. Now, the Impossible Slider will be available at nearly 400 locations nationwide, White Castle said Wednesday. The burger is a plant-based patty from Silicon Valley-start-up Impossible Foods that looks, tastes and "bleeds" just like real meat. The product is made with an ingredient called soy leghemoglobin that releases a protein called heme that gives the meat substitute its distinctive blood-like color and taste. This ingredient was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in July, big win for Impossible Foods, which has been rapidly expanding in the U.S. and abroad. White Castle's Impossible Sliders are topped with smoked cheddar cheese, pickles and onions and cost $1.99 each. "Our Cravers definitely developed a hunger for the Impossible Slider," CEO Lisa Ingram, whose family has led White Castle for four generations, said in a statement. "Sales easily exceeded our expectations." Applebee's, Bareburger and Wahlburgers, among other independent restaurants, are also using the Impossible meat substitute.

Food

Restaurants

An internal memo written by a male Google engineer has reignited a heated debate about representation in Silicon Valley. Google’s new diversity VP has since come out against the memo’s central claims — which include statements about women being biologically unsuited to engineering jobs — but the debate still rages on. Here’s a look at major tech companies’ comparative diversity, according to their most recent reports. Women make up at most 30 percent of leadership roles and less than 27 percent of technical roles at these companies. Twitter, the smallest company by number of employees, has the highest rate of female leadership at 30 percent. It also has the lowest rate of women in technical positions, such as engineers at 15 percent. Racial demographics aren’t much brighter. Blacks and Latinx are represented at a much lower rate than their U.S. population. Facebook, which most recently reported new diversity numbers, had the highest share of people of color, particularly Asians, in technology jobs. Asian Americans tend to be overrepresented in technical roles but underrepresented in leadership positions. Amazon, Apple and Google all had 31 percent of their leadership consisting of Asian, Latinx and blacks. These companies also report “other” and people who are two or more races, but those are usually under two percent. Inequality exists at all levels of the job pipeline, but so do solutions. Look, for example, at the record number of women and minorities taking college-level computer science in high school this year. This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Society

Equality

Female executives from Universal, Warner and Sony penned a letter to the Recording Academy's board of trustees calling on President Neil Portnow to resign in light of his response to the unequal representation of female artists in the Grammy Awards, reports Variety. Portnow said female musicians must "step up" for more representation. The backdrop: On Thursday, a group of female record executives signed a similar letter, saying, "We step up every single day and have been doing so for a long time. The fact that you don’t realize this means it’s time for you to step down."

Other

Other

MOSCOW (Reuters) - At least 24 people were missing in south-Western Kyrgyzstan on Saturday after a landslide tore through a village, Kyrgyzstan’s Emergency Ministry said on Saturday. The landslide, caused by heavy rains, destroyed eleven houses in the village in Uzgen district of Osh region at around 0120 GMT (9.20 p.m. ET on Friday) on Saturday. The exact number of people hit by the landslide was unclear, the Emergency Ministry said. The press office of the local administration said people in the area received a warning about risks of a possible landslide and were recommended to leave the area. Those who decided to stay signed papers saying they had been informed about the danger, the press office said. More than 180 emergency ministry personnel are working at the site to excavate the buried village, according to local authorities. Since the beginning of the year, at least 25 landslides have been registered in the Osh region of the Central Asian country, killing six people, Russia’s state-run news agency RIA reported. Reporting by Hulkar Isamova; Writing by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Toby Chopra

Disaster

Flood

TEMPE, Ariz. (Reuters) - The family of a woman killed by an Uber Technologies Inc self-driving vehicle in Arizona has reached a settlement with the ride services company, ending a potential legal battle over the first fatality caused by an autonomous vehicle. Cristina Perez Hesano, an attorney with the firm of Bellah Perez in Glendale, Arizona, said “the matter has been resolved” between Uber and the daughter and husband of Elaine Herzberg, 49, who died after being hit by an Uber self-driving SUV while walking across a street in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe earlier this month. Terms of the settlement were not given. The law firm representing Herzberg’s daughter and husband, whose names were not disclosed, said they would have no further comment on the matter as they considered it resolved. An Uber spokeswoman declined to comment. The fallout from the accident could stall the development and testing of self-driving vehicles, designed to eventually perform far better than human drivers and to sharply reduce the number of motor vehicle fatalities that occur each year. Uber has suspended its testing in the wake of the incident. Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) and chipmaker Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) have also suspended self-driving testing on public roads, as they and others await the results of investigations into the Tempe accident, believed to be the first death of a pedestrian struck by a self-driving vehicle. Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, said Uber does not use the chipmaker’s self-driving platform architecture. Toyota North America Chief Executive Jim Lentz said the company expects to “soon” resume testing of self-driving vehicles, while warning that the ongoing risks will affect the industry’s progress. “There will be mistakes from vehicles, from systems, and a hundred or 500 or a thousand people could lose their lives in accidents like we’ve seen in Arizona,” Lentz said Thursday at a Reuters Newsmakers event connected with the New York auto show. “The big question for government is: How much risk are they willing to take? If you can save net 34,000 lives, are you willing to potentially have 10 or 100 or 500 or 1,000 people die?” he said. “And I think the answer to that today is they are not willing to take that risk - and that’s going to really slow down the adoption of autonomous driving.” The March 18 fatality near downtown Tempe also presents an unprecedented liability challenge because self-driving vehicles, which are still in the development stage, involve a complex system of hardware and software often made by outside suppliers. Herzberg was pushing a bicycle while walking across a four-lane road outside a crosswalk when she was struck. Video footage from a dash-mounted camera inside the vehicle, released by Tempe police, showed the SUV traveling along a dark street when the headlights suddenly illuminated Herzberg in front of the SUV. Other footage showed that in the seconds before the accident, the human safety driver behind the wheel was mostly looking down, not at the road. Reporting by Bernie Woodall; Additional reporting by David Shepardson in New York; Writing by Peter Henderson and Bernie Woodall; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Leslie Adler

Technology

Self-Driving Cars